Chapter 131: Saving a world or damning another?
Feeling generous, I gave them an hour to inspect the Tardis. It brought me great joy watching their bewildered faces. Stumped by the sensor readings, they even attempted to scratch it to no avail.
Slowly a crowd of what I can only assume are scientists begin to form. They are either watching or the greater majority, testing the Tardis. Each with their own unique test to attempt, a varity of magic and scientific tests; the dizzying array of gadgets gave me a headache.
While they do their thing, I gazed around the room. It seemed to be broken up into Major and minor objects of curiosity. Large or particularly anomalous objects are placed on stone platforms, all I find interesting. The smaller and more mundane items are stored on stone pedestals or lead boxes.
I see some objects I am familiar with, such as the Ender Queens Crown. It makes enderman protect you at all costs, and you become allergic to water. The warning label reads, remove before drinking water.
A rift blade is inside a glass case, being tested with some kind of electricity. On one of the larger platforms, I can see a petrified baby dragon. “How did that happen?”
I see a giant sword impaled on another stone platform, someone attempting to melt it with a gas torch.
“Is that a stone of the sea; that is pretty cool.” Gives you water movement speed, water breathing, water vision – you become an aqua man.
“I do think that is a disabled Dalek. When I leave, I best tell them it dispose of that.”
I am like a kid in the candy store looking at all the unique items. Unknow resources, rare items, and a whole host of things I can’t even guess about.
Well, I guess it is time to reveal myself. Now, full armor or fully naked? Let’s look the least threatening as possible. Putting on my nice suit before turning my armor completely invisible, “please work well,” I pray.
I wait for a lull in the busy scientist’s experiments. Stepping out of The Tardis with my arms up. Closing the door behind me, I see the stunned scientists. Moments later ‘beep, beep, beep, emergency, beep.”
“Hey, I mean no harm,” I say, trying to look nonthreatening. I watch as a march of heavily armed soldiers walks through the main door, quickly approaching me. Wands and staves pointed at me, bows behind and a vanguard of swords between each wizard and witch; this might be bad.
Suddenly, I hear a subtle ‘poof.’ Looking to the side, I see a tranquilizing dart harmlessly ping off my armor. I turn an angry glare towards the soldier with a blowgun. “You dare!” I shout. The soldier falls back slightly in shock. I suppress the urge to rip him a new one.
Looking around, I see the soldiers are even more on edge. “Can you guys understand me!” I shout as loud as I can. A single scientist steps forward, trembling like a leaf. “Yes, we can understand you.”
“Good, because I don’t like weapons being pointed at me.”
The scientist looks towards the guards, whispering for them to lower the weapons. The soldier simply replies, “not until the threat has been accessed.”
“Well, we are kind of in a stand-off, so what now?” I ask, rubbing the side of my helmet in frustration.
“What is that box?” The soldier asks.
“My ship,” I reply flatly.
He scoffs, laughing slightly.
Turning around, I swing the door open. “Wows,” fill the room as they gaze at the larger on the inside Tardis. Just as quickly, I slam it shut.
“My ship,” I say, shooting the soldier a glare.
Turning around, I gaze at the soldier who started to approach from behind. “Sneaking up on people is rude. If we cant resolve this, I can just fly away.” I go to return to my Tardis. The soldiers tense.
The scientist hastily says, “wait!”
Turning back around, I see him several meters closer. Still nervous, he is visibly sweating; but he seems desperate. Cocking an eyebrow, I wait for him to speak.
“If you could just wait, we can get this all sorted. We have never had an alien visit before!” He says, half out of breath.
I stand there, mouth agape, as I realize I am an alien. I am from Earth; I am both Alien in the main world and here. It is seriously freaky being ‘The Alien.’ Still shocked, I just nod to him. He quickly scurries away, getting his superiors, no doubt.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
With the threat defused, the scientist circles me like vultures, and me the carrion. The combined paper they are handling would make a tree; hastily writing and drawing. It begins to freak me out when they start drawing my body, minus the clothes.
I jokingly reply, “you’re supposed to take me to dinner before drawing me naked.” A couple steps back, one female scientist blushes. I am doing well in feigning confidence, but I can’t keep it up forever.
To answer my pleas, I see a small group of men in purple walking in. They place a ladder behind the circle of soldiers, stepping onto it. A portly Elf speaks first. Clearing his throat with a wet cough, “Hello Alien, I am Kunvandrensicbo the third, you may call me Sir Kun.”
“Hello,” I say simply and calmly.
“What brings you here?”
“I crashed.”
He raises an eyebrow, “how did you crash.”
“Temporal anomaly; don’t worry, my craft will be fixed before the day is out.”
“No need to rush; there is so much we can learn about each other’s.”
“I don’t mind, but get rid of the soldiers.”
“Sorry, we can’t do that. We don’t know if you are dangerous.”
“Okay, let me tell you this. I could have killed every single one of you the moment I got here. I don’t mean any harm.” To demonstrate this, I activate full speed and appear in front of the portly elf. Startling him so much, he fell off the podium. Like a ghost, I return to my old position.
Sweating profusely, he tells the guards to lower the weapons. Half of them leave, while the others just keep an eye on me.
“Thank you,” I say, bowing my head slightly.
“No…Problem.” The elf says.
With the walls down, I am swarmed by the information-hungry scientists. I had to fly to escape them. “Form a line, 1 question each,” I say to calm them. They begin to fight for first place. I sigh, “what are you? Children? You, you are first.” Pointing at a random scientist.
And the questions begin.
“Where are you from?”
It is at this point, I realize I don’t know what the world is called.
“My current residence is within the dimensional opposite of this world. I am right in assuming this world split from the other a long time ago.” Yes, I did it!
“How did you…” The man attempts to ask another question.
“Next!” I shout.
A woman this time speaks. “What is your race?”
“I was born human. Not quite human anymore. Call me a completely unique species.”
“Fascinating.”
“Next!”
“How does the ship work?”
“It functions on the fourth dimension. I am a pilot, not an engineer, and I don’t have the time to explain what I do know, sorry.”
He nods, still happy.
“How big is it?”
“As big as I want it to be.”
“Can I see your anatomy without clothes?” A young man asks.
“Absolutely not; I have a partner.” Cheeky sod.
“What is the other dimension like?”
“It has a blue sky and massive variations in biomes. Heavily populated as well, they make great food.”
These questions continue for far too long. Thankfully, the purple-robed men return. I am guided to a meeting room with only 4 guards this time. A woman and a man sit opposite me; The only strange thing, they are translucent – holograms.
“Hello, what is your name”? The woman spoke.
“Aeternum.”
“A lovely name.” She replies.
“Thank you for satiating those damned brains.” The man spoke.
“No problem.
“We are angelica and Deabru, the current rulers of Alfheim,” Angelica says.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Deabru says.
“Now, we heard you are living in our sister dimension,” Angelica says.
“That is correct.”
“How can you visit us? We have been unable to travel since the great divide.”
“Well, to be honest, It was by accident; my ship was knocked off course and landed here.”
“I see. If we can figure out how this happened, we may be able to reunite the 2 worlds.”
“Full combination, or just a portal connection?”
“Portal connection; the monsters here would destroy the world. We have spoken with the residents; they have a far more… Tame world.”
“Good. I also think the same.”
“That is why we need your help. Are scientists cant crack your… Ship. So we need your consent to try and figure out how to make a stable link.”
“How hasty, we haven’t even met for more than 5 minutes,” I say with a smile.
“Unfortunately, time is not on our side.”
“How so?”
“The link we currently have is weakening. We think the dimensions are drifting apart. We need to secure the distance and then reel it in before it is too late. Otherwise, we will be isolated in the void away from the main world.”
“It wasn’t an even split, was it?”
“No. We got all the monsters and some magic. Metals are a rarity here, along with no rare materials. We have taken to fishing with portals to steal items from your dimension to get by.”
“Smart, I will give you that. Fine, I am a sucker for a dying world. 2 scientists, I will bring them on board. I don’t know how much I can help, though.”
“Can we send a small army of scientists. Set them up on the other dimension? With 2 points of perspective, it will hasten our progress. We need to be in control of a portal on both sides.”
“I can’t believe I just landed on a random and rock, and I am already getting suckered into helping. You didn’t even make me dinner; butter me up. I would expect like a slow buildup, maybe a week before this conversation. In fact, you guys are so trusting; it is freaky.”
They share a look. “We are at our limit. You are our only hope. We had already accepted defeat, having thought the link would be severed any day now. Our scientists are trying to do it, but we haven’t had any progress.”
“Fine, I will bring a small army of scientists. But only two will be allowed to study the dimensional travel.”
“Thank you.”
“Please enjoy our culture while your ship repairs.”
“I will; have the scientists ready within 15 hours.”
“It will be done.”
I leave the room, free of soldiers. Heading back to the study room, I walk into the Tardis. Walking down the hallway, I see Cassie sat reading.
She looks up, “anything interesting?”
“About that…”
She sighs, sitting up. “I am all ears.”
“Well, this is Alfheim. A sister dimension to our world. They actually need help, given the dimensions are drifting, so I am going to transfer some of the people back to our world.”
“Isn't that dangerous? What if they have bad intentions?”
“Well, first. They are at least telling most of the truth. I already knew this place existed, and the history matches up. The dimensional drift is plausible, and they did once live in our world.”
“I still think it Is risky.”
“And I can’t say no to a call for help.”
“You are naïve and too trusting.” She says flatly, not arguing further.
“I know,” I say with a sigh. “Well, up for exploring something even dimension explorers haven’t visited?”
“I wouldn’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“Good, let’s go eat some foreign food.”
“You and food.” She tuts.