Demonstrations

Who: Cassandra

Blackness
She slid through the void between one reality and another
A tiny mote of less than nothing against the infinite majesty of two mind numbingly vast and utterly uncaring universes
There is no creator
There is no God
There is nothing but chaos and entropy; pointless existences and pathetic, meaningless deaths


Cass jerked awake with a start; the sudden movement making her head throb painfully, and so, closing her eyes against the harsh glare of the blue-white sun, high overhead, she slumped back to rest her head on the soft warm sand beneath her, and took a couple of unsteady breaths
Her nose felt like it had been bleeding again while she had been unconscious; although when she dabbed experimentally at it with her fingertips, she found that it seemed to have stopped, leaving her with what felt like crusted blood tracked down over her lips and neck, and matted back into her hair behind one ear - all of which, wasn't exactly the look she was aiming for

Squinting against the sunlight and trying to ignore her throbbing head, Cass eased herself up into a sitting position and, spotting the little pack bag she had bought with her, lying nearby, she leaned across to retrieve it and fumble the thing open
The bag contained the usual assortment of odds and ends that a girl needs to get by in life: a large pair of jet black sunglasses, which she gratefully slipped on against the glare of the sun, a bottle of water, a spare weapon, and her psi-scanner; which she flicked on while she painfully cracked her blood crusted lips apart to take a swig of the water

Taking a moment to look around, Cass found that she was alone at the bottom of a dune slack, surrounded on all sides by towering mountains of yellow sand; and while the others didn’t appear to be anywhere nearby, she was sure that they would be easy enough to locate once the psi scanner had finished initialising
Sipping her water as she settled the scanner down in her lap, she tapped the device’s screen a couple of times and frowned down at the results – There were humans nearby alright, and they were heading her way; but from what the scanner was telling her, they weren’t anyone she knew and perhaps more saliently, they weren't all that friendly



Who: Seymour
Where: Blue Dwarf / Another place

“Orrite dude” Holly shimmered into existence on the main monitor in Seymour’s suite
“For Heaven’s sake you digital moron” Seymour bristled “How many times have I asked you to not address me as ‘Dude’?”
Holly bobbed its head, the machine equivalent of a shrug
“Two hundred and thirty four times so far”
“Then why do you persist!?”
The AI paused to consider its response as something big hammered into the Dwarf’s hull, the impact being sufficient enough to make the entire ship reverberate, and had Seymour actually had any legs, he’d have probably lost his footing
“What the hell was that!?” the Ambassador screeched
“Oh yeah; I knew there was something I needed to tell you” Holly beamed
“Oh really?” Seymour sneered “Let me guess: Brace for impact?”
“Yep” Holly smiled beatifically “That was it”
Seymour opened his mouth to say something, but reconsidered and closed it again – A man of his refinement wouldn’t stoop to using language like that, he realised, and so he glared peevishly at the monitor instead
“What just hit us?” he demanded after a moment
“A chunk of planet”
“What? – Like a... a... an asteroid or something?” Seymour asked, groping for what he hoped was the correct terminology, and privately reflecting that given the years he had spent aboard the Blue Dwarf, he really should have found time to get the hang of the whole space thing
“Nope” Holly bobbed on the monitor “That was an actual, proper chunk of that planet we’re orbiting. Watch this...”
The monitor blanked to show a view of the planet the Dwarf had been maintaining its distant orbit around
Seymour shrugged “Just looks like a planet to me...”
“Watch” Holly nodded from the bottom corner of the screen “This is half an hour ago”
For a moment the view remained unchanged until something hammered into the planet, the strike shattering the tectonic plates at the point of impact and sending shockwaves rippling out across the surface as megatons of debris were hurled up into space
“Dunno what that was, but I think it just destroyed that Roo outpost” Holly nodded “We just got hit by some of the debris”
“Oh, my word” Seymour breathed, suddenly feeling cold “What was that? A comet or something?”
“I didn’t pick anything up” Holly grimaced apologetically “But that wasn’t a comet”
“And what...” the Royal Ambassador swallowed, already guessing the likely response “What of our crewmembers away on the outpost?”
“There’s been no word”
Seymour was silent for a moment
“I see” he eventually sighed and pursed his lips while he considered the situation “Keep scanning for them Mister Holly. We’ll remain here in position for as long as necessary”
“Yeah, I’m already on that” the AI nodded
“They’ll be alright” Seymour nodded “Dwarfer’s always pull through, don’t they?”
Holly elected to remain silent at this, and not to mention either the numerous occasions when Dwarfer’s hadn’t pulled through, or that it was looking increasingly unlikely that even Jay Chrysler would make it
“I say...” Seymour frowned, leaning forward in his wheelchair to peer at the monitor “What are all those bright flashes?”
“I think that was a Roo war fleet being destroyed”
“Bloody hell” the Ambassador breathed in awe as the last point of light winked out “Who or what, do you suppose is doing that?”
“Dunno” Holly shrugged “Didn’t get a sausage showing up on any of the sensors, but I reckon that since we’re still alive, we probably weren’t the target - It’s been quiet ever since”
Seymour shook his head
“Keep scanning for our crew Mister Holly. Keep scanning.”



Who: Cassandra
Where: Elsewhere

Realising she didn't have the time to find anything even remotely resembling a hiding place, Cass hurriedly jammed her stuff back into her pack, and fumbled the pistol out as she struggled up onto her feet, the sand clinging to her still wet clothes
For a brief moment, she privately wondered at what the hell she thought she was doing, trying to emulate something Jay would do and face down any would be attackers; but finding herself faced with little other option, she shook her head in resignation, squared her shoulders and raised the gun to aim it in the direction the first interloper was approaching from
She didn't have to wait long before a figure, dressed from head to toe in voluminous black robes, crested the top of the dune at a full sprint and, eerily unimpeded by the shifting sands underfoot, ran down the slope towards Cass
“Stop right there!” she yelled, nervously tightening her grip on her weapon “I’ll shoot!”
The figure slid to halt around half way down the dune and tore the dust mask it was wearing away from its face, to reveal the heavily weathered and tanned features of a man in his mid to late forties
“We don’t have time for this” he snapped, and ignoring what Cass had just said, continued his descent “You need to come with me!”
“Smegged if I’m doing that!” Cass fired a warning shot into the sand in between them, which, to her intense irritation, didn’t seem to intimidate the man in the slightest
“You and your companions are in immense danger” the man insisted as he came to a halt, some few metres in front of her, and swung a dark brown leather satchel around his shoulder from behind him to pull it open and rummage inside
“Whoa! Whoa!” Cass yelled, gesticulating with her pistol “Get your smegging hands out of there!”
“I mean you no harm” the man said as he pulled what appeared to be a severed human hand from the bag “But if you want to live Narcissa, you must come with me”
“What!?” Cass frowned as the man grasped the severed hand in his, watching him interlacing his fingers together with those of the hand "That's..." she managed, but stopped in shock as the man produced a knife from within his robes and abruptly plunged it through the severed hand and his own "What the smeg!?" she screeched
“S’nothing” the man hissed in pain, holding the severed hand impaled together with his, up at head height, the blood trickling down his tanned forearm and spotting the sand by his feet
“You smegging loon” Cass took a nervous step backwards but wheeled and shrieked in shock as a blast of energy impacted on a solid nothingness behind her, the power of the blast dispersing as it washed around the edge of a poorly defined sphere around them
“What the smeg?” she yelled as she turned in the direction the blast had come from and gazed up at a number of animal headed, humanoid figures, each dressed in flowing white robes, and standing, surrounding them, on the tops of the dunes all around them
“Sinners!” a voice rang out as one of the white robed figures raised a staff high above its head “Cleanse them brothers!”
Cass bought her gun up and squeezed off a shot, but missed by quite some distance as another wave of energy rolled in and impacted harmlessly against what was apparently a shield of some sort, around her and the black clad man
“Are you going to help?” she demanded, glancing incredulously at her companion, who seemed to be muttering to himself, his eyes half closed “I... Eurgh”
Cass stopped, grimacing in distaste as the air around her shimmered and acquired a greasy, almost pliant texture “What...?”
Her associate’s outline blurred and the next thing she knew he was by her side, his free hand grasping hers in a vice-like grip before he dragged her forward, the scenery surrounding them warping and blurring as multiple blasts detonated around them

The journey after that could only be described as terrifying; the desert blurred past them as the man hauled Cass along, tearing impossibly quickly across the dunes and finally, abruptly ending their journey in small mud-brick house in a dusty, impoverished looking village which they howled though at dizzying speeds
Finally leaving go of Cassandra’s, by now, shaking hand, the man turned his back on her and grunted in pain as he dragged the knife out of his other hand, tossing the blade and the now withered severed hand aside as he turned back to her
“I imagine you’ve a few questions” he murmured
Shifting her weight, Cass took a deep breath and blew it out
“Who are you? What is this?” she demanded “What the hell just happened!?”
“I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried that you don’t recognise me, Narcissa” the man smiled as he pulled his hood back to reveal a headful of long grey hair “It’s me: Seymour; Captain of the Blue Dwarf!”
Her eyes widening in surprise, Cass had to do a double take – There was no way that this man was in any way related to the Seymour that she knew
“You... Uh... You look taller” she murmured apologetically
“Ha!” Seymour laughed a bass rumble “Doesn’t matter – It’s good to see you again!”
He turned to busy himself with a medical kit of sorts, dabbing some strange unguent on his wounded hand and binding it in linen
“Of course you’re not the woman I used to know – she died a long time ago” he continued “But it’s good to see you. I like what you’ve done with your hair”
Self-consciously smoothing her still unfamiliarly short hair, Cass grimaced and shrugged
“What was that... thing that you did with the knife and the hand?” she asked after a moment
“Magic” Seymour said darkly “A mere demonstration of the power I wield”

He went on to explain that he and the other surviving members of an alternate reality’s Blue Dwarf crew had been stranded on this dust ball for more than a decade, and that he and others like him were engaged in a covert struggle against a mad Sun God Emperor, whose forces had occupied the area some years ago
“But why?” Cass demanded over a cup of hot sweet tea “It’s not your fight?”
Seymour chuckled at this
“You’re every bit as pragmatic as the Narcissa I used to know” he smiled “I can’t begin to tell you how keenly we felt her loss”
“Sorry to hear she died” Cass grimaced, feeling uncomfortable for many reasons, with having her real name used
“But you’re right” Seymour nodded “It’s not our fight, and we’re not as stranded here as you might think; but the Emperor’s rule is a blight upon the lives of innumerable people across the city states, and I cannot... will not walk away while I can make so much of a difference to so many lives”
“That’s... very noble of you” Cass conceded, privately incredulous that the multiverse could ever spawn a Seymour so radically different to the irritatingly pompous and arrogant imbecile of her own reality
“You mentioned my companions being in danger?” she asked after a moment
“Indeed” Seymour’s mood became suddenly grim “The augurs aren’t good, and I’m afraid they seem to suggest that the Emperor will somehow try to use them to open a gateway through to another world”
“A way back home?” Cass asked keenly
“Maybe, maybe not” Seymour shrugged “In either case, once their souls have been consumed and used to power the portal during the ritual, they’ll be in no fit state to enjoy it”
“Do we know when the ritual will happen?”
“The astrological alignments will be most favourable in two days”

<tag / tbc>
The gate back to the Roo outpost was destroyed along with the base, so we’re stranded at the moment and have two days to kill before your new and most gracious host wants to tear your souls out and use them to power a dimensional portal in some bloody and messy ritual
Does anyone start suspecting anything might be amiss?
The priests won’t be happy if you try to escape, but does anyone try?
Or do you hang around and hope that the ritual can get us all back home
Are any other alternate reality Dwarfer’s working either for or against the Emperor?
</tag / tbc>