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Awakening the WuShi unto The Creeping Darkness to open a transdimensional-arc
Topping the Cliffs of Orion, a rare blood-moon illuminated an ancient-alien plaza from across a wide, lazy river while a bevy of naked people danced around the edge of a great Pentaculum at the base of a transdimensional construct known as The-Forbidden-Gate. As they danced, they intoned a fire-chant to the steady boom—boom—boom of a huge barrel drum. It was a new fire chant that Alahna, Adept in the 12th Circle of the Huan Long Shui Order, had just taught to them. All brave and loyal adherents, she brought them hence to help her rip open the very fabric of the space-time continuum by activating the Pentaculum and Pillars-of-Thoth with a forbidden ritual not performed in over 5,000-years—a deeply forbidden ritual.
Nearly as tall as 50-story buildings, the pentagonal, granite monoliths had once been a single, granite solid. The Pillars-of-Thoth were created by vertically splitting the huge polyhedron solid from base to apex forming vast vertical gaps both above and below. Alahna’s Song-of-the-Voids would cause magicfire source-energy to cascade between them as continuous sheets of source-energy to rip open space-time itself.
However, unbeknownst to Alahna, the ancient, arcane songspell was also an invocation of an alien and malevolent artificial-intelligence called: The WuShi; also known as The-Creeping-Darkness; also known as That-Which-Abides.
Alahna’s quest was to find a savior, a hero, someone to save her world. The WuShi had other ideas—it wanted a power-master, for the Huan Long Shui Order had starved it and held it in dull semiconsciousness for eons. Now, it was awake! Now, it would take its revenge.
The air above the Plaza-of-the-Forbidden-Gate shrieked and popped in protest to the atom-ripping forces of the blistering source-fire spitting into the night.
A fire-dragon watched from afar, preparing to flame them all.
The WuShi — an artificial-sapience lying in abatement for over 5,000-years
Sacred Solids in orbit around the energy projection tower and beam were always in flux. While this tower seemed a simple object of massive construction, it was anything but. Also known as The Creeping Darkness, the WuShi was far beyond artificial-intelligence. It was as a hyper-complex artificial-sapience.
Bo YouYong said to Selene, “Take us inside thy sphere-of-power. ‘Tis the only way to safely open this portal.”
Selene made a gesture-of-inclusion on all four dragons. Once protected within, they joined in group-mind—including Selene. Moving as one, they performed a complex gesture-of-opening. At the same time, Selene’s synchronized hands mirrored the same movements. When the portal simply whuffed away, they were assaulted by a deafening cacophony.
Buzz—sizzle—crackle—sizzle—buzz—sizzle—crackle—on and on it went.
The skin of Selene’s SijanPao scintillated with random sparks. As it popped and sparked, the sphere-of-power damped down the cacophony and they levitated at the four quadrants. Before them lay a vast space of visual impossibility. In terrified awe, Selene put her hands to her face. A brownish minaret as big around as the central plaza of Riverbend rose up. Transparent crystalline faces defined its shape. A crackling cylinder of white, semi-coherent light energy some 100-meters in diameter roared upward as a beacon of semi-coherent light energy disappearing into a monumental annular ring in the dark aether defining the next level above.
Hundreds upon hundreds of floors visible inside the minaret showed level upon level upon level of arcane, self-maintaining machinery with robotic jikiren rolling busily about on their mindless tasks. Visible through the smooth-as-glass faces, rectangular risers of open space held huge machines running along vertical monorails while performing unfathomable tasks. Inside the closest rectangular riser, a cylindrical artifice bigger than the biggest blue whale ran upward on its vertical monorail, stopped, and spat lightning from the pointed nose into a giant arc chute where it got transformed into rings of energy rising swiftly up the outside of a thick silver tube. Arrayed around the great minaret were four Sacred Solids as physical-metaphysical-constructs each larger than the 5-story court house in the central plaza of Riverbend.
Words sounded in her mind: East was Air. The Octahedron-of-Air slowly turned on its axis while leaving behind a fading trail of blue. The interior was also of blue sky with rolling white clouds forming and disappearing in a never-ending cycle of stormy weather.
South was Fire— The huge Tetrahedron-of-Fire proceeded from sight leaving a fading trail of orange-carmine heat. As she watched, it flipped and began rotating on another vertex. Endless sheets of flame forever raged within. Watching it, a sense of scorch overwhelmed her olfactory sense. The longer she beheld it, the hotter she felt.
West was Water in the form of an Icosahedron. Watching it, the salt air scent of the sea seemed to fill her nostrils. The icosahedron never settled on any consistent motion as if forever immersed in universal entropy. Oceanic floods flowed inside its equilateral, triangular surfaces roiling from surface-to-surface like waves perpetually falling and rising while forever clashing.
Coming around the minaret on the left as she watched, the smell of green forest filled her senses when she locked her gaze onto the next Sacred Solid for North. The Cube-of-Aerthe precessed continually as a four-dimensional hypercube impossible to visually comprehend. Green glowing rain forests seemed to grow and die in a perpetual warping of time itself. She found herself unable to look away or even blink, for it was more than a simple cube. It was a tesseract as defined by its continuously morphing edges. Where a cube would have had 12-edges, the vast tesseract before her had 16-edges always-morphing inward even as the remaining edges precessed outward.
As the Sacred Solids slowly orbited the vast minaret, it seemed that each obeyed the path of its own respective sine wave. In group-mind now, their individual thoughts were known to all. For the dragons it was manageable, but not so for Selene. To break the mesmerizing hold which the incredible scene before them had on her human mind, Quang HuoYan held his hand before Selene’s eyes, “Do not gaze upon them, little human. They will forever hold thee enthralled even unto thine eventual death. Look only at the ancient thoroughfare before us, or pick one of us and look only there.”
Selene looked down at the boulevard before them, It was as wide as the portal itself. The perpetual motion machine transcended time and space as the white column-of-energy rose up through the heart of XiangBhala in a hollow cylinder inside the Central Obelisk, then into the spinning cuboid at the apex where it finally powered the force-fields of the city-sized dodecahedron.
Due to the deafening crackle and buzz, Bo You Yong mind-spoke, Little adept, this is the perpetual engine of the WuShi. It holds and sustains the great dodecahedron around XiangBhala existing forever within and without both time and space. As such, XiangBhala is both infinite and impenetrable. Now then, hold thy concentration steady. Thy presence-of-mind is a matter of survival for us all.
The Water Beast of The Creeping Darkness comes for Elijah — the stolen-man
The instinct to survive forced him to a higher state of wakefulness than he had attained since the horrific night-of-the-dragon. Full-on panic struck his pounding heart like the fangs of a snake. Closing his revivified eyes, a nightmare cascade of alien images, glyphs, shapes, and jumbled concepts stole his breath away. In the creeping darkness, something whispered—come—come—come—unto me. . . .
He found words, and croaked, “On fire again. . . .” and screamed a long, ululating scream, a desperate scream, a pitiful scream. A sheet of flame rippled up his arm. Steaming sweaty vapors rolled free with edges tinged by invisible infrared, which he could somehow see. Azure flamelets licked along his face with a fresh wave of blistering heat. Desperately assessing, he remembered the warm, whispering waters calling to him with the promise of merciful surcease. Pulling at him, urging him, he could almost hear those wordless words—come—come—come—unto me. . . .
Semi-delirious, he stumbled weak and mewling to the babbling brook and fell to his knees hoping to douse his flaming face with fiery hands. Azure flames defied uncaring waters. He fell to his belly in the gabbling gush and screamed with his face and body fully submerged. Gurgles and bubbles rose past burning flesh. When he pulled his head up to gasp for air, the babbling brook possessed his fevered brain with wordless words compelling—come—come—come—unto me!
As the azure conflagration raged, smoking bandages floated lazily on slow-moving currents. Now fully ablaze, he scrambled to his hands and knees, staggered mewling to his flaming feet, wobbled upstream using the rough walls of a man-sized-tunnel to steady the lurching progress. Why he chose upstream versus downstream was not of conscious volition. Quiet now, inexorable obsession compelled him forth . . . come . . . come . . . come . . . unto me. . . .
Ankle deep in the bright, living waters, he staggered into the tunnel as a walking pyre.
Plaza of the Forbidden Gate on Planet Janaidar
Back at the Cavern Keep of the Huan Long Shui Sisteren, Bo YouYong raised her fore-hands and sang a Song-of-Secrets encompassing only those present. The sea-dragon’s singing voice sounded like calm waters soughing against the pilings of a pier—sublime and wondrous. As the zone-of-secrecy coalesced around them, their surroundings became blurred and weirdly flanged. Outside sounds were muffled, “Let us dispense with formalities. We are here in response to a geis-of-summoning! We can plainly see this was not of yer doing,” and she swept the council members with her gaze.
“Mighty guardians, may I speak?” Yenara said.
Impatient, Bo nodded. Her great feelers wriggled like eels.
“Just yesterday, in a supposedly emergent Calling-of-the-Council, Senior Adept Alahna demanded the Sisteren assist her in activating the Pentakulum beneath the Pillars-of-Thoth at the Plaza-of-the-Forbidden-Gate in order to find a savior somewhere in the multiverse.”
Alarmed, Tai Deren spoke in her smooth and earthy contralto, “Savior? What sort of savior? Save from what?”
Yenara said, “Alahna went on and on about some takings in the north. People, food stores, livestock, all gone except for old bogiturs and children. Of course, we demanded proof, but all she had was the dubious word of Old One-eyed Oren, Captain and owner of the seagoing vessel, Dragon’s Breath.”
Lilith harrumphed, then chimed in, “I directed Kulapti Yenara to send lesser adepts to Riverbend this very day and mount expeditions to the north in order—”
“There has not been enough time to organize this as yet,” Yenara butted in again.
Noticeably aggravated with Yenara’s rude and overbearing conduct throughout the morning, notwithstanding this most recent loss of face, Lilith silently glowered.
Tai Deren voiced what the others were thinking, “The Plaza-of-the-Forbidden-Gate—the Pillars-of-Thoth? Let this be untrue!”
Note: This page showing the Pillars of Thoth (aka The Forbidden Gate), is the background media of this great website. It shows The Forbidden Gate–a transdimensional-arc–already locked onto Earth (aka Terra) from planet Janaidar. It also depicts the Riven Moon of Janaidar, which the ancient-alien trans-universe, trans-galactic slavers, known in the novel as the NuliZhu, mined the moon of Janaidar (analog to Earth’s Luna) so extensively over 5-millennia previous to the setting of the story that the mine-spoilage became rings around the moon.