Meanwhile, back in the Master's TARDIS.....Part 15

The others have already told their story. Now it's time for the new folk to do the same.

"Ladies and gentlemen," 179 says in a cheery voice. "Boys and girls of all ages, come and hear a sad little tale. A tale of the Oathbreaker. Then we'll go around the room and introduce our newest guests and all that."

Again, the sudden burst of information....beginning with Fred the Oathbreaker. 179 is speaking.....to their minds.

This Fred was a knight of the Great Kingdom who'd been tasked by his king to slay a terrible dragon....

What I call the Thaobath Universe.....

Fred D'Honaire

Lord Fred was sent by his king to slay the Dragon of the Southern Caves. Once there, he met Astra and slew Velus. Now Velus was either a Hell Hound or a dragon in the form of a Hell Hound. It's not exactly clear. Anyway, the dragon Minestus then translocated both Fred and Astra to the Calamari desert to die. He was quite angry that they had killed Velus, you see. Luckily the pair was rescued by Dr.Vincent Priceless, but then Fred was accidentally dismembered. Dr.Vincent attempted to magically restore him, but during the procedure Astra unintentionally broke his concentration. Fred died and was sent to Hell. Why Hell? Maybe it was the Hell Hound's revenge (actually....this Fred led a rather....bad life.....appearance to the contrary....alas). To make a long story short, Fred didn't like Hell very much and when a demoness offered him a chance to get out he took it. His mission was to betray any and all who would have aided him in his original quest to slay the dragon. The first two people on the list...Astra and Andrea. Fred was then sent back to the mortal sphere as a Thoabath, or Oathbreaker. He soon came upon Andrea and found his way back to Astra. The threesome then journeyed to the home of Belboz the Fell.

Princess Astra of Aquilaria

On a quest of her own, Astra went to the Southern Caves and was captured by the evil Velus. But she was rescued by Fred and Velus was killed. The dragon Minestus then translocated them to the Calamari desert where Dr.Priceless saved their lives. Fred was accidentally dismembered and during the magical operation to restore him, Astra unintentionally distracted Priceless and found herself teleported back to Minestus' lair. She passed through a magical archway and was then trapped in a room and turned into a werewolf. Minestus returned her to her human form, but then assured her that his revenge was now complete. She then found herself outside of the Croix Keep, magically teleported there by the Dragon. She then met Andrea. Together they discovered that the Keep had been betrayed by Lucien, Lord Croix's advisor, and that it was now in the hands of the Dragon's forces. Lucien taunted Astra, for he knew that Astra was still cursed. Astra killed Lucien and then she and Andrea escaped to the nearby forest where Astra was reunited with Fred. They then journeyed to the home of Belboz the Fell. Astra didn't know what Minestus' curse was, but she wanted to be free of it and Belboz was a magician of great renown.

Lady Andrea of Croix

Andrea is a young, overly-protected and very bored noblewoman. Her father is the Lord of Croix Keep, located in the Lordship of North Umbria somewhere in the Kingdom. One day she decided that enough was enough and she left the Keep in search of excitement, a few thrills and maybe a little romance. She left in the middle of the night and the first person she met was Astra. Astra ordered her to return home and so the two went back to the Keep. But they discovered that the Keep had been betrayed and was now in the hands of the Dragon's forces. They escaped to the nearby forest where Astra decided that she would seek out Belboz the Necromancer. Andrea refused to go with her because Belboz was a black magician and too dangerous. She left Astra but soon became lost in the forest until Fred appeared and took her with him as he hunted down Astra. When the three were reunited, they all headed off to the home of Belboz. Belboz the Fell Belboz is a necromancer. He delves into the darkest secrets of the dead. He can bend the forces of nature to his will. He communes with the spirits of the Outer Planes. He's the kind of guy you don't mess around with. But when Lord Fred suddenly appeared in his doorway, Belboz got scared. Fred showed him the terrible symbol carved into the flesh of his palm. Belboz recognized it. He knew what Fred had become and all Belboz wanted was for Fred to go as far away as possible. But Fred was there for a reason and so Belboz reluctantly let him and his companions, Astra and Andrea, into his home. Astra then told him that she had been cursed and wanted it lifted. Although she did not know what the curse was, she did tell him what little had been told her by Minestus and Lucien. Andrea related the tale of the Ergot Mushroom which changed people into beasts under the light of the full moon. Since all the pieces seemed to fit, it meant that Astra would soon turn into a blood thirsty beast. Belboz agreed to cure her but he needed time; unfortunately the moon would be full the very next night. Which brings us back to where we started. Astra has run off, afraid of the monster she will become, unwilling to endanger her friends. And Andrea is now alone in a house with a black sorcerer and a demonic knight.

Whatever will happen next?

Jellico looks like he's just swallowed a pinapple....whole. He has to accept it.....for what he's seen and experience leaves no room for doubt....but the Admiral's sense of the ordinary has been taking a beating here.

Jellico places all that has happened in the same category as what he's heard about the Q....and nods grimly to himself. Perhaps what he'd read of Kirk's wilder exploits were actually true? Things like space going space amoebas that eat solar systems and other things did happen.

God knows he himself was in a waking nightmare right now, running around with knights and dragons....and magic!

Meanwhile, a general session of questions has broken out from several of the mages present, who tell of Terra Prime's version of lycanthropy....which has nothing to do with funky mushrooms.

"There are other kinds?" the accursed Astra asks, still punchy at all has happened. Quick information about Atlantis creating a version of a curse that warped the Matrix, a basic magical building block/soul interface with the physical world (several Star Fleeters' eyebrows shoot upward at that one), into the lycanthropes now known throughout Terra. Lycanthrope shards altered the person's Matrix, and was passable to others through bites and.....other exchanges of the bodies fluids.

Several Astras and Freds chuckle at what that translated into.....

Jellico didn't want to ask....fearing he'd not like the answer.

The accursed Astra looks enlightened, and then dizzy as 179 glances at her and removes the contagion within her body....and erased the physical and mental addiction that the changes had been inducing in this Astra.

What happens next is that after Fred and Andrea track Astra down, she's in the throws of the beast, and Andrea is almost wolf chow when you guys got teleported here! As for Belboz the Fell, he met Belboz the Necromancer and Ghost, who'd been on a mission to free all others killed by the Phage (a plague unleashed by a reptilian race the Military calls the Enemy) and let them get on with their Afterlife up Above....or Down Below. Well, the Ghost won. Good and just, since THIS Belboz was a pretty good fellow (that causes a few eyebrows to rise again....but nothing more).

The idea of good necromancers is strange....but then again so is so much that's happened today....

The two woman sadly shake their heads, looking at the glaring Fred...who's flanked by a good half dozen reaction troops wearing power armor and heavy weaponry. If this Fred so much as twitched....he'd find himself dead and back in Hell!

Which is exactly where he's going. Fred disappears with a shout of soul wrenching dismay and disbelief.

Those who go to Blazes are meant to STAY there. Orders from on High.....from the Higher Ups.

The last is delivered the audience with a grim chuckle...devoid of humor.

And I can no more defy the strictures on myself than you humans can breath without air, 179 concludes. So, I have to send that toxic waste back to the Pit where it belongs....period.

As for the others.....

Alternate Walants Universe 6 Fred goes to the Southern Caves to slay a dragon. He kills Velus. He & Astra are sent to the Calamari Desert to die. Dr.Vincent saves them. Minestus kidnaps Astra and turns her into a demifox. Fred goes after her but becomes a demifox too. Malachi and Minestus kill each other. Fred & Astra go to Walants to give Synizn the Crystallic so he can cure them. WereBear Synizn cures them and sends them to Aqualaria where they get married and have 7 babies. Later, Synizn (now a demifox) visits them and asks for their help to destroy the Crystallic. They go to Normady and meet up with the dragon Sigin. Dragoness Moreau somehow manages to drag Fred and Synizn (now a demifox) to the lost city of Atlantis, defeat them in battle, and leave them for bait for when Astra, Sigin, and the 7 infants come along finally. The other adventurers do come along, and find the unconscious Fred and Synizn sprawled next to the burned out corpse of Dragoness Moreau. The corpse is still smoking after all this time since time.....flows at odd speeds at this fell city. The adventures are reunited, but must flee Atlantis because the magical battle that had knocked out Fred and Sigin (and killed Moreau) had weakened the city's magical shields. The adventurers get away and witness the tons of water crush the fell city.....ruining it and any chance they had at fulfilling their mission to destroy the Crystallic through means found in Atlantis! But this destruction caused some bad feedback in the slipgate system, so while the entity that was in control of the slipgates was assessing damage to itself....Terra Prime's slipgate was reaching out and grabbing land and people like mad....... And this is what happened when it reached out to take these adventurers through THEIR Crystallic!

The others look at Fred 6's group in consternation at what 179 says next....while laughing at the whole business....for it had made the Rule laugh at the strangeness of it all!

Now, it can be said that the multi-verse is a weird place, where almost anything is possible AND probable....if you look hard enough. Sometimes, however, even some events just come out of left field, take a right at the stoplight.....and head into the zone of just plane NUTS!

Now, some argue that there is a higher order.....that Someone or Something is in charge. Anyone witnessing the next event from a position ABOVE the multi-verse, in a set of universes of "low probability"......that person would have to wonder about that!

A Crystallic, giving off the proscribed warning signal to it's owner, to prepare him for an unexpected call from a malfunctioning Otherworld Slipgate system, is instead thrown through the very viewing screen/warning sign it had used to warn it's owner. The much suffered artifact shrugs mental shoulders, and finds itself at the feet of a humanoid, grizzled, grey furred wolf....and a bunch of demi-foxes! The safety feature of the slipgate system that SHOULD prevent two such powerful Atlantian artifacts to exist on the same plane of existence, backfires and sends yet another Crystallic that was floating in the molten remains of what used to be it's owners lair (re:1270) zipping back to a stunned demi-fox and his shipmates (re:2523). Then, the entire Island of Dragon Moreau suddenly flashes yet AGAIN, finally causing the imprisoning shields meant to keep the Pack in (and incidentally keeping a deadly Phage out) back to where it's home universe.

Then.......we get a view of what Synizn does next.....

A glimpse at what happened....

"I mean just that," Synizn states as he places the Crystallic into a large mug. With a mental command, the Crystallic first forms into a bottle of fizzing liquid, then seems to just melt down into the mug....forming a glowing liquid that fills the mug. The demi-fox slams the mug's contents down his throat, startling quick. The demi-fox licks the last drop of what had been the Crystallic, and turns to look at his stunned friends. His eyes seem to have an inner glow to them, and then fade back to normal.

"Are you CRAZY!" Fred nearly shouts. "You want to try to...."

"Poison myself?" chuckles the demi-fox. "It didn't happen to your analogs, nor shall it happen to me. And since there is nothing of the Crystallic to use to 'control' me......"

"You've become the Crystallic!" gasps Sigin, suddenly seeing what is happening. "By consuming it, you and it combine!"

"Right," nods the demi-fox sadly. "And while that means that anyone who wants the power of the Crystallic will have to destroy me. And since I'm part and parcel to that thing....destroying me destroys It. The downside, though it's kind of not a downside, is that I now have the lifespan of the Cyrstallic."

"Uh," Fred gulps. "How...long?"

"Frankly," the demi-fox says. "I'd guess with the in 500,000 to a million years, I should be finally done."

His friends just stare at him. Even Sigin looks queesy at the idea of living THAT long. Dragons could conceivably live forever, but.......

"Now, I had possesssion of this item and pledged to serve you and yours, dear Fred and Astra," the demi-fox says, bowing formally. "With this, I guess I get to serve for a longer time than I previously figured.

"And besides," smiles the demi-fox. "It isn't like by consuming that Crystallic I'm suddenly a god. Tiamat knows that I am not! It just gives me an edge in a mage battle, and allows me to do a few more things that I'd need the slipgates to do."

"Your humble servant awaits," Synizn says to his friends.

<Well, at least he's now no longer stuck with the lifespan of a human!> Sigin says to himself.

But lo, the slipgate finally gets done assessing damage to self, and sends out a panic message to the Crystallic....which is now Synizn.....

Everyone is just beginning to smile at along with the infectious grin on Synizn's face when......

The now cousin to the Crystallic endowed demifox, the slipgate system, has just run a self diagnostic.....and has now just gotten over the horror of what it has detected. Synizn is knocked to his knees as facts and figures!

The inrush of water went off with the force of high explosives, and was thus able to cause a serious feedback inside the slipgate system. Basically, the same thing that happened to the slipgate system on a parallel world called Terra Prime!

Problem is that the only solutions that the little demifox knows of, instinctively, can not be done. This is in large part that the control center of the system had been in what had been the city of Atlantis! There was only one entity race that would have the answers for this vexing problem, and that involved incredible persistence (for how would that person have gotten the qualifications for this trip otherwise!

Synizn grows pale (as far as his colorful complexion allows it), and he whispers something in dragon.

Roughly translated, it translates into fecal matter!

Sigin, Astra, and Fred suddenly are disoriented to find themselves in front of a small gray man in a slate gray 20th century business suit.....and a scowl of annoyance!

179 then pauses, and looks down at a rather detailed report as to just why these people (this takes only a second to read a report who's print is as small as individual atoms and conveys information many times the sum total of all human knowledge). He then smiles and nods, looking more kindly upon the strange group in front of human, demifox, and dragon. Small stuffed fox plushies appear in the little hands of the offspring of the infants (appropriate, considering their unusual heritage).

Now, according to the report, these were some of the few analogous demifox mages who'd been.....gutsy enough to ingest the Crystallic....making it's substance their own. The others were being taken care off by other.....emotionally enhanced Rules. Rules specifically chosen, endowed with emotion and initiative to handle strange situations that left the plain Rule in conniptions!

The humans and other mortals are just beginning to open their mouths slowly to ask what the meaning of all this is (mortals minds and reflexes were incredibly slow in the Realm that 179 worked) when 179 is about to tell them he's going to add their caseload to the pile of slipgates that need to be shut down when 179 hears a sound that chills his nonexistent heart!

The demifox mage just hiccuped.....four times....and with the powers he had inside him.....

One tone of hiccup causes....

A Star Fleet Admiral, along with the FOUR analogous people who all called themselves Kathryn Janeway....are sent (along with some of the office furniture) to a parallel world that....they had only left a few moments ago.....in a relative measure of time....

A different timbered hiccup calls forth set made of a fallen dark knight by the name of Frederigo D'Honaire (Thoabath to his demonic masters), a young girl/woman who should know better than to seek out adventure in such wild lands, and a young flame haired woman who was currently reveling under the sway of the moon (mushroom induced wolf curse coursing through her veins). A holy man pauses in consternation.... knowing SOMETHING just happened nearby....but wasn't sure exactly just what happened....

Due to previous strictures set down by the Rules.....they would not be returning to the world that had spawned them. They all knew that....they weren't going home....ever.

Looks of shock....fear are slowly forming on their faces (even on the presently lupine Astra's face).....

Another hiccup....higher pitched....

Another set. Another set of not going "home."

Another Fred D'Honaire, along with his sister Lady Rowena, and Lem (a dwarf), and Dokken (another dwarf), suddenly find themselves looking at a rather surprised looking caravan of dwarves who are gathered around a wagon who is holding the black skinned beauty known as Astra. Fred's brows start to draw together in shock....and surmise.

By now there should be signs of necrosis on the lovely woman's stately body.....but......

A twist of the magical ether and three incredibly tiny human infants appear next to the silent Astra.....and suddenly shiver! Stillborn and dead though they had been, the infants find themselves alive again....due to the unique nature of both a synergistic reaction between the Crystallic essence that marks up a small part of themselves.....the dragon gem that's still in Tarrin Gazin's pocket....and a demifox mage. Oh, and don't worry....we made sure that the right sould get put back in the right bodies.....Astra 7 and Fred 7!

One last hiccup, and that takes care of what would have been delicate work for 179 as far as dealing with the demifox's group. Coming to 179 in such a manner was allowed by the Rules, so the demifox hadn't been risking anything by something here by teleportation. Indeed, it was REQUIRED that he come here....and take along the people around him (leaves less witnesses). See, though Synizn and friends could come to 179.....they weren't allowed to return home.....again....ever. Cruel, but that was the stricture handed down by the Higher Ups. But instead of leaving a mysterious disappearance, Synizn's hiccup had made one last set of duplicates. However, these duplicates are unlike the OTHER duplicates of analogous people. They are dead and stiff in rigor mortis. Much sorrow and grieving will happen throughout the lands of Allaria and Aqualaria. The originals know this (well....the grownups understand...the infants just are confused by the images that parades through their infant minds). They start to shout in protest.

Slowly.

The look of sadness that 179 gives them in way of apology stops it cold. The Rules silently wishes he could do something else....and also wishes that these poor people had come across his desk in the more convenient form of paper files. That way he'd be able to not have to look into their faces to break the news to them about what's up.

"Sorry," the Rules says softly. "I can't change it....not even a little bit. But, I won't leave you stranded here. I wouldn't wish that dull existence on my worst enemy! There's another world out there....similar to yours and where you'll find friends....for those who deserve them! I leave how you handle the Oathbreaker knows as Fred....also known as Thoabath to you fellows. As for Tarin and the other dwarves....when you meet Queen Astra and her Dwarven delegation.....I suggest running....FAST!"

"I'll be along....soon enough to take care of some loose ends," the Rules says, turning away back to work. The adventurers disappear into thin air....and reappear in an Ethiopian desert.....

179's hand's blur as he whittles away at the massive pile of Request to shut down the numerous analogous Terra's slipgates who's Crystallics had been destroyed. Synizn's form is on the top of the mound of forms.....

"And so you appeared on Terra Prime....fighting ensued for various reasons and we now have ourselves here," 179 sighs.

1. "Thus ends Fred 6's story to this point...along with a little bit of color."

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