When One Door Opens (SciFi & Fantasy)

[CrystalPrincess]

(This is loosely based on a book I recently picked up at a half-price bookstore. It's about three worlds that somehow become interlinked. One is ours, one is a classical fantasy world, and one is a world of classic space opera from the 1940's and 1950's. Something that works in one world will not work in the others. I'm not really sure where I want to take this; I just thought I'd let it flow and see what happens when characters from different genres interact. If you're interested in joining, please pm me before doing so. Thanks!)

Lisa sighed as she tapped on her computer. It was her only link to the world. Her parents had moved to a small farm in the middle of nowhere when she was but three. Since then, Lisa's only interactions with the real world had been small church gatherings and such. And all of them strictly chaperoned.

Lisa had blossomed into a beautiful young woman. Having just turned 18, she stood 5'4", and the combination of her dusky, exotic looks (in the middle of a settlement of people of Northern European ancestry), combined with her athletic yet feminely curved body got her more than a few looks. Lisa wouldn't have minded to find out some of the thoughts behind those looks. But that wasn't going to happen. All her interactions were carefully monitored.

Except the internet. Part of her homeschooling required her to go on the internet from time to time. Her parents had installed several monitoring softwares on her computer, but Lisa had bypassed them all. Right now, Lisa was talking on the internet with a guy she had just met. She was getting a bit risque, knowing her parents wouldn't be home for a couple of more hours; plenty of time to wipe clean her electronic tracks.

Hotguy21: So what size bra do you wear?

Lisa giggled. Eventually, every guy she talked to online asked that question. She was always temped to answer it with some nonsensical answer, like 34H or something, but she was proud of her 34C and besides, she was thinking about doing something different today.

DarkSnowFlake: 34C

Hotguy21: Nice. I bet they look nice with your long hair hanging down over them. I'd really love to see what you look like.

Lisa had told Hotguy about her dark hair, which her parents insisted that she keep waist long. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for her next response. She typed it in, looked at it for a second, then hit 'Enter'

DarkSnowFlake: Well, I do have a webcam.

It was like a pistol shot starting an avalanche. Immediately, every guy in the chat room was begging/pleading/demanding that she turn on her webcam. Lisa knew that if had not disabled her Instant Messenger from receiving messages from people not on her friends list, her screen would be overloaded with private messages.

Two days ago, Lisa's parents had bought her a webcam for her 18th birthday. It was definitely NOT so that she could put on webcam shows for horny boys in internet chat rooms. Her parents planned to keep her at home and have her take her college courses online. Some of the courses, however, required real time interaction, so Lisa's parents had reluctantly bought her a microphone and web camera. They weren't too worried, however. They had the safeguards on the computer, right?

Lisa took a deep breath and turned on the webcam, focusing it so that it captured her sweater clad torso, with her hair spilling down over her chest. The response was enthusiastic, although there were immediate requests for her to remove her sweater. Lisa was torn between turning off the computer and displaying her bra-clad breasts. It was, by far, the most sexual situation she had ever been in.

The men in the chatroom were to be disappointed. The webcam suddenly went off and DarkSnowFlake suddenly went offline, never to reappear.

Lisa's parents weren't aware of it, but the webcamera had an unusual glitch. One that would have never been noticed, except that the webcamera was activated for the first time at the exact instance that a small overlap between Lisa's world and another drifted through the web camera. The result was a small fire that destroyed half of Lisa's house before the volunteer fire department could contain it. The web camera and computer were destroyed, and no trace of Lisa was ever found.

Instead, Lisa found herself in a small clearing of an old growth forest, the like of which had not been seen in Lisa's world for hundreds of years.

 

[gagonthis]

"Let's kick the tires and light the fires baby!" A voice sounded in Blest's ear and he smiled, chuckling slightly at his wingman. "Cut the chatter Wolf eight." His commander said, though it was obvious from his voice that he had the same eager excitement racing through his veins. It couldn't be helped. Starfighter pilots were adrenaline junkies and no one had truly lived until they felt the rush that comes right before entering battle. "Sound off Wolves!" His commander barked out, his voice now controlled. "Wolf two, all systems go." He heard over the comm. "Wolf three all systems go." This repeated down the line until Blest turned on his comm. "Wolf ten, all systems go!" He said, glee in his voice as the commander gave the launch order, Blest grinning broadly as he shot out of the War Cruiser into the blackness of space.

This was his first mission with the Wolf Pack, the elite of the Hapash Federations Starfighter squads. He'd been flying for well over ten years now, but as Commander Parrish had told him the first day he'd been transferred, it didn't count for shit. "You haven't really flown till you've run with the Wolf Pack." He'd sat, slapping Blest on the shoulder. "Don't sweat it none, you've got talent kid, you'll go far."

"Alright men, you know our mission. Hit and run, we've got to get in, nail those shipyards, do as much damage as we can and get out. Int-core has provided us with all the details we'll need, there should be light resistance at best... this place is supposed to be a secret so no one will be expecting us. We'll pass the outermarker in five minutes, after that comm silence. Alright Wolf Pack, let's kick the tires and light the fires!" Parrish said, chuckling at the whoop that came over the comm. Blest was nervous, Int-core, the Hapash Federations intelligence corps had reported this place abandoned, but Blest couldn't shake a bad feeling in his gut. He shook off his nervousness, focusing on the mission. Their run would take them in close proximity to the an spatial anamoly called the Worm's Tooth. It was said to be a wormhole that had collided with a black hole, creating some phenomenom that Hapash's best scientists knew next to nothing about. It also played hell with sensors in the area, making it the perfect choice for the Gyd's to hide their newest shipyard near.

"Outermarker in fifteen seconds, accelerate to attack speed and cut comm communication now!" Commander Parrish ordered, his ship leaping forward. Blest smiled and pushed his throttle forward to match speed, swooping into his assigned position in the formation. Strafing in quickly half the squadron brought off one direction while he and the other half broke the other, firing destruction down upon the shipyard, Plasma cannons and Plutonium missles exploding upon the structure, bathing the space around him in the bright orange red of explosion. With a whoop of triumph he strafed a large skeleton Dreadnaught, still under construction and hit its core, causing a huge explosion to rip the ship and the wing of the shipyard apart. His sensors picked up a large blip off his port side and he swung his nose around to see the phosphorous bomb the commander had been carrying falling towards what was remaining of the shipyard, their sign to leave. Turning his nose and accelerating away the other half of his squadron joined, having dealt with the minor fighter resistance from the shipyard. The comm clicked back on. "Good job Wolves, didn't lose anyone this time arou...... OH SHIT!" His commander yelled as alarms started blaring all around Blest. Something big was hopping into system right in front of them. "INCOMING!! Gyd Warhound Mark 3! Scatter!!"

Blest's face paled as he heard the annoucement. The Warhounds were the Gyd Empire's answer to small fighter squads like the Wolf Pack. Designed specifically with small craft combat in mind. The Wolves scattered. Blest pulled back on his stick and began to climb skyward, the G forces threatening to black him out. Suddenly, in a flicker of blue electricity everything on the ship shut down. Shit... He'd been hit by an ion blast. Unstrapping himself he reached behind him, going for a manual restart... when the awful truth hit him. He was still accelerating. That shouldn't be possible with his engines cut off unless... he turned back forward. The Worm's Tooth was drawing him in. He didn't have the forward momentum of his thrusters to counter its pull and now it was drawing him in... slowly towards his doom. He closed his eyes. Counting off the seconds before trying a manual restart. Nothing happened. "FUCK!" He screamed as he watched helplessly as the Worms Tooth swallowed him whole. The pressure on the ship would surely crush it like a tin can, and he would die, either from being crushed to death or flash freezed in space. He felt his oxygen give out and he passed out slowly... his last thought being one of happiness as he saw the rest of the Wolf Pack shoot into Hyperspace, safe for another day. At least they would live he thought as blackness overtook him.

He awoke slowly, looking around. He was in a forest of some kind. Was this the afterlife? Had he been awarded a warriors death? He looked around, feeling the trees around him and feeling his own body. Everything felt real enough... but he couldn't still be alive could he? He frowned as he picked his way through the trees, looking for some sign of life or anything. He checked his comm, finding that it did not function properly. He zipped his flight suit down as he walked, the heat taking its toll on his body. For many hours he searched, seeing no one about. He had almost given up hope, imaging that he was perhaps sentenced to a life of lonliness for his unworthy death when he saw movement in a clearing ahead. Running forward he ducked behind a tree, peeking out to see who the person in the clearing ahead was.

 

[CrystalPrincess]

Lisa blinked. Something must have blown up, exploded...something. One moment, she was contemplating lifting her sweater for the benefit of an anonymous internet audience. The next...

The next she was in a forest in the middle of nowhere.

I must definitely be hallucinating or in a coma or something, Lisa thought to herself. Except for a dream, it felt too real. She pressed her hand against a nearby tree. The bark was very real and...different.

Lisa had been playing around with the idea that somehow she had dazedly driven a hundred miles away to the nearest forest, and in that same daze hiked into the middle of the forest. Except these trees were...different. They looked like oaks, except...they didn't. The leaves had odd looking lobes. Not strikingly different, but different all the same. Part of Lisa's extensive home schooling including practical botany. Lisa could identify the leaves of any tree native to the region she had grown up in. None of these trees belonged to the ones she was familiar with.

It was warm outside, warm enough that Lisa stripped off the sweater she had been wearing, revealing a plain orange Tshirt underneath. Lisa had had a cellphone on her belt. Oddly, though, it wouldn't turn on, no matter how many times she tried to turn it on. Lisa sat with her back against one of the trees on the edge of the clearing, trying to thing what to do next.

 

[gagonthis]

Blest was just as confused as she was. He had been in several forests over the last ten years, stationed on several backwater worlds that were covered entirely in them. This forest wasn't like those though. The trees were much shorter and much further spaced apart than they were on the worlds he knew. Plus green leaves? Heh... everyone knew the pigment of leaves was directly influenced by the color of a solar systems sun, and he had never heard of a green sun... this one appeared to be yellow.

He frowned as he peered around the tree, seeing the figure move in the clearing. It was a female, she looked Hapash, she certainly wasn't a Gyd or a Loja worker.. She also looked harmless. Maybe she knew about this strange place he found himself. Grabbing his Phasevar sidearm he stepped out from behind the tree, approaching the woman from behind slowly. "Hello?" he called out in Hapashi, a language very similiar to English, with subtle differences. Not that he knew what English was. "Who are you, please turn slowly..." He said then dropped his sidearm in stunned silence as she turned towards him before falling to his knees and putting his forehead on the ground. "My.... my humblest apologies Princess... I would not presume to.... I'm sorry... I thought... I didn't know..." He stuttered out as he kept his forehead glued to the ground, shocked to see the spitting image of Princess Loashi, the daughter of the most powerful lord in the Hapash Federation in front of him.

 

[CrystalPrincess]

I have to do something, but what? Can't just hike out of here, thought Lisa. Especially since I don't know where here is.

Lisa stood up and looked up at the sky. It was a clear blue, but the sun looked slightly off. She couldn't tell what, but it was like the leaves and the trees. It wasn't quite right, but the difference was too subtle to put her finger on.

A voice from behind her startled her.

"Who are you? Please turn slowly..."

The English was accented. Lisa couldn't quite place it. Eastern European maybe? She didn't know. She just turned around to see a man wearing something from one of those shows on the SciFi channel pointing an odd-looking gun at her. She didn't recognize the make, but she definitely recognized it as a gun.

And then things got even more bizarre. The man in question immediatedly bowed down in front of her, saying something about "Highness" and "forgive me". Lisa did the only logical thing she could think of.

She fainted dead away.

 

[CrystalPrincess]

The OOC thread for this thread is here:
OOC for 'When One Door Opens'

 

[Finadien]

Beragon sat up, instantly fully awake but not knowing what had waken him. He pushed aside the linen sheets and put his feet on the stone floor, hoping that the cold would help him concentrate.

Something had happened, something that had shook the magical currents in a way that he hadn't felt before. He was far from the accomplished sorcerer his master had been but unfortunately his master was dead now and the responsibility for all things magic in the realm was now in his hands.

He stood up and walked to the window to pull the curtains aside. It was bright daylight outside which meant he had slept at least 12 hours. This was no wonder since this was the first sleep he had gotten the last 4 days. Something or someone had shifted the leylines for the last 2 month or so and he had tried to find out what or who that had been but unfortunately without any success.

He was sure that the big disruption that had wakened him had been the direct result of the manipulation of the leylines and now the allready urgent problem had become a crisis. He still didn't know what the exact results had been but if he could feel them it had to be drastic.

Beragon striped out of his simple nightshirt, splashed some water in his face from the bowel on the nightstand and then he put on a simple undergarment and the robe that bore the symbol of his new office. Takíng two steps at once he took the stairs up to his masters...his study now and moved swiftly to the huge crystal ball that was in the center of the room.

An short incantation and several long search patterns later he had centered the view over the center of the magical disruption he had sensed and was rewarded with a rather strange sight. In a clearing in the woods several miles north of his tower a man that was wearing very strange clothes was kneeling over a girl that was unconscious. Neither of them had any magical aura so non of them could be the cause for the disruption. But perhaps they did now something about it.

He raced the steps down again, passing his sleeping chamber and wet further down, grabbing his staff on the way and then he was out of the door. With large strides on walked due north and let out a loud whistle.

After some minutes a dark brown horse came out of the woods, bayed once and stood still to wait for him to mount. Together they hurried further north.

 

[gagonthis]

Blest ran forward as he saw the princess begin to faint, catching her in his arms as she fell. "Your highness? Are you alright? Your highness?" He asked, seeing she was unconscious. He was puzzled by everything going on around him. Where was he? This forest was like none he had ever seen before, everything was miscolored and slightly misshaped. Furthermore why was the Princess of Hapash's most powerful family here in this odd place, and why was she dressed like someone out of one of Laon's theater performances? Everything was upside down and he tried his best to wrap his mind around the oddness. Right now though his main concern was making sure the Princess was alright. He shook her gently, wondering why her hair was so long, the Princess Loashi usually perferred to keep her hair short with a topknot.. the typical look for a Hapash royal family member. Having hair as long as hers was the sign of a peasant... one who did not have time to worry about their appearance.. it all seemed very strange. He reached into his suit, snapping out his hydration system, splashing some of the water in her face. "Highness... you need to awaken.."

 

[CrystalPrincess]

Lisa felt water splashing on her face, and shook her head. "I'm up, I'm up," she mumbled. It was a favorite tactic of her parents to use water to wake her up, rather than make actual contact. "Chicken feed bag is almost empty. Dad needs to get some more when he heads to the feed store."

 

[gagonthis]

Blest blinked slightly as the Princess sat up and began spouting gibberish. "Chicken feed? I beg your forgiveness highness, but what is it that you are speaking of? And what are you doing here in.... wherever this place is." He placed his forehead on the ground fearing he had already said too much and he would be punished for speaking too much to her royalness. He felt that he was probably safe to speak to her, as this was hardly a routine day... he thought for sure he was dead when the Warhound had clipped him.. he had watched with dread certainty as the Worm's Tooth had sucked him in.. instead he found himself in this strange forest with what appeared to be one of the most powerful women in the Hapash Federation... only with much different clothing and hairstyle and talking of... chicken feed? Whatever that was. It was anything but a normal day so he spoke up again, though he did not make eye contact with Princess Loashi, "A thousand pardons for my audacity your highness, but do you know where it is we are exactly?"

 

[Finadien]

Beragon hurried his mount through the treacherous woods. The mare knew the woods better then he did and so he only communicated the basic direction to her with his seating but let her choose her own way. He knew that time was of the essence since the pair he had seen through his crystal ball would be hard to track if they left the clearing where he had seen them. He had some basic woodman skills but if either of them had some knowledge about hiding tracks he would be hard pressed to follow them. Some people attributed many miraculous feats to sorcerers but what they (and he) really could do was very limited.

In a few more minutes he would have reached them and then hopefully everything would become much clearer.