Subj:	 [ffml] [MW] Ringing in the New Year
Date:	99-12-05 03:20:04 EST
From:	magus@cyberverse.com (Daniel Polcari)
Reply-to:	ffml@onelist.com
To:	ffml@onelist.com

Anytime the slightest thought of a question came to his mind, the
annoying in-mind loudspeakers the gear had hooked up to him would
blare out an irrellevant and annoying answer. Furthermore, the
gear for some reason saw it fit to prevent him from directly using
its sensor arrays, instead only allowing him to view data it had
preorganized. Perhaps the Human Brain's bandwidth is too low to
handle the full range of data. E'ris sought the circuits which
regulated the gear's more annoying functions and destroyed them
via psychic feedback. Next, he damaged the gear's voice synth,
changing its voice from that of a half-dead used car salesman to
the hollow, metallic droning of a true Helmship; The mind-controlled
war vessels of Eyar. It had been aeons since he had pilotted his
own ship, Tyrhelm, but this Gear would soon become his new command
post. His next step was to interlace Tyrmagest's will into the
processing sector of the gear, effectively replacing its personality
with Tyrmagest and giving the Gage access to all the data stored in
its Memory banks.

"Well, Tyrmagest.. Here we are. I suppose the Humans' name for this

former derelict is no longer appropriate. I hereby dub this Mech
'Kaymat,' Juggernaut of the Seeker Caste!"

Following a few drium-induced physical changes, the gear would become
that and more. This, of course, meant that he would have to find
a supply of drium in the first place. With Tyrmagest in control of
the machine which was no longer accurately a Gear, E'ris was able to
move it with greater ease than he moved his own body. He tested out
the whip-like weapon, cleaving the torso of one of the rusted gears
away from its hips and legs. The upper half of the machine fell to
the floor of the hanger and made only a loud crash, rather than the
explosion he had hoped for. Next, E'ris attempted to scan the
surrounding strata for Drium. He found that Tyrmagest was automatically
able to augment his senses using the gear's--no, Kaymat's--sensors.
He did not expect to find Drium anywhere near this base, but much to
his surprise, he registered at least a cubic meter's worth right within
the base's walls!  He browsed the old Database within Kaymat and
found that Vollstrecker was actually meant to protect not the base
or its secrets, but rather to protect a seal that was kept here. The
nature of the seal was not stored here, but Tyrmagest had produced
a varitable multimedia presentation for him.

The seal, under dire circumstances, was designed to draw power from
all nearby beings or machinery in order to become tighter and
stronger, but the Guardian was shielded from this effect. When it
went insane, one of the residents' last efforts to stop him was to
shut off the base's power, thus increasing the seal's energy draw
quotient. In addition, they blasted the launching tube shut so
Vollstrecker could not escape the facility. The Guardian was only
mildly effected by the drainage increase, but effected enough to
drive him to cripple the seal's draining capability by damaging
one side of its field.

The cord E'ris plugged into the silo's wall was only a priming
circuit; the silo's destruction had not shut off the power to the
base. Once the Guardian was destroyed and the seal stopped feeding
it power, the seal's field returned to normal mode, but Kaymat's birth
had again (According to most likely theoretical possibility) set it
on safe mode, and this time it had practically shut the power off.

First off, the Launching Rail is the only remaining Gear-sized exit
from the base.

Second, getting out of the gear would likely subject him to drain
strong enough to kill him.

Third, the seal which blocked his path to freedom was made of
hundreds of pounds of Drium.

E'ris had heard enough.  He headed in the direction of the Seal
as it appeared on radar and encountered a large roll-up metal
door.  He pointed the Kaymat's cannon at it and fired, only to be
tossed down the aisle by the incredibly huge explosion. He stood
again and examined the roll-up door, which was now scattered like
confetti, along with pieces of the concrete it was set in, all over
the hallway. E'ris took Kaymat inside the new room -- A large,
dome-shaped, white-walled concrete dome. In its center sat
a cylindrical pedastel, roughly four feet in diameter and four
feet high. Upon its center was a cross-shaped hunk of drium
sitting over another piece of drium wrought into a bat-like shape
and inscribed "Morte ex Machina." None of the databases he had
access to knew what the inscription meant, but the last word
was clearly similar to "Machine." The seal was orbited by four
3" diameter yellow spheres of light which passed though the pedastel
on each revolution. Without thinking, E'ris reached forward and
seized one of the spheres and shattered it, spilling multitudes
of potential energy into the room around him. He was able to
absorb some of it, but most was stolen by the other three spheres.
The orbital path was now largely imbalanced and on each pass the
globes got closer to colliding. Finally, they caught each other
and exploded, releasing light and power once again. The base's
lights stopped flickering and turned on more brightly, and new
machines - ones which he had not previously heard - started to
cycle on.  E'ris dismounted from Kaymat and grinned. There was
enough Drium here to either fully repair his Ground Armor or to
make this former Gear into his new chariot. Regardless, he absorbed
the crystals into throwspace and boarded Kaymat once more.

Out in the main Hangar, several extremely short gears had come to life
and were now moving rocks away from the launching tube. These, he
assumed, were automated. Tyrmagest confirmed his assumption and
suggested he prepare to leave. After 10 minutes or so, the magnetical
rail was clear of rubble and several blue lights along its span were
activated.  E'ris took a moment to smash four of the worker-gears
before positioning the gear on the Launch rail as Tyrmagest instructed.
Thousands of capacitors began charging and the launching tube doors
began to open, one by one, in different directions until distantly
a fleck of light was visible. A string of lights by the door which
was inactive now showed a red signal. A moment later, it showed a
yellow signal. E'ris wondered what the third color would be, but before
he saw it he had traversed a mile of track at 3500mph. The 358-G
accelleration, however, had not killed or even harmed him. The tube's
slo-trans accelleration system had increased his velocity from 0-3500mph
without giving him so much as a sick stomach!

Before he knew it, he was flying under booster power over a lovely ocean
nearby a river outlet, thinking only this --

There are six other seals.




+----------------------+
| Daniel Steven Polcari|
| magus@cyberverse.com |
|   Nemesis^ on IRC    |
+----------------------+

--------------------







Anytime the slightest thought of a question came to his mind, the
annoying in-mind loudspeakers the gear had hooked up to him would
blare out an irrellevant and annoying answer. Furthermore, the
gear for some reason saw it fit to prevent him from directly using
its sensor arrays, instead only allowing him to view data it had
preorganized. Perhaps the Human Brain's bandwidth is too low to
handle the full range of data. E'ris sought the circuits which
regulated the gear's more annoying functions and destroyed them
via psychic feedback. Next, he damaged the gear's voice synth,
changing its voice from that of a half-dead used car salesman to
the hollow, metallic droning of a true Helmship; The mind-controlled
war vessels of Eyar. It had been aeons since he had pilotted his
own ship, Tyrhelm, but this Gear would soon become his new command
post. His next step was to interlace Tyrmagest's will into the
processing sector of the gear, effectively replacing its personality
with Tyrmagest and giving the Gage access to all the data stored in
its Memory banks.
 
"Well, Tyrmagest.. Here we are. I suppose the Humans' name for this
former derelict is no longer appropriate. I hereby dub this Mech
'Kaymat,' Juggernaut of the Seeker Caste!"
 
Following a few drium-induced physical changes, the gear would become
that and more. This, of course, meant that he would have to find
a supply of drium in the first place. With Tyrmagest in control of
the machine which was no longer accurately a Gear, E'ris was able to
move it with greater ease than he moved his own body. He tested out
the whip-like weapon, cleaving the torso of one of the rusted gears
away from its hips and legs. The upper half of the machine fell to
the floor of the hanger and made only a loud crash, rather than the
explosion he had hoped for. Next, E'ris attempted to scan the
surrounding strata for Drium. He found that Tyrmagest was automatically
able to augment his senses using the gear's--no, Kaymat's--sensors.
He did not expect to find Drium anywhere near this base, but much to
his surprise, he registered at least a cubic meter's worth right within
the base's walls!  He browsed the old Database within Kaymat and
found that Vollstrecker was actually meant to protect not the base
or its secrets, but rather to protect a seal that was kept here. The
nature of the seal was not stored here, but Tyrmagest had produced
a varitable multimedia presentation for him.
 
The seal, under dire circumstances, was designed to draw power from
all nearby beings or machinery in order to become tighter and
stronger, but the Guardian was shielded from this effect. When it
went insane, one of the residents' last efforts to stop him was to
shut off the base's power, thus increasing the seal's energy draw
quotient. In addition, they blasted the launching tube shut so
Vollstrecker could not escape the facility. The Guardian was only
mildly effected by the drainage increase, but effected enough to
drive him to cripple the seal's draining capability by damaging
one side of its field.
 
The cord E'ris plugged into the silo's wall was only a priming
circuit; the silo's destruction had not shut off the power to the
base. Once the Guardian was destroyed and the seal stopped feeding
it power, the seal's field returned to normal mode, but Kaymat's birth
had again (According to most likely theoretical possibility) set it
on safe mode, and this time it had practically shut the power off.
 
First off, the Launching Rail is the only remaining Gear-sized exit
from the base.
 
Second, getting out of the gear would likely subject him to drain
strong enough to kill him.
 
Third, the seal which blocked his path to freedom was made of
hundreds of pounds of Drium.
 
E'ris had heard enough.  He headed in the direction of the Seal
as it appeared on radar and encountered a large roll-up metal
door.  He pointed the Kaymat's cannon at it and fired, only to be
tossed down the aisle by the incredibly huge explosion. He stood
again and examined the roll-up door, which was now scattered like
confetti, along with pieces of the concrete it was set in, all over
the hallway. E'ris took Kaymat inside the new room -- A large,
dome-shaped, white-walled concrete dome. In its center sat
a cylindrical pedastel, roughly four feet in diameter and four
feet high. Upon its center was a cross-shaped hunk of drium
sitting over another piece of drium wrought into a bat-like shape
and inscribed "Morte ex Machina." None of the databases he had
access to knew what the inscription meant, but the last word
was clearly similar to "Machine." The seal was orbited by four
3" diameter yellow spheres of light which passed though the pedastel
on each revolution. Without thinking, E'ris reached forward and
seized one of the spheres and shattered it, spilling multitudes
of potential energy into the room around him. He was able to
absorb some of it, but most was stolen by the other three spheres.
The orbital path was now largely imbalanced and on each pass the
globes got closer to colliding. Finally, they caught each other
and exploded, releasing light and power once again. The base's
lights stopped flickering and turned on more brightly, and new
machines - ones which he had not previously heard - started to
cycle on.  E'ris dismounted from Kaymat and grinned. There was
enough Drium here to either fully repair his Ground Armor or to
make this former Gear into his new chariot. Regardless, he absorbed
the crystals into throwspace and boarded Kaymat once more.
 
Out in the main Hangar, several extremely short gears had come to life
and were now moving rocks away from the launching tube. These, he
assumed, were automated. Tyrmagest confirmed his assumption and
suggested he prepare to leave. After 10 minutes or so, the magnetical
rail was clear of rubble and several blue lights along its span were
activated.  E'ris took a moment to smash four of the worker-gears
before positioning the gear on the Launch rail as Tyrmagest instructed.
Thousands of capacitors began charging and the launching tube doors
began to open, one by one, in different directions until distantly
a fleck of light was visible. A string of lights by the door which
was inactive now showed a red signal. A moment later, it showed a
yellow signal. E'ris wondered what the third color would be, but before
he saw it he had traversed a mile of track at 3500mph. The 358-G
accelleration, however, had not killed or even harmed him. The tube's
slo-trans accelleration system had increased his velocity from 0-3500mph
without giving him so much as a sick stomach!
 
Before he knew it, he was flying under booster power over a lovely ocean
nearby a river outlet, thinking only this --
 
There are six other seals.
 
 
 
 
+----------------------+ | Daniel Steven Polcari| | magus@cyberverse.com | |   Nemesis^ on IRC    | +----------------------+
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