Be Welcome to the Seat of the Council.

[Harry Dresden]

The air rushed by as the winged horses bearing Samus and Harry winged their way towards Edinburgh. The city that the White Council inhabited. Rather, the city that housed the tunnels underneath Edinburgh. The ley line convergence would've allowed Harry to find it, eventually. After a lot of trial and error. Assuming that it still had a ley line convergence in the Omniverse. It was much better to get a ride from these soldiers, especially since the armored woman on the second mount was unconscious. The captain in front of Harry was stoic, and Cauthon was too busy keeping the unconscious Samus in the saddle. Harry didn't feel like breaking the silence. He kept casting nervous looks around, looking for the dragons that had flown away from the cave. He'd gathered a modicum of energy, but not enough to actually defend himself if either of those came after them.

[Harry Dresden]

The flight continued in the same silence it had for the past ten minutes before the ruins of Edinburgh came into view. Harry called out over the wind; "What's wrong with this place, anyway?" The captain turned in the saddle, calling back to the wizard in response. "Edinburgh was a forward base for Diablo's forces in the war. Honest folks don't want anything to do with anything about Diablo. Why d'you wanna go there, shorty?" Harry leveled his best glare at the back of the man's head. "Quiet. Rest. The city of Edinburgh holds a lot for wizards back where I come from, and maybe some of it's still here." The captain nodded, visibly relaxed. This Diablo character must have been bad news. "As good a reason as any. Hold on tight, I'm taking her down.

Harry thought he'd vomit up his kidneys as the pegasus kicked into a dive. He held on to the saddle for dear life, clenching his jaw shut and trying not to puke. When he opened his eyes again, the captain was looking up at his from the ground, an amused grin on his face. He slid off the flying horse with deliberate care. Before he could think of something suitably sarcastic to say to the captain, he spoke up. "We're not leaving her alone here." He jerked his head to the armored woman, still unconscious and slumped against a ruined building. They were on the outskirts of the Edinburgh ruins. Harry nodded his agreement. "Sounds good. Either of you got paper? The pair looked at him, confused. "You're a prime, just summon some. Focus on what you need, and let the Omnilium take care of the rest."

That was an interesting concept. The day was just strange enough that the wizard actually shut up to try it. Focusing on a legal-sized pad of paper, he felt something like when he'd summoned the bike earlier. "So, this works with things besides bikes. Good to know." Five minutes later, he had a pad of paper and a stack of metal stakes. He sketched a hasty note on the pad and tore off the piece of paper it was on, handing it to the captain. It read thus;

"Off exploring. You're in Edinburgh, a short ways from Minas Tirith according to the soldiers. Follow the stakes to find me when you wake up. I never caught your name.

-Harry Dresden"

"Hand that to her when she wakes up, please." Without waiting for a response, the wizard strode into the ruins, driving the first stake into a ruined wall. He continued fairly deep into the city, leaving one of the metal spikes in a wall every couple blocks. They shone in the sunlight; a trail of beacons for the bounty hunter to follow. A pentacle carved into a huge trapdoor in the ground next to a building caught his attention about ten blocks into the ruined city. The door was in better shape than most of the city, and he flipped it open with his staff, leaving a spike buried in the open door and descending the stairs it revealed. Sure enough, the familiar tunnels outside the Hidden Halls of Edinburgh awaited him. He'd memorized the confusing tunnels, but he continued leaving his trail of spikes right up until he reached the end of the tunnel.

The problem that presented itself; it was just the end of the tunnel. The Halls weren't here. "What was it that that guy said, just focus on what I need?" That Omnilium stuff had power, that was for certain. Harry focused on a solid brick of it, and sure enough, the rainbow-colored substance coalesced into a shining ingot of Omnilium after about five minutes. He extended his senses towards the brick and assessed how much energy it had. It wasn't an insignificant amount, but for what Harry intended, he needed a bit more. He cast his observation inward, finding a surprising reserve of the stuff inside him, defiant of the exhaustion the rest of him felt. Harry summoned some chalk, using the time it took to calm himself in preparation for a ritual, drew and closed a circle beneath him, sat himself on the floor and began ordering his thoughts.

First thing he needed; the gate. It stood tall, taking up the entire height of the 30-foot cavern on the immediate opposite side of this wall. Then the Halls themselves; various barracks, bedrooms, meeting halls, and paths that took up the space before the High Council's chambers. The chambers and the Ostentatory were still larger, expanding into the mountainside. Harry examined his memory, calling up every detail of the Halls that he knew and quite a few that he just invented to fill in the gaps. He spent a good hour constructing the blueprint of the Halls in his mind. Then he added a small door in the back of the Ostentatory, replacing the Merlin's tower with a humble stairway down into a simple Chicago apartment. His own, to be precise. The small bedroom with his full-sized bed, his living room with its comfortable furniture, his kitchen with the wood-burning stove, Pre-WWII-icebox and pile of dry hickory, and the sub-basement lab hidden under a trapdoor hidden under a pentacle-shaped rug. It must have taken several hours to assemble all these details; when Harry finally stood, liquid Omnilium swirling around him in a dense cloud, his knees groaned in protest, reminding him that people weren't supposed to sit in that position for that long. Ignoring the familiar post-ritual protest of his leg joints, Harry broke the circle.

The effect of the summoning was immediate. The Omnilium rushed forward, boring through the tunnel walls and replacing them with the reality that he'd constructed carefully in his mind. Harry let out a low whistle as, a half-hour later, the last of the Omnilium constructed the massive gates of the Hidden Halls of Edinburgh. He knew he wouldn't be able to create wards as strong as the real Halls' own protection, but he didn't feel safe until he actually cast some protections on the gates. He walked up to them and realized that the residual Omnilium was practically waiting for him to do something like that. He took out one of the metal stakes and spent a good half hour carving distinct symbols into the door; Norse runes, mock heiroglyphs of his cat and dog, and several other images that he didn't think made any sense but were certainly distinct from one another. After a few minutes, the Omnilium seemed to anticipate what he was trying to do, creating even more symbols that Harry hadn't even thought of. Once the last of the energy from the summoning dissipated, Harry tapped out the key combination on the door with his staff; first the pentacle, then the picture of Mouse, then the one of Mister. The gates creaked open, and the wizard left them such as he stepped inside, leaving the stakes sticking out of torch brackets until he reached the Worry Room. Satisfied with his work and rather winded from the massive summoning, he sank into one of the plush armchairs with a bottle of ale that couldn't really hold a candle to Mac's, but still tasted good all the same.

[Samus Aran]

Samus jolted in and out of consciousness as the alarm bells of her Power Suit whined in her ears.

BARRIER MATRIX COMPROMISED

She saw the sunlight filter past the message and swung herself around, gasping and staggering to her feet. Voices cried out and men in armor moved to grab her as her instincts blindly looked for the enemy.

Gone.

The alarm still blared. She half-heard a voice saying:

“Calm down. You took a bad hit. Just calm down!”

She regained her lucidity. And with that, seethed. “Fuck!” she swore, for the first time in a long time.

The men let her go and took a step back. Samus hissed, shook her hand and sank back down onto the ground, laying back despite the discomfort. Her head was thundering. Quickly she disabled the Power Suit’s alarm and closed her eyes. “She got me,” muttered the hunter.

Why, she still didn’t know. Hadn’t they all come for the dragon? Or had that woman come for something else? Wherever she was now, all of the others had gone. There was nobody to explain it to her.

The soldiers had taken a step back at the hunter’s sudden display of emotion. None of them seemed sure of what to do. Until the captain cleared his throat, brandishing a piece of paper at the woman. “Here,” he said, interrupting her self-admonishment.

The woman’s eyes snapped open and she took the paper, reading it hungrily. Metal stakes … her eyes searched the area until they landed upon the first, rammed into the wall of a dilapidated building.

Samus didn’t like it. First she got knocked out, then this Harry Dresden wanted her to follow the golden breadcrumbs. It reeked of a trap. Where was Proto Man? He was the only one of the bunch she trusted. If he was nearby, she’d get answers.

She addressed the captain. “You didn’t happen to see that robot kid come out of the cave, did you? ‘Bout this high, red helmet? He’s got one of these.” She pointed to her own arm cannon.

[Proto Man]

The preteen’s quest was at an end soon after it had begun. While he’d managed to scale the cliff through some bizarre mixture of will and leaping, Cindy and her dragon mount had a ludicrous head start by the time he managed to pull his dirty, armored figure up over the edge of the gorge. With his eyes pinned to the slowly receding golden figure in the sky, Proto Man had tried to give chase. Because he was a machine, he knew he could have kept going without worrying about exhaustion or muscle acidosis, and it was that mentality that pushed him forward even after the mountainside gave way back to trees.

Despite his advantage, both the computer and the boy knew he’d never ever match the speed of a flying dragon. So it was with that thought in mind that he stopped chasing after the fleeing woman. At the end of the day, he knew he wasn’t okay with just letting her backstab them over a gold trinket, but Cindy couldn’t hide where he wouldn’t be able to track her down. I will find you.

Turning back toward the mountainside, Proto Man retrieved his whistle and played his favorite melody. While it had always soothed him down, it now served the function of summoning his mount and ally to his side. After a few chords, the armored chocobo strutted up from the mountain and gave him the closest thing to a smile it could. When it noted the tense expression on the lower half of his face, the bird came over and gave him a reassuring pat on the back with one of its large yellow wings.

“You’re a strange bird, Salsa,” Proto Man said as a smile spread across his youthful face. Climbing back into the saddle, he directed her back toward the gorge up the mountain. “We need to make sure that everyone is okay.”

“Kweh!”

He didn’t know how long he had been gone, but when he returned to the former lair of the dragons, Proto Man saw that most of the people had cleared out. Ganondorf, Link, Harry, and all the others had vacated what was now a makeshift crypt for the rotting reptiles. Fortunately for Proto Man, a cadre of knights remained at the scene.

“Hey, it’s the boy knight!” One of them exclaimed, clearly pleased to see Proto Man. “You’re the little guy who chased off that bounty hunter, right?”

Although he was offended at being called a ‘little guy,’ Proto Man swallowed his pride for the moment. “Yea, that’s me. Hey, do you guys know what happened to Samus? She was the woman in the orange suit or armor.”

When the first knight failed to produce an answer, one of his comrades butted in to the conversation. “The wizard took her with him. Someplace outside Minas Tirith… I think Biggs or Wedge knows where.”

With a nod, Proto Man went to find the two knights, who seemed more intent on bickering with one another to respond to his attempts to get their attention. Once he fired off a round of plasma into the ceiling, they were more than willing to lead him to where they figured Harry had gone.

Before leaving, the robot walked over to the Rathian and removed its head, which was missing one of its canines for reasons he could only theorize about. It was grisly, but he knew that everyone in the Community Center would get a kick out of it. And who knows, maybe it would deter a few of the daily attacks that befell the sanctuary. Once he’d strapped the trophy to a clearly unhappy chocobo, he sent Salsa back toward the Nexus and rode on the back of Biggs’ Pegasus.

It was a few hours before the trio arrived at the ruins. Fortunately for the two knights, Samus was easy enough to find.

“Samus!” Proto Man shouted, trying to hide his relief that the woman hadn’t been critically injured by the hammer blow. Despite being battered and smashed in several places, she still wore her suit of armor. That fact, along with what he’d learned of the Imperial Space Marines from Hiberius, made the android wonder if she lived perpetually in the suit of armor just like those hulking men from the Imperium.

“Proto Man?” The woman replied, turning on wobbly legs to look down at the youth. “What happened? Where’d Cindy go?”

A scowl spread across the preteen’s visage. “She knocked you out over a golden egg that summons a dragon. I tried to teach her that she shouldn’t be so rude… I gave her a welt or two before she pulled out said dragon and escape to wherever it is she schemes.” Although he was trying not to, it was obvious from the boy’s tone that he couldn’t stand the woman.

“Hrm,” Samus growled. Whether she was angry about being attacked or about losing something of value, Proto Man couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll stay with you until you feel more like yourself,” the prototype Robot Master assured the bounty hunter. “Do you have any idea where you’ll be heading next.”

With that, Samus produced a note that told her to follow some metal stakes to some Scottish place. “The wizard left me this note, but I’m not sure what to do about it.”

“Well I’ll go with you, if you’d like,” Proto Man offered as he looked at the first metal stake ahead of them.

[Proto Man]

“So what do you two know about this place?” Proto Man asked, his attention on Biggs and Wedge, who had stuck around to explore the ruined town.

Biggs, the taller and thinner of the two knights, shrugged his shoulders as he lifted up his face guard to reveal a relatively young-looking face. “It’s just a bunch of decaying buildings. I think there used to be a small garrison here to prevent it from becoming a nesting ground for monsters or anti-monarchists, but I don’t think they’ve bothered for a while. For whatever reason, everyone just seems to steer clear of this place.”

As he surveyed what was left of the area, the robot wondered why there was no interest in the sight. Sure, it was falling apart, but there had to be some deeper story. Due to its proximity to the Kingdom’s capital, he found it hard to believe they would just leave the dead city to fester in the shadows of the mountain.

“So no one’s explored this place?” Proto Man asked as his system updated his maps of Camelot.

“I’m sure more than a few people have,” Biggs responded matter-of-factly as he poked the metal stake embedded into the stone surface. “Obviously someone was just here pounding stakes into everything.”

“Well what are we waiting for?” Proto Man replied, ducking under the knight and making his way down the cramped side street. Behind him, Biggs and Wedge followed, and a few paces behind them, Samus covered the rear. The badly beaten woman remained silent, obviously still mulling over the fallout of the day’s earlier events.

The stakes led the quartet deeper into the ruined town. Each time they traversed a crossroad or skirted around an alleyway, Proto Man expected a feral creature or a gang of highwaymen to assail them. Despite his apprehensions, the group remained unmolested as they pressed further into Edinburgh. After about a mile and a half, they found a stake nailed into the wall above a trapdoor marked with a sort of religious symbol.

“Have any significance to anyone?” The preteen inquired, turning to face the two locals. Neither Biggs or Wedge had anything to offer, and Proto Man doubted that Samus came from a universe where religion or pagan ideologies warranted much study. “Okay then,” he added as he bent down and threw open the wooden hatch. Beneath them, a ladder connected the street to something halfway between a sewer and a mining tunnel.

Leading the way once more, Proto Man found more stakes that led them through what might have otherwise been an incoherent maze of tunnels. After a few minutes, he started to wonder where exactly the trail of metaphorical breadcrumbs would lead them. Fortunately for him, they rounded a corner and were confronted with a set of giant, glyph-covered gates just as he began to question where they were going.

Said gates were cracked open wide enough for two or three adults to pass through at the same time.

“How do we know this isn’t a trap?” Biggs inquired, turning to look at Samus, who he probably figured would be more rational than the young boy.

“That’s half the fun,” the prototype Robot Master shouted as he passed over the threshold and into what lay beyond the gates.

[Harry Dresden]

Harry was as relaxed as he'd ever been since he'd shown up to this Omniverse. He'd finished his beer and even had time to settle down for a nap. The plush chairs of the Worry Room were perfect for such a use, by design. This was the room that Wardens came to when they needed to fret over something, or stop fretting over something with the help of everyone's best friends; Captain Morgan and e@gg Jim Beam. As such, the decor was distinctly comfortable, and the chairs were grouped seemingly at random; in the real Halls, the Wardens were free to move them as needed to group up and drink together or brood alone in corners.

The peace went away as a sudden feeling, as though someone were prodding him in the shoulder, woke him. The wards around the door had allowed someone through, but that was expected. The fact that there were four people passing through the gates instead of one made him slightly more nervous.The armored woman and the two guards made three. Who was number four? Harry took up his staff and held his blasting rod in hand as he strode through the halls, memory guiding his steps as he approached the entryway, where the kid from earlier had joined the three he had expected to be here.

Harry struck his staff on the floor, readying Soulfire. The smell of woodsmoke permeated the air as flickers of crimson flame seemed to be chased out of the wood by the blue fires of his own soul. Remnants of that sorcerer's Hellfire, being cleaned out of his staff by the Soulfire. That really did bear looking into. Harry raised his voice across the large hall in the wake of the resounding echo, blue light filling the area around him. "Not that I don't trust everyone here, but from what I've seen this 'Omniverse' is Backstab Central. I'm more than happy to have a conversation just as soon as I know who I'm talking to. Particularly you two with the arm lasers. I'll even go first. My name is Harry Dresden, and I'm the only openly practicing wizard in Chicago. Ad's in the Yellow Pages and everything."

[Proto Man]

The robot furrowed his brow as he glanced around for some indication of where the speaker was hidden. When it became obvious the disembodied voice was probably somewhere physically removed from the chamber, he shrugged his shoulders.

"Well I'm Proto Man. You know...that person you were just fighting alongside earlier today? I believe we exchanged names between fireballs. This is Samus, she got struck with a giant hammer. The two soldiers are natives called Biggs and Wedge."

Before Harry could get a response in, the damaged bounty hunter stepped forward, showcasing the crumpled note to anyone who might be watching the room through a screen or something. "You left me a note, so I followed your breadcrumbs. Would you like to tell me the point of this all? I've had a long day, if you can imagine."

[Harry Dresden]

Harry released the magic he'd been calling into his staff as Proto Man made the rounds with introductions. The scent of smoke faded with the blue light. He'd need to do something to clean out that Hellfire. Last time he'd used it, the smell of woodsmoke had lingered for a month. He pocketed his blasting rod and walked closer as Samus questioned him about the note. "I'm completely lost, that's what this is about. I'd like a few answers, but first I need to be sure you both are who you say you are. There's a lot of things that look human when they aren't." Harry's first impulse was to open his Sight, and honestly he was out of other ideas. This would be easier once he lived here a while, and had a threshold up to stop things like that from getting in uninvited.

Harry took a deep breath and prepared himself to open the Sight, a wizard's Third Eye, but it didn't work. He shook his head and muttered something, and tried again. The results were the same. Nothing changed. "Stars and stones, what's wrong with this place? Never heard of something that could block the Sight before." He didn't use his Sight often; anything he Saw was burned into his mind permanently. It wasn't something one did lightly. Still, having the option taken away from him was unconfortable. "Show me some of your blood. Shapeshifters don't usually bleed red. It's not my preferred test, but in absence of holy water, sunshine, and iron, it's the least invasive thing I can do. No personal offense meant, if you aren't lying. Paranoia has saved my life in the past, I don't like ignoring it when it comes to things like this."

[Proto Man]

Silence filled the chamber as the individuals in the same group mulled over the demand.

“No,” Samus remarked, throwing the piece of paper toward Harry. “I don’t need to prove anything. You can check your own handwriting, and then you tell me what I’m doing here. Last time I checked, I was the one knocked unconscious by a hammer.”

Wincing beneath his visor at the woman’s ire, Proto Man walked back to Biggs and retrieved the man’s boot knife. The soldier let out a protest but ultimately decided he didn’t want to escalate the situation. With the small blade, the android turned to face Harry and held up his hand. One swift motion later and the knife was clean through the preteen’s palm. Proto Man let go of the weapon, which stayed in place and caused red to seep out from the wound.

“Does that work? I’m a robot, unless you want to look at my serial numbers, you’ll just have to take my word for whom I am. Now why are we here? Is this a social call or did you discover something about the world?”

[Harry Dresden]

Harry couldn't honestly blame Samus for not going along with his paranoia trip. The more he interacted with her, which still wasn't a lot of interaction, to be honest, the more he was reminded of Karrin when he had first met her. Willing to put up with the weirdness as long as results happened, but not willing to accept it as truth. If the madman gets results, then there are results. He plucked the paper out of the air and checked it over. It certainly looked like the one he'd written. He willed his small lighter spell into being and incinerated the paper with a muttered "Fliccum biccus." Proto Man, meanwhile, had actually stepped up and cut his palm, a little wide. "Stars and stones, kid, a prick on your finger would've served just as well. If you're human, and you haven't been eaten, I'm willing to bet money the other three are human as well. I officially invite you into my home. Welcome to the Hidden Halls of Edinburgh." He looked around, as if making sure the Hall hadn't dissolved back into nothingness.

A robot? "Proto Man the robot, huh? Wizards and technology don't really mix, so don't blame me if anything goes wrong. I can't help it if sensitive tech gets hexed near me." He moved closer to the group, blasting rod put away and staff held loosely at his side. "I asked you to come here because I'm completely, utterly clueless as to how this 'Omniverse' works, except that people want dragon eggs and that Omnilium stuff, and apparently you can make things with the Omnilium. As evidenced by this." He gestured around the entryway. "I'd like to ask you some questions, starting with 'What is this place, really?' and moving along to things like 'Where can I find other wizards?' and 'Is it illegal to practice magic here?', not necessarily in that order. A couple people back there with the town looked a bit shocked that I was a wizard, though that might have been the helmet."

Harry stopped about five feet from the group and spread his arms. "But, I'm not going to even try to hold anyone against their will. If you want to go, please do. If you don't mind me asking questions, I'd like to do it over drinks. I'm pretty sure that you aren't 21, kid, but there's soda and juice in the bar too. Seltzer water, probably. Heck, I don't know what I was thinking, making this place instead of my old apartment." Harry took a couple steps towards the Worry Room, gesturing for the android and the bounty hunter to follow while Biggs and Wedge excused themselves, probably to go report to their commanding officer that a wizard had set up shop in the ruins. "Actually, that's another thing. What's the deal with these ruins? I heard something from the captain about them being related to some 'Diablo' character, but he wouldn't say what happened."

[Proto Man]

Twenty minutes later, Proto Man found himself sitting in a small room with Harry and Samus. While the boy was sipping on a bottle of root beer for the sake of appearances, the bounty hunter had refrained from refreshment and instead seemed to be tending to affairs on her internal display.

With a glass of some foul-smelling brown booze, Harry sat down across from Proto Man and took a long sip from the tiny glass. The corner’s of his mouth twitched a few times—a probably indicator of the liquid burning its way down into his stomach. “How long have you been here, kid?” He asked as he glanced over to make sure Samus was okay.

“I think it’s been a few months,” Proto Man responded before taking a sip from the bottle. He felt the physical sensation the carbonation made as it bubbled down his throat and read that the drink was good, but unlike Harry, he was physically incapable of enjoying or despising it. “I’m still not sure if there’s any sort of time delay between the various verses, but I know in the middle time passes much faster.”

“The Nexus? The place with the big ole fountain?”

“Yea. If you’re a Prime, you show up in the Nexus. Judging from the troops on both sides, I imagine there’s a mild cold war going on between the two powers.” While he had constantly thought about these things, Proto Man had never spoken them aloud in Coruscant. Despite knowing that he himself was free of bugs, he didn’t know who was an informant or where the Empire may have hidden equipment to keep tabs on him. It actually felt nice to be able to talk without having to self-censor himself.

“What is this place?” Harry asked as he finished his tiny glass of booze and reached for the bottle. “The Omniverse, I mean. Are we in a different universe? Is this a purgatory-type deal? I didn’t even stop to think I could be lying in a ditch somewhere in the real world…”

Proto Man shrugged his shoulders. “All I can tell you is that it’s very real. My sister arrived here after I did, and she relayed events that occurred after I’d been brought here. This place is the creation of someone named Omni, but who or what he is, I don’t know. I guess people have tried to reach him, but no one’s had much success over the years.”

“Years? This place has been here for years?”

The android nodded his head to that question. “I think it’s year eight or nine, depending on when they start counting a new year. I haven’t really figured out how they track days yet. The conflict between this verse and where I’ve set up shop is nearly as old as this entire world.”

With his drink refreshed, the wizard took another long sip and placed it back down on the counter. “Something happened that involved a ‘Diablo’ character, right? This whole place was supposedly involved in that.”

“Yea, you’re right,” the preteen replied as he set down his empty bottle of root beer and pulled up the entry on his internal display as a reference. “Diablo was some sort of demon who created an entire verse that he proceeded to fill with monsters and other blatantly evil things. The history is that it took four years of fighting before the Kingdom and the Empire managed to seal way the Underverse. I guess the Kingdom suffered the brunt, which has only fueled the animosity.”

“And this place was some kind of forward base?”

“I guess,” Proto Man offered. He genuinely couldn’t find much information about these ruins. “There are some mentions of this place, but I can’t find anything of any detail on the Dataverse. You might want to check local archives?”

Harry nodded his head as he leaned back in his chair. “This is a weird place, kid. One minute I’m in Chicago, and in the next, I’m in a place with dragons and talking machines. What’s up with the dragons, anyway? One moment there are giant ones trying to kill us, and then you have people flying off in miniature versions.”

“From what I know, everything here was either summoned by Omni or by powerful Primes. Since we haven’t had reports of dragons in the Nexus, it’s possible that someone willed them into existence, just like you created parts of this place.”

“And the miniatures?”

Proto Man gave yet another shrug. “There are a lot of wondrous things in this place. Maybe some part of those dragons transferred to those eggs. I’ve read about powerful Primes summoning allies, so it may be derivative of that. All I know is that whatever those eggs may be, they clearly have some value, monetary or otherwise. I can’t see why else that woman would have gone to such lengths to take one.”

“You mean that girl with the hammer? You think she knew the whole time that there’d be some sort of weird prize if the dragons went down? She probably didn’t even care about the damage those things were causing to the countryside.”

“The more I dwell on it, the more I look forward to meeting her again,” Proto Man replied.

“Anyway,” Harry muttered as he set aside his glass, clearly indicating that he had enjoyed his fill of liquor for the moment. “Do you know if this place is friendly to wizards?”

“I haven’t actually been in Camelot very long, but I imagine it’s probably friendly or at least tolerant of wizards. There’s supposedly an entire floating city filled with people who study and practice magic, with their leader being a member of the king’s advisors.”

A smirk spread across the man’s face. “Maybe they can help me figure out why I can’t use my Sight.”

“Don’t know what that is,” Proto Man remarked, recalling the wizard’s earlier remarks. “But you probably just need more Omnilium. I discovered pretty quickly that this whole place runs on it.”

“The summoning stuff?”

“Yea… I don’t really know exactly what it is, but it’s used for everything. People, houses, cars…it’s all Omnilium. Since we’re Primes, we can manipulate the stuff to suit or wills, so you probably just need to get more to help with your magic problem.”

The wizard, his brow furrowed, scowled slightly as he tried to rationalize the situation in his head. Proto Man had gone through the same confusion after his arrival, but he had complex machinery to help him work through the various quandaries relating to this strange world’s malleable material. Harry had to rely on his brain alone.

“Well that’s a start…thanks, kid.”

[Samus Aran]

Samus was still smoldering from her defeat earlier. It had been entirely her own fault, of course. Maybe if she’d brought Adam along, it wouldn’t have happened. But she had discovered something odd as a direct result of her loss – her Power Suit seemed to be regenerating itself. Normally, restoring it would create an energy source of some kind. Omnilium? The more Samus reflected on this world, the more curious she became. There were so many answers, and so few questions.

She flexed a hand. Was that same effect taking place on her body, as well? Samus didn’t feel fatigue as heavily as a normal person. In part it was due to the training regimen she’d maintained since it was a child, but she could also attribute it to the genetic manipulations the Chozo had performed on her back then. It was hard, then, to tell if the environment of the Omniverse was having any effect.

She broke the silence. “Seems my Power Suit is regenerating itself. Has anyone else noticed anything like that?”

[Harry Dresden]

Harry had a bit of a pleasant surprise as his questions were answered, to an extent. An entire flying city of wizards? Harry would be glad to have some people that he could work with, even though he wasn't moving into this wizardly Death Star. The bit about the Omnilium helping with his magic would be important as well. If that was true, then his Sight was just an indefinite amount of an unknown element away. He hadn't noticed, but he'd set Mac's beer down somewhere in the conversation, starting to work out the ramifications of his answers, and how to fact check them if need be. One question pressed against the others; "Dataverse? Is that like the Internet?" Some small part of him hoped the answer was no, that no technology was involved, but the rest of him told him that wasn't going to happen. Just one more information mega-network or whatever that he couldn't use. Joy.

Samus speaking up caught his attention, pulling him out of thought. It also sparked a bit of introspection. Sure enough, that bone-deep fatigue that he'd had earlier was gone, more than a couple beers and a short nap would normally accomplish. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I don't have a Power Suit to judge by, but I feel a lot more awake than I should be after throwing around that much magic. Clearly the answer to this is to throw around some more magic.." Harry stood up, taking up his staff. "Anyone want something for the road? I'm gonna set the door so that it doesn't try to roast you when you touch it, and I need you guys with me when I do that." Harry started towards the door to the Worry Room, leaving the cushiness of the chairs behind.

"After that, I'll need directions to that floating magic Death Star. I've got some research to take care of. If you two need a place to crash, I got a little carried away with the place. There's beds, kitchens, space to practice whatever. No gym, because there isn't one in the real version of the Halls. I think that says something about the wizard population back home. Try not to cave anything in, it'd be a pain to fix it. Not that the missiles didn't look impressive." He held the door open with his staff, politely waiting on his guests to join him before he would exit. "Seems like everyone needs some allies, what with people like that dragon hunter out and about."

[Proto Man]

With the exit door set, Proto Man and Samus were free to come and go as they saw fit. The preteen robot had been quiet since they’d left their little sit-down. His eyes were transfixed on his palm and the fact that his organic layer had repaired itself. This wasn’t like Samus’ suit gradually starting to fix itself…there was no damage whatsoever to the synthetic epidermis. Even stranger, there was no scarring to indicate that a wound had existed in the first place. While the synthetic organics were more than capable of healing injuries, they’d always at least left scars.

As Harry started to talk, Proto Man was distracted by a flashing indicator on his internal display: ‘Incoming Call – Number Unknown.’

“Sorry, I have to take this call…” the android said as he took a few steps away and opened the channel. “Hello?”

“Hey, Blues, this is Roll. I see that you finally got your broadband communication software functioning properly.”

I guess? The preteen furrowed his brow. “Yes, I certainly did. Is everything all right on Six?”

“Just the same as it always is: Too much trouble and not enough food or water. I called because I wanted to see if you had any luck finding what you were looking for.”

“It was a dead-end.”

“So you opted to fight dragons? I’ll have to send you some of the news articles posted by the Tier 1 propaganda machines…they’re a hoot.”

“Of course they are,” Proto Man mumbled as he looked over at Samus. The bounty hunter also made her home on the city’s lower tiers, which meant she’d probably get almost as much flax as he would for spending time in Camelot defending the Kingdom’s citizenry.

“I have another lead for you, though,” Roll added. “The remnants of an exploratory group limped back to Tier 1 today. Out of a group of two dozen, there were only three survivors. They had been attempting to explore and map out a few quadrants of the Ashen Plains when they were…and I quote: ‘Viciously attacked by a giant Zippo lighter with limbs’.”

“Heat Man?” Proto Man asked rhetorically, knowing full-well that the only other fire-based Robot Master was probably within ten meters or Roll as they spoke.

“This is the first genuine report in a few months, although the boys and I can’t figure out how they would have got passed Elec Man, Hiberius, or any of the security forces near the gates. But if they’re out there murdering people indiscriminately, we have to do something about it.”

“I understand. I’ll head out soon, I’m just tying up loose ends here.”

“Be safe, Blues, the Ashen Plains is an inhospitable place. You’re not going to find much in the way of civilization or security.”

“I’ll manage, Roll. Thank you. Over and out.” Closing the channel, Proto Man walked over to the others, who had been watching him the entire time. “Sorry, that was my sister calling. I have to head back to the Nexus. I can escort you to Dalaran on the way there, Harry. I mean, it’s a massive floating island, so I imagine once we get in the general area you can figure out the rest.”

“Sounds good,” the wizard replied with a faint grin. “You coming our way Samus?”

“I’m certainly not going to stay here by myself,” the bounty hunter replied as she followed the pair into the underground tunnels.

[Harry Dresden]

Harry took his guests back to the front gate of the Halls, pushing the door wider as they left and pulling the massive entrance shut with his staff. "Hold still, please. I'm not sure how much juice the Omnilium I used for the door has; I'm still new at using the stuff." Lamenting the fact that the doors were too massive to use a circle, he channeled will through his staff and felt out for the enchantment on the door. He found it in short order; it thrummed like a beacon of energy. The runes on the door lit up and began pulsing faintly, like a remote set to programming mode. In fact, that was almost exactly what was happening. "OK, one at a time, touch three runes on the door. Remember them. That's what lets you in. It's gonna be keyed to any more wards I lay on the door, too, so you won't become crunchy bacon. Your code only works for you; the spell recognizes a single person touching three runes, not anyone touching them."

While Proto Man and Samus set the door to recognize them, Harry walked down where the dirt was thicker and dragged a circle into the dirt. Sitting cross-legged, he decided to try out a little more of that summoning. He pictured a speaking stone, holding the image of the rock itself and a mental construction of the enchantments upon it in his mind. It took five minutes, by which time Proto Man and Samus had probably been waiting a while. He stood up with his new device; a small obsidian rock, carved with runes, in the rough size and shape of a cell phone, but with no keys. "I don't know if I'll be able to get in touch with either of you with this, but I'd rather have it in case I need it than not need it at all. Might be able to get a wizard on it somehow."

Proto Man nodded. "It might be able to work with my communicator, but I don't know. Let's go." Samus nodded her assent, and the trio walked out of the tunnels, Harry leading them and explaining the confusing pathways. "It's actually pretty simple once someone actually explains it. You start from either an entrance or the Halls, walk forward two intersections, and take a right. Then go forward three, then take a left. Walk forward two, turn right, then three forward, then left, and you repeat it until you get to the Halls. It brings you back to the main entrance to the tunnels from the Halls, too. Never more than a ten minute walk if you take the most complicated entrance." The wizard could practically feel the note-taking; there were a lot of tunnels down here, enough to make a veritable warren.

True to his word, not five minutes later and they were climbing out of the trapdoor they had gone in. Harry reclaimed his stakes as they exited the town in silence, the ruins giving off a haunting atmosphere now that Harry knew some of the story behind them, and had inferred a lot more of it. He'd have his privacy, that was certain.