The orange sun shone from the cloudless pale Kavanderran sky on the trio of strangers that still looked very out of place in this largely dead world. They were starting to get tired again, and their progress towards the huge building complex that they suspected was the base of the Onnobolda had been made slower than they had hoped.. It was much further away than they first thought, because they had completely misjudged its size. It really was a weird construction, that for Liana mostly resembled a strange Cubist step pyramid put together by a drunken art student for a failed school project that wouldn’t have given him great grades. But without a doubt this was the largest Kavanderran construction in the wide area, if not in the whole city, and Inaya felt strongly that the presence of nawa was concentrated inside of it.
Which meant that their first task had been done: the location of the base seemed to have been found, and now all they had to do was reach it without being seen. What they’d do if they were there was another question that could only be answered after surveying the situation there, but they didn’t want to think about that yet. Now they just had to get there unseen. They avoided the main road that they had previously followed now, taking the side roads that gave out on it at sharp angles here and there but they made sure that they still went in the same direction.
They still hadn't come across much life since the first guards they’d met after leaving the knotweed field. Its plants and insects had turned out to be a one-time appearance only and had barely seen anything alive ever since.The closer they got the bigger the chance of being seen, so now they had to look out in all directions for the enemy, with all the senses they had. There were occasional traces of recent activity here although they hadn't seen many actual people yet. Things had been dragged around, pieces of equipment had been taken, and doors smashed in, and those traces of the Onnobolda really became more numerous the closer they got to their target when the hours went on. The strange city had a completely different architectural style here, but it was still just as alien and destabilising for a head from our world as it had been at their arrival. Liana recognised all the types of strange shapes by now, but they still continued to give her an uneasy feeling, together with other details like the orange light of the much too large sun.
Save for another patrol that was easily avoided by becoming invisible, and a single ball of moss, this was still a world of death and nothingness. Inaya suspected that there was not enough water in most places to sustain an ecosystem, and that the rubble field had been a rare oasis in a dead desert world, even with species arriving from other worlds occasionally. They still hadn't seen any clouds; and the dust that was everywhere suggested that it never actually rained here at all. The knotweed valley must have had its own invisible water cycle anyway unconnected to the cycles of this planet, since the actual seas in this planet were said to be filled with deadly acid, and could not be part of an ecosystem that could sustain Earthly life themselves, or even a colony of tiny zoka aliens. Even those little guys needed water and organic food.
The one positive thing was that the second trio of Drotniril guards had been easy to avoid in the same way as the first. The second time it had been less difficult to step into the invisible dimension, but it still felt very uncomfortable and unnatural… Liana wondered if she would be able to learn that technique herself without the help of Inaya, but she felt like it might be a bad idea that Inaya would be against it if she mentioned it. Even in the fantasy stories of her world humans usually needed a magic ring or something like that to pull such a stunt off. But wasn't the world she was in now a lot stranger than many things she knew from fantasy stories anyway, and yet a lot more real? Liana began to wonder what was reality and what wasn’t. In a world where the colours and shapes don't match, dreams sometimes seemed more real than the 'real' world...
Most of the streets looked more cleaned up than before, which together with the other patrol made them feel like they were approaching the epicentre of the Onnobolda's activities on this world. The huge ziggurat that towered over this endless city was indeed getting closer too, but each time they stopped to look at it, it seemed to turn out even bigger and further away than she'd imagined. So they went on, three colourful figures in what looked like a box of blocks from an alien toddler that had been cut out and in which some roads had been drawn here and there in the form of intersecting hexagons, which then also were once haphazardly dumped full of rubbish. Some side roads, like the main road, were neatly cleared so that a wide path ran through them, but others were not, and some sections were even well blocked. In addition, certain protrusions were quite sharp, and it was not certain that there were no dangerous or poisonous items in them.
The ancient aliens hadn’t exactly been reliable in terms of security for future visitors, so caution was also needed. At one point the way got so bad that they needed to climb through the windows of some rig and then climb back out on the other side. Then they crawled through the barricaded street, which led to a very neatly swept street, and they decided to use only the 'clean' roads from now on. They would probably lead to their destination anyway. The downside to the clean streets was that they always felt like they could get caught, so they were even more wary here.
“Do you think they are near?” asked Liana. “I don't feel a direct presence, but they certainly have been active here!” said Inaya. “They have cleared the way for more than just people. Would they be using some kind of vehicles?” Lun asked, looking at a piece of equipment with broken components laid out around it. It seemed something or someone had been here collecting pieces of Kananderran technology, mostly leaving the empty shells of the machines, "I think they're doing something with all that old technology." said Liana. It was a conclusion that the other two couldn't deny anymore either.
Suddenly they heard the sound of some kind of vehicle coming from behind the corner. As one person they reacted, very quickly and completely in sync. They leaped to the side to hide behind a broken piece of a wall, while Liana and Lun grabbed Inaya's hand, hoping it wasn't anyone who could see in the side dimension. A kind of jeep drove past, undisturbed. At the wheel there was a masked figure that most resembled a human being. He wore equipment equivalent to that of the Drotniril guards. He stopped a few hundred yards in front of a building with an open gate that they had just passed. The man was wearing some sort of camouflage suit that looked very Oranderran to Liana now. He came out of the jeep, and picked up some boxes and loaded them onto something looking like a board with wheels, and brought them inside the building. He came back with other boxes and after a few times he loaded his wheel board and drove on and disappeared behind the corner. Liana felt her heart pound in her throat.
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“We completely missed that place. I didn't feel any presence at all!" Inaya muttered, both annoyed and amazed at the failure of her powers. “Shhh.” Said Lun, for now another trio of Drotnira guards that they hadn’t seen before arrived, heavily packed and armed with the usual mix of weapons from different worlds. They spoke in a foreign language and were on their way to the same building. “There must be something there.” Liana muttered. Her muscles started to ache. After a while the guards came out again, loaded with a few boxes with unknown contents, and a pack of clothes and some more weapons. “That was a jeep. Someone is using Oranderran technology here.” said Liana. The other two couldn't deny that.
"Come, let's go further if we can! Get away from here." Lun whispered. "No! There is some kind of warehouse there. That's our chance!” said Liana. “They have stocks stored there. And apparently clothes and possibly weapons too.” The other two stared at her, uncomprehendingly. “If we disguise ourselves in their own clothes, we don't stand out anymore.” They both nodded in disbelief at her suggestion, and she lost her patience. "This is a war. We have to do things that are not completely moral in a normal situation sometimes. So do they, if only by being here and stacking up weapons and technology from three worlds for God-knows-what purpose. And it's not like we're going to kill anyone or anything. A few stolen clothes never hurt anyone…”
It took Lun and Inaya a long time to be convinced, but eventually Liana persuaded them to go into the warehouse to look for a less conspicuous form of clothing. Since she had just walked past it the first time without feeling anything, Inaya guessed that there weren't many people inside, but they continued through the side dimension, hand in hand. The building housing the warehouse was huge, constructed in a typical version of the more chaotic type of ancient aliens architecture, with a lot of the odd-proportioned rectangles as well as mix of hexagons and cylinders, as well as shapes that seemed completely arbitrary to Liana. White stone and metal dominated in the colour palette, and all the windows were hexagonal and had no glass anymore.
They sneaked in through a huge entrance hall, still being invisible. There were several nearly oval doors, all open. They tried the first one, but all they found were strange machines, and piles of unknown components sorted in the different corners. None of the three had any idea what all these things were for, but they seemed to be important to the people who had piled them up. Some were big and others were small, and while a lot of them were ancient, there also seemed to be some that were brand new, or at least newly built from old components. In the other room they tried, there were boxes of bottles made of a material that closely resembled plastic, filled with drinking water, along with boxes of some sort of dry cake and other foodstuffs. Apparently provisions were stored here that could be kept for a long time. No one was there, so Lun and Liana let go of Inaya's hands for easier movement. “Another combination of Nuanderra and Oranderra!” murmured Liana, holding a packaged prefab meal that had the letters “made in the US” on it, next to traditional bags of acorn meal from the oak wood of Nuanderra.
The third room was the most interesting. This one had a very strange hexagonal shape, and there were strange sculptures in the walls of animal-like figures that no one could identify. Had these strange creatures with too many legs, eyes and wings really existed or were they just mythological fables? Liana didn't have time to think about it, because against the walls were piles of uniforms in various colours and sizes, with signs in Nummersil letters. “Hmana, Nummerfa, Drotnira,…” said Lun. "That is not good news. If there are Hmana here, then some people of my people must also have sided with the Onnobolda. The council will not like that.” Liana on the other hand felt that some of the other letters were pointing in a completely different direction, and that there probably collaborations with people from her world. The language used indicated that Nummerfa were at least partially in charge here, but where did that jeep and those warm-up meals come from? It was a long way from the US to Kavanderra.
But now was not the time to be asking too many questions. They had to be careful here. They all chose a uniform. Lun took an Earthy camouflage uniform that vaguely reminded Liana of something she knew, with a small logo which read "STC" in standard European letters. She and Inaya opted for a strange black suit with the word 'Nummerfa' written in illegible Nummersil letters. Nothing could force her to part from her precious sweater, especially not in this strange world, so she stuffed it very carefully into her backpack, hoping she wouldn't lose that backpack, war or not.
“There are no Hmana as pale as you in Nuanderra, so you better pretend to be of my kind. You are almost as good at mental communication as we are, so you could pass for one of us if no one is really going to examine you. But I will do the talking.” Inaya had said, and this is what they looked like now as one human man and two Nummerfa women. In another corner they found black backpacks, in which they loaded their belongings. Liana just tucked hers into her new backpack, and again she felt like a distinctly modern design from her own world had been used here. Now that they had everything hidden, they were a lot less noticeable in this world when all was well. Since they had only seen Drotnira and one man who hadn't been very visible in a vehicle, it was still possible that they had overlooked something, but at least they weren't walking around in flashy clothes from other worlds anymore… Even Frodo walked around in Mordor dressed like an orc, Liana thought.
Suddenly they heard a noise nearby, just as they had finished their transformation. Someone barged in, and they seemed rushed too. Liana saw from Inaya's look that she was mad at herself again for not noticing. Was she a bit confused with her sixth sense in this world? "Grab my hand." She hissed. A man in camouflage uniform wearing the same STC insignia as Lun's new clothes entered as the trio simultaneously rushed out, being completely invisible. He apparently immediately noticed that something was wrong, and took something from his pocket to which he whispered in an unintelligible language. But Liana and the other two didn't take the time to find out what would happen. They had to get out and get away from here!