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Post by dans on Feb 2, 2021 23:46:38 GMT
Thanks, Doc. When the 4 heroes return to the present they are all going to be on Earth 2 and so they may have to be very clever to get Carol back home to Earth S. I think I have a cute solution for that which won't break our rules on the barriers.
I'm getting ready to write some more active scenes. I hope they come as easily as the 'watch the movie' scenes!
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Post by dans on Feb 4, 2021 17:30:55 GMT
The Global Ruling Council
Escape From Telos
A Boring Presentation In the Chamber of the Global Ruling Council of the Worldwide Empire of Mu, two of the councilors stood between the horns of the crescent-shaped Council table, giving a presentation to their larger-than-life Emperor of All, Wisar. A boxy device maybe the size of R4D3, the iconic droid from the popular Nebula Wars movie, floated next to them, and a beam of light from the top of the device projected illusions into the left half of the room. Wisar could easily see these illusions without changing position on his throne, but the seated Councilors had to twist far around in their seats - a casual indifference to their convenience that dominated all their interactions with the powerful Emperor of All. They didn't mind today, though, and in fact had counted on it - their skewed positions would conceal minor actions from Wisar. Monja spoke a Lemurian Word of Power, and the room lights dimmed. As Telos was actually inside a mountain, if it weren't for magical lighting, the city would have been forever enveloped in darkness more complete than most humans had ever seen. Every 'inside' room in the city responded identically to four light-related commands, the Lemurian equivalents of 'Dark', 'Dim', 'Normal' and 'Bright', and any person in a room could issue any of those commands. 'External' lighting was a little different - the public areas of the many levels of the city all shared the same 24 hour magically-produced Daylight, Dusk, Night, Dusk, Daylight cycle, and the city's founders had set that magic up with powerful protections so that none could affect it. Neither the 'Dark' command indoors or the Dark cycle outdoors produced total darkness; there was always at least a dim light everywhere in the city. Monja was about 5'6" and had a striking complexion, almost the yellowish brass color of an expensive saxophone, or about the same color as BB30, another droid from the Nebula Wars movie, with kinked shoulder length black hair; her face resembled a polished yellow kabuki mask. Skin color and mask face were side effects of the powerful magical artifact she wore around her forehead, the Eye of Tsujimoto, with which she could control emotions. The 'socket' of the Eye was cunningly wrought of silver and circled a flat, translucent white diamond as the eyeball, set with an unknown magical gem in place of the pupil which changed color and size depending on the emotion and magical power she chose to project, growing smaller and brighter as her projection became more intense. The Eye of Tsujimoto was so thin it barely raised a bump on her forehead, and was held firmly in place by powerful magic, unless she chose to remove it, which never happened in public. Those who knew Monja's power were always aware of the color of the pupil! Today it was flat grayish black and as large as a dime; and black indicated that her power was quiescent. No member of this group other than Wisar had ever seen her true appearance, and no one else knew her history. The others sometimes whispered that she once been a princess whose father the king had been overthrown in a revolution, but none of them knew the source of that rumor. Theo had once been handsome, about 5'10" with wide shoulders and a narrow waist; he had been a powerfully built man before he'd become homeless, and after a year of living in Telos was on his way to regaining his healthy appearance. He was a former lawyer who had been disbarred for presenting alternative facts in a criminal case in which his client was clearly guilty. Wisar had collected both him and Andy together from the plastic tent they'd shared in a dump outside Los Angeles. While the other members of the Council always wore Lemurian-themed clothing, Theo always wore an elegant, exquisitely magically tailored, almost foppish three-piece suit that would be de rigeur for arguing a case in the Supreme Court. His magical totem resembled a walking stick with a large solid gold ball as a grip; by holding the stick in front of him and chanting in the Lemurian language of magic, he could entrance people into a deep sleep. Today his stick was back at the table and his hands were empty. Theo was just beginning his presentation when the Emperor of All imperiously interrupted him. "What's that pin you are wearing? I've never seen it before. What's it say, 'Hahvahd'?" He initially sounded angry, but then his voice changed to amused. "We are all tired of hearing your stories and boasts about your incredible education. But what did it get you? Years of living in a garbage bag tent in a dump with a monkey, while I, with no 'formal' education such as you continually boast of, am now the most powerful man in the world, and soon to assume my throne." His expression changed yet again. "Yes, it is decided. Today is the day I demonstrate my power to the world and assume my rightful place as Emperor of All!" He pointed at Theo. "After the meeting, you will destroy the pin, and never again speak of your so-called, imaginary superior intellect or education!" His hand fell back to the arm of his throne. "Continue!" While Monja remained silent, intently studying Wisar for any indication that he was interested in the plan the two were presenting, Theo continued his presentation. In a sing-song, dreary, emotionless monotone: "Many times have you mentioned to your loyal Council that after your ascension to power, which glorious event will occur today, hoorah! that each of us will be Satrap for you, each ruling a continent, though you have declined to indicate who will rule each continent until you evaluate the value of the support each of us offers you. Some of us feel that it might provide more incentive to us, if you were to divide the world into equal regions of population, and assign each of us as Satrap of one such region of equal populace." This point of the presentation was deadly dangerous; it implied mild criticism of Wisar's plans, and on the wrong day, could have resulted in the instant incineration of some or all of the Councilors. Prior to the meeting, however, they had all gravely agreed that the potential rewards were more than worth the risk. Though they had also taken measures to minimize that risk! (And privately, most of them felt that it was much more likely that Wisar would zap just Theo and Monja, and leave the rest of them alone...) And so far, it seemed as if their gamble was paying off. Not only did Wisar not react aggressively to the implied criticism, he seemed incredibly bored by the whole presentation. He only looked at the 'slide' illusion of the equal population region for an instant, he seemed to mumble to himself "I don't really give a damn...", and his head dropped towards his chest. All the seated councilors looked at Tommy, at the end of the table, he slowly placed his palm on the table and the others leaned back slightly in their seats, with perhaps s wisp of disappointment flashing across one or two faces... When Theo changed slides, Wisar's head jerked up and he examined the new slide intently - the Council was meekly recommending which equal-population slice of the planet each Councilor would be best suited to rule as submissive Satrap for the mighty Emperor of All. Then his head nodded again, and Tommy made his decision!
Tommy's hand clenched into a fist, now aimed directly at Wisar's middle, and a powerful lightning bolt slashed out and exploded against the Emperor of All's massive silver belt buckle. At exactly the same instant, Andy snapped the fingers on both hands and there was a brief explosion on Wisar's face as his eyebrows, hair, and beard instantly vaporized with a brilliant flash of light and an instant of tremendous heat. Tommy's other hand pointed and clenched, and another powerful lightning bolt exploded against the Megalodon tooth pendant hanging on Wisar's bare bronze chest. While the larger-than-life figure of the Emperor of All was temporarily dazzled and confused, though largely undamaged, by the surprise attacks, Willie threw a brown ball the size of a softball at the Lamina Crown on Wisar's head. Just as it arrived, John John gestured with both gauntlet-covered hands, and two pale white, almost invisible bolts of pure force lashed out. One struck the Emperor a massively powerful foul, below the belt blow, while the other blasted apart the brown ball. While an invisible barrier at least partially shielded the unfortunate Wisar from the low blow, the ball disintegrated into grains of sand, which glittered as they fell to settle over Wisar's body - and he vanished in a cloud of tiny flashes of light! While her fellow Councilors were attacking Wisar, Tricia, who had been the lead planner of the whole attack, raced to hold open the door to the room. As soon as the Emperor of all began fading from sight, the other six all bolted out the door. When they were through, Tricia spoke another Word of Power - a word the city founders had hidden deep in their most secret tomes, one that was never supposed to be used, and the magical spell that lit the Chamber of the Global Ruling Council of the Worldwide Empire of Mu was totally extinguished, leaving the room in total blackness. The escaping Council zipped through another room, with Tricia extinguishing the light as they left, and were in the last 'inside' room in the Council building, when they the building shook to a massive explosion behind them. "He's back!" Tommy yelled. "Five seconds isn't very damn long..." "Abstain herewith from this endemic inconsequential palaver and perambulate at paramount haste!" Willie snapped back and the 7 run even faster, just barely getting through the double-wide door held open by the ubiquitous Tricia without getting jammed up. "Shut up and run!" Andy translated under his breath in disgust as he raced through the 'outside' door. "Never use a little word when you can use three big ones instead, eh Willie?" Waiting for them on the street was an unusual vehicle, what the citizens of Telos had used as a bus for thousands of years. A circular disk almost the width of one of the many identical streets in the city, with raised sides and comfortable benches in the hollow. The seven dove over the edge into a tumble in the middle, and again Tricia spoke a Word of Power. The 'bus' lifted maybe 6 inches and started zooming forward with incredible acceleration, though to the riders it felt absolutely stationary. Tricia took a moment to seat herself and then spoke another forbidden word of power, a Word that had taken the Councilors hundreds of hours of reading of ancient tomes to discover - and the magical light cycle that had lighted Telos Under the Mountain without failure or faltering for almost 100,000 years snapped off - leaving the city in total darkness, such as none of the Councilors had ever experienced before! It was an incredibly spooky experience, especially knowing that their vehicle was now zooming along the streets of Telos at over a hundred miles an hour! But they couldn't even sense the motion, and for sure they couldn't see the scenery passing them by! A few seconds later, they heard another more massive explosion and Monja, who happened to be facing back along the way they had come, could momentarily see the front of the Council building erupt into the street. At that instant, the Councilors could feel a gentle tugging that quickly subsided as the bus made an instant 90 degree corner to the left. Suddenly, a booming voice, louder than thunder, seemed to come from every cubic inch air around them, causing their vehicle to shudder and their bodies to tremble. "You can run but you can't hide, you traitorous rats!" Wisar roared. "I can easily create my own light and oww!" the voice cut off with an expression of pain. "I hope he's wrong," Monja whispered, almost too quietly to hear. "Shut UP!" Tricia whispered urgently back. An instant later, they were rocked by a massive explosion nearby - behind them, from the orientation of the bus, apparently exactly where the buss had been only an instant ago. "You would have been my bride, Monja," Wisar sounded the smallest bit regretful, but none of the Councilors replied. Rescued you all from homelessness and gave you power, and this is how you repay me! You will all die horrible deaths!"
'Yeah, you 'rescued' twenty of us, and slaughtered the other thirteen, and would kill the rest of us as easily as you blink. But we're escaping, you mindless monster!' Tricia thought savagely. But just as she'd warned the others to remain silent, she said nothing.
They now all remembered that they were protected by a very weak magic spell, too weak, they hoped, for Wisar to easily detect and locate, which silenced the noises of their breathing. But it was not powerful enough to muffle their voices, even if they whispered. Wisar's magic would locate them again, if any one of them made a noise louder than breathing. Theo suddenly hoped he wouldn't have to pass gas!
One again the felt a gentle tug as their bus made another abrupt turn, and though they could see nothing through the absolute darkness that enveloped Telos, the seven realized they had entered one of the vast spiraling ramps that connected all the levels of the City Under the Mountain. There were exits at every level, but they were going to the top, to the giant lobby behind the secret entrance to the cliff of Mt. Shasta. All seven were silently cautiously hopeful. Though Wisar had proved to them that he wielded incredible magical abilities, they had also observed that he was quite clumsy with those powers, and it took him longer than they might expect for him to adapt his powers to new uses. Until he figured out his alternative lighting spell, he was trapped inside the largest, most complex maze that humans had ever created in all of human history, in absolute darkness.
Once outside they had other plans to escape, and they figured Wisar would let them go - it would be easier to collect new minions from the ranks of the homeless to replace them than to range the world and search them out; in fact he had many times in rages threatened to incinerate the lot of them and do just that.
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Post by lee on Feb 4, 2021 17:51:08 GMT
Excellent chapter.
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Post by dans on Feb 4, 2021 18:38:34 GMT
Thanks, Lee! Full disclosure, folks. The powers exhibited by Monja, Tommy, Andy, Theo, John John, and Willie, and the talismans that give them their powers, are all the result of a collaboration with Lee, as are Tricia's, though other than taking charge, we haven't seen her powers or her talisman, the Pendant of Naatvird, yet.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 4, 2021 18:53:13 GMT
I'm beginning to see more and more why it has taken Wisar so long to get around to taking over the world. . .
Great job!
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Post by DocQuantum on Feb 4, 2021 19:23:49 GMT
Can’t wait to get back to our heroes!
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Post by dans on Feb 4, 2021 20:09:13 GMT
soon, Doc... either next story post or the one following, I promise!
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Post by dans on Feb 4, 2021 20:10:31 GMT
I'm beginning to see more and more why it has taken Wisar so long to get around to taking over the world. . . Great job!
Yeah, he's not so great at the 'great' part of 'great and powerful wizard' stuff yet...
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Post by dans on Feb 5, 2021 3:18:23 GMT
The Global Ruling Council
Escape From Telos
Oops! Finally, above them and far away in the direction of their travel, they could make out a faint glow of light against the absolute darkness around them, and they realized they must be approaching the giant lobby behind the secret mountainside entrance. They would soon be returning to the outside world, much more powerful than when they had left it over a year ago. And all were beginning to believe in their hopes for new lives outside, determined never to return to being homeless and destitute again. Suddenly, Tricia was alarmed, and she broke the taboo against speaking. "Where is that light coming from? Beware!" Such was the power of command in her voice that her companions instantly turned to face the light, and were horrified as, at over a hundred miles an hour, it grew from a small pinprick into the horrifying, larger than life and madder than hell demon-like figure named Wisar! A voice as large as the mountain assaulted their ears, punctuated with demonic-sounding laughter. "Fools! You thought you could escape me by trapping me in darkness, but where else could such traitorous rats scuttle off to? And now, you approach me rapidly, perhaps you wish to regain my favor?! FAT CHANCE OF THAT!" Tricia screamed in horror yet another Word of Power and the bus came to an instant halt, just short of the massive explosive blast Wisar launched. The car almost overturned, dumping most of the Councilors into a pile on the rock floor. Tricia managed to keep her seat, and as the vehicle dropped back to horizontal she repeated the same Word that had originally started the bus rocketing forward, then dove over the edge as it accelerated directly at the Emperor of All. He screamed in rage and waved his hand at the rocketing vehicle, which almost reached him before it exploded violently, knocking him backwards even through his magical protection. The vast 'lobby', probably a third the size of the entire mountain, was crowded with vehicles, abandoned by the citizens who had left the city during the exodus that had left Telos abandoned over 80 years earlier. The various Councilors scrambled for hiding places in, under and around the abandoned vehicles. Meanwhile, Wisar was destroying those closest to him, moving ponderously, like the turret on a massive tank - turn slowly, target a magical vehicle, gesture, snarl in satisfaction at the resulting destruction, take a few seconds to boast about his great power vs. the fleas and rats who beset him, then turn and acquire a new target. Meanwhile, the various Councilors were popping in and out of their hiding places and using their various powers against their ex-leader. Tommy's lightning and John John's force beams were the most effective, occasionally causing the Emperor of All to grunt in pain or stumble and pause in his own attacks, particularly when they were able to coordinate their strikes. Andy was causing small explosions in the clouds of dust and vapor surrounding Wisar, though these rarely did more than distract him momentarily. The more subtle and slowly acting powers of emotional manipulation and sleep induction of Monja and Theo were useless against Wisar's rage. Willie was unable to get close enough to the Emperor to cast a pinch of the Sands of Time over him, and he couldn't figure out how moving any of the things closer to him that he could affect a few seconds into the future would help in this fight. As he was only barely affected by their attacks, Wisar eventually began using his own powers of destruction more strategically to herd his opponents by cutting off their avenues of movement and driving them into a corner. Tricia was feeling helpless; her power so far seemed useless and none of the Words of Power that she had learned during her pre-revolution research were working - no doubt nullified by the Lamina Crown seemingly perched securely on Wisar's head. "I'll distract him; the rest of you, OUT THE DOOR!" Tricia demanded. She invoked the power of her talisman, the Pendant of Naatvird, to give her the appearance of their foe. The pendant, seemingly just a glob of clay, flowed out to cover her body, and her outline began to change as the thin coating of clay faded to invisibility... to reveal Wisar, Emperor of All! Except... the man that stood where Tricia had been was average in every way, and totally nondescript in appearance. Not over 7' tall, but instead a few inches under 6'; not massively muscled but with pipe-stem arms and a pot-belly; not bronze, but a kind of pale beige; salt and pepper hair with a receding hairline rather than a short metallic-appearing skullcap of hair; face partially hidden by huge glasses with thick lenses. Her new attire was identical except in size to that currently worn by the Emperor of All, with bare chest, leather cords around muscles, massive necklace and belt buckle, trousers and sandals except... the smaller Wisar was not wearing a copy of the Lamina Crown; instead the replica dangled from a cord from 'her' belt. "His whole appearance is an illusion!" she shouted, though with all the destruction thundering around her, it was unlikely that her companions could hear her. But the costumed-in-illusion Emperor of All definitely saw her. He froze in place for several seconds, stunned to be facing his real self, and the Councilors surged from their hiding and launched a desperate attack, imploring their talismans to release their maximum magical powers. For a second, Wisar stood there and took it, though he was surrounded by fire, explosions, flashing beams of battering force, sparkling grains of sand which threw him a half second into the future, waves of mental energy trying to put him to sleep when he emerged from his forced time jump - and then he roared in rage, his magically enhanced scream causing the vast room to shudder, and he waved his hands, and a magical globe appeared and closed around the Council members, trapping them and a half dozen destroyed vehicles, and then the bubble vanished. Wisar stood in the now silent room, surrounded by burning, smoking debris, the floor shattered and cratered from the magical battle, and laughed and gloated. "I am finally rid forever of those traitorous rodents!"
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Post by dans on Feb 5, 2021 15:43:12 GMT
Atom Blake and the Heroines Three
Another Magic Ring!? Oh, My!
Carnivorous Butterflies the Size of a 747- Oh MY!
Atom led his friends into a small room in their self-excavated cave that he had furnished as a lab, populated and decorated by his magic. There were tables covered with magically-powered working almost-replicas of complex scientific apparatus that his father had used (most of them, actually invented by Stuart!) and a dozen model aircraft dangling from the ceiling by threads, including a model of one of the missiles the group had destroyed not long ago and a model of a 30' long Pterosaur they had encountered flying from one peak to another in the tiny mountain range on their island. The evacuated bottle sat on a separate, bare table alone in the center. Not far away, several tentacles stretched from a weird creation that looked a cross between a gas chromatograph and a squid and almost, but not quite, touched the target bottle. "My magical mystical elemental analyzer Sun Metal synthesizer, two incredibly complex scientific tools mystically merged into a single, easy to use magical appliance!" Atom crowed proudly, introducing the device with a theatrical sweep of both hands like a movie star or a famous athlete. "It will magically analyze the contents of the bottle, and this light here will flash when it detects samples of ALL the elements. And then when they are all present, after I touch this button..." he pointed but carefully didn't touch, "...it will magically duplicate my father's scientific process to 'mash them all together' into the Sun Metal compound." He turned back to his friends, smiling proudly, and boasting - just a little. "It's a good thing I'm super smart and learned everything there is to know about science growing up, and my magical studies at Grimoire recently - betcha there isn't another person in the whole world who could have put science and magic together like that! At least, nobody back home on our Earth; who knows WHAT they know on Earth 2 Lemuria right now? And Atlantis?" He paused, and an almost comical look of concern flashed across his face. "Say, what number does OUR Earth have, anyway? Are we Earth 3? And why is this one only Earth 2?" His friends just laughed...
"I'm ready!" Joanna told her friends after the laughter subsided. "This spell will set magic forces in action, searching out tiny quantities of each element and then sending them back here inside Atom's bottle. The common elements should be found and retrieved in only a few seconds, but it might take hours to locate sufficient quantities of the more rare elements to satisfy our requirements for 'a smidge of this, a pinch of that'.
Atom's tiny face screwed up in concentration, followed by flashes of other expressions: realization, dawning concern, and then near panic! "Hold on! What if we change history? Like, say, what if the carbon smidge gets pulled from the DNA of a butterfly, and the offspring of that butterfly are mutated instead, into carnivorous giants the size of bats, and the next generation offspring are even larger and more vicious, and they start attacking humans, and within a few years, every generation gets larger and more vicious and they take over the world? So when we get back we'd be the only humans and we'd have to fight off zillions of voraciously hungry killer butterflies the size of 747s!!!!"
The others didn't know whether to be amused or horrified... giant killer butterflies was too ridiculous a concept to take seriously, but more subtle alterations of history could be just as deadly to them - and as Atom pointed out, making a small random change to a living organism could have unexpected and fatal consequences, at least to that organism.
"Well," Zephyr responded slowly. "Suppose I limited the spell's 'draw' to only non-living matter? I can do that, pretty easily."
Carol's face brightened. "And, Lemuria is supposed to be destroyed by natural disasters pretty soon, right? It's supposed to be a BIG continent, as big as Africa - there should be 'smidges and pinches' of every element somewhere on Lemuria. Can you limit your spell to Lemuria, Joanna? It shouldn't make any difference if an ounce of matter is missing when it sinks!"
"And Atlantis!" Carol interjected before Joanna could answer. "If you can't find enough an element on Lemuria, well, Atlantis is doomed to sink at the same time!"
"Perfect!" Joanna agreed, and Atom's face relaxed to his normal, smiling self. "Thanks, guys! That should make it safe enough. I wouldn't want to wipe out humanity, just to get the four of us back to the future!"
Experiment Gone Right
It took Joanna a few minutes of deep thought to modify her spell. "Here goes - don't interrupt me 'till I'm done, I need my best concentration while I cast the spell. After, it will run on its own until it gathers everything we need!" Joanna warned her friends, then when they nodded, she turned, raised her hands and tilted her face toward the ceiling, and chanted carefully: Pinch of solid drop of fluid puff of gas, One smidge of each, not all en masse, Take not from the living, limit where found, To Lemuria and Atlantis the search be bound, Barriers of time and space bypass Appear now in this shell of glass!Almost instantly, a tiny puff of black dust appeared in the bottle, followed by other tiny puffs of other colors. "We've got samples of the most common elements already: carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, the stuff that's found almost everywhere," Atom reported excitedly, examining a readout on the squid device. Another tiny explosion of glittering dust. "Aluminum..." "I can sense that it may take hours for the last 'smidges and pinches' of the most rare elements to be found and transported back to the bottle, and I will know when my magic has completed the tasks we have set for it," Joanna noted. "Is there anything else you need, Atom?" "If you guys want to hang around in the cave, I need some sheets of lead to shield the lab," the Boy Wizard replied seriously, instantly. "Sun Metal produces radioactive Sunergy, which kills most living things almost instantly. The lab and the rest of the cave could become a deadly environment after I make the compound unless we take precautions, and Dad once told me that only lead will block Sunergy radiation. And then, after I've finished making the Sun Metal and shaping it into a ring, I need to coat it in lead, too. Can you zap us up some lead, Joanna, and you guys use your yellow energy powers to shape it into sheets?" 'You guys' was directed at Carol and Alex. Joanna couldn't 'zap up' lead while her other spell was still operational, but using a lesser spell, she was able to locate a deposit of galena in one of the mountain peaks on their island. Carol and Alex used their yellow energy powers to mine enough ore for their purpose, and Atom was able to cast a spell to remove impurities. Yellow energy pressed it into sheets, and more yellow energy, aided by Atom's spells, molded those sheets into the faces of the rock walls, ceiling and floor of the small lab room. There was a glob of lead left over, just enough for Atom to magically spread a thin coating over the Sun Metal ring he was going to magically create when the magically collected elements were all present in the magical bottle. They were all set; all they had to do was wait. Carol taught them how to play euchre, and they played enthusiastically for a couple of hours as Zephyr's magic scoured two continents for 'smidges and pinches' of every element. Over the game, one of the topics of discussion was Carol's powers. Carol explained that she now felt back to her 'normal' power level; whatever extra power had charged her up was gone, but her original powers remained intact. This was something of a relief; she'd been worried that somehow she was going to use up all her original 'sunny side up' powers and revert to being a normal human! Still, the group determined to try Carol's proposed experiment and return to the volcano. Atom and Joanna insisted that they wait until Atom's ring was completed so that they two could come along - just in case! Carol had just won all 5 tricks for an improbable 'loner' to close out the latest euchre game when Zephyr announced that her spell was complete. The collection was done; the bottle now contained 'smidges and pinches' of every element! They rushed to the lab; all they could see was some dust in the bottle
"Perfect, just over an ounce total!" Atom exclaimed proudly. "Just enough!" He was anxious to go on with the next stage, and practically pushed his friends out of his lead-shielded lab, then shut the door and turned to his synthesizer. "Abra Cadabra, Please and THANK YOU!" he chanted theatrically as he touched a button.
There was a tremendously powerful flare of light, centered on the bottle, and when he could see again, there was a marble sized sphere, emitting an eerie, penetrating soft blue glow, sitting in the middle of the bottle. Atom could feel the blue glow pounding on his skin, and many of the items in the room instantly vaporized (including the bottle and the model aircraft!) while the rest began to change shape as if they were melting. The only things unaffected were Atom and the small glob of lead designated for coating the ring. And fortunately, the lead-infused walls, floor and ceiling seemed to be holding strong! Atom had worked directly with Sunergy before (see Wow Comics 1 - 5). By concentrating on complex magical formulae, he could make it do amazing things. Flight, time travel, duplication, disintegration - he had used his original ring for 10 years, exploring space and time, and still didn't know what its limits were. He'd out worked the necessary formulas for molding Sun Metal into a new ring in advance; as everything else in the room vaporized, he concentrated, and a portion of the Sunergy emitted by the marble easily accomplished the task he'd desired. The marble itself was quickly transformed into a heavy signet ring, exactly the right size for Adam's finger, though he knew it would change size if required to fit another worthy finger. Another thought, and the glob of lead floated to the ring, deformed and dripped over it, molding itself into a thin coating - and the blue energy vanished instantly, now safely contained. A moment of concentration, and a tiny window opened in the coating over the signet, and a thin blue beam sprang out, another thought and it was again safely blocked. "THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!" Atom boasted proudly to his now empty lab. "Recreated the Sun Metal ring my father gave me in 1940, and destroyed by the demons in 1950!" Then he stopped and concentrated on the memorized mathematical formula required for one last task, perhaps the most important to him. The blue beam sprang forth again, and a magical engraving appeared on the inside of the ring, a complex mathematical formula created by his departed super-genius father, Stuart Blake, that Atom had once, long ago, deciphered into plain English: "If the man in need or by evil oppressed can this message read, I will grant his request." Only those who could actually decipher the message themselves could command the power of the ring, a precaution Stuart had deemed necessary to protect the world should the ring fall into the possession of one unworthy of its vast power.
Atom paused for several long moments, filled with proud, sad memories of his father, before donning his new ring. And an hour later, the four friends were flying towards the giant volcano we know as Kunakarai, eager to see if exposure to the energetic environment in the caldera could supercharge Carol's powers again. The were protected by magical shields created by Atom Blake and Zephyr, ring energy shields created by Atom and Corona, and yet another shield created by Carol's natural energy power. While her friends hovered cautiously just outside and below the rim of Kunakarai's crater, Carol floated slowly above the rim and towards the center. She could see and hear the yellow-white boiling churning lake of magma miles below, and she could feel the heat, light and thunderous noise beating upwards from that hellish lake against the five-ply shield around her. But her power seemed unchanged. She flashed a signal to her friends, and one at a time, slowly, each withdrew one of the layers of protection around Carol. And finally, when Atom had reluctantly cancelled his Sunergy-powered blue field, it WORKED! She could feel her own power burgeoning! A few seconds exposure and she began feeling uncomfortable; another prearranged signal and her friends instantly restored their own contributions to her protection. As she flew to rejoin her friends, Carol felt a mixture of triumph and sadness. "When I get home, where am I going to find a volcano like this to supercharge my powers?" she wondered. "It won't be easy - I had better enjoy it while I can - and remember how awesome it is to even BE 'ordinary' Sunbeam!" She cheered up at that reminder - only a small fraction of all of humanity since the dawn of time had been blessed to have super powers as she was did! Suddenly, the tremendously loud rumbling of the volcano became exponentially louder, even through the five-ply shielding around the four companions. There was a massive explosion inside the caldera, miles below, and suddenly a magnificent, impossible geyser of white-hot magma blasted out of the throat of Kunakarai Volcano, a belch of millions of tons of molten rock that reached almost to orbit in only seconds. No shields created by humans, magical or otherwise, could possibly withstand that massive explosion for more than an instant, and in no more than an instant, even the partial protection of the wall of the crater would be destroyed. Atom had years ago worked out the required mathematical formula to use Sunergy for time travel, and earlier today refined it for their particular situation. He'd planned on doing some cautious research first, but now there wasn't time. "e^u du dx e^x dx!" he shouted, the mathematical code that triggered his ring, and instantly, the four companions, wrapped in their five-ply shielding bubble, vanished into the time stream!
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Post by dans on Feb 5, 2021 19:18:16 GMT
You know, it is really incredible what an energy controller can do 'off panel'! Dig a cave into a mountain cliff, mine ore, form metal into sheets, pretty much anything the writer has the will power for! Or pretty much any deus ex machina miracle needed to move quickly to the next scene...
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Post by dans on Feb 5, 2021 21:27:52 GMT
Atom Blake and the Heroines Three
Encounter in Time
Traffic in the Time Tunnel This trip through time was different than the last trips the four had experienced, perhaps because it was powered by the scientifically based Sunergy rather than magic. Rather than being in the Museum of Mu one instant and falling into the hellish lake of magma in the caldera of giant Kunakarai Volcano the next, this trip had duration. "Or perhaps our consciousness was magically suppressed during the magical trip as part of the trap, so we wouldn't have time to make any preparations, and then restored at the last instant so we would know our fates before we were incinerated, a cosmic finger to the doomed one by whoever set the trap?" Carol attempted to analyze the motives behind the observed facts - in a difficult detective case, deducing the motivation of the perp was often invaluable in solving the mystery! In any case, regardless of why, this trip had duration. The four remained enclosed in their protective five-ply sphere and after a few moments of disorientation, they found themselves moving through a circular corridor, wide enough to accommodate perhaps two bubbles such as theirs. They knew they were moving because the wall of the corridor was striped black and white, and the pattern was moving towards them when they faced one direction and moving away from them in the other. However, with their eyes closed, it was impossible to detect any sensation of motion. The speed of the passing stripes increased, and the apparent width of the strips narrowed until the alternating black and white stripes merged into a uniform gray color, the color of a cloudy day a few minutes before the storm broke. Shortly after the stripes merged, Zephyr, who was intently studying the corridor 'ahead of' them, spotted something approaching. A 'bubble' enough larger than their own that, when they came adjacent to it, they were certain to bump into.
"Are we overtaking it, or is it moving in the opposite direction as we?" Alex asked.
"I think..." Joanna responded uncertainly, closing her eyes and concentrating on her mystical senses. "I think it's headed for the past..."
Unlike their own bubble, it was gray and barely translucent, and though they could make out darker shadows inside, no details were discernible. No one could guess what the consequences might be if they crashed into another bubble in this seemingly infinitely long corridor through time, but no one wanted to take the risk of finding out!
"Shrink your protective shells!" Alex suggested, and suddenly, the comfortably roomy sphere surrounding them was tightly cramped. Now it seemed likely that they would miss the other, but each continued to try to use his or her power to avoid a potential collision. "Move to the left!" each commanded their bubble, and again, it seemed as if their efforts might be succeeding. Atom aimed his hand at the fast approaching bubble and mentally opened the tiny window through the lead coating on his ring, then began to exert his will over the tiny beam that speared out. "Grab it!" The blue beam splashed against the approaching bubble and spread out to envelop it "...and push it..." but before he could complete the second half of the command they were past each other and and then he felt a viciously painful mental jolt, as if something was trying to pull his mind out from his head, and he was jerked around so his arm was pointing out the back of the bubble instead of the front, and then whatever was pulling him broke like a rope snapping, and the mental recoil felt as if a stray asteroid had just struck him in the back of the head - a pain he remembered all-too-well from one of his younger, 'Adult Atom in Space' adventures from over 30 years ago (which he planned to put in a book of his memoirs, if he survived long enough to write it!). He lapsed into semi-consciousness; when he became fully aware again, he was on his back, his head was cradled in Carol's lap, and Alex and Joanna were fussing over him, chaffing his wrists, wiping his forehead with a cool, moist cloth, and making soft, cooing noises as they all tried to make sure he was well. In the back of his mind, Adult Atom smirked, 'Say, a guy could get used to this!' but of course, the impatient six year old in the front of his mind wanted none of it. "Aren't we THERE yet?" he asked petulantly as he sat up. "I wanna be there!" The three women pushed him away pointedly, and he suddenly realized that the deadly blue Sunergy beam from his ring was still active, fortunately pointing out the 'back' of the bubble, and instantly thought the command that sealed off the tiny window and cut off the deadly ray. He was contrite: "Say, you guys are sure lucky that beam didn't hit you! I'm sorry I didn't shut it off, I hope none of you are hurt!" but Carol cut him off. "We all saw your lab, back 'in the day', so we were very careful to stay out of the beam, Atom. We're all OK." "What she really means, Atom, is that we scrambled frantically and crawled all over each other to get away," Joanna corrected with a snarl. "But Carol's right, we are all OK - you missed us all!"
Atom noted then that all their costumes were somewhat mussed and askew; that must have been more of a frantic fight than a scramble! He was almost sorry that he'd missed it, but he was smart enough not to say so. "But don't let it happen again, buster, got it? That ring is downright DANGEROUS!" Alex demanded sternly. They all smiled as Atom nodded meekly. Then she pointed outside; the gray color was changing. "I think we're about to arrive, it looks like we're slowing down." She looked back at Atom. "But, where are we arriving at, Boy Wizard?" "Um, well, you see... actually... well..." he hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, as he realized that maybe he should have said something before, then, very hesitantly... "Actually, I'm not really sure. The command I gave to the Sunergy was 'Take us across time and space to the precise space and time location of the bad guy who sent us into the past.' So when we pop back into the present, I expect we'll surprise the villain in this adventure, beat him up, and then all go home." "And you didn't tell us until now? Holy Crap! Everybody get ready for the fight of our lives!" Carol yelled. Once again there was a scramble for position in the sphere; this time Atom was part of it, and he found it much more unpleasant that he'd expected, as they all jockeyed for the best position to see in front of them! For a brief instant during their jostling, far 'behind' them, Zephyr could barely make out a shadowy figure in the tunnel through time... Then the gray blur of the walls gradually resolved into narrow black and white stripes whipping past them at incredible speed, and then the stripes began slowing and growing wider and wider, as they apparently approached the end of their eventful trip through time and space.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 6, 2021 3:11:08 GMT
Awesome! Major fight scene coming up.
So, since the original ring was destroyed in 1950, this one must be the one Imaginette uses in the future
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Post by dans on Feb 6, 2021 3:25:11 GMT
Hmmm... Doc posited somewhere that when Atom duplicated himself very early in his career, he must have duplicated the original ring, too. The ring Imaginette uses must be the original ring; I have different plans for this new one. Revealed early in the next episode.
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Post by dans on Feb 7, 2021 17:05:13 GMT
Atom Blake and the Heroines Three
Major Fight Scene
Round One The black and white bands continued to grow wider and pass by them more slowly, and then one of the white bands settled to a stop around them and then the 'tunnel through time' simply vanished. They were plunged into darkness, though not total - they could see flickering red-yellow of flames in intermittent patches all around them, revealing that wherever they were, the air near them was filled with dust and smoke, and the stone floor they stood on was littered with mixed stone and metallic rubble and shattered by dozens of small and large craters. Carol and Dan had taken one case that had led them to France early in World War II, the floor around them resembled a field they had seen that had recently been the target of a massive artillery barrage. The smoke was so thick it might prove almost impossible to breath outside of their protective five-ply shield. Directly ahead of them, cutting through the smoke and dust in the air, was a cone of brilliant white light, projected from an invisible source high above them, illuminating a massive, ornately decorated, familiar-looking throne. Seated on that massive thrown was an almost equally massive being, the man we know as Wisar, Emperor of All. Floating in the air in front of him was a massive book, perhaps 4' x 6' when open wide, as it was now, with pages stacked at least a foot deep on each half. This book was filled with the frankenspells Wisar had painfully translated and transcribed through his many years in Telos. In particular, at just this instant he was looking for a spell to restore light to the City Under the Mountain. Wisar's attemption snapped from the book at a muffled yelp of intense pain from Atom; pain caused by feedback when the blue ply of their shield snapped out of existence as his Sunergy ring simply vanished. Atom wasn't currently prepared to work magic, as he'd wanted to put his new ring to use; he scurried behind his companions and brought his travel bag back back into existence, then yanked it open and began frantically pulling out small items of magical apparatus and even smaller phials and tubes of material spell components - and then shouted wordlessly in satisfaction when he pulled out his broomstick, followed by a red soda can. Zephyr stood taller and strode forward imperiously, drawing on every bit of 'presence' and dignity inherited from her ancestress and patron, Hatshepsut, the Fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, augmented by her own anger and indignation at the way this being had treated her and her friends. She could sense the aura of mystical power surrounding the being in the cone, rivaling the power she'd sensed from Set the Disturber himself. Mentally she started gathering her own power ever more strongly about her. "Wicked one!" Her magically amplified voice shook the vast hall under the mountain. "My companions and I are here to visit you with retribution for your deeds most foul!" "Three girls, against the power of Wisar the One?" the air in the room laughed back, with even more power than Zephyr had imbued into her warning. "I have just bested the combined might of the seven traitorous rats of the Council of Mu; I have nothing to fear from three puny slips of girls. BEGONE! Back to Kunakarai in Mu, and then to vapor!" He rolled his hands, one over the other twice, then suddenly flicked them at his foes, fingers outstretched, and energy of an impossible indescribable color sprayed towards them. "Mighty shield, do not yield!" Zephyr chanted and gestured forcefully. Meanwhile, Sunbeam commanded her energy to form a barrier between them and Wisar, and Corona issued a similar command to her ring, and the spray of energy splattered against the mighty invisible barrier the three had created. The barrier cracked and then shattered like plate glass, but none of the deadly energy reached the women. "Tigers to the air!" Atom yelled from behind his friends, and with the life-sized roar of a powerful World War 2 fighter, a small airplane shot into the air, straddled by Atom, now dressed as a fighter pilot from the famous Flying Tigers squad, as millions had seen on the famous TV show in the 50s. His miniature P40B Warhawk, complete with the famous 'mouth of the Tiger' painted on the air scoop, zipped past the women and raced forward toward the figure on the throne, twin wing-mounted machine guns roaring and spitting a stream of mystical bullets - which exploded with noise and flash similar to a string of July 4th firecrackers against the invisible shield surrounding the Emperor of All. Seemingly unaffected, he flipped a heavy pile of pages to get to nearly the front of his book and then began rapidly turning single pages as he searched for another appropriate frankenspell. "By the power of the Lamina Crown...," he spoke; it sounded like he was beginning a chant. Zephyr chanted at the same time. "Forces of weather stern and fair, cleanse this foul and poison air!" A blast of wind roared through the vast room, gone almost before any of the combatants noticed it, and, for the moment at least, the air was free of smoke and dust. "Pin my foes to the ground!" Wisar finished, and the apparent pull of gravity beneath the three women increased, dragging them to the rocky floor beneath. Atom was apparently outside the range of the spell, as he momentarily continued his strafing run, but when he realized it was being ignored, he sheared off, thinking desperately of other ways he could use the limited magical resources currently in his bag to continue the fight. The women were being crushed against the rock, as if a giant was stepping on them and grinding his heel, and the pressure was growing; none of the heroines could move, let alone fly! "Down!" Corona was barely able to whisper. Not wasting any energy on a reply, Sunbeam screamed a mental command, unleashing every iota of the supercharge of power she'd absorbed from the tremendous energy in the caldera of Kunakarai Volcano. A pit opened beneath them as thousands of tons of rock simply vaporized, and they fell into the pit. They had no way of knowing about the many levels of Telos extending 11 miles deep below them; Corona was ordering her ring to stop their fall and Zephyr was composing a spell to tunnel through rock when the broke through into the next level, and continued to fall through total darkness. As they passed completely into the air space of the new level, the deadly pressure produced by Wisar's spell vanished and Corona's ring stopped them from falling. They hovered, unable to see anything, but somehow sensing the vast open space around them. "Sunlight pass through earth and stone; show us what is now unknown!" Zephyr commanded, and suddenly, the vast first level of Telos was illuminated with natural light, for the first time in its thousand-century existence!
The three were awed at the vast landscape of a city hewn from stone revealed far beneath them. "This must be Telos Under the Mountain, the legendary last refuge of the survivors of the Sinking of Lemuria," Zephyr spoke softly, awe in her voice; the others could hear her vocal emphasis. "I learned of it in my studies of Lemuria, but all present-day experts and authorities agree that it is only a myth. Many have searched for it over centuries and it was never found. But all our texts and authorities and experts must be wrong; it is a legend indeed, but surely NOT a myth!" "Time to advance the science of archaeology later," Sunbeam reminded her friends. "The bad guys can kill you if you get distracted in the middle of a case!" "We _could_ just pop back up out of the hole above," Corona suggested. "But would that just land us back in the pressure cooker?" "Barriers of stone, slide aside, the three of us through you would glide!" Instead of replying directly, Zephyr chanted and gestured, and a passage opened in the rocky ceiling above them.
"Had that one ready, might as well not waste it," she said to her friends and pointed upward. "Up, up, and away!" Corona flew them up into the new passage above them, as Sunbeam mentally tested her powers - she was once again back to normal power set; that tremendous rock-vaporizing blast had totally drained her supercharge.
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