Shieldfall

by jaked122

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure, Crossover, Human
Length: 6283

The world has been broken. The sky shattered, it rains down upon the innocent of a world imprisoned. Magic changes those who are exposed to it, turning from a tamed beast to a monster rampaging through the world. It's not mankind's fault.

Mankind was trapped beneath the Shield for thousands of years. Five years ago, this changed; they broke through. Using their plasm, they shattered it.
The fragments rained down upon the world city, destroying nearly everything.
The fragments are magic. They are the apple in the eyes of the warlords whose powers are based upon the magic they wield, the plasm they generate, and the people they rule.
Merchant explorers seek out the skeletons of the city that was destroyed, seeking plasm, shield fragments, and human life to sell to the warlords.
Plasm has been changing people. They are transformed when they are exposed to an incredibly high concentration of it.
Concentrations that were unknown till the last days of the utopia-like world city, they are lacking from the archaic basis that defines what plasm does. They are the part of the system that nobody could predict.

Plasm carries advantages that cannot be ignored; It is human will embodied. It shapes the world to the desires of its wielders, but it shapes its wielders to resemble its source.
Now what could that source be?

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-23 15:57:40 UTC

Present Day, chapter 1

        Ron is running. The grassland underneath his feet is littered with the dangerous building materials of a shattered metropolis. The blue sky above him was clear enough to force him to squint as he looks forwards. He trips on the a fragment of a brick. His front left leg is sore now.

        Behind him, he hears Anne laughing at him. He blushes, knowing that it would not show through his blue coat. He hears the rustling of the grass as she crushes it underneath her boots. She is of course the one dressed for the occasion. Capable, and clear. She carries the insulated black polymer bag carefully. It is dangerous for her to carry it. She is not twisted, therefore she remains vulnerable to the effects of extremely concentrated plasm.

        “Are you still glad that you’re a basis Ron?” The smile that she wears shines through his ears. He does not look back at her when he smiles.

        “Yeah, and if you were born to walk on two legs, you’d have trouble with four too!” He defends himself half-heartedly.

        “Yeah, probably, but you’re okay,” He smiles, she knows him well enough to not need to ask. “unless you want to try your half-baked plasm surgery again.” She also happens to know him well enough to recall certain plasm experiments that were ill-advised at the best of times.

        “Fine, you’re right. Probably wouldn’t be like this if I hadn’t saturated myself in plasm in order to find my talent.”

        “That’s why we aren’t mages Ron. We aren’t good enough at anything to do anything but look for shiny rocks in the wasteland. Take your damned rocks before I end up like you too.” She sounds frustrated, but he knows that she understands that she isn’t in any danger unless the bag breaks. She just wants him to stop goofing off.

He thinks that her request should seem reasonable to him, but he also knows that it’s more fun to take a childish approach to exploring what might have once been called the ruins of a broken city.

        He looks around. It is possible to think that there was never a city here in the first place. The shield shattered the mortar as surely as Rohder broke the world’s government. The Shield’s destruction murdered billions. But its fragments are magic, therefore they are worth collecting. Rohder was working on cracking their secrets too, but now he has forced himself into obligations that no man who wants to crack the secrets of the universe would wish upon himself.

        The sun suddenly catches his eye, causing him to flinch. He realizes that he is still on the ground, lost in thought. He gets up and shakes the little bits of dirt and grass off of his blue coat. His mane falls upon his eyes, leaving him seeing through the dirty blond curtain that surely made him look like something out of children’s show, maybe an ally of the Lynxoid brothers in one of their ridiculous serials. He blew it out of his eyes, accompanying it by a roll of his eyes.

        The sun is already setting, casting its queer mix of orange and purple across the horizon. After three thousand years of continuous daytime, maybe the natural  diurnal cycle was still getting to him.

        “We’ve got to keep moving. I think I see some shelter out in the distance.” He says. Anne looks at him with a bit of disbelief.

        “Okay then hotshot, are you finally trying to support your weight with those ridiculous eyes of yours?” He shrugs at her sarcastic comment about what he considers his most gorgeous feature.

        “Maybe they are useful for something.”

        She shrugs, there are many ways that she can continue making jokes, but they all suddenly seem to be overused.

        They walk for hours. Ron is right. After around ten miles, a large strangely colored structure juts out of the plains on the horizon. As the night progresses, the glow of torches lights an area near the ground and a more intense glow appeared at the top, rotating.  It swept out as a half-arch, looking like some kind of architectural experiment than a building that any person would consider constructing.

        On its side is a diminutive village lit by the archaic torches that the destitute have come to rely upon after the destruction of the city. It’s not so bad, Ron thinks, there are worse ways to light your house, like burning dung.

        “Do you think that the tower is supposed to resemble a lighthouse?” Ron says. Anne shrugs.

        “Do you think that despots don’t need to expand their labor force? It’s probably meant to follow all of the symbology which the lighthouse carries.” Her tone indicates her resentment of the existence of the warlords.

        “Well... They happen to be the main buyers of our sort of merchandise.” Ron feels that the warlords serve a useful function, even if they are generally corrupt and hateful. There would be nothing but warring tribes if they did not exist.

        They approach more closely. A spotlight shines on them, “What business do you have with Sudden Storm, lord of the Jebzi Plains?” The light prevents them from seeing the guard whose searchlight no doubt conceals something a lot less benign.

        “We are here to provide the finest fragments to Sudden Storm and his glorious regime.” The guard snickers and adjusts the searchlight so that it no longer aims directly at their eyes.

        “I doubt that he will have need for your wares, but he does wish that all of his... guests who do not wish to kill him be admitted.” He lowers the light. Spots dance in front of Ron’s eyes.

“I don’t like this.”  Anne whispers to him, repeating her warnings for the last twelve warlord clients. This one must be very powerful indeed to have guards that doubt that he has any reason to want to be more powerful. Or the guard is politically ignorant.

        The guard opens a door made out of some kind of polymer that was probably once the interior panels of an apartment. Not really the stuff of battleships or troop carriers. Most of the warlords owned doors that were covered in spikes, or made out of creatively reassembled troop carrier armor plates. This one had no use for such pretensions. Or he just wanted a shiny plastic door. These things could have many reasons, but only a certain set of characteristics out of that set would be the reason it was chosen.

        “Thank you for letting us in.” Anne says. Ron knows that she would rather never come here, but Rohder has no use for more Shield fragments. He caught all he would ever need when he saved his part of the world leaving the rest of it to die.

        The guard says nothing. He has no power over who comes in or who is killed. He probably does not care either way. He shrugs as they pass, nodding at her. Some sort of confirmation of gesture recognition, but not really acknowledging the thanks.

        The guard guides them towards a large open room, a huge crystalline metallic throne off in the distance. The guard motions to move on, the throne room is not the ultimate destination. Ron understands that this is probably a sign that the warlord is adapting suitably well to the timetable imposed by the sun, rather than the eight hour shifts that days were broken up into before Shieldfall.

        “I think he is probably doing fairly well.” Ron whispers to Anne.

        “No? Heonly has a palace that happens to be a giant piece of what we’re trying to sell him.”

        “That’s what you think this place is built from?” Ron looks around. It was possible, the metallic sheen underneath a thin coating of insulating plastic did not appear so dissimilar to the fragments that Ron carried on his back, but what a risk that the warlord was taking.

        However, living in such a large fragment would almost certainly lead to the kind of mutation that Ron had endured years ago.

        The guard gestures for them to stay where they are, they stand before a larger door than the one that led to the outside, it is made out of natural wood, probably walnut, deeply stained and affixed to large black hinges that swing it closed when the guard lets it go. The door oscillates two times before it remains shut.

        After a moment, the guard holds the door open and motions for them to come in. The guard walks out after nodding to the two of them. The room is lit by simple electric lighting, just light bulbs hanging from the plastic cover on the ceiling. In the center of the room is a long table that curves around in a way that seems like it should make serving a large number of guests difficult.

An orange coated Twisted stares at them amiably. Ron looks at him for a moment, and realizes that he has a horn. He thinks of all the warlords that he had met so far, none of them were like that. None of them were the Magi type.

“Ron, this person over there is a magi, he doesn’t even necessarily need this place to use his powers. Imagine what he can do with this place!” Anne’s voice becomes a shrill alarm. She nudges him.

        “Imagine what we can do for him? Not much, he wants to see us, so he probably won’t kill us. And in general, he’s so powerful, by your reasoning that I doubt that we could be a danger to him.” Ron says calmly. Anne looks at him like he is crazy.

        The sound of keratin on plastic clicks quietly towards them. “Hello merchants, what is it that you want to sell me? I doubt that I could ever have too many fragments.” He laughs.

        Ron suppresses a grimace, nonetheless he bows as much as a quadruped can bow. Anne joins him. It is a good routine, generally working quite excellently on the warlords whose egos need a bit of stroking. “We are here to offer the excellent Lord Sudden Storm our finest wares, needless and omnipotent as he may be.” This routine generally gets him some slack from warlords; they do enjoy when people kiss their feet, not literally though, there was that one time... Ron looks up, Sudden Storm is giving him a skeptical look, his left eyebrow raised.

        “Does that act work on other warlords? I can’t see it working all that often.” His voice is measured cooly, he is not offended.

        “Sorry about that, but you know, other warlords tend to be full of it. They really do enjoy when other people bend down before them and grovel at their feet.” Sudden Storm smiles. Ron feels a bit of success, perhaps a bit of optimism about the prospects of selling something to this man.

        “I would like to know the names of the merchants who try so very hard to flatter me.” His voice is amiable. His eyes do not show anything other than a meagre sort of surprise, indicating that he does not expect to be addressed in such a fashion.

        “I am Anne Blucal.” The warlord nods to her. She partially succeeds in her attempt to avoid making a sour face at the warlord.

        “I am Ron Krieger.” Sudden Storm’s eyes open wide and a smile comes upon his face.

        “I haven’t see you in years,” Sudden Storm says, eyes filled with mirth, “When did you change?”

        Ron answers quickly, but is a bit offended, in general, it is more polite to not ask questions, or acknowledge that you have changed. The appearance of ambivalence towards life changing events is a sign of thorough understanding of their implication.“Just before Shieldfall.”

        “Did you ever get the hang of being a mage?” Now not many people knew him for that. Not many that lived in any case.

        “Thomas Del. I thought you died during Shieldfall.”

        “Please, refer to me as Sudden Storm.” Ron wonders if he will go on to answer his question.

Sudden Storm smiles, “No, I’m too smart for that, though I was almost crushed by this fragment here.” Ron decides that his story is probably on the list of most terrifying Shieldfall experiences.

        “No kidding?” Ron attempts to suppress his intense interest, he still needs to come off as professional.

        “Yeah.” Sudden Storm’s eyes roll upwards in the manner of someone recalling the events, “I wasn’t in its direct path, but it was quite something to watch; it flattened the surrounding city block as if it wasn’t there. After it stopped glowing with heat, I touched it, and suddenly found myself like this.” This information is not surprising, while there are not many twisted of his persuasion, they tend to have similar stories, about touching something highly charged with plasm, suddenly finding themselves different. It was not instantaneous, no, it was far slower, taking hours. A grizzly process, or so says those who have witnessed it.

        “Well then... What have you been up to? As a warlord I mean.”

        “Just trying to keep others from stealing this fragment, I doubt that they would be safe, or that the world would be safe from people that could use it. Hence the plastic.” He gestures to the walls and ceiling which crinkle as if to accentuate his point, “Anyway, who’s your friend?”

        “I’m Anne, just like I told you a minute ago..” The irritation was plain enough. Anne does not like warlords, she also harbors a deep instinctual distrust of anyone who Ron can call a “friend”.

        “Sorry, I must have forgotten when I realized that I tried unsuccessfully to teach this  blundering plasm user here.” He pauses for a moment, remembering that he had to do something, “I was actually interested in obtaining some smaller fragments, I need a safer source of plasm for my guests, I can’t just give them access to the palace structure, it would twist them.”

        Ron’s eyes glint, “This isn’t so bad.”

 Sudden Storm shrugs. “I agree, but it still remains as a health hazard. Those who are not proficient with plasm are dangerous to those around them in the quantities that this fragment generates.”

Silence hung in the air. Ron did not bring up the fact that Thomas was a mage who was, as revealed by the Rohder’s & Friends investigation into Shieldfall, very connected to the actions that brought it down.

        Sensing an interruption, Anne finally found a way to end the irritating drivel of the inane small talk that threatened to bore her to sleep. “Are we going to do business, or can I assume that you two are going to get a room?” Anne made her irritation plain. Their interactions are too droll, too boring, the information contained in them like an overbearing blur, for her to have any desire, or ability, to focus on it.

        “Why don’t I offer you two your own rooms and let you get some sleep. I know I need some before we discuss business.” His eyes glow slightly followed by a scant green illumination of his horn. A guard appears behind him, a slight glow also emanating from his eyes.

        “I’m here to take you to your rooms.” The guard’s voice was monotone: he sounded like he had been on duty for the last year. “Please follow me.” He presses a hand gently on Anne’s shoulder and gestures in the direction that they are to move.

        The guard takes them up a winding staircase through a tunnel that extended to the very top, with a simple spiral staircase hewn out of the alien material that makes up the fragment. After a few hundred steps, nobody desires to know the exact count- immaterial as it is for any purpose, the guard gestures to the left, where the tunnel wall curved away into a replicate of any given sewage pipe. An inversion of the natural space man makes for his own dwelling for all of his personal world is based on the fact that there are walls and floors, a place for standing and a place for hanging the memories, or barriers.

 For habitation, there is no excuse for there being no clear division between the floor and the wall. The guard pressures them forwards into the tunnel, into which two niches are cut out straight, creating the impression that this place was forced into habitation rather than constructed with that purpose in mind. Considering the lack of rubble outside of the fragment, the strange incongruity that existed here must have been the manner that it was originally constructed in.

“These are your rooms. Lord Sudden Storm would like to wish that you two enjoy your time here, mostly that you sleep well.” His eyes were mostly closed, his gestures towards the rooms remarkably clumsy. Something was not right with him.

The guard walks away, carefully navigating the steps downwards.

“There is something wrong here.” Anne says. “More than just the warlord I mean, that guard was  more like something from Tales of the Undead than someone from the world of the living.”

        “You know that it could be something else, maybe he is still adjusting to having a day-night cycle again, maybe our arrival forced him to stay awake. Something else. I mean, you don’t think that Sudden Storm is a Slaver Mage, right?” Ron does not believe that it should be possible, he knew Thomas Del fairly well before Shieldfall.

        “There is something deeply wrong with that guard. Did you ever think that Sudden Storm would stoop to that kind of level? I don’t want to doubt your judgement, but that guard looked like he was being controlled, he had the glowing eyes and everything.

        Ron is at a loss for words. He understands that Anne is probably right about the guard. The symptoms of slaver control do include the otherwise rarely heard of “glowing eyes” effect, and the tired look, and the absolute lack of engagement in whatever task they are involved in, but why would Thomas Del do that? He has everything a warlord needs to go about commanding his minions without using mind control.

        “I can’t imagine why he would do something like that though. He certainly has no need to control people like that. That guard at the gate seemed like he was engaged, well on his own control, proud to be serving his lord as well as he is able to.” Ron says, “That guard was being controlled. I don’t think it was Sudden Storm.”

        Anne shook her head, “If you believe that the guard was not being controlled by him, then maybe if you don’t mind risking your life telling an asshole whose powers are easily capable of vaporizing you without even expending effort, and whose ego may very well be as large as the fragment he lives in, that his guards are being controlled without his knowledge, then go ahead.

“ I doubt that he will say anything helpful.” Her tone becomes sharp as she reaches her conclusion, “I will go out to the village a little way from the fragment, I’ll ask around. Sudden Storm doesn’t quite seem like the kind of warlord who posts guards everywhere, he does not seem to have any strong distrust of his own subjects, so they will likely tell me about him.”

        “I don’t like this, but you’re right, as always.”

Anne smiles at him. “Sometimes I think I’m getting through that optimistic head of yours. Maybe one day you’ll understand why I suspect the worst from people out here.”

        “I would hate to see you be proven right.”

        “It doesn’t matter, that’s why I will be right eventually. Anyway Ron, try not to break your nose when you fall.” Her smirk still stings him a bit. Somehow, he realizes, that he has not yet hardened to her insults.

        Ron and Anne give each other nods in a sort of tacit agreement to return to this place, or to each other presences at an undefined point in their futures.

Ron steps into his room, the one on the left side. In it is a hardwood bed that has had sheets draped over it in a tasteful fashion that seems to imply the presence of professional housekeepers, rather than the dutiful commitment to order that the supposedly military guards should have. A large window opens to show the glittering stars in the night, flanked with the more regular, but less spectacular torches that light the village nearby; the one where Anne is probably going to be subject to more scrutiny than Ron would ever want to go through himself.

Ron still wonders why such a space would exist in the Shield mechanism. Maybe Sudden Storm had done it on his own, or perhaps, it was done by conscripted workers from the village that probably owes its current existence to him in some way. Perhaps, he muses, Sudden Storm saved the village from the raider invasion four years ago that put the village in jeopardy.

Hopefully, he ponders further, that the village was founded by the followers of Sudden Storm, whose loyalty to him never needed testing, that he led them to their best interests when the world changed five years ago.

Ron decides then that if he stays up for any longer, he will be a mess in the morning. As much as he trusts that his old friend Sudden Storm would be okay with Ron not looking like a professional merchant explorer, Ron knows that looking presentable makes it easier to convince people that he is right.

He gets up on the bed excavates a way into the sheets which are tightly wrapped around the bed: most definitely the work of a professional housekeeper, and drifts off into the darkness.

Six Years ago, Caraqui

Six years ago, Caraqui

The Shieldlight glanced off shining black spires of the hundreds of mage towers that made up the majority of the metropolis. All built in the fulfillment of the New City movement, promising affordable, plasm-generating housing for the homeless. It had gone wonderfully: The last four hundred years were successful by any measure.

The New city movement captured the hearts and minds of billions.

I drew in on my cigarette. I thought it fitting that it was all fueled by his own work. Fractional Interval Theory allowed ever increasing amounts of plasm to be generated without the significant expense of building new structures. I frowned at the sensation of a cool breeze pushing through my suit. The plasm had then been invested into hermetic transformations of existing structures. Buildings that existed previously could then be modified to generate ever increasing amounts of plasm.

I exhaled, blowing a stream of smoke out into the city. Finally, the plasm went to building new structures that were far more efficient at generating plasm than even the hermetically improved ones. My cigarette went out, put out by the first drop of rain in the storm. An event with a very low probability by any estimate.

                Plasm advertisements flickered overhead, without the report, or flashiness that had defined advertisements of the previous centuries. It was a different age perhaps.

Gulman Shoes, the source of Ninety-nine percent of the world’s luxury shoes, why would you not buy a pair?

                The messages remained the same: Who are you to not buy our product?

                That had not been enough of course. It never was.

 The sweeping arcs of aerocars flung up by plasm glided downwards, lights shining in the distance.  I wonder how many of them think about the source of their newfound wealth. At the thought, I gave a sigh as the rain pattered upon my head, seeking my attention as so many people once did.  life was too easy now.

I coughed. The world around him seemed to have been pacified by the ubiquity of such magic. Even the dangers that once came with it, the burning man sweeping fire and heat up and down the streets, killing thousands with fires that burnt the plasm itself from the materials of the buildings, disappeared from daily life. Availability implies safety, the ability to learn how to use plasm under the careful and cautious eyes of mage, that everyone can become a mage. Nothing scary seemed to happen anymore. Natural disasters were still around, but what could I do about that? Not much without risking far more.

              When I swept my gaze out upon the city, the copper statue of Constantine, jubilant in one of his many moods, sparkled before the rain could occlude it with its fog. The shining copper shape of Constantine swept as tall as any of the buildings. I rolled my eyes as I thought of the evil that man allowed to exist.

                A symbol of liberty, but how many could say that they knew of Taikoen, the hanged man? Constantine was the death of Cheloki. Yet he was also the supplier of the Barkazil Savior. He glanced up to the white light of the Shield. The penetrator of the Shield.

I finally turned back towards my balcony door, frowning at the thought of Aiah. The woman was special. She was the counterpoint to Constantine. Whereas he was a powerhouse, a brazen, man whose integrity was not as strong as it seemed, she was the manipulator in the shadows, brazen nonetheless, but unwilling to compromise her ideals, suddenly, as soon as she dove into the shadows, she lept out as the sun.

 It was Aiah that collected the force behind the Barkazil revival movement three centuries ago. With her involvement, the fame of the New City movement spread, infecting the metropoli across the world.

The New City movement was based on the belief that the availability of plasm and the stockpiling of such would be the stock that people hold in government, the government’s regulation of the economy, and the reason behind all economic and social growth.

 The element of change is plasm, it was, as Constantine said, the manifestation of reality, thus it could make anything real.

Another plasm display flew overhead, drawing attention with its gently pulsing colors.

The makers of Snap! The World Drink,  celebrate another fifty years of progress and peace, may there be another fifty.

                I drew upon my resolve and hastened inwards away from the biting impetulance of the rain. I still had other things to do.

                Plasm displays roared overhead blatantly disregarding either sense or reason. It was to my knowledge, a poor neighborhood. Well, relatively poor. There was not much of the sort of poverty that existed while Constantine still drew his breath, but it was the site of a depression. A sudden loss of interest in development that led to it being ignored in the process of rebuilding the city into the present dream of the fanged mage towers scraping against the shield simply by existing. As a result, they were straight buildings. Their corners were really corners. Their walls would show a constant angle upwards of 90 degrees. Things that make life easier if you want to hang pictures.

Mutant incidence increases another point oh four percent. Experts say that plasm involvement has been ruled out. Read more on The Wire!

                Advertising was still no different in the poorer areas. The plasm displays still came during sleep-shift with loud reports that were universally denigrated in every manual about plasm use, at least the ones I authored.

                She looked down from her shoddy cast-iron balcony. A product of a time when this area was considered a prosperous area, left to rust in the rain.

                On the street below where the unusually uniform mutants twisted by plasm exposure spent much of their all too cheap time. They waited for the next meal to start at her restaurant, the enigmatically named “Pony’s Progress”.

 This particular type of twisted were fortunate that they lived in a time when such people were accepted. That is, those with twisted genetics. Of course, it was generally easy to find out what kind they were. This type just appeared one day, and their numbers have been growing ever since.

The mutations had taken from them the ability to stand upright and have fingers. Furry little quadrupeds that supposedly resembled things called horses, whatever a horse was. She found them kind enough, despite their absurd color schemes, oversized eyes that conveyed emotions painfully well, and the marks on their rear that were supposedly tied inextricably to what they were good at. She smirked at the concept. The one time where your ass might be as good as business card.

                “We’re open again! Come on inside and get some you degenerates!” She yelled down to them. They weren’t degenerates by any measure; they maintained healthy relationships, and avoided excessive crime, and even managed to do good work. Somehow. She never really watched them closely enough to figure out how they picked up things or did work like construction. They looked up to her and laughed before shuffling inside.

        A smaller, white one, with a wrench on its flank, looked up to her and projected its surprisingly strong voice at her, “Thanks, Khora!” She simply smiled and nodded before going back inside.

        The room’s floor was covered in red overlapping circles with green overlapping pisces. The tables where the twisted sat were metal, the radius sat at about two feet, manufactured with the intent of serving two people, being used to serve four of these twisted.

        Khora, seeing the other tables unoccupied, decided that as both waitress and part-proprietor, it was her duty to check with them, “You are aware that there are free tables, right?”

        “We’re doing a debate.” A yellow twisted, a man judging by voice, offered as an explanation. “Whoever wins gets to sit with this lady” He gestured towards what, no doubt, was, for them, a beautiful female creature, with his right ah... hoof. To Khora, she simply appeared to be a slightly more rounded variety of the same type, a white one. The lady blushed and giggled. “With a woman like this, we figure that we have to prove our intelligence.” The other two nodded with him. Khora looked over all of them, a blue one with a gem on its rear smiled easily, a red one with a fruit icon looked at ease, and the yellow one oleaginous, with a slicked back patch of black hair on his head. Khora decided that she did not like this one.

        “I wasn’t asking about your motivations.” She suppressed a shudder at what she believed that he might mean. “Are you okay with this? Ma'am?” She nodded, nevertheless, Khora felt uneasy about this. It was almost if masculine nature had been altered by whatever wayward plasm could change. “Anyway, were you going to want to order something, or just debate?”

        “I’d like your daily special. And to drink, if you have it, snap.” The supposed female said. The woman’s concerns about the restaurant stocking the most popular drink in the world (behind water) were somewhat strangely placed, but the more interesting person here is Khora, whose dark brown locks of curly bright blond hair were the envy of all the neighborhood.

        “Sure, Squab with a side of Jebzi style noodles, a Snap.”

        “Actually, do you happen to have something other than squab?” Khora stared at her. It was unfortunate, she thought, that each of these people were giving her reasons to dislike them.

        “Yes. I think it is possible to substitute potato or some soy based replacement, but are you sure that I can’t tempt you with a vat grown chicken?”

        “I haven’t been able to eat meat for a while now.”

        “Oh. I’m sorry then. Would soy work as a substitute?” These twisted were getting stranger every day. Of course, that would not do as a reason to ignore their issues.

        “Certainly.” She smiled at Khora. “Sorry about the trouble.”

        “No problem. I’ll be back with your food. And you debaters, call me when you’ve figured out who’s sitting with whom.”

        She walked away and ended up in the kitchen, where she was pressed with the difficult task of figuring out where she could buy vegetarian steaks.

        “Now the subject of debate is the best first course of action to take outside the Shield.” The yellow one grinned greasily, a symptom of being oleaginous.

        “Do we know what’s out there?” The red one asked.

        “Well... There seem to be other planets, many stars very far away, rocks... Most of the things we have here, except that it is largely uninhabited.” Nessa said.

        “Well naturally, mankind will set aside a beautiful planet for every variety of Twisted-” The Red one offered smiling before the yellow one interrupted him.

        “But they want it for themselves! They’re more likely to make new varieties of Twisted just to serve them up there.” The yellow one said gloomily acknowledging the human condition.

        “Well... Anyway, we’ll end up getting rich off the mineral rights on those trillions of rocks.” The blue one said. His eyes sparkled in the light of the shield. The others stared at him. “What? It’s what I think will happen. It also happens perfect for a mage with my skills.”

        “This is a debate, not a question about fantasies.” The yellow one responded.

        “Fen, I know that you don’t like Cornelius here, but he might have a point to make, if he can back it up.”

        “Oh! Sure! And a banker knows about the future of mining! Suck it up Demodocus!”

        “I’m a terrible banker, besides this is turning into a stupid argument where we fight over nothing.”

        “I think that Cornelius is right because, the world needs mineral resources for all of our future endeavors, including yours Demodocus, whether it is banking or starting a farm to last you into retirement, you will need the materials all the same. Fen, just because you are a banker doesn’t mean that you understand the future. Not even investment bankers possess that power” Nessa’s smile did not waiver. I doubt that she had any doubt about whom she would allow to win.

        Fen and Demodocus looked at each other. “So does that mean that we’ve lost?”

        “Yes.”

        Khora walked back into the room. “I managed to find some soy steak, would that work?”

        Nessa nodded. The Demodocus and Fen walked away to another table.

        “And since you seem to be the lucky man today, what is it that you want to order?”

        “Can I get a menu?”

        “You’ve been here for half an hour. You never thought to look at a menu during that time?” Cornelius nodded, “Even when you were making some of the most tepid points that I’ve ever heard?” Cornelius nodded again,  “Wow. Are you sure that you want to talk to this one?” Nessa nodded her head. “Then I hope that you two will enjoy your meal.”

The twisted pipes of the Shield mechanism glittered in the distance.  Their concentric circles fought with the triangular foci for dominance of the overall shape.

The stars themselves seemed to carry their nature into the girdle of gleaming metal that was responsible for the Shield. It had as much mass as all of the cities put together, all going towards generating the plasm used to create and maintain the Shield. At some point its mysterious creators introduced holes that would open and let things come in and out. It was not easy to find them, the Shield, being a hundred miles above the surface of the earth, was hard to see clearly. Its ridges and imperfections could be detected only by throwing things at it, while watching painfully through a telescope.

I reoriented my sensorium towards the mass that was being synthesized by teams of mages at every opportunity while the hole was open. The hole held for around four minutes every four months. Hundreds of mages directed their energies to create matter out of nothing. After three hundred years of working on it, the object was about the size of a city block, but made out of solid granite.

        I was, for once in my long life having a difficult time deciding what to do with it. Perhaps the initial plan was to build it and fling it at the mechanism of the shield. Maybe there was some kind of ambition to build a forward base above the shield. In any case, I was the only one with the ability to make the decision.

        The woman in the moon, in all her pallor, grinned at me, her eyes opened wide and in them was the impossible darkness of the unconnected . Her words assaulted me with a fury that nothing genial should be able to possess. A statement about something about her. You will join us soon enough.

I felt a wave of terror, This is the way yourworld ends, laughing off into the distance, the shield closed, clamping down on my sensorium. The inevitable waves of fire which drew their sensation from the shield, crawled upon my skin.