So when I left off last, I was facing off with… something or someone (at least in far as I understood) while temporarily stranded in Miss Skuld’s pocket garden in the extraplanar realm.
Based on the little bit of reading that I’d managed to cram in, the extraplanar realm is considered to be a lot like the void between heliospheres/nebulas, etc. Comparatively empty and more often than not forgotten or ignored, but still filled with lots of general materials and dangers.
The first part of that is most likely what allowed Miss Skuld to build her garden here. After all, as the meme says, it’s free real estate.
No, being fair, there’s essentially minimal texts on extraplanar spaces and so equivalently, at least as far as Earth-side non-baselines are concerned, effectively no governance. That said, if an Earth-side non-baseline were to be caught using extraplanar spaces for illegal use, I doubt very much whether the associated authorities would care too much about the where it was happening vice the fact that it was happening.
I suppose that’s one benefit to the way their legal system works and the fact that it’s a unified system instead of one broken up into hundreds of different facets and interpretations. Undesirable to be sure, given how slow the non-baseline communities can be to deal with baseline innovations/changes and even changes within their own communities, but certainly a bit better than dealing with extradition laws, etc.
That said, there are other planes and other legal systems, but generally speaking, whatever realm you hail from is the legal system you are covered under.
In theory this could lead to a alt-planar entity doing something that’s legal by their standards and not by Earth-side standards, but that’s something for the lawyers to fight about and one that is most often solved with banishment from a given realm.
Anyway, enough about inter-realm legalities and back to the essentially living lightning or whatever it was that was in the garden bubble with me and the gardener golems.
As previously noted, several of the golems had moved to be prepared to defend me and several others had moved to intercept the… whatever it was.
The not-quite lightning/not-quite a flame appeared to study the surroundings and the golems before coming to study me from a distance.
It didn’t appear immediately hostile, but rather confused by the surroundings, as though the Earth-like surroundings were unusually foreign to it.
It did seem to understand what I was in terms of being a living being compared with the golems, but seemed confused by me all the same.
The only reason I think I can say that is that after a semi-cursory glance at the golems, it appeared to focus on me. I do not have a good way of explaining how I determined this other than to say that something in my ‘Seer’ sense told me it was looking at me.
While the golems moved to bar its progress, it appeared to ignore them, arc-stepping in predictable, but closing the distance to myself.
It being a kind of lightning or appearing as such, it took me quite some effort to not raise the weapon in my hand.
Since the Council gave it to me, I’ve only had occasion to fire it twice and I was in no rush to use it again. And something about the… being… told me that it wasn’t here to hurt, merely to understand.
It appeared to arc-step through a golem at one point, leaving the golem shuddering a bit.
‘Ah this is our culprit,’ I guessed internally. ‘Or at least one of them.’
Having closed the distance between myself and it, it stopped suddenly as the golems around me appears to change formation and began emitting a kind of energy.
It took me a second of taking my eyes off the being to figure out what the golems were doing.
The shiny ripple of a shield effect filling in around me was all the clue I needed. If nothing else, it appeared to provide all the information that the being needed. It considered me and the shield a bit longer and then seemed to wink out of existence.
The golems held their position until I tapped one of them and asked for the shield to drop.
The helpful golem from earlier indicated that the intrusion was over and apparently relayed this message to the other golems.
The one that had been arc-stepped through seemed to continue shuddering and half-frozen in place. I asked the helpful golem to secure the hurt golem, both from themselves and from the garden.
Together, the other golems surrounded the hurt one with a mix of stones and wood timbers. It seemed adequate.
I’m sure that Miss Skuld would not be happy at the loss of another gardener, but that was perhaps the price to be paid for knowing what I had just been a witness to.
I returned to my camping set-up and set about some cold caffeine and checked the time. 4 am. Not enough time to get back to sleep properly, but too early for the likes of me. Perfect. I hate it.
I wasn’t ready for breakfast, so I settled on simply having some cold caffeine and listened as the gardeners went about their work.
It still struck me as odd how silent this place was. No bird song, no whisper of wind (although there was a bit of wind that did come through every now and again), no insects (at least that I could hear). Just a kind of stifling silence that seemed to fill the ears with cotton and made every sound that did happen that much louder.
I even turned down the sound level on my phone (which I noted was charging quite nicely with the solar charger that I’d brought) to account for how quiet it was.
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I’d like to say that I sat there alone with my thoughts in that stillness, but that’d be a lie. I can only manage that kind of stillness and alone with my thoughts if I have a pipe of tobacco and a glass of whiskey. As I had neither, sitting still with thoughts was not going to happen.
So I settled on an audiobook that I’d been putting off, sipping my cold caffeine, and sitting back in my hammock, flipping absentmindedly through one of the non-baseline information books that I’d brought, scanning for useful info or possibly hints of something that might let me offer new services.
Not that I was lacking for work, but it never hurts to enhance the repertoire. After all, we can’t rely on the wizards to always need an intelligent essentia void to help them out.
I’d like to pretend I didn’t get bored of that too in short order, but that too would be a lie. I got restless and went back to the torquay treatise and started looking for any hints of what I’d experienced. But as I’ve mentioned before, extraplanar spaces, much like their governance, tend to be woefully ill-documented. Or at least ill-documented in the few books that I’d been able to acquire at short notice.
Nothing came up and I couldn’t think of anything remotely similar that I’d come across that would be even similar.
Given how it had ‘departed’, it made me think that it wasn’t actually a being, but rather some kind of… drone or hologram. Something two-way that whomever was on the other end could find out what this place was/is without risking themselves.
Given the comparative harmless effects of the golems themselves on it, that would make sense and would also explain a foreign energy impacting the local space.
It was still a guess at most and there was a lot that I couldn’t prove with it, but it was something to go on.
I called over the helpful golem (still no idea how I managed to pick it out compared with the others, but that’s how it works I guess).
“Can you allow me to talk with the… intruder next time?” I asked.
Via some hand gestures and some diagraming in the dirt, the short answer that I got from the golem was ‘no’. The longer answer got back to the limited programming for protection, not translation that Miss Skuld had left behind.
I wasn’t thrilled with that answer, but it was expected. And then I remembered what a huge lootwhore I am and dug into my bag. Among the many pockets, I finally found what I was looking for - a translator ring. As long as I wore it, I could understand almost any language - there being some obvious exceptions, but they weren’t common enough to warrant inclusion in the enchantment (at least not unless one wished to spend the extra essentia crystals, which I hadn’t run into the need to do.
“Can you protect me while I talk to it when it comes back?” I tried instead.
The golem indicated that that would be acceptable and possible under the current directives, pointing to the directives scrawled in the dirt.
I had no reason to believe it would come back based on it having ‘met’ me, but at the same time, I had no reason to believe that it wouldn’t be back.
As it turned out, about noon or so my phone believed (the light level having changed not at all), as I was deciding on my pick of nuts, bread, fresh fruit, and veggies, the sky seemed to shudder and ripple ahead of a renewed crack of thunder.
Every golem still free immediately moved as they had previously, half moving towards the point of intrusion and the other half moving to protect me.
“Guide the intruder towards me,” I ordered.
The helpful golem appeared to consider this, but accepted the order, communicating this by unseen means and the golems surrounding me spun up their energy shield. The others began to form a kind of tube, at the far end of which the not-flame/not-lightning flickered. It was larger this time and seemed more substantial, but still did not seem to know what to make of me.
It did seem to understand that it was to come directly towards me, not through the golems and so it closed the distance, stopping at a reasonable distance in advance of the shield and seeming to ignore the energized, but passive golems around it.
I held up my hand with the translation ring on it and the… whatever it was seemed to understand.
The sound of a tesla coil filled my ears for a moment before the translation ring kicked in.
“...are you that you use this place without regard for others?” came the translated demand.
From the context, I could guess that this was some ‘downstream’ being who was unhappy about the damming effect that the bubble created.
“I am a representative to the creator of this space, not the creator of this space,” I decided to open with.
The not-lightning seemed to consider this and ignore it.
“You have caused damage, issues, casualties because of carelessness. This space… ours,” it stated.
“Incorrect. This sphere of space has been claimed rightfully by the primary creator of this space. There is no governance to counter this claim unless you wish to submit this to a primary realm legal system,” I hate to play that card, but it seemed the safest tact to take.
“Negative. This space… ours. Vacant, disperse, relent,” It said.
“On what authority or basis do you make that claim?” I tried.
A bolt of energy struck out from the not-lightning and impacted the shield, which flickered for a moment and then stabilized.
I gestured to the firearm on my hip.
“Might does not make right. If you attempt that again, I will defend myself,” I said simply.
The not-lightning appeared to flicker a bit extra as though frustrated with me.
Silence aside from the grinding sound of the intruder’s existence reigned for a minute.
“Is there a compromise you will accept? This bubble is moving now,” I decided to try moving the conversation along.
“Compromise… no. Relinquish. Threat not accepted as valid,” it said.
A second bolt of energy hit the shield which did more than flicker this time but fully died for a solid second before coming back.
“Understand that I do this only to maintain my own existence,” I said, unholstering the firearm and pointing it at the not-lightning.
It was at this point the wards on the firearm kicked in and the not-lightning seems to get a bit of a hunted look, as though understanding what the firearm was and just how trapped it was as the golems around it spun up their shields, protecting themselves from the not-lightning.
“Threat… invalid,” it said, as a kind of statement as though it believed that I was not going to defend this space against it.
I didn’t bother to respond other than to pull the trigger.
The not-lightning appeared to shatter and the translation in my ears simply muted as the shards each individually apparently screamed incoherently before shattering further out of existence.
I lowered the firearm and put it back in the holster.
“Threat eliminated, return to normal status,” I instructed the golems and they returned to their duties.
Given the timeline between the two and the expected recovery time of whatever it was on the far end of the… drone, assuming I hadn’t just killed whatever it was, I probably had several hours until the next appearance. That meant I had some time to hope that Miss Skuld would get the portal working.