ESPS: DijQuest

[Cy Skywalker]

Here within your grasp beith the long awaited story of none other than ourselves. You asked for it, I wrote it, and you can write it too if you so desire, just check with me. Any questions about the world go to me also...enjoy!

Database #1. Compiled by the ESPS ghost 11.29.04. Edited for clarity and grammar by Cy Skywalker 12.05.04.
~Elan Sleazebaggano, the lightsabers, the Kushiban species, the orange flightsuit, and the Skywalkers property of Mr. George Lucas
~Tiana’s outfits, the hobbit and Sauron property of Mr. Tolkein.
~the twins used to be the property of the Wachowskis before being bribed
~Link and Navi belong to Nintendo
~the sims and VR concept belong in part to Mr. Tad Williams.
***
This is a story about an organization. We have also a website and a series of slang, but it started with the organization. We’re friends, comrades-in-arms, and co-conspirators. We are the ESPS.
The new universe is my fault. I take the blame, or the credit. I call myself Cy-Raxx Skywalker and a lot of aliases and usernames, and in what I thought was a dream I messed with the space-time continuum of a galaxy far, far away to get rid of Mara Jade. I don’t remember it well really, whether accidentally or purposefully the method and mean of that experience is lost to me. But the result was that some things that shouldn’t have happened have happened, and I gained the Force and went to the dark side in an experiment of my own making, and returned with the help of my friends. We all went through change and trial in that extremely strange--so strange that it felt normal--time of switching between realities, and they, like me, are not quite ready to share them. (This will be in first person for now, but that could always change.)
But reality for us, now, is an Earth 21st century where Internet on a screen is a thing of the past, for a select few at least, can enter it in tri-D and surround sound. Simulated bodies crafted by an unknown designer walk in dimensionless rooms, and many, many links and addresses remain unglimpsed. We knew very little about the ‘net we lived in, but it was a home where people across states and countries, indeed across canons, could come together.
When I first came to the net it was like falling through deep water at first, and then as if a cacoon was being built around me. This was my sim body. It is that of a young Rebel looking very much like my RL self but slightly taller, with a sword sheathed across my back, with orange and white stone at the hilt and black metal banded around it. I ended up in the ESPS base on my hands and knees upon the multicolored and black floor. I stood up and saw the ones who had really figured out the net-Yazakavetchi Amio and Tiana-Eowyn Skywalker. Tiana had hair roughly the blond-brown color of mine, though it was longer and neater. Yaz, my eternal good friend, was only recognizable because I had helped create the character of the catlike white alien she now inhabited. The Kushiban body was and often is curled around the iron-clad shoulders of the Dark Lord Sauron of Middle-earth. Sauron’s towering dignity was only slightly reduced by portions of his armor being dyed purple. Anakin Skywalker stood to the side in full Jedi garb and episode two surliness.
“Jettoz.” Yaz said, and smiled with sharp white teeth.
I don’t remember if I fainted or not.
***
It seems much longer from then than it’s actually been. The place that the plot actually begins is here.
We were returning from Amazon.com, a most wonderful place to buy books and such if that’s what you’re into. It had been an exceptionally good day. I was sitting on one of the many couches Yaz had downloaded from somewhere. There were four of them, a strange yellow color because that had been cheap and there was no ESPS credits fund, and the others, the ones present being Yaz, Tiana, the Flautist or KT, and Master Frodo Baggins, sat in varied places around them. Luke Skywalker’s arm was around my shoulders and a long-awaited copy of the Star Wars trilogy DVD was in my hands, and life was good.
Yaz was at the console, a section of cyberspace that actually looked like a high-grade computer floating in midair, and was a spot to leave messages and play games. Master Frodo, in the guise of a slightly-to-tall hobbit, and Tiana were talking about speaking Elvish, in English, while Link of Hyrule ate and filled the place with the smell of bacon. It was a pleasant, relaxed, slightly loud atmosphere.
There came the delayed popping noise that mean someone had entered the net into our domain. I turned around.
The sim now standing in a formerly empty space looked young, ten or eleven. He was dressed in ragged, old-fashioned clothes and a driving cap, and carried a cloth bag. There were a few confused glances among the ESPS. I had partly stood up when Tiana asked,
“Hello. Who are you?”<br> The kid looked around with wide dark eyes, seeming to investigate all of us. Then he stepped foreword, and disappeared. Now I stood.
“What was that?”<br> “That’s what I asked him.” Tiana said.
“I’ve seen him before.” KT said. “I think he’s stalking me.”<br> “It says he’s a guest.’ Yaz reported. KT nodded as if this explained the appearances completely.
I looked at the twins. They usually stood together behind me or out of sight somewhere, in human form. At the moment, they were nearby, outside the square of couches, looking stoic and identical.
“Follow him.” I said. They disappeared, leaving behind only the spot of my sim-self where I felt the co-authors were connected to RL.
“It’s kinda freaky when they do that.” KT said, glancing at Elan Sleazebaggano, who was looking boredly into a glass of red something. Most co-authors-Luke included-could not go very far from their human counterparts without severe discomfort on both sides.
“I think they’re more connected to the ‘net than they are to me.” I replied.
“Gone could I.” Said the cartoony white figure of the ESPS ghost, having appeared by Yaz’s right ear. It wasn’t a ghost really, nor was it a co-author. Yaz had invented it and said it was cute, the twins said it was a virus.
“I don’t think you could.” Yaz said. The ghost said something entirely unintelligible.
***
I snuck on the next day just to see if the twins were back, and they were not. It had been a day. This was weird.
Luke and I stood alone in the common site for a moment, and I felt distinctly unsettled. Then I went back off-line, because I had homework.
***

[Cy Skywalker]

>>MORE! clicky


The next time I went online was a few days later. When I arrived all the regulars were there except a friend of Yaz’s, a girl called Spaz, and they were all silent and looking at somene standing in the middle of the simworld that was our site. When I entered and Luke coalesced beside me, black eyes framed in smooth green stared at us.
The invader wore a black Jedi-type cloak that covered all of his head and body except the distinctive face of Kit Fisto. I could tell immediately that he was not canon, but rather dark and different. I made a connection and knew his identity quickly, though I wondered how such a thing was possible.
An emotionless grin spread slowly over the face of this apparition as I looked at him. Good, I thought that expression said. Now I can torture them all.
“My master requests that you all meet with him at once.” Fisto said. His voice was rich and tenor and clipped, typical baddie. It felt melodramatic to me.
“Who is this master?” Tiana asked calmly.
“You will see.”<br> “How’re we supposed to get there? Our navigators are busy, probably working on fixing a problem this master caused.”
She’s probably right. I thought. This feels like a plot. Fisto did absolutely nothing, which annoyed me, and one of the twins appeared. Just one. I moved forward, closer to the space between ESPS and outsider.
“Where’s the other one?” Yaz asked. I could sense warrior spirits in many of us wanting to be shown, but it was kept back.
“Safe with us.” Fisto said. The twins’ hands were bound with something that looked less like something normal and more like a plant vein, or the branching body of a snake. He kept his head down, but one dark lens was clearly broken, and the human eye within was a pale golden.
“This one will take you to my master.” Fisto was continuing. “You will meet us at Google. If you go anywhere off the track we set the mispelling vyrus around that twin’s hands will reduce you all to your constituent badly-spelled words. Go now, immediately.” And he disappeared.
“Sith,” I hissed, and rushed toward the twin, but didn’t touch him or anything, or thing of anything to say. It was so weird, seeing just one of them; it felt weird.
“We better go.” Tiana said. “Who knows who that guy is.”<br> “I think I’m going to go to the dark side.” Anakin said, looking sulky again.
“That was random,” Yaz laughed.
“Wait we can’t just go there.” KT said. “Who knows what that weirdo guy’s got. Hey Cy, wasn’t that that fishy guy?”<br> “Yeah.” I mumbled. “That rotten concept. Google’s like an empty warehouse. We need to get the twins back and be ready for a bargain.” It felt good to have something to do though, and the sense of plot tingled around my imagination. “He’s a concept of a Sith,” I explained, than stood beside the lone twin. “I’m going.”<br> “And nobody wants to be mispelled words.” MFB said.
Various agreements.

Google is, on VR as well as conventional ‘Net, a search engine. Before you when you are standing in its point of entry is simple a blue, floating, dimensionless rectangle and many ‘computer’ screens. What you are searching for is spoken into the blue field, and it appears on the screens. Something selected there would appear all around you. Any other users of the same facility are not shown; it is as if the world is empty and full of possibilities.
Fisto was there, and the second twin looking dejectedly identical to the first, and the small kid who had appeared in ESPS base earlier, dressed now in a white Chinese-looking tunic and pants.
“Welcome.” The boy said.
“Who are you?” I fiercely asked. The twin’s pain was palpable, like a part of myself was at a distance and dying.
They aren’t dying, are they? Can that happen?
“You showed up at ESPS!” Yaz said.
The boy shook his head. “Ah, that does not matter now. I have an offer, not to be refused.” The mocking tone in his voice, the deepness of his words and eyes, gave him age unshown by his youthful sim. It was incredibly annoyingly familiar.
“Get on with it then,” said, and unhesitantly unsheathed the sword at my back and held the gleaming blade before me. Luke’s lightsaber was in hand, and Yaz beginning to tell me to stop being so martial, but Tiana and Anakin were likewise armed. The boy looked about at this dissent and smiled.
“Stop, stop.” He said. “This is pointless. You all know that if I wish it these two will die.” He had taken, probably from his Sith companion, a long bare sword not unlike my own, with a hilt of white and turquoise and black guards. ”We have many things in common, I and all of you. We all know how to get onto this ‘net, and that is a rare thing even in these days. And we have both a sword of the same breed.” He turned the silver blade over in his hands.
It’s the power, I knew then, taken by a weaker spirit than my own built up among the ESPS. It had become corrupted into greed. This guy was a real baddie-but I knew my own antagonistic emotions were just as dangerous.
This guy seemed to like to hear himself talk. “This weapon can part the very fabric of VR, something no real person can touch...” He held the sword tip against the nearest twin’s neck. Black blood welled, and a moment later I had pushed between the two and our swords met, and the clash echoed around Google with a reality that transcended VR, transcended reality. I was thrown away from the boy, my sword clattered away somewhere on the dimensionless floor.
Luke called the sword to him and came to help me up, but I had no desire to do that. KT was moving to help me, suppressed fire in her eyes, and
“You’re outnumbered.” Tiana said.
“But at a great advantage.” The boy said. “Let me speak.” He had been shaken by the sword blow, but stood confidant again. “Really, we both want the same thing. To explore the net, find out it’s secrets, yes? You will simply do that for me. This map,” One appeared out of the air in his hands, like a small scroll with the writing on it facing away from us. “You’re the perfect ones to do it, it’s not like you have much else to do?” He laughed harshly.
Eowyn took the proffered map darkly. I knew that the same thoughts were going through all their mind, thought of rebellion or negotiation, but obviously none of them would work. This baddie had extreme knowledge of the net, and our navigators hosting. Yaz was mumbling code under her breath.
“Just follow the map.” The boy said. His companion or co-author dark Master Fisto had said nothing or shown no reaction though everything,
“Have a nice trip,” The boy said, and Kit grinned. I felt the world dissolve, and there was a sound like tearing paper.

[Cy Skywalker]

this chappie dedicated to MFB

I ‘awoke’, stumbled, caught my balance and stood. The people around me were similarly recovering, looking about, saying worried or sarcastic things. It was understandable.
The landscape was...unprecedented. Apparently without point, the simworld was a forest of tall and thin pine-like trees, clear and evenly spaced on a floor of soft-looking needles. There was a path of dirt, two of them actually, one stretching in each diagonal-forward direction, and the sky was pale blue.
“Is this Google?” KT asked.
“It’s a conspiracy.” Tiana said, unrolling the scroll she had been given.
“I don’t think we’re in Google any more,” MFB said with a laugh.
“Wow.” Tiana said, and heads turned toward her. She held the scroll open. What was written on it were something like URLs, strange words and systems of numbers and dots and dashes, all ending in ‘.wold’. Many were written all down the paper, and the first and second glowed green and had written below them in black more understandable URL of the ESPS base on conventional Internet, and the second www.wold-matrix.org.
“Oh, it’s shiny...What does that mean?” Link asked.
No one knew.
“Insufficient data,” A twin’s clipped voice said, and there was the sound of something like glass or plastic breaking. The twin stood beside me, one lens of his sunglasses broken obviously to match his lost brother.
“You alright?” I asked.
“We know the vyrus is still active.” He said calmly. “We do not see it. We do not know our location.”<br> They/he can’t tell where he is, I translated. Somewhere that baddie’s got the vyrus on the other twin, and so it could still effect us... “We do not.” I quietly said.
“I knew that guy was stalking me!” KT exclaimed.
“Nothing.” Elan was muttering, searching his many pockets. “Nothing.”<br> “He must be some kind of hacker.” Tiana said. Anakin mouthed ‘it’s a conspiracy’ behind her back but afterward smiled kindly.
“It’s Sal!” KT said.
“Probably is.” I muttered.
“Who’s Sal?” Tiana asked. MFB was laughing.
“But Sal’s a good guy...sort of...” KT said.
I took a step along the path as KT began telling the story of Sal the non-stalker. There had been a second path, I could have sworn it, but now there was just one, and we stood at an unremarkable section. Something shimmered a few meters behind me--we couldn’t go back. But what is this place?
Yaz jumped onto my shoulder, that being her familiar but annoying method of getting to human eye level.
“What if that guy won’t let us go home?”<br> “Sith.” I hadn’t thought of that. Night was the best time to go online for this kind of thing. What would happen when time was up and we tried to go off-line?”<br> “I tried already. I got off, but only on back here.”<br> Of course. “That’s where you went.” She had been missing in my initial check of the group--she was easy to overlook, but Sauron was not. So many people--and laughter from the others. That’s a good sign. “Is this even a web site?” I wondered aloud. “He said we are supposed to explore the net. That stuff on the scroll is like URLs. We have to go to all those places. And allow this trial because...we’re forced to.”<br> Tiana was beginning to ask what we were going to do now. Yaz rushed to tell them what we had discovered. My gaze turned forward again. we would go foreword, of course. There was nothing else we could do.

[Cy Skywalker]

ok, one more talk-and-walk chappie and then we get some action.

We walked for a long time under that avenue of trees, a mostly straight line winding between unchanging shadows. The sky, where it was visible, could never be seen to hold a sun; it looked more likely that the light came from the trees or their fallen leaves and the sky had a color of its own.
I was walking in the middle of the group, fallen back from Tiana and Anakin’s silent Questing to talk to Yaz and listen to KT, MFB and Link’s laughter. Luke walked up by Anakin, silently because they were, but I could see him searching the world with small movements and at open mind. KT and MFB and their co-authors were laughing at something.
“And then Tom Bombadil would just jump out of the, um, trees!”<br> “He’d probably get attacked.” KT muttered through giggles. “Bacon!” Link suddenly yelped, with Navi orbiting furiously around his cap. This prompted another burst of random laughter. The road was beginning to look long--it faded with precise perspective into the horizon.
“This place isn’t real.” Anakin said suddenly.
“Well no.” KT said.
“It’s even less real than the base.” He stated. “Like what connected us to real there is not hear.”<br> “My feet hurt like real.” KT replied.
“Anakin you’ve gotten my paranoia.” Tiana said.
I cast into the Force, detectable by my real self even in a VR world, for both confirmation and energy. My feet felt realistically wearied too. “I don’t sense anything.”<br> Luke spoke then, softly. “You wouldn’t Cy, not...We...co-authors, see the world differently. My homeworld is real as yours is, but here, Anakin’s and mine is closer to this.”<br> “You’re interested in the nature of co-authors.” Anakin said, with just a trace of exasperation like these Earthlings can’t understand. “What is a co-author but another person bonded to one in your world? Is it a Mirror? Are you any more real than I, or Link or Sauron?”<br> Luke smiled slowly at my deep thoughts resulting from this, and I looked away from his vivid eyes.
“But in our world yours aren’t real. we can’t get there.” Yaz said.
“Not entirely true.” I said, remembering. “Overlapping happens.”<br> “Whoa.” Tiana said then. “Look at this.”<br> “But bacon’s real. And from your world.” Link said. “Isn’t it?”<br> The line stopped and became more of a clump, in which we all tried to look forward at this thing Tiana had discovered.
It was a door, in a tree, as tall and wide as a small person. The tree bark around it was carved or grown into a design like twined vines, and the opening itself held a bright blue wall or field.
fearlessly Tiana poked a finger through it.” I think it’s a...door to a site.” For a moment, when she withdrew, shadow scenes could be seen through it like a long corridor with dark windows to each side.
“So this road is a connection.” MFB began, just as KT shouted,
“Let’s go in!”<br> “If this is what we’re supposed to do.” I quietly said, glancing at the twin.
“We’ve got to.” Yaz said, and jumped from Sauron’s purple armored shoulder.
we went through once at a time or in pairs, Tiana first muttering for drama’s sake “I have a bad feeling about this.”
if anyone felt a slight pain then, they, like me, said nothing.

[Cy Skywalker]

moreness! ACTIONNESS! WOOHOONESS!
Ehm, actually writing this kind of action was pretty hard so yell at me if any thing gets confusing and choppy, which I thought it did.

Tiana obviously knew where we were when we passed through, because she joyfully shrieked and ran to hug a very perplexed girl sanding in this new simworld. It seemed a message-board not unlike our own, with many windows opening onto city streets, or the black of space, or a sitting room in Rivendell; active RPGs. There soft music in the background, and Tiana was absolutely ecstatic at seeing this girl, a Jedi with bright orange robes and dark hair.
I came forward and shook her hand. “Jandalf the Orange.” She intoned, and nodded her head.
“Jandalf!” I yelped. “This is Middle-Earth! Gasp!”<br> Middle-Earth: Insanity was Tiana’s own site, though because of our limited knowledge of the ‘net I had never known it existed here. “Hey, I’m shieldzup, here.” I indicated the others. “And the ESPS.”<br> “Oh!” I noticed a young Obi-wan Kenobi was now doing lightsaber katas in the back and a hook-handed pirate watched him from a Coruscant-style circle of chairs.
“What’s been going on here, Master?” Tiana asked.
“We’ve been wondering after you! There’s not that many people been here any more.”<br> “This is that site you showed me Cy?” KT asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
Tiana jumped and pulled the rolled-up scroll from her belt like a sword. Unfurled, it had a second URL glowing--the new address that of ME:I.
“We’re being tracked.” I said.
“We’re finding things out.”<br> There was a sound, an inhuman scream earsplitting and shocking. Jandalf gasped, KT shouted, and I drew my lightsaber--no need to wave the far more dangerous data-sword around.
The creature now before us, leaping as if from out of the air, could most easily be compared to a Black Rider of Mordor, though the mount was catlike, with predator’s limbs. The head was long and black with jutting teeth, and the tail thick and furless. Quite possibly the legs of the humanoid rider were fused to the beast’s flanks; such it appeared under the swaying black cloak. It wore armor with hints of deep blue in the curved black plates, and a helmet of the same metal completely covered the head in a facsimile of a second beast-head. It stood four-square on the vague outlines of floor, just out of the entrance corridor of RPGs.
All this I noticed in the time it took for Yaz to yell; “black rider!”<br> The rider’s left hand brought up a red lightsaber. It swept down first at Tiana, who ignited a blue blade, and the two met and broke apart with a signature crackle. Jandalf held a humming black saber. The rider’s other hand threw something that exploded where the scattering ESPS had stood a moment before. The weaponless took shelter behind RPG windows, though most of the party was armed of only as a fashion statement.
“What is this thing?” Jandalf yelled.
Tiana was still fencing with the rider. “I don’t know!”
Smoke from another missile was rising. With pure strength the rider pushed Tiana away and brought its lightsaber up for a killing blow, but I stepped in and took the strike. It shook my shoulders.

What I know of the events among the others I learned from them later, but this is how it went--
KT was running forward with her violet lightsaber in hand, but MFB pulled her back with the widthless window onto Coruscant separating them from another thundering projectile.
“Hold on, he’s chucking bombchus.”<br> “I can take it!”<br> Another rider appeared then, clone of the first, as lightsabers crackled and bomb-smoke rose from the original confrontation. Luke and Anakin had run through the smoke for the others, now Link left for the second rider and Sauron paced forward with Yaz on his shoulder, swinging an iron mace. KT broke MFB’s grip and followed them. MFB slipped back around the ‘corner’ of the RPG window and there, standing innocently, were Elan and the twin.
“What’re you doing?” He exclaimed.
“We are confused.” The twin said.
MFB sighed. “You’ve got weapons, go on--” The twin took a tiny white knife from a pocket and held it out. MFB took the knife and dashed for the rider, ignoring Elan’s advice to save his own skin.

Lightsabers wouldn’t cut the rider’s skin. The invaders weren’t canon; canon effects were ignored. But Earthlings were fair game--canon imposed itself upon them. I took my left hand of the saber hilt to grab my sword, but couldn’t reach it and my one-handed grip on my saber fell beneath a disarm move. My right hand twisted and I dropped the blade in time for the kill switch to reduce it to the hilt when I dropped beside it, an unspecific burn slashing itself across my cheek and hooked horns overhead.
Luke and Jandalf saved me, with a Force move that lifted the rider off its feet. I rolled away, but we were no closer to defeating the beast, and now it held an oversized blaster.

When KT saw MFB come toward the second fight she was whirling her lightsaber over her head, distracting the thing while Yaz leapt from Sauron to the flank of the rider-beast, stabbing with her little purplish lightsaber.
“That’s not gonna work!” She called to either Yaz or this ridiculous idea of MFB fighting with that little knife.
Ignoring Yaz completely, the rider blocked a whipping attack from Sauron with just its armored forearm, then slapped that arm against KT’s wavering Force shield. She felt herself propelled backwards few feet then fell against the virtual ground, and picked herself up unhurt.

They saw what I was planning--Jandalf and her co-author Obi-wan ran for the other fight. I got my sword then, though the hand my lightsaber had been in stung and my eye was watering on the left side of my face where the rider got me.
It was distracted, by Luke deflecting packets of blaster bolts and still keeping it floating, or Tiana shouting insults from its other side.
I came up on one knee and drove the data-sword into the horse thing’s chest. Luckily, nothing graphic happened but it worked. The beast and rider seemed to digitize and shatter, little black shards of CG vanishing like drifting sparks. I sat down on the ground and realized how much I hurt.

MFB’s borrowed knife scraped along the rider’s armor with a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. The rider just looked down at him with hidden eyes, and a thin wooden pole appeared in its hand and burst into flame. Link rapped his sword against the new-formed deku stick, and it cracked with a splintering sound but did not break.
“Use the Force!” Jandalf’s unfamiliar voice rung out as the deku stick whipped overhead and MFB ducked, feeling the weapon brush the tips of his hair. Yaz leapt straight up and off the rider’s back, already flinging her small arms forward as, catlike, the Kushiban back arced in landing. Link pushed MFB away from the rider then and it lurched foreword, partly running and partly being pushed by Jandalf, KT and Yaz’s combined Force power.

All the Force users, even me from the floor a couple meters away, cooperated at the last to push the second rider into an RPG window opposite the one where two co-authors hid. The eight of us got the beast past the threshold of a window into space of the GFFA, and it floated there with ice forming over the black armor.
Jandalf whooped. “I’ll go out and clean that up later.”<br> There was a tired silence until KT said, “We kicked it’s butt!”<br> Laughter canceled the solemn aftermath. I smiled and stood up, and realized that we were finally having an Adventure. Finally!
Slowly we were regrouping, co-authors and ESPS forming familiar patterns, minus one and plus Obi-wan and Jandalf. Eowyn had opened the scroll again and soberly read it over.
“What were those?” Elan asked. I had been thinking it. I noticed KT glare at Elan for a second, for a reason I could not see. Our first fight as ESPS....
“We’re working for the bad guys, how bad can they be?” Yaz said. I began to think about that interesting statement but she continued; “We should keep moving, follow the map.”<br> “We’re the good guys.” Link said confidently, and KT agreed.
Tiana said then, “I’m going to stay here. MEI needs me.”<br> “Er, okay.” Yaz said.
“If the ‘net will let you.” I said, thinking about Yaz’s experiments.
“I’ll figure something out.”<br> And I didn’t doubt she would. She handed the map to Yaz, but since very few of us had pockets Link ended up carrying it in his backpack. Good-byes were heartfelt and brief;
“Goopta mo bossa.”<br> “May the fuzz be with you!”<br> “Watch out for fangirls, Anakin!”<br> “Have fun saving the ;net!”<br> We exited through the same glowing door and stepped out into the forest pathway, I at least hoping that all our destinations would be as pleasant as ME:I, and more devoid of mysterious invaders.

[Cy Skywalker]

A/N: there's some major randomness in this one, because i was bored.

Database #2. Compiled by the ESPS ghost 1.16.05. Modified by Cy Skywalker 2.24.05
The authoress has decided that this is to be a tribute of sorts. Therefore the following:
~The Black Riders belong to Mr. J.R.R. Tolkein
~Jandalf the Orange belongs to herself.
~The various OoT weaponry belongs to Nintendo
~Darth Maul, Kit Fisto and all the cool Jedi stuff belong to Mr. George Lucas
~Jack Sparrow would belong to Mr. Walt Disney, but his head is frozen in a refrigerator so Jack Sparrow, ehm CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow, belongs to Disney the company.
~Invader Zim and GIR belong to Mr. Johnen Vasquez
~the subtle knife, in this case, belongs to a combination of the talents of Mr. Phillip Pullman and Mr. Tad Williams.
~Shibumi belongs to Mr. Akiyoshi Hongo
~The Mispelling Vyrus belongs to Mr. Jasper Fforde
~the rest of it belongs to ME...unless it says so...in which case I’ll know the voices in my head have more sense than I do.
***

We emerged into the forest that stood just as it had before. Lively with energy risen up by the fight, MFB and Link high-fived triumphantly, and sounds of celebration traveled through digital air with as much infectious energy as in the real world. The various and minor wounds were forgotten.
I felt tired, but pleasure came with every aching muscle. The moment of that Rider’s splintering deletion had felt pure epic...I couldn’t help but smile, congratulate, forgot for a while that it wasn’t real.
Or was it? What, here, was more real?
The twin stepped on front of MFB and held out a pale hand. “The knife.”<br> MFB had the ivory knife a pocket; he handed it over hesitantly. “It’s awesomness.”<br> The twin looked at him arrogantly and turned away.
“What were you doing?!” KT came suddenly from around MFB and glared at the twin with her hands on her hip, Elan standing in the background looking chastened. “We were like fighting for your lives, and you two stand around?!”<br> “How am I supposed to fight?” Elan muttered.
“Wait, let’s walk.” Yaz said calmly, and we began to again progress along the path.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Elan and...him weren’t out there with us. MFB’s got his knife.” KT said.
“We are confused.” The twin began, looking at my eyes only with a dark expression. “We will fight, but not as if in the Matrix and not as if with both. Both of us.”<br> “Ah.” I said. “Um, what about Elan?”<br> KT turned and glared at him, then he smiled and she shook her head.
“It’s okay.”<br> “No weapon.” He said.
“Ah, I can understand that.”<br> “What time is it at home?” Yaz asked then.
I went to look for a watch I didn’t have.
“5:45.” KT said.
Yaz squeaked. “it was only like ten minutes since I went off-line!”<br> “Time dilation.” I said casually.
We walked a while in silence, unanimously deciding to try to find the next doorway before most of us had to go off-line in a time. I whistled the Imperial march, and KT joined in humming it. We did this until mostly everyone was in step and/or laughing at how ridiculous we must look, at which point Yaz said,
“I spy something green.”<br> “Ok.” I said. “The trees.”<br> “Whoa, I think she’s got cabin fever.” KT laughed.
“Link’s hat.” said MFB. “Internet cabin fever!”<br> “Yep!” Yaz said triumphantly.
“I spy,” said MFB, something blue.”<br> “The sky?” KT asked.
“Looks purplish to me.” Elan muttered. KT leaned her elbow against his shoulder.
“Reality?” I offered.
“I spy some reality?!” KT sputtered.
“Yep.”<br> “You sense that?” Luke was looking up and into the trees, and I felt Yaz stretch out with the Force as I did.
“My ocarina?” Link asked. MFB held a hand out to still him, and we stopped completely, there in the middle of the forest.
To the right, within the trees, something black fell like a raptor stooping on prey, and there was a frightened, outraged, girlish human scream. Fear-pain spiked through me and hands flew to weapons. The screams--another after the first, and sounds like movement of people and trees--then there was a dull thud and some silence.
I could sense from Luke a deep and sad anger. I was trying to use the Force but it wasn’t easy; not unless it was someone I was close to I was trying to sense and that person didn’t have a shield my Force-self kept slipping off like vinegar on water. KT shakily said, “It’s a stalker...”<br> Darth Maul, dressed in black and with typical confidence, paced out of the trees carrying a small human girl in one hand, his left fist holding her by the back of the neck so she hung like a mother cat’s child. She had blonde hair in a pony tail that came to her shoulder blades, and was dressed in jeans and a red and white T-shirt popular back in RL high school. Her eyes were closed, her face quite familiar. Two cats, one black and white and one orange, followed at a distance. There was intelligence in their dark eyes.
Darth Maul looked at us, eyes moving with derision but not specifying a target. “This one was watching you.”<br> Yaz fluffed up and began a quick shade to black. “Spaz was watching us?!”<br> “It’s you!” KT said loudly. Maul nodded in her direction and dropped Spaz with enough of a twist of the wrist to land her on hands and knees when the Force-hold wore off and her eyes opened. Spaz jumped off the ground amazingly quickly and turned to shout at her captor. “Whad’you think you’re doing? I was hidden!”<br> He crossed his arms and looked at her.
“Who are you?”<br> “Darth!” I said, because he looked like he was going to say something and that was never good. “Go stalk someone else.”
Before any chance of reconsideration Maul had taken from a pocket or something a small gold and red dagger, more ornate and old-fashioned looking than the twins’ switchblades. Before any of us made a move he had held up one gloved hand in a signal of peace or waiting, and slit a hole in the air. A widthless line transformed into a blue gateway, and the Sith stepped through and disappeared. The doorway closed. I breathed a tight-held sigh of relief. Spaz stood up and brushed dirt from her clothes.
“What’re you all doing here? I went online and you weren’t at ESPS so I went looking around and got sent here in this messed up woods and then that...stalker snuck up on me. What is this place?”<br> “If only we knew.” KT muttered. I noticed she wouldn’t look at me.
“This road goes between websites.” Yaz simply said. “We just have to follow it.”<br> “How about you explain this one the bus tomorrow?” Spaz asked. Her cats curled around her legs.
“We wanna go home.” The female, Cher, said in a childish voice.
“Yeah,” Orange Sonny echoed.
Yaz had returned to white, though her ears were standing straight up. “I think we should all go home for tonight.”<br> “Come back this time tomorrow.” MFB continued. “Rest up.” He smiled.
We set up a mini-base in the fringes of the forest. The temperature was blood-warm or nonexistent but a fire seemed appropriate so we set a circle and thudded one of Link’s fire arrows into a leaning pile of gathered sticks. I looked around at the familiar but unreal faces in orange light just before going off-line, and absently realized that there was no one I’d rather be adventuring with then these. If only...

[Cy Skywalker]

“Morning” found us heading along the road talking of the real world. I kept out of it. Yaz explained a worry that her parents wouldn’t let her online, even going so far as to monitor the personal ‘net connection she maintained at night. In my mind I told her good luck, but I was feeling a random spurt of distance. Luke and I walked alone, while the occasional rather one-sided argument broke out between twin one and MFB on the issue of possession of the ivory switchblade.
“I think I deserve it. It’s like the master sword of MFB.”<br> KT giggled, belatedly followed by Spaz turning from her conversation with Yaz and laughing to. KT got quiet, and Elan put a hand on her shoulder, sly as any Jedi.
“Your effort was far from successful.” Said the twin.
There was a blue window/door in the distance, growing closer. Yaz unrolled the scroll and plunged through. I came as one of the last, therefor missing much of the standing and getting bearings resultant of a new world, and was able to do so myself without much notice.
It was a LARP outfitter, a small site, shelf after shelf overcrowded with armor, weaponry and cloaks and daggers of medieval style. There were books also, of varying sizes and labeled with plot titles or brief character descriptions (;male elf warrior, twenty credits).
We hung around in this veritable geek-haven for a while, until the shopkeeper got tired of Link (and me) trying out the swords and buying anything because we had been cut off from not only ESPS but its (minuscule, as previously noted) credits fund. Spaz tried on Renaissance dresses, and Yaz experimented with sims, changing forms until MFB reminded us of our continuing mission. It had not been far from my/our minds either.
But when we came out the black riders were waiting for us. As soon as Elan, the last (he had spent the time in the LRP node trying to get the shopkeeper to buy/sell death sticks, and the poor man revealed himself to be an AI by simply repeating a polite and multilingual welcome), emerged from the window it winked out of existence.
This was the first clue; the riders held power over the network itself.
There were five of them, two on horseback and three on foot. Apparently my earlier observation that the horses and riders were fused was shown correct. Where humans would have legs these rider-things showed tails, like upright snakes’, scaled and bare, black as the encompassing armor. They held black scimitars that might have been burnt bone, flaking off in places and leaving white-yellow behind.
“Dzang.” I said. Spaz shrunk back and the cats jumped into her arms, and suddenly weapons were in hand, my own fingers itching for the datasword as danger prickled along my spine. A few meters away, hind feet and...tails at the edge of the path, the riders waited. For a quick time they didn’t move.
Then the horse things breathed out heavy smoke and charged, and ESPS took stances with various weaponry and confidence.
I was in line with the right horseman, and without hesitation unsheathed the datasword. I could cut the rider from end to end, as long as I avoided the first sweep that its curved sword was coming around for.
Which I would.
Which I would have if we were not a mostly untrained band of warrior-wannabes with a serious lack of communication, versus five coordinated A.I.s.
Link shot a bolt of white-glowing arrows through that impacted the armor of the rider’s left side. Both heads turned and the sword tip dropped a millimeter and Link reached for another arrow. Had you frozen it, there would be lightsabers growing in Luke’s, KT’s, Yaz’s hands, the cats bristling in front of an agate Spaz, MFB sprinting after the twin who was running toward one of the riders on foot, me standing next to the rider watching all of it and completely ignoring that my target, the rider’s flank, was completely open.
Not an auspicious beginning.
I closed my eyes for just a second, reverting, opening them unfocused after the rider’s black sword swept overhead. I jumped backward then, clarity returned by anger at myself, my missed chance. Luke came up beside me, and the emerald lightsaber thrummed. I prepared to dodge the next strike and Luke’s lightsaber caught it on the downstroke, driving hand and weapon into the dirt. MFB yanked the sword from the rider’s fist and turned around, driving the bone blade into the center of a standing rider coming up toward him. The creature exploded, and MFB celebrated with a triumphant rendition of the LoZ Item theme.
I came to face the second beast on foot. It’s head was armored like the rider’s, with animal fierceness and blank eyes. The sword came down and I met it, the black surfaces of the bone stuff flaking off ignoring physics and getting in my eyes no matter how I moved, making me jumpy, wasting energy. I was tired. Whatever Internet VR this was, it simulated aches and hardening of muscle I expected to feel when I got back to RL.
Too hits with the swords and I gave steps, overwhelmed by the creaking, calm fury of the thing. The bone tip caught my wrist and hurt like fire, then the spasming, controlled slash of the next strike knocked the longer weapon from my hand. I hissed between my teeth, grinned with embarrassment, and jumped back away from the sword and the enemy when a gunshot, loud and sharp as reality, echoed through the trees.
***
The twin had taken on my first opponent, the swordless rider. It held a flail now, a three-tipped devil’s whip, and the twin lightly stood just beside it and dodged, faded, slashed with the ivory switchblade. Luke held his lightsaber still, knowing the weapon could do nothing. He looked at me, he tells, and saw the first few exchanges, the ones I had under control.
“MFB!” He called, and turned the Force on the second rider.
Link had been standing firing fire arrows into this one, Elan standing beside him looking confident and doing nothing, Spaz and her cats sitting in the overhanging woods, occasionally cheering on Yaz or MFB. KT, Yaz and Sauron had gone together to the left. The Kushiban-human engaged her foe, one of the walking ones, with a clearly canon fighting style, memories of hacked-plot lessons from Yoda. She bounded, yipped, the lightsaber humming deep and spinning, but canon was useless and she was learning that. KT fanned the fires Link lit.
With the gunshot my opponent’s head came up, and black blood was slowly growing on its neck. Not from the gun-it was pulled from canon. Armor must have torn skin with the impact. Behind the beast the on the path someone stood, someone distinctly inhuman, wearing a black jacket and school day clothes over white skin.
Shataarah; silver Sergyon.
I smiled at her, picked my sword up with the Force and a stretch, and slashed across the rider’s chest. It shattered, and Silver began pacing forward. Luke shouted something, and I ducked feeling the first mounted rider’s mailed fist sweep over me. When I ducked pain came in a blob on my side from some wound I couldn’t remember receiving, and I struck up again, catching it in the armor and not doing much damage. A shattering shot from Silver spun the rider’s human body around to look at its flank. Another swipe and it disappeared into shard. I kneeled on the ground for a moment, breathing.
I could see it when MFB destroyed the second rider with KT’s urging. Sauron had stood before it and commanded, but it had listened none at all. Yaz and her opponent continued going at it, but the Kushiban was tiring, spending more time on the ground and dodging. MFB passed his long knife to KT. On a low blow Yaz jumped, KT struck the riders’ neck. Yaz plopped to the ground as it ‘died’, breathed a thanks. As if unsure, KT you’re welcome’d and handed the knife back to MFB before wipeing her hands on her pants.
Then there was silence, a moment of going back to normal. I stood up with help from Luke.
“Whoa,” Spaz said, her voice high. “Cool.”<br> Silver’s long head swiveled toward her, then back. Her form was like that of a white, winged reptilian, standing mid-human height but seeming taller.
“Thanks.” I said.
“When are we gonna stop being attacked?” KT said, resigned.
“Look at this!” MFB held up the riders’ long knife. “Finally got me a weapon.”<br> The twin stood where the rider he had been harrying disappeared, looking composed. MFB played around with the knife while Link went around picking up spent arrows, looking up when his author gave a rendition of the items theme again.
“We should ask around, for stuff about these riders.” Yaz said, now tired and curled around Sauron’s shoulders.
“None of the people here are real.” Elan said, disgruntled. He dug around in his pockets. I reminded myself to watch Link’s pack for missing milk. Silver stood apart from us, her tail waving around her feet. MFB went into a dramatic stance, the knife before his eyes and his expression false-fierce.
Then the knife disappeared into the same drifting data the riders did. MFB’s face fell so fast it was like a morph worthy of the twins. Laughter broke out, him too after a moment, and I smiled and watched Silver’s reaction. She was maverick. And laughing.
Finally MFB threw the solid knife hilt down. “Finally.” He smiled. “And it dissolves.”<br>

[Cy Skywalker]

Cy: this isn't really a whole chapter, but I figured I'd give it to you as of past to sate the rabid thirst I know is within you. More's coming....
There are, in the pathways of the ‘net, the occasional restaurant. Sim bodies do not get hungry, but these restaurants are waystations and meeting places for businessmen and friends who in reality are miles or countries apart.
Runaway’s was one of these places, a tile-floored seventies-looking establishment whose windows looked out on a faux jungle, overlaid with scrawling effects to look as if it were from an old B-movie. This place was owned by a man whose sim was probably what he looked like in reality; large, black graying hair and beard, a pleasant face with blue eyes, though at home he probably lacked the silver-blue mechanical arms attached at his elbows, that allowed him to flip two pizzas at once and such. This was the ESPS’s next destination, and this man was a friend of Yaz’s.
She bounded up to the counter, the Kushiban fur going bright purple with excitement. “Mathis!” She called.
Runaway’s was mostly empty; a few businessman-types were seated in a booth in a corner, and warily looking around as the ESPS group arrived, then finally getting up, shutting holographic windows floating before them, and leaving when Darth Maul slipped into the restaurant behind us and claimed a bench. This amused me greatly, though the restaurant proprietor did not seem to share in my mildly grim humor. He leaned over the counter beside Yaz, now seated with her tail curled around her feet.
“What’s this crazy crowd you’ve brought me?” Mathis asked, with a trace of humor.
MFB came forward and bowed to him, covering his captured dagger hilt --he kept this through a belt loop, with the popular opinion that it might be good for something--with the edge of his green cloak. “We are the ESPS, good sir, inter-digital travelers.”
“Ah, all right,” said Mathis, with a gleam in his eyes and a four-armed shrug. “Yazzy can take care of you then, can’t you? You must remember a lot.” He gave her a nod, and exited through a door that appeared to open into a kitchen.
Yaz hopped across the countertop. “Aright, you want anything? There is within virtually every food and drink in existence! I used to work here!” She smiled.
“Then what happened?” KT asked. We gathered around on barstools or standing beside the counter. I sat between Luke and Silver and experimentally spun.
“I got this Kushiban body.” Yaz said, then disappeared behind the counter, and levitated glasses of water to before us.
“Bacon!” Link was requesting, energetically. “You must have bacon.”
Spaz ordered a salad, KT chose a water, Elan requested Jawa juice and was denied. Knowing that this food would have no effect on our RL bodies and unsure of its effect on the sims’ I ordered chocolate cake and Root beer. Luke asked for blue milk and Yaz dashed around looking for dye, while KT quipped; “Love is when you dye someone,” and I ruefully smiled.
The place’s main entrance was a retro door to our left--a party of teens came in, many of them dark or obviously VR-exclusively black-skinned, and one had the most of the features of a leopard, including tail. They sat down near where we had come in, and Maul pulled the cowl of his cloak further down over his eyes. Their multilingual conversation made the building feel closer.
“What can that sword do?” Silver asked me. She had taken no food, seeming in a serious mood, and her short, neat claws braced her scaled hands on the counter.
I shrugged the shoulder where the datasword’s hilt came up just out of my field of vision. “It can cut the fabric of the ‘net. It’s not affected by canon.”
Her long face parted slightly, showing the roots of her long teeth. She said politely; “Ah okay, could you cut us out of this quest?”
I looked down at the pitted white-plastic countertop. “I don’t know. I’ve never made a doorway. What’d be on the other side?”
She thought about it. “I don’t know. But it’d be very easy to find out and there wouldn’t be this following the written path.”
MFB had the scroll out and he and Spaz were looking it over; Runaway’s URL was now green. “It’s just random,” Spaz was saying. her cats roamed about beneath the tables, having ordered and finished plates of fish. I was beginning to worry about payment, but Yaz said to let it be. The phrase credits fund floated up somewhere in my brain.
“No.” MFB doubted. Spaz ran a hand through her hair. He said; “Look, these points aren’t following any noticeable, er, pattern.”
“We don’t have to follow it then.” Silver said.
“Remember the knife Maul had.” Luke told me, quietly. He leaned over the counter, with some of his hair in his eyes, drinking blue milk.
“You’re right.” I replied. “’Tis an unknown factor.”
Silver’s wing bumped against me as she turned, her Sergyon form almost to big for the human-sized stools. “If you let me use that sword we can solve one mystery.”
I hesitated, looking at the line of faces now turned toward us. All except Kora, enjoying her water, and Yaz, joyously serving the newcomers and welcoming them to the ‘Restaurant at the End of the Universe’.
“We’ll try it.” I said. “But not here.”

[Cy Skywalker]

Later was on the increasingly worn and boring pathway, and I made an announcement of it. “Silver’s had an idea, pateesas.”
They attended. I looked at Silver. I caught myself seeing her as her real self-body; the subtly shining raptoroid was somewhat less reliable, more...true if I was to compare them. She held her wings high and watched me as I took the datasword and held it before me, blade below hilt. “This can cut the fabric of the digital reality. Also it’s creatures, not us and not canon.”
Silver took the hilt carefully. “And it can cut through the reality as well.” She narrowed her eyes, and trailed the blade through the air between us. The air shimmered; a thin slice showed blue-white and Silver touched it as if a horizontal plane, then dug her fingers into the corporeal air. She drug down with her claws and the rip widened.
“Wait.” Yaz said, leaning forward and down from Sauron’s height. “But where’s it open to?”
“Don’t know.” Silver said, and pulled some more.
“I don’t like this.” I said. “That’s not what we’re supposed to do” And it defies all the laws of physics.
Silver tipped her long head. “What we’re supposed to do; meaning what the bad guy wants us to do.”
MFB came up beside me. “We should follow the system he sets us; it’ll lead to answers.”
“This isn’t a video game.” Silver said.
“Could be a Plot.” The words were out of my mouth before I thought about them. Could the sense I employed in writing be used here? Yes, it could...
MFB might have looked at me quizzically, I don’t know. “But it is an effective system, um,”
“Let’s get out of here.” Spaz piped up. Silver swept reality aside like a curtain and handed me back my sword. KT looked impassive, Elan impatient and fidgety. I intuited to Luke the fragments of Plot I could catch. Silver had momentum.
She stepped around the ‘net-ish portal that was now an oblong square. “Who’s coming with me?”
“Aye.” Said Yaz. She caught my eyes for a moment, in a quick look when I saw her black, soft-animal eyes say she too was unhappy and it was as like a chaperone she would follow this experiment. I nodded, thinking unprovoked, worrying; curiosity killed the Kushiban. Whatever it was that kept me on the pathway, it wasn’t all fear. Plot or intuition said a split would occur that came feeling like a tear to myself. Not again, something shouted, but as this was an extraordinary environment so the decisions should be.
Spaz stood beside Sauron. “We’ll go, right Sonny?” The cat nodded, and Cher, in her arms, mimbled something about other dimensions having softer beds.
MFB said, “I stay.” and crossed his arms.
KT seemed cacooned in her own thoughts. I said, “I want to lead the mission we started.” with more bite to my voice and stance than I wanted.
The twin stated, “Digital anomalies may create complications beyond the known space.”
Silver openly glared at him, then to me nodded so politely it was dismissive. “Okay. Come on then.”
Yaz requested she go first. Spaz looked at MFB and he quickly said, “Go on.” and smiled.
I stepped back from the doorway. I didn’t want them to go, any of them. But they were going to-and Yaz was going to tell me of what happened--and three ESPS were left when Spaz had passed through the portal with cats in tow scared and giggling. Silver had given us a jaunty salute and stepped through sideways.
Eight of us left, counting Darth Maul skulking about the fringes of the forest. It was a crew that felt close, purposeful individual personalities ...and somewhat lacking, like when colors drained out of a rainbow.
“It’s alright Cy.” MFB said, and would have continued.
I softly quipped, “I feel it too.” and if he understood he made no response.

[Cy Skywalker]

Short section...but I like this part. It amuses me. Next time is from the POV of the splinter group, and if someone ‘from’ that group wants to conspire with me to write it that’d be cool.

We walked for a while, and stopped at virtual dusk in a place where a tree had fallen to provide both a convenient bench and a break in the monotonous treeline. Link made fire again but could find no rocks to contain it; fortunatly it burned and stayed in its place as calmly as the previous one. It had been a quiet half hour or so. Now we sat, co-authors beside the daughters or son of reality and Society members beside eachother as much as possible around a circle. The twin--Deimos, I called him sometimes--stood looking up into the blandly darkening sky, and our Sith follower seemed to have determined to find his own camp or to disappear entirely again. I sat between Luke and MFB, with KT, Elan and Link on the near other side.
“So...” I started. Luke’s intuit said go ahead. My ego said stop!
MFB said, “You think this is a plot?”
“Plot, with a capital P. I mean, it could be. It’s a little...Plotish.” I smiled, sheepish.
“And uh, can that help us somehow?”
“...no.”
KT said, “Cy, it can’t be a Plot if no one’s writing it.”
Immediatly I said, to make no sense, “We don’t know that no one is.” But then I stopped.
We didn’t know that.
KT said, “It’s getting late. I should be home.”
I nodded, and tensed to get up but did not. I wished to stay where I could see the pixelization of the world if I looked sideways for just a little longer. KT dissolved after a quick “Goopta mo bossa” with a nervous look on her face; I sent with her a prayer. Elan had the same look.
MFB and Link stayed still, the Kokiri turning out his pockets--never knew that green tunic had so many pockets, but where else I guess did he keep the bombs, slingshot, bottles, fish, etc.--and the human sitting with his hands on his knees, expression pondering.
I said, “Maybe Morndakiél is writing it. That would explain the...” and I gestured around to wherever our Sith was.
“But why?”
“To make a Plot. Cause it is a Plot. But that then doesn’t answer the question at all...” Sigh.
He said, “We’ll figure it out.”
Link said, “Oops.”
There was a clear bottle in his hands, the cap off, and, floating around the air above their heads, a ball of shaking light. MFB’s eyes got round. Link looked as if he had just destroyed a planet.
Navi said, “WHYTHEHECKDIDYOULEAVEMEINTHATBOTTLESOLONG!!??!”
That was the point at which I myself went offline. An admin can only take so much.

***
Luke and I met later, post-Navi, and decided we couldn’t decide anything. But seems the Author had granted me freedom of point of view, as sometimes happenes, so into the fabric of our own canon I went, and found this...