11-21-2016, 01:10 AM
By the time Kelly walked into the tavern on Fort AMBR's first sub-level, his fatigue was already beginning to fade. He'd thought he was tiring himself out concentrating, but now he didn't know whether his exhaustion been brought on by absorbing so much information, and thinking about it so hard for so long, or some other factor. He felt odd, like the inside of his skin was buzzing, and it took him a moment to figure out what was going on.
The traveler's psychic powers were stirring.
There was nothing concrete yet, no haptic telekinetic feedback, no heightened awareness or exotic perceptions, but the power, at least, was there now. It was just a little bit, a tiny glow like the pilot-light on an old stove. Kelly doubted he'd be able to manage anything more complex than a crude force-bolt, and certainly nothing as sophisticated as actual telekinesis, but it was better than nothing. He'd have to experiment again when he got back to the Nexus.
So do I still want a room?
On the one hand, this was an opportunity to rest for while and pull at the threads of the tangled tapestry of his mind. On the other hand, he would certainly be able to get a room in Coruscant as well, and he was eager to get started on his plan. In the end, convenience and a sense of curiosity won out. He just wouldn't be able to concentrate until he'd at least made a token effort at achieving some clarity.
Getting a room was exactly as easy as Kelly had been led to believe, just a matter of asking politely at the bar. Once inside, and certain he was alone, he locked the door. The traveler didn't pay a lot of attention to the furnishings. There was a chair suitable for tripping intruders, and a bed with a frame hard enough to be useful in fight. Behind the door was the most tactically advantageous hiding place. That was the extent of his interest.
He sat down in the middle of the room, breathing air tinted with the smell of alcohol and a pleasant subterranean musk, closed his eyes, and began to think.
Start with what's promising.
The Empire and the Kingdom are both frustrating to me on a very deep level. I don't just feel like they're mishandling both their domestic and foreign policy: I feel like I could do it better - like I have done it better. They wound my professionalism.
I was in government. But what government? Think.
Think of having that responsibility. Think of doing it right, every day, as hard as you can. Think of... belonging. Think of...
Dominion.
...What?
There was a flash, not just a memory but an experience, so vivid it was disorienting. Around him was a grand hall, with red velvet carpets and brass furnishings. The ceiling was so high it was barely visible, and was supported by a veritable forest of semi-opaque columns fashioned out of what looked to be solid crystal sapphires. The room smelled of nutmeg and ginger, and the complex odor of a crowd of thousands, and his mind was awash with... nonsense-sensation, input from senses he no longer had.
In this vision, Kelly was perched atop a complex chair made of burnished gray metal and refined fabric, far more comfortable than it had any right to be. There was a circlet on his brow. His legs were crossed, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, and there was a ceremonial long-sword resting across his lap. Six lordly figures were kneeling in a semi-circle at his feet.
The first was a giant of a man, even taller and broader than Kelly, with fiery red hair, and a beard that could swallow a family of four without a trace, dressed for a fight in a suit of jade-inlaid technological armor studded with golden jewelry. His head was bowed low. Beside him was a squid-like blue creature with a bulbous cranium and enormous black compound eyes, lit from inside by a piercing blue light, it's many tentacles covered wrapped in five silver wire. Next was a transparent, sinuous, feminine cloud the color of moonlight that shifted and flowed with a subtle rhythm. A powerfully-built old man in fine yellow robes knelt beside her, staring up at Kelly with silvery metal eyes with a face covered in runic tattoos. An egg-shaped drone with a blue carapace and a single inset camera-lens hovered at his side, at an angle suggesting deference. Lastly, there was... a penguin. It had a yellow and red crest of feathers above its eyes, a little silver chain around its neck, and its head was bowed.
Behind them, filling the hall as far as Kelly could see, was a crowd. Most of them weren't human, either squidly, or avian, gaseous or even stranger forms. All were totally silent as the six began to speak in unison, a harmony of human voices, sythesized monotone, subsonic vibration, cephelapod hissing and an avian hum.
Kelly was ejected from the memory as though he'd been fired from a cannon. His eyes snapped open, and if he hadn't already been sitting down he'd have fallen over.
He'd been a king. How the hell had that happened?
Think it through.
There were feelings and associations, still fresh from his vision, complex ones. The throne was Belonging. It was acceptance, reward, and finally, after centuries of searching, purpose, glorious purpose, the kind that lifted men up and brought them to a place outside of themselves, where anything was possible. Kelly closed his eyes, and he grabbed onto that feeling, and he could feel an entire era bubbling towards the surface, but looking further was like banging his head against clouded glass. There had been... wars? A big one and a little one. Both were important... and had he still been traveling? A wanderer-lord?
He concentrated so hard his eyebrows hurt, and heard his own voice, as though from far away, tell somebody that he never wanted to be a god, but he didn't think he had a choice. It felt like the start of another vision.
...
No.
That was all.
The more he tried now, the more it slipped away.
Kelly made a serious effort not to be furious. He knew, now, what it was that had been taken from him, the thing of incalculable value. It wasn't the crown, not exactly, not the power or the authority - it was his purpose. He had felt, sitting in that throne, looking at that sea of infinitely diverse people - His! People! - like he knew exactly who he was, and why he was, and who and what it was all for. Service and Dominion: one and the same.
And now he couldn't remember anything about them.
That time, the events of his reign, even what and who he had reigned over - the memories weren't like pawing at mist, not even as clear as his hazy centuries of aimless wandering between worlds - they were like looking through cracks in a concrete wall. He didn't know where his kingdom was, what he'd done to earn such a place, or why it felt...
Why it felt so perfect.
Kelly stood up. He paced his small, rented room several times, then he sat back down. His mind was doing painful somersaults, only forced into logical productivity out of long, long habit. He felt like a gyroscope, spinning at a perfect angle on the edge of the mouth of Hell.
He clung to the fact that this new information didn't change his circumstances, or his near-long-term plans. No matter where he had come from, he was in the Omniverse now, and he had to deal with what Omni had wrought.
And if Omnilium can really be used to create anything...
He paused, suddenly strike by an idea, and concentrated. He imagined a portal, and the feedback from the sheer shortfall of Omnilium nearly knocked him unconscious.
Right then.
Even if Kelly found another way to leave, which would certainly take a very long time, he couldn't return to his people. He didn't remember who they were. Besides, even if he managed to put his mind in order, he didn't know where the Omniverse was. By the time he got back, if he found a way back, there would almost certainly be a new king.
Whoever it was I left behind, they're going to have to learn to get along without me. I would have had a plan for this, an anointed, competent successor - any good King would, and I don't think I was a bad one.
Kelly's eyes felt damp. His chest hurt. Deep inside him, on the other side of a wall made of misfiled recollection and lost history, part of him was screaming.
Out loud, he croaked, "I'll be okay."
The traveler stood once more, and unlocked the door, leaning one hand against it and staring at the floor. "I'm okay," he said again, sounding like he believed it this time. He left the room, and shut the door behind him.
The air outside Fort AMBR was still frigidly cold, but as he made his way back to the Nexus gate, Kelly wasn't bothered by it the way he was on the way in. It fit his mood. One unexpected thing he'd learned today was that his past hurt. The traveler had known already that there had been hard, painful times, times when he'd had to claw his way back from the very depths of death, but it turned out that his fondest memories could also cut him to the core. The echo of his past-self's secret heart hung broken in his chest, and he didn't think it was going to feel better any time soon.
Trekking across the icy tundra, Kelly considered his plan. Somewhere in between the room at the inn and now it stopped seeming like the most ethical course of action, or even a matter of pride, or of enlightened self-interest that he make the Omniverse saner and safer. It felt like a duty, like a standard he had to live up to, even if it meant smuggling and robbing and quite possibly murdering in order to build.This was his place now, and though its people weren't his people yet, part of him felt like they could be if he let them.
Forcing himself to think about the future, feeling the spidery-leg tingle of unrefined, latent force skittering across the nerves under his skin with every move he made, he stepped through the gate out of the Frozen Fields and into the less natural white of the Nexus.
The traveler's psychic powers were stirring.
There was nothing concrete yet, no haptic telekinetic feedback, no heightened awareness or exotic perceptions, but the power, at least, was there now. It was just a little bit, a tiny glow like the pilot-light on an old stove. Kelly doubted he'd be able to manage anything more complex than a crude force-bolt, and certainly nothing as sophisticated as actual telekinesis, but it was better than nothing. He'd have to experiment again when he got back to the Nexus.
So do I still want a room?
On the one hand, this was an opportunity to rest for while and pull at the threads of the tangled tapestry of his mind. On the other hand, he would certainly be able to get a room in Coruscant as well, and he was eager to get started on his plan. In the end, convenience and a sense of curiosity won out. He just wouldn't be able to concentrate until he'd at least made a token effort at achieving some clarity.
Getting a room was exactly as easy as Kelly had been led to believe, just a matter of asking politely at the bar. Once inside, and certain he was alone, he locked the door. The traveler didn't pay a lot of attention to the furnishings. There was a chair suitable for tripping intruders, and a bed with a frame hard enough to be useful in fight. Behind the door was the most tactically advantageous hiding place. That was the extent of his interest.
He sat down in the middle of the room, breathing air tinted with the smell of alcohol and a pleasant subterranean musk, closed his eyes, and began to think.
Start with what's promising.
The Empire and the Kingdom are both frustrating to me on a very deep level. I don't just feel like they're mishandling both their domestic and foreign policy: I feel like I could do it better - like I have done it better. They wound my professionalism.
I was in government. But what government? Think.
Think of having that responsibility. Think of doing it right, every day, as hard as you can. Think of... belonging. Think of...
Dominion.
...What?
There was a flash, not just a memory but an experience, so vivid it was disorienting. Around him was a grand hall, with red velvet carpets and brass furnishings. The ceiling was so high it was barely visible, and was supported by a veritable forest of semi-opaque columns fashioned out of what looked to be solid crystal sapphires. The room smelled of nutmeg and ginger, and the complex odor of a crowd of thousands, and his mind was awash with... nonsense-sensation, input from senses he no longer had.
In this vision, Kelly was perched atop a complex chair made of burnished gray metal and refined fabric, far more comfortable than it had any right to be. There was a circlet on his brow. His legs were crossed, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, and there was a ceremonial long-sword resting across his lap. Six lordly figures were kneeling in a semi-circle at his feet.
The first was a giant of a man, even taller and broader than Kelly, with fiery red hair, and a beard that could swallow a family of four without a trace, dressed for a fight in a suit of jade-inlaid technological armor studded with golden jewelry. His head was bowed low. Beside him was a squid-like blue creature with a bulbous cranium and enormous black compound eyes, lit from inside by a piercing blue light, it's many tentacles covered wrapped in five silver wire. Next was a transparent, sinuous, feminine cloud the color of moonlight that shifted and flowed with a subtle rhythm. A powerfully-built old man in fine yellow robes knelt beside her, staring up at Kelly with silvery metal eyes with a face covered in runic tattoos. An egg-shaped drone with a blue carapace and a single inset camera-lens hovered at his side, at an angle suggesting deference. Lastly, there was... a penguin. It had a yellow and red crest of feathers above its eyes, a little silver chain around its neck, and its head was bowed.
Behind them, filling the hall as far as Kelly could see, was a crowd. Most of them weren't human, either squidly, or avian, gaseous or even stranger forms. All were totally silent as the six began to speak in unison, a harmony of human voices, sythesized monotone, subsonic vibration, cephelapod hissing and an avian hum.
Kelly was ejected from the memory as though he'd been fired from a cannon. His eyes snapped open, and if he hadn't already been sitting down he'd have fallen over.
He'd been a king. How the hell had that happened?
Think it through.
There were feelings and associations, still fresh from his vision, complex ones. The throne was Belonging. It was acceptance, reward, and finally, after centuries of searching, purpose, glorious purpose, the kind that lifted men up and brought them to a place outside of themselves, where anything was possible. Kelly closed his eyes, and he grabbed onto that feeling, and he could feel an entire era bubbling towards the surface, but looking further was like banging his head against clouded glass. There had been... wars? A big one and a little one. Both were important... and had he still been traveling? A wanderer-lord?
He concentrated so hard his eyebrows hurt, and heard his own voice, as though from far away, tell somebody that he never wanted to be a god, but he didn't think he had a choice. It felt like the start of another vision.
...
No.
That was all.
The more he tried now, the more it slipped away.
Kelly made a serious effort not to be furious. He knew, now, what it was that had been taken from him, the thing of incalculable value. It wasn't the crown, not exactly, not the power or the authority - it was his purpose. He had felt, sitting in that throne, looking at that sea of infinitely diverse people - His! People! - like he knew exactly who he was, and why he was, and who and what it was all for. Service and Dominion: one and the same.
And now he couldn't remember anything about them.
That time, the events of his reign, even what and who he had reigned over - the memories weren't like pawing at mist, not even as clear as his hazy centuries of aimless wandering between worlds - they were like looking through cracks in a concrete wall. He didn't know where his kingdom was, what he'd done to earn such a place, or why it felt...
Why it felt so perfect.
Kelly stood up. He paced his small, rented room several times, then he sat back down. His mind was doing painful somersaults, only forced into logical productivity out of long, long habit. He felt like a gyroscope, spinning at a perfect angle on the edge of the mouth of Hell.
He clung to the fact that this new information didn't change his circumstances, or his near-long-term plans. No matter where he had come from, he was in the Omniverse now, and he had to deal with what Omni had wrought.
And if Omnilium can really be used to create anything...
He paused, suddenly strike by an idea, and concentrated. He imagined a portal, and the feedback from the sheer shortfall of Omnilium nearly knocked him unconscious.
Right then.
Even if Kelly found another way to leave, which would certainly take a very long time, he couldn't return to his people. He didn't remember who they were. Besides, even if he managed to put his mind in order, he didn't know where the Omniverse was. By the time he got back, if he found a way back, there would almost certainly be a new king.
Whoever it was I left behind, they're going to have to learn to get along without me. I would have had a plan for this, an anointed, competent successor - any good King would, and I don't think I was a bad one.
Kelly's eyes felt damp. His chest hurt. Deep inside him, on the other side of a wall made of misfiled recollection and lost history, part of him was screaming.
Out loud, he croaked, "I'll be okay."
The traveler stood once more, and unlocked the door, leaning one hand against it and staring at the floor. "I'm okay," he said again, sounding like he believed it this time. He left the room, and shut the door behind him.
The air outside Fort AMBR was still frigidly cold, but as he made his way back to the Nexus gate, Kelly wasn't bothered by it the way he was on the way in. It fit his mood. One unexpected thing he'd learned today was that his past hurt. The traveler had known already that there had been hard, painful times, times when he'd had to claw his way back from the very depths of death, but it turned out that his fondest memories could also cut him to the core. The echo of his past-self's secret heart hung broken in his chest, and he didn't think it was going to feel better any time soon.
Trekking across the icy tundra, Kelly considered his plan. Somewhere in between the room at the inn and now it stopped seeming like the most ethical course of action, or even a matter of pride, or of enlightened self-interest that he make the Omniverse saner and safer. It felt like a duty, like a standard he had to live up to, even if it meant smuggling and robbing and quite possibly murdering in order to build.This was his place now, and though its people weren't his people yet, part of him felt like they could be if he let them.
Forcing himself to think about the future, feeling the spidery-leg tingle of unrefined, latent force skittering across the nerves under his skin with every move he made, he stepped through the gate out of the Frozen Fields and into the less natural white of the Nexus.