When Ronin’s vision cleared after the teleportation, he found himself in a large circular room. Stepping off the pad, he looked around, he was on the tallest layer of a semi-circle that stepped down towards a podium set at the center of the floor on the bottom row. Each layer had a set of desks, each set up to hold four people with a set of stairs between each of the desks. The ship implanted memories were telling him this was a pre fall college lecture hall. Several of the desks were already occupied and more people were flowing in from other teleportation pads around the hall.
“I can’t even tell what’s real and what isn’t anymore.” Elyria said as she stepped off the teleportation pad to join him in looking at the room. “It’s like the rules I thought I knew about the world simply don’t apply anymore.”
“Oh, the world outside this simulation works much like you are used to.” Leo said as he joined them, his escort right beside him. Ronin just couldn’t get over how lionlike she looked. Her proportions, the size of her head and paws, it really looked like a lion stood up on its hind legs and put on a golden half mask.
“It’s just that we aren’t in the outside world anymore. Out there, we had no power, but in here, we have as much power as we can take for ourselves. Now, come on. Based on who I see sitting on various levels, and the fact they put us up here, I’d say we’re in the nosebleeds. Can’t say that I’m surprised, though it would have been nice to be lower.”
“The nosebleeds?” Elyria asked, as she turned her masked face in Ronin’s direction. He hadn’t ever heard the term before either, but again his ship given knowledge came to his rescue. As they filed their way into four of the seats on the top row, he explained.
“Pre fall, at sports events or shows, the highest seats were called nosebleeds because of the high altitude. It’s a bit derogatory since the high seats generally had the worst view of the stage and were the cheapest and easiest tickets to get.”
“I’ve heard you reference this ‘fall’ several times.” Elyria said as she took her seat beside him. “What are you talking about exactly? You never really explained and what I’ve picked up from out of context comments doesn’t make much sense to me.”
“There will be a presentation shortly that should help answer your questions madam.” The server who’d brought them through the teleporter said with a shallow bow as they were seated, before they turned and left.
“Well, there you go,” Leo said while looking around himself. “I’m not sure what all they will tell us here, after all everyone who’s here already knows most of the tale, but still… damn, Fabius and Aurex are here. The bleeders got the next row down.” Ronin followed his line of sight down to the row below, where the two men were taking their seats.
Neither of them looked up at them, even once. Ronin knew that had to be a slight to Leo, but the man was containing himself well. Only having summoned his wine glass again, that he was taking large sips from regularly. They sat in silence after that, waiting as the lecture hall filled up, and a strong looking man in a crisp suit took the podium, and smiled up at them all with a winning grin, which contained every tooth the man had.
“Welcome, to you all and thanks for making your way here this evening.” He said in a powerful voice that carried all the way through the room without seeming need of amplification. “I thought we could start the night off with a short film documenting how we got to this point…” there were a few dissatisfied mutters from the lower seats, and the man bowed his head in smiling acceptance before continuing.
“I know everyone here already knows what I’ll be showing you tonight. But as this same video is playing in the ballroom right now, and many of you will be making your way back there after this meeting, I thought it would be best if we showed it here too. So that if anyone references it, you will know its contents and can pretend as if you never left the hall at all.” That answer mollified whoever had raised the objection, because after a few more introductory words, the man stepped off, and away from the podium as a giant screen filled the entirety of the back wall.
The screen showed the crystallin ship flying through space, there was nothing visible around it but empty blackness. After a beat, the camera angle changed to the ship’s bridge. An asymmetric cavern that looked like a mass of crystals of varying shapes, sizes, and colors had been dropped in at random. A screen flickered to life on the bridge, showing the empty blackness of space, before zooming in on a tiny dot. As the dot grew, Ronin realized it was the earth.
Once the planet had taken up the entirety of the screen, he heard a beeping noise. The camera zoomed back out to show the ship, launching millions upon millions of green, football sized crystallin tree seeds towards the earth in a staggered wave. Ronin couldn’t help but clench his fists as the camera followed after the swarm, as they flew through the void.
In no time at all, they arrived at the green and blue planet. The first wave impacted the atmosphere in a burning wave of fire as they slammed into the ground from pole to pole. The planet slowly rotated and moved as the following waves entered the atmosphere, until the entire surface of the planet had been covered with the craters of seed impacts.
There were several angry mutters from the crowd when the camera zoomed in on the earth’s surface. Showing the devastation, the blanket of seeds had caused to the cities, and the populations they contained. Most of those present had seen this before, or a facsimile of it, but watching their home be attacked still caused a reaction, even two centuries later.
Time sped up. A month or more passed while rescue teams searched the wreckage for people who’d been trapped in collapsed houses. It showed a team collecting several of the seeds that had buried themselves deeply into the earth, and how scientists studied them to little result. Then, approximately six months after the seeds hit the earth, they started sprouting.
Ronin watched as first one sprout shot up from the ground, then a second, then a tenth, then millions of them were shooting into the sky at frightening speed. For a moment, he thought the time had been sped up again, until the shot panned in on one of the shoots growing with visible speed right through a lab where it was being tested. The scientists either watching on with fascination or running away as it grew.
Ronin marveled at the technology level his people had obtained before the fall. As the trees began sucking in the atmosphere’s oxygen and spitting out the toxic gasses the crystallin beetles breathed, they combated them with every military device they could bring to bear. Hundreds of the fast-growing trees were destroyed. By flamethrowers and axes at first, then by rockets and bombs as they continued to grow. Near the end, they even resorted to nuclear bombs in some of the less inhabited areas of the planet.
They did everything they could, and it worked, to a point. There were just too many of them. The millions that they’d missed continued to grow beyond even the mighty redwoods until the world was covered with the crystallin trees that could even be seen from orbit, and as they grew, the rest of the planet died.
Elyria let out a little gasp beside him as they watched scene after scene of dying plants, animals, and people. Until there was nothing left on the surface but the giant, crystallin trees. All the remaining members of the earth’s population had been forced underground, into sealed bunkers or caves. Only able to venture onto the surface with the help of breathing masks.
Then, the crystal ship arrived in orbit. Thousands of crystal drop ships entered the now partially terraformed atmosphere. They sparkled brilliantly, beautifully in the sun as they came down. When the crystallized bodies of the beetles emerged from the ships, Ronin blinked in shock. He’d heard the beetles were humanoid, he’d always assumed that meant they were human sized as well, but they weren’t. The beetles were huge creatures, each easily the size of a locust queen, and similar in appearance to one as well. He was forced to reevaluate the scale of the dropships now, since each of those things held more than ten of the beetles comfortably.
One ship landed in the heart of what had once been a thriving metropolis. Once the beetles had disembarked, they started chittering at each other in a language that Ronin didn’t understand. Still, he could see the horror mirrored in their every move. They got on to some communication system and before long every beetle on the planet and in the ship were clicking and clacking at each other in rapid agitated tones.
“I guess it actually was an accident.” Ronin breathed the words out in as quiet a tone as he was capable of and was surprised when he felt Elyria’s hand slip into his own. She gave him a comforting squeeze, before retrieving her hand again, but the warmth of her concern stuck with him as the scene shifted again.
Time had passed. Ronin didn’t know how much, but the beetles had brought down with them the larva that would become the tree’s caretakers and protecters at some point, and they were already beginning to spread across the gigantic tree’s trunks. The beetles had already begun construction on what looked like a termite mound but constructed of pure crystal in all the colors of the rainbow. It looked like they had successfully taken over the planet. Until the first bomb dropped.
What followed was a rain of all the remaining bombs that humanity still had, hidden away in underground silos. Directed at the mounds the giant beetles had been constructing. Then, before the dust had even settled, a swarm of what remained of humanity rushed up from the ground in a wave of half starved, breathing mask equipped fury.
They took down the crystallin beetles in any way they could. Guns, flamethrowers, grenades, heck some were smashed apart with hammers. The beetles didn’t fight back either, not one of the giant glittering bugs raised so much as an antenna against their human attackers, until there were only a handful left alive, captured and bound.
Then the camera showed humans climbing into the dropships, forcing the remaining beetles to fly them up to the mothership. Where they commenced the slaughter. Until there were only a few beetles left in existence, captured, and tortured until they explained how the ship worked.
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What followed was a fast-forwarded version of how humanity came to occupy the ship. How they first crystallized themselves into the ships crystallin matrix. How they discovered they could give themselves crystal bodies like the beetles, and how they discovered the teleportation technology. Putting a pad into each of the surviving human settlements… and how they discovered that the ship didn’t contain enough mass to house all of humanity. How more materials were needed from the trees that had killed their world, to bring more people up or make new bodies.
“This is where the video in the ballroom stops.” Said the smiling man who’d retaken his place at the podium at some point and had paused the video. Right now, the last world president is explaining how we need more resources to bring more of humanity onto the ship. How they decided to make that resource gathering mission into a contest. How everyone in that room will be given a free crystal body to venture down to the earth again to collect as many resources as they can in two months. And how the winner will be given several wonderful prizes onboard the ship… but this isn’t where the video ends. Now, I’m going to show you the rest of it.”
The video started playing again. From a shot inside this very room, with the crowd that was actually present. It zoomed out, through the ship made entirely of a variety of crystals out into space, where it panned around and zipped off into the void. The planets and asteroids of the solar system flashed past as the camera’s lens captured it all in a blink. Until it came to rest on a new alien ship. The gathered members gasped in unison as they saw the vessel.
Ronin and Elyria gasped right along with them, but in their case, it was for a different reason. Because they recognized that ship. Part of it anyway. It was the spitting image of the picture they’d seen in the command tent just moments before they’d been forced to leave the pocket world for this party.
“This ship belongs to a race that quite frankly we can’t pronounce the name of. Thanks to the beetle’s archives, however, we were able to identify them.” A picture of a humanoid lizard, reminiscent of a trog, only larger, more muscled, and more intelligent looking began to rotate around the screen. It had a sort of orange and red Mohawk, or haired ridge that ran from the top of its head down to its tail. “We’re just calling them lizards, since that’s clearly what they are. And according to the beetles, they’re mortal enemies with nearly all the known races in this sector of the galaxy.” The screen zoomed back towards the beetle ship as the man continued to speak.
“They’re coming to earth, right now. We discovered them only a handful of days ago and have been scrambling for a response ever since. Unfortunately, thanks to the data we’ve uncovered in the ship’s stores, it looks like these lizards are here to wipe out the beetles and take the planet for themselves… I say unfortunately because they won’t stop there. They will wipe this planet of all life when they arrive, including ours. We wanted to flee using the beetle ship, but the damn beetles destroyed its engines before we captured it completely.” The camera was now zoomed in on the moon as it slowly rotated around while the man spoke.
“Thankfully, we have options.” He said as a space station came into view on the moon’s surface. “We’d been working on this long before the beetles got here. After we took their ship however, we abandoned the project. Thanks to the dropships, we could get to and from the planet and the ship with no problem. But the drop ships don’t have the ability to fly in open space. This ship does… we plan to strip the beetle ship of many of its components to get our own craft space worthy, and to allow us to grow our own crystallin matrix on board. So, we’ll be able to bring our personal realms over to that ship. Giving us a way to survive the flight as we hightail it out of here before the enemy arrives.” The screen went blank once more, and all eyes focused on the speaker again.
“That’s the real mission. While the people in the ballroom scramble to collect as many resources from the trees as they can, you will steal those resources and fly them up to the moon. And before you go thinking this is a free lunch, I’ll be honest and tell you. There isn’t enough room for everyone here on that ship. Even crystallized, we’ll be lucky to house half of those present here, in this room. So, it’s a competition for you too. Only half of you will be able to come on board, the half who brings in the most resources… I hope you are ready to work for your tickets, ladies, and gentlemen.” As the man finished speaking, the room erupted into loud angry shouting.
Ronin let out a breath, as he slouched back into the comfortable chair in Leo’s car office. The meeting had dragged on for another hour, an hour where everyone yelled at each other nonstop. Eventually, they’d gotten their crystallin body appointment scheduled and had been told they could go. Returning to the ballroom, they’d spent another hour mingling and pretending to be excited about the contest they would be doing starting on the following day.
“I honestly can’t believe you gave her your entire wealth.” Leo said from behind his desk as he looked at Brie’s purchases. “I mean, seriously girl. Can you explain what you were thinking with these because I’m coming up empty.” They’d removed their masks after the party, though Ronin’s team had kept theirs, and the look on Leo’s face was somewhere between exasperated and exhausted. Without even looking at Leo, Brie turned to Ronin and raised her brows. Indicating that she’d only speak if he willed it.
“Go ahead Br… Owl five.” Ronin said, with a shrug. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to know too. “Tell us what you got at the auction and what your thoughts were while getting each. Then we can talk about what happened in the secret meeting of the ship’s elite.” He couldn’t help the bitter note that crept into his tone at the last sentence, though he did try hard to conceal it.
“Very well,” Owl five said from where she stood behind his chair. Moving around into the opening she first pointed to the dryad and oakkin pair hunched down in the corner closest to the door. “Firstly, I acquired the dryad and oakkin pair that Elyria wanted. They don’t have names, or much personality yet. As I understand it, they won’t start developing that until they get a home grove of their own.”
“Thank you again for doing this,” Elyria said from where she was seated beside the dryad. She’d been as nice as Ronin ever remembered seeing her, and he wondered how long it would take for her to return to her normal self.
“Next, I picked up this ogre mage.” She continued pointing at the other corner by the door where a ten-foot-tall blue skinned ogre sat cross-legged on the ground. He had one horn jutting up on the left side of his forehead and long white hair flowing down past his shoulders. Two large tusks stuck up from his lower jaw like a kaldarrian’s and he was bare chested. The rippling muscles of his chest and arms on full display. He was wearing only a pair of heavily armored pants and a heavy set of steal bracers. Resting on his shoulder was a giant kanabo, the eight-foot-long metal club studded with blunt spikes across the upper two thirds of its length.
“His name is Staz, and he can cast three cantrips and one stronger spell. I’m given to understand that each ogre mage gets a random assortment of spells at birth, so it’s a bit of a gamble really.” She said with a smile.
“Ok, the tree I get, but why the ogre? Sure, they make great tanks on the battlefield, are hard as hell to kill and can heal faster than most people can hurt them, but he cost three million credits. What plausible reason could there be to justify that amount of money?” Leo probed again, getting a glare from the ogre in question but the giant didn’t respond beyond that.
“Because our head researcher has been performing goblin breeding experiments on a huge scale. I listened to what you said about magic being inheritable and with his size and strength coupled with the potential to produce magic offspring, I think Owl two will have us an army of them within the year… besides, the person I was bidding against wanted to skin him to make blue leather book bindings to match his office’s wall color. That was far too wasteful.”
Ronin listened to her explanation with interest, looking over at the giant ogre before getting up and walking over to stand in front of the massive man.
“Hello Staz,” he said putting his hand out to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I hope that we can get along going forward, and that you can help look out for my people back home. I in turn, will make sure you are treated with respect for your efforts.” The ogre stared at Ronin and his outstretched hand for nearly a minute before finally reaching out and grasping it with his own huge hand.
“I heard about you, White flame, from the little one,” he said in a surprisingly clear voice. “If she was telling the truth, then you will have no trouble from me.” Ronin nodded solemnly as he shook the proffered hand, and noted with happiness that the ogre didn’t try to crush his hand in some power display.
“Alright, what else you got?” Leo, who was taking his frustration out on Owl five after the meeting, asked belligerently.
“Next, I picked up a huge pile of cast off, high end, tech parts. There was too much to transport all of it, so I paid someone to drop them off at my lord’s room.” she said with a chest thumping salute.
“What good will a bunch of cast offs do?” Leo asked with a snort, looking at the already sizable pile of junk piled all around his car. “Not like this junk works, otherwise that old fool wouldn’t have let go of it so easily.” Ronin frowned, wondering if it would do more harm than good to ask him to tone it down a little.
“Because…” Owl five said, spinning around and facing the older man squarely. Her eyes boring holes into his. “Each of these pieces was created using highly refined and advanced technological materials that we simply can’t produce yet in my lord’s realm. The fabricator, however, will have no trouble breaking it down into usable material for the high end nanites we’ll need to enhance our best fighters and equipment.”
Leo didn’t have anything negative to say to that. Something Ronin didn’t find difficult to believe because he was actually ecstatic when he thought about what Owl two could do with all those nanites. Sure, it wouldn’t go as far as he’d like, but if he could enhance even a few more of his most trusted people, then the wars to come as they took the planet back from the enemies he’d so thoughtlessly created, would be less costly in lives.
“Not bad girl… Ok, so how about the box. I’m assuming you saved the best for last?” He asked pointing at the jewelry box resting on the coffee table.
“I did, save the best for last.” Owl five said as she picked up the box and presented it to Ronin. “This is what is known as a storage ring.” She said as he opened it to see a golden ring with three precious stones set into the flat surface. “Each stone represents something different that can be stored at a rate of 1/1,000 pounds. So, every 1,000 pounds of anything you put into the ring, will weigh only one pound while on your hand.” She said, moving over excitedly to point.
“The ruby is the standard storage zone for all things nonorganic. The sapphire stone is for living creatures, as they explained it, it’s like a stable inside where they are kept comfortably until you call them out. You can also put plants inside and they will remain alive as well. The emerald stone is another storage compartment but for organic material. So, your metal weapons will go into the ruby, but any animals or monsters you kill, or food and drink, will go into the emerald stone. My understanding is that this separation is less desirable than some of the more advanced rings on the market, but that the limitations made the ring several times cheaper than one that could just except everything into one compartment.”
Ronin stared down at the ring in wonder. He’d read so many stories about these types of artifacts back on earth, but never thought he’d be able to have one of his own. His fantasy of going off into the mountains on goat back with his closest friends, and just leaving everything behind just got a little more logistically possible with this.
“Thank you, Brie.” He said, his voice catching a little on the last word. “You picked out exactly what we needed, and this ring… just, thank you.” He started to rise, he wasn’t sure why, if it was to give her a hug or even a kiss, thanks to his happiness, but she stepped away from him even as he leaned forward, and he rested back into his seat. With some of the wind having gone out of his sails.
“Leo,” he said looking over at his host. “Do we have time to run this stuff back to my pocket world before we head to our appointment? I’d like to record a message for my people and send this stuff, and our new people into my pocket world. I’m sure they could make better use of them then we can where we’re going.” Leo looked around his cramped and overcrowded office with a look of exasperation before turning his head back to Ronin with a wry grin.
“We’re already halfway to your hotel room.”