Even though the next few days are busy gathering supplies from the old Silent-One ship, including several chairs, lots of reusable plate and ceramics, and even the parts to build an infra-red laser system (the majestic not-to-be-seen death ray according to Walter Thorndike), there is some actual time to rest. Envoy got to spend time just talking with Morpheus about, well, anything and everything. It's possibly one of the few times they both get to pretend to be 'normal'. Also interestingly, Daedalus and Thorndike end up spending a lot of time together; there were even times Envoy could swear she heard the former human laughing over something Thorndike said.
Icarus was kept busy as well, as it turns out that an innate ability to manipulate gravitational fields makes for one remarkable mover. If nothing else he could always start a moving company on Abaddon and make a fortune! During his down time he ended up talking a bit with, and being confused by, Cypher. The new life form that she is sees the world very differently from everyone else. She's so honest and literal. Still, perhaps it helped both of them better understand the difficulties of being created life forms. Icarus even got a chance to spend time with Morpheus, though what they talked about was kept secret as 'guy stuff'.
Alas, nothing can last forever; they have work to do. So, it's back through the stargate to Abaddon! Several days pass by in a blur as Walter and Icarus focus on finishing up the housing and interior of the gravity-driven ship. Icarus has really come long way; he's able to manipulate fields and hold things longer and longer before he shows signs of tiring. Perhaps his systems are learning how to be even more efficient or perhaps like muscles he's just getting stronger over time. Envoy, for her part, is tasked with finishing up building the drive system for the boat and it takes most of the time in those days to finish! She found she kept having to tweak the field flow through experiment because she just can't see the fields the same way as her adopted son. It's almost frustrating! But at long last, the ship is done. Well, enough that it works! Hopefully! Sitting out in the main bay gleams the awesome and amazing 'Gravy Boat'. Yes, well, Envoy named it.
The Gravy Boat looks a bit like a missile that had be cut in half, spread apart and then the gap filled in. The silvery aluminum skin is broken in places by the heavier steel skeleton, with the twin tails, wings and landing skids being a part of them. The metallic surface becomes transparent sapphire at the front of the craft, including the lower half, to provide good vision, with two swing-down hatches just before the back-swept horizontal fins begin to form. The angled rear of the ship folds down for loading cargo (and Walter's Perambulator) and two cylindrical bulges at the middle of the craft house the enchanted gravity thrusters and their gimbals.
Inside, the aircraft still seems unfinished, with exposed cables and pistons connecting the thruster cages to the central controls up front, but there's enough of a modular floor to at least keep anyone from stepping into them. Nearly every surface inside is covered in arcane symbols and circuit-like geometries, which also seem to converge on the control console. The pilot station is actually suspended slightly forward into the nose, so that the pilot can look down and see the ground. The controls include foot petals and a control stick with several degrees of movement and a steering yolk. A circular depression in the console next to holds the ring-shaped battery crystal that powers the enchantments, as well as the hybrid systems for magically inducing electrical currents to power the more technological features, like the flood lights that can be directed through the cockpit windows from the seat to the left or right of the pilot. A few extra seats are set behind the pilot station as well, but there's
True to crazy adventurer form, the test flight is also going to be its maiden voyage. It's time to seek out those 'Eye' crystals out the Abaddonian desert. Not only that, but Envoy insisted that Walter, Icarus, and Daedelus come along. She still seems convinced that if any one of them is left alone that they'll be grabbed by some evil force. At least they were able to convince Envoy to let them drag an old sofa onboard so they have something to sit on. So, after packing a few days worth of food (you never know), some extra clothing, and a few weapons (such as the invisible death-ray), the main doors of the old hangar open and the ship, with Envoy at the controls, stares out into the vast red expanse of the planet's surface.
"Here we go!" Envoy says, as she activates the hover ritual and 'bumper' field. She nudges the control yoke forward - and the craft immediately scoots backwards and bounces off of the wall. "Oh.. uh.. hold on!" she says, and flips the magic battery over. "Okay, that should fix it.."
There's a collective wah! from the poor passengers in the back that find themselves thrown forward and almost off their sofa! "You have no idea how to drive, do you Miss Envoy?" Thorndike asks after adjusting his tilted top hat and making sure that his mustache somehow didn't bounce off from that little bump.
"No, not yet," Envoy notes, and then activates the internal gravity to avoid little inertial accidents like that. "But how hard could it be?" This time she makes it out of the bunker. "How high should we go? Or do you want to test out the ground-following?"
"Given we didn't pack parachutes, I suggest we stay low," Elsa remarks rather dryly from the sofa. She deals with her tail by draping it over Walter's lap and the poor human ends up looking uncomfortable.
"I could catch it if we fell," Icarus comments while pulling out a small bottle from the right side pocket of the jacket he wears.
"And tax your energy conversion matrix," Elsa says. "Dangerous. Your absolute limits for safety haven't been determined."
"Okay," Envoy says, "Don't focus on the horizon too much. The interior field should keep us feeling level, but stuff will be bouncing up and down a lot outside." After the warning she pushes forward to increase speed, and tries to get her bearings from the position of the sun.
While Envoy is trying to figure out her bearings, and doing quite a good job of it as she's certain she knows just the right way to go after checking the sun position and cross-checking it with the ship's 'borrowed' chronometer, a few bubbles float past her head and into her peripheral vision.
This is unexpected. Envoy immediately thinks the engines are 'leaking' bits of warped space.. until she sees the bit of moisture at the bottom of each. Without turning around, she says, "Someone is going to have to clean up the soap film from those when they pop, Icarus."
The bubbles twitch in the air and unexpectedly move backwards. "They're not going to pop just anywhere," Icarus claims, "I'm going to use them to practice; Morpheus said it was a good idea."
"What are you practicing?" Envoy asks, as the boat skims over the sand. She does try to avoid the taller dunes, at least.
"Control. Morpheus claimed trying to balance a dozen bubbles as if they were planets and get them to orbit properly would help me learn subtler manipulation as anything rough would pop them," Icarus explains. Of course a few seconds later he adds, "Drat."
"Don't use up all the bubble fluid," Envoy asks. "I want to play with it later too!"
"Aren't you a bit old for that?" Elsa asks.
"I'm only around ten years old," Envoy notes, and nudges the speed up a bit more. She really needs to figure out how to create an airspeed indicator for something that travels in a forcefield..
"Good Lord,s you are a child. You should not be driving," Elsa notes. Meanwhile Walter continues to look confused and worried by the tail in his lap and Icarus is blowing more bubbles. The landscape outside of the ship is now moving by at about the rate of a bicycle. Not fast, but faster than walking.
"Okay, I'm taking us to.. flying speed," Envoy announces.. and then slowly nudges the 'throttle' some more, gritting her teeth.
The ship doesn't feel like it jerks, but the landscape outside of the ship suddenly starts zipping by rather quickly! And my, that boulder ahead is getting close in a hurry!
Seeing the obstacle, and not really willing to test the 'bumper' just yet, Envoy presses on the elevator pedals to tilt the engines up a bit to try and sail over it.
And up they go, and not a moment too soon. The lower edge of the field 'scrapes' the top of the boulder and leaves a small cloud of dust in its wake. "Did we hit something?" Walter asks.
"No!" Envoy claims as she tries to level the ship without making it twist around. "Just.. getting above the obstacles a bit."
Walter looks over to Elsa and is about to say something when she reaches up and puts a scaled finger on his lips. "Quiet and pet my tail," she tells him. The poor, confused, gentleman ends up petting her tail in response.
"They're being weird back here!" Icarus claims from the sofa where he's got a small 'solar system' of bubbles orbiting about his head.
"I'm sure Elsa is just trying to keep warm," Envoy says. Now that they're higher up, she nudges the speed up again. So far, everything seems to be working - but the lack of navigation aids is something she really needs to work on.
And how. The question that keeps coming up is how she's going to find her way home when the sun goes down! At least for the moment she's pretty sure she knows which direction to go and if her estimates are right they should be at the location described in the crazy old scientists logs in a couple hours at the current speed.
"Looks like we'll be camping overnight too," Envoy says cheerily.. and nudges the speed up again while listening for sounds of vibration or strain from the engine mounts.
"You're sleeping with me," Elsa tells Walter. "but that's not very proper!" Walter counters, sounding very nervous.
The multi-point triangular mounting designs from Walter seem to be holding up fine so far; no ominous creaks and groans that signal metal fatigue. Vibration also doesn't seem to be an issue, but the internal dampening field might be masking it.
"It gets cold in the desert at night, Walter," Envoy notes. She seems content with the current speed, which is certainly faster than she can fly on her own, and probably faster than anything non-rocket powered on the planet. This realization has her scanning from side to side for.. rockets.
No signs of tubular pods of flinging death are apparent in her current field of view.
"I promise I don't bite," Elsa adds to Envoy's statement. "Unless you want me to."
"This is going to be a weird trip," Icarus comments just as two of his bubble planets collide and pop.
Icarus' prediction comes out to be fairly accurate. Aside from the orbiting bubble-planets, the small 'meteor belts' made of little bubbles, Envoy's own experimentations with the ship controls, and Elsa's practical coil-around of Walter ... well; it's not quite the family vacation! Up on the horizon are some odd-looking tree-like structures jutting from the ground. As the ship zooms closer it becomes apparent it's getting odder ... because it looks like a forest of glass trees; but instead of leaves they have bulbous, drooping pods hanging from the branches. One of the 'pods' splits open (though how a crystal moves like that is anyone's guess', and Envoy finds the tree ahead staring at her.
"I think we're here!" Envoy declares and begins slowing down the ship for landing. "If you need to go, it is probably best not to use one of the trees."
"Why not?" Icarus asks as he goes about popping each of his bubbles with a claw tip.
"They'll stare at you," Envoy notes, circling around before trying to descend.. which means using the pedals in sync. Mental note; have Walter add a way to lock the pedals to one another for simple maneuvers.
"No male can find relief while being watched," Walter comments. At this point Elsa is half-asleep with her cheek resting against his chest.
It probably would be a good idea to have lockable pedals, because Envoy manages to drop the ship like a rock and pitch it to the left as it descends! The landing is rough given the cloud of dust that envelops the ship and sapphire viewport; but at least the internal field negated much of it.
"I claim the right to fly it back!" Icarus chips.
"Are we there yet?" Elsa mumbles, half-asleep.
"We're here!" Envoy says, and checks to see if either of the hatch doors are blocked by displaced sand. She begins shutting down the various gravity enchantments, figuring the ship is 'level enough' that nobody will fall over when the internal gravity is disengaged.
Except the ship suddenly leans heavily to the left when the fields go off! Landing gear. She forgot the landing gear.
"Wah!" the crew goes in unison for the second time today as they tumble out of the sofa and onto the floor.
"Your tail is in my ear," Walter mumbles.
"Which tail?" Icarus asks.
"It's scaled," Walter amends.
"Well, I think that went well!" Envoy announces. "Icarus, can you level the ship once we're outside?" She climbs out of the pilot station to try and open the door that's closer to the 'top' in the current rotation.
The door isn't light, but the pneumatic pistons Walter installed make it not too difficult to open. It swigs out into a swirl of dust kicked up from the landing.
"Probably," Icarus answers as he digs himself free from the pile of perturbed people.
Climbing out, Envoy squints through the dust to see if anything is about to try and eat them. Just in case.
As the dust parts around her, she finds a dozen 'glass' eyes just staring at her.
"Hello," Envoy says to the eyes, and gives them a little wave. She decides the best place to start is at the trunk, so she heads for the nearest one.
The eyes follow the movement of her hand in absolute silence. Once she's out of the main hatchway, Icarus clambers out behind her. He eyes the odd trees nervously for a few seconds, then turns to deal with the now lopsided ship. Envoy can hear the creak as he starts working on gently levelling the ship out. Walter and Elsa remain inside for the moment.
"Let me know if you hear the trees talking or anything," Envoy calls to Icarus, before placing her palms flat against the crystal trunk to 'listen' for herself.
"Trees don't talk, though," Icarus claims. The tones of his voice are a bit distracted, so who knows if he would hear anything, anyway.
Envoy can 'feel' a slight vibration in the trunk of the tree; but there is no noticeable 'noise' that makes any sort of sense.
"Okay, here I go," the Aeolun mutters, then leans her head forward so her horn touches the tree, and starts to sing one of her learned activation codes to see if it has any effect.
On the fifth code something seems to happen. The trunk of the tree grows soft under the touch of Envoy's horn and she soon fins herself with her forehead pressed against the tree and her horn stuck inside the tree!
Do not panic, this has happened before, Envoy thinks, and tries to see if she can get a better interface. If the tree is user-friendly, getting unstuck shouldn't be too hard..
A dozen more tones cycle quickly from Envoy's awkward head-bow-to-the-tree experiment. When it seems like nothing is going to work, the tree softens again and her head pulls free! This time every single eye on that tree is staring at, and maybe through, Envoy.
"Still no control interface," Envoy notes, and tries more variations as she attempts to communicate with the tree. She even sings in Aelfin, "All I want is some of your eyes."
And all the eyes on that tree promptly fall off and onto the ground around her. It sounds like the world's biggest wind chime just went off.
Envoy blinks three times. She hadn't expected that to work. She picks up one of the fallen orbs and examines it.
As Envoy reaches for the eye, it sprouts little legs and runs in a circle around her.
"Hey, stop that!" Envoy says, spinning around to try and catch it. "Don't you want to be part of a big metal dragon?"
The eye makes no sound, it just continues to run crazy little circles around Envoy's feet.
"Why are you playing with eyeballs?" Walter asks from where he sticks his head out of the now level ship. Icarus is sitting near it, looking winded.
"I'm not," Envoy claims. "They're playing with me." Then she switches to Aelfin again, and tries the command, "Stop!"
"Instead of stopping, exactly, it starts hopping in place.
Envoy sits down to face the bouncing eyeball. "Command Interface," she requests of it.
The eyeball jumps up and lands on Envoy's head, then squats there. A moment later Envoy's vision goes all wonky, like she's seeing double of everything.
Closing her own eyes, Envoy tries to get the crystal one to pan around by just thinking about it.
That seems to work. She sees everything as the eye spins a full circle. Nothing has depth, though.
She has it focus on the faces of her companions, to see how they're reacting to it, while she tries to calculate the proper spacing for good stereovision given the size of the eye. They'd make wonderful telescopes, she thinks.
Amazingly, her companions near the ship don't seem at all surprised by Envoy's behavior. Perhaps they're just used to her antics by now. And while she is trying to figure out the spacing she could /swear she sees a little movement on the horizon.
Time to try the zoom feature, Envoy decides, and focuses the eye on the movement while trying to see it more clearly.
It's a bit tricky to get it to work quite how she wants, but with effort she manages to zoom and focus on the horizon. Perhaps she may wish she hadn't, because there are literally dozens of black, shiny, spiderlike creatures scrambling towards them; each the size of a small vehicle! As the resolution improves she can make out the mechanical bits sticking out of them ... and it becomes clear that the black shiny bits are corrupted crystal!
"Disconnect," Envoy says, opening her eyes. "Uh, help me gather up some of these guys," she tells her friends. "We have a bunch of spider things coming towards us."
"Did you say spiders?" Walter asks. "I hate spiders."
The eyeball sitting on top of her head hops off and resumes running in circles around her!
"Follow me," Envoy tells the eyeballs, hoping they'll behave. She really doesn't want Von Bronson getting any of them!
Alas, the little eyeballs seem to have a mind of their own and scurry about in random directions. The loose gravel around them starts to twitch some as the spider-creatures are getting closer.
"Icarus, can you please get the boat ready to launch?" Envoy asks with forced calm. She reaches down to feel the ground, mainly to judge the materials available to her.
Iron dust and a mix of different types of rock.
Icarus salutes! "On it," he chirps and darts into the ship. Walter eyes the approaching horde of spiders and repeats, "I really hate spiders." Elsa is trying, without much luck, in trying to grab the wayward eyeballs.
Envoy trots out toward the edge of the forest towards the spiders, and ponders. The targets are large, but seem to be ground-bound. They move quickly.. She takes her held Reshape ritual, and spreads it as far as she can through the ground ahead, pushing it outward and compressing it to create a large void just under a thin surface crust.
The reshape ritual activates and Envoy can sense the ground shifting around under it; but she has this sinking feeling that it might not be enough to get all of the creatures heading their way. "Thank you ever so much for getting the eyes off the trees," one of the approaching monsters growls out in the voice of her favorite person, Von Bronson.
"Walter, can you please get the lightning rod ready?" Envoy calls out, referring to the cobbled together collection of heavy duty capacitors, UV laser and the power core from the Sifran spaceship.
"Maybe?" Walter says as he hurries to the rear hatch of the ship and pulls it open. The odd device is on a moving platform and swing arm so he's able to pull it out, but .. it's unwieldy to swing. It's about then that the creatures hit Envoy's 'trap' ground and it gives way! With disturbing shrieks the monsters vanish below the surface! But, as she feared there are so many that they start filling in the hole. In another minute they will just be scrabbling over the ones in the pit and able to get to Envoy and her friends.
Now is when Envoy launches her second held ritual: a high powered Heat Metal spell, right into the pit trap. It may not effect the metal of the spiders quickly - but the iron in the sand and gravel should make for a nice molten goop.
Envoy succeeds in making some very hot, and very mad, spiders! Unfortunately, they're not hot enough to melt and soon they're not more than fifty feet away!
Walter, meanwhile swings himself into the weapon harness and tries to take aim at the cloest of the horrid creatures.
There's a high-pitched whine as the device charges up. The laster cuts an ionized path through the air that a massive charge of electrical energy follows a moment later! The creature glows bright blue and spasms around for several moments before growing stiff and tipping over on its side.
Rapidly running out of prepared spells, Envoy looses her last ranged one. Similar to the enchantment used to provide electricity in the Gravy Boat, it sets up a strong, rotating magnetic field to induce high voltages in metal - and hopefully enough to short out control circuits! She casts Induction on the nearer group of spiders and hopes for the best.
A tell-tail ripple flows around the ship as the flight-field for it becomes active. Elsa has given up on her eyeball chase and she's just running for the open hatch!
This spell works as intended! About ninety percent of the charging horde of horrors begin to shudder, spasm, and wobble about uncontrollably! Legs fall off, others just tip over. It would be a cheering moment except for the few that remain are leaping over the fallen and gliding right towards Envoy!
With no choice left, Envoy plants her feet into the gravel, and casts her Golem spell, willing the ground to literally flow up and form a sort of Titan around her.
The ground does indeed surge up and engulf her, and none too soon. The remaining spiders pile on top of her as the ship lifts off as Elsa dives through its hatch! Poor Walter is screaming and holding on for dear life onto the weapon that hangs from its gimbaled arm out the batch hatchway.
Once the golem is complete, a somewhat gravely fifteen-foot-tall Aeolun tries to pull the spiders off and smash them.
This is easier said than done. They have a LOT of arms, are the size of small cars, and they're all over her.
It's also about then Envoy feels the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, even inside the stony encasement. There's some sort of massive buildup of quantum energy nearby!
That can't be good, Envoy thinks. Is one of the spiders going to explode? She spares some concentration to try and pinpoint the source.
It isn't the spiders; it's a spot some thirty-feet distant. The air there bends and twists inward.
Envoy twists her extended body around so she can get a look at the source, worried that it's Icarus about to try something dangerous.
She spots Icarus fighting with the ship's controls as she twists about; so it doesn't look like it's him! The space twists and tears into a multi-colored array of chaos. Through it stems a shimmering figure, clad in some sort of odd, crystalline armor. The figure is ... six foot tall, perhaps? It's hard to say as parts of the unknown seem to phase in and out of existence. It reaches over its back and pulls forward an odd-looking rifle; a mish-mash of different technologies ... and it takes aim right at Envoy.
Time to eject, Envoy realizes, and drops down through the bottom of the golem, keeping just enough contact to keep it from disintegrating completely. "Eyes!" she sings out. "Attack the warrior!" She has no idea if that will do anything, but it's worth a try at this point!
As Envoy's feet hit the ground, the fluctuating armored figure starts firing ... and hitting the spiders! It's scary just how precise the aim is and Envoy can feel the massive amount of channeled energy rippling through each blast given she's just below it! One by one, the spiders blow apart into shards of blackened crystal and twisted metal.
"This is unexpected," Envoy mutters, as she scuttles out from under the falling debris.
Of course all the eyes are not scurrying towards the person shooting the spiders...
not -> now
"Now they listen!?" Envoy says with her arms over her head. "Come to ME!" she calls out to the eyes. If nothing else, they should provide some armor against energy blasts!
And the eyeballs stop ... and start hopping in place again. Infuriating things, those. One by one like a metronome each of the spiders is blown to shards. Within a minute, there is nothing of them left save black sand and twisted metal. The armored, phasing, figure swings the rifle back over his shoulder, apparently satisfied.
"Is that you, Morpheus?" Envoy calls out, sounding hopeful.
The answer is a single shake of its head, no. Whomever it is salutes, turns, and walks back into the chaotic distortion. It snaps closed with a thunderous boom and enough of a shockwave that Envoy's hair is blown backwards!
"Well.." Envoy says, after blowing a stray lock of hair out of her face. "That was unexpected.." Louder, she asks, "Is everyone alright?"
The ship is tilted at an angle in the air, hovering with a worried-looking Icarus inside. Hanging off the back is poor Walter, who asks, "Who was that?" The eyeballs ... well, they're still hopping in place.
Getting to her feet, Envoy walks over to where the wormhole opened, and tries to feel out any residual fields. "Icarus, where you watching? Did you see where the portal came from?"
Icarus manages to get the ship to land. Once he wobbles his way out of the door, he shakes his head. "I don't know, I was too busy trying to get this machine to move so I could scoop you up," he admits. There's no visible sign at the wormhole point that anything was ever there.
There is a feeling there, it's familiar, yet indistinct. She can swear she's felt it before, but cannot remember where.
That in itself is worrying, for Envoy. So she turns around, and heads back towards the ship.. and the hopping eyeballs. "Well, that was pretty neat, the way that guy blew up the spiders," she says with a smile. "I think we should gather up the eyes and leave now, at very high speed."
The sun has fallen just below the horizon, though ... meaning Envoy will soon be flying blind.
"I thought you wanted to camp out here, though?" Icarus asks as he makes a few futile grabs for hopping eyes. Finally annoyed he lifts his hands up and all of the eyes float of the ground. He snaps his right wrist and they're literally flung into the back of the ship. "Waugh!" calls out Walter from the inside, "I'm beset by bouncing eyes!"
"Well, we could, but then we'd have to watch for more spiders during the night," Envoy points out. "Unless Von Bronson sends giant mechanical scorpions instead. Or bees. But if we go now, I'll let you drive!" she then bribes.
"All right," Icarus relents in agreement. He turns and meanders back towards the ship with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "You'll have to entertain the eyes anyway!" he points out.
"I'm very interesting to look at," Envoy notes, and heads towards the Gravy Boat. And it will give me time to think about what just happened, she thinks behind her smile. Someone has powerful weapons and crystal technology, but chose to protect me over helping Von Bronson, instead of just shooting everyone. Maybe we aren't the only flies in the Tribunal's ointment after all..
And that's about when Envoy remembers why the faint trace felt familiar. It felt exactly like the time she borrowed Icarus' help in gating herself directly to Violette that day that Von Bronson had taken her...