Adventure With Words #7 - New Intro Story Inside

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So, it has been a while. In our space-time sleeve, last week was what you might perceive as three months ago. I apologize for your sub-optimal perception of time.

Last Session

The Writings So Far
Featured authors: @veryspider, @sarez, @improv, @calluna, @manoldonchev (A.K.A. me)

Continued

Arriving at New Mogadishu just before dawn is a dusty, stinging the eyes, and gritting sand between your teeth kind of business. Unless you are a giant walking oak tree or a passenger in the branches of such.

No fortified fence or army patrols are to greet newcomers on the eastern side of the metropolis. Slums, instead, stretching as far as the eye can see... unless you are a giant walking oak tree or a passenger in the branches of such. Then you can see further. For instance, from where makeshift hovels creep inwards towards a denser and denser core with larger and larger structures, up to where a myriad of skyscraper antennae rise above colossal towers and domes. Streaks of light reflecting aircraft criss-cross in every direction - around the city or to the orbit and back again.

From the outer rim point of the suburbs, where a giant walking oak tree or a passenger in the branches of such stands, New Mo looks like an upturned curved funnel or the hat of a witch character of tales of old. Tales, much like the ones that have been stolen just a couple of standard days ago. And at the proverbial eve of the Intergalactic Ancient Cultures Convention around Altair Prime, at that.

And so, a giant walking oak tree and a few passengers in its branches were sent out to this smugglers'paradise of a planet to investigate if anyone would try and sell the millennial tomes of The Halloween Encyclopedia on this black market of black markets. This blackest of markets of a city, though, looked awfully sunny and dazzling since the second the first of New Mo's suns broke the horizon.

Only half an hour later you would feel awfully dehydrated, were you a giant walking oak tree of a passenger in the branches of such.

Besides, a giant walking oak tree and passengers in the branches of such a prone to attract too much attention on the near-slums streets where people would stare at your bark in a way that would make you certain they were thinking about your wood underneath. Such a commodity on a dry and treeless planet.

Among two relatively new passengers amidst the branches of a giant walking oak tree is a graceful non-human lady who gently speaks to her companions:

"It would be most wise to proceed on foot. Each of us walking down on the ground beside our good friend - that way we'll be showing we are many and watchful, and there for each other."

So, without a word, seven smaller creatures climb down the branches of the giant walking oak tree of which they have been passengers. They spread around him, no walking on the broad and dusty street with the early Beta star shining bright from behind their backs, projecting the shadows of part of them for a hundred or so steps ahead of their bodies.

There they walk. The giant leafless oak tree whose stride lifts clouds of dust. The shadow elf, his phasing spider in its personal mango-trees heavy extra dimensional pocket. The feline-heavy on the genealogical side mystical figure whose fluid motions imply hidden blades. The humanoid femme whose very existence is proof of universal powers who take special care of elegance. Her daughter, a self-proclaimed rascal with beautiful features beneath a most rascal-fitting natural hair styling. The miscalculation twins, embodiment of an earlier narrator's counting disability.

A fearsome bunch. Well, some of them rather terribly attractive. Well, at least one of them. To all species, that is. Of course a giant walking oak tree is also very attractive to some. Not only tho those who see straight through its upper layers and into the market potential of the wood beneath, but also to the more human-minded among the rest of the giant walking oak trees, as well. The same goes for...you get the meaning of these babbles of a sick of mind person with special needs.

As the giant walking oak tree and its former passengers turned walk-mates venture further through the suburbs, and towards the imaginary zone, where ghetto gradually becomes slightly touched by infrastructure area, the newcomers attract more than attention. They are, indeed, approached by a dark colored person with darker colored sunglasses, a smooth moustache and lots of jewelry on his meaty fingers.

"Yo, fella'!" The human-meatball speaks in a loud and cheery voice. "Yeah, you with the most seriously criminal face! How you like a job I got for ya? 'Naf credits to buy yourself a shiny new ship with a shiny new shine. Fat enough to have ya and all ya buddies dancing inside."

And with that he spreads his palms and lifts his chin up in the most generous of gestures...

Just a parsec or so away Major Ria Gallant experiences what her generation and a few generations before her time would have considered the impossible. Just as she is about to open a high priority communication channel from the cabin of her personal ship, currently in high orbit around Bob Marley, all connection to civilization disappears. Even light signals on satellites, she has been able to maintain direct visual contact with, blink out. And so does every electric light on the surface of the planet.

Were she a passenger amidst the branches of some giant walking oak tree somewhere on solid ground, she would have no personal danger to worry about. But she's on a small ship which only has enough power left to land somewhere within a parsec or so. Or she could temporarily turn off most of her systems and drift for a while. Fortunately, most of the equipment she has loaded on board, would function under almost all sorts of conditions, including this one.

And there was still the image inside her head of her comm screen flashing just an instant before it died. Her meticulous training in a variety of hypothetical combat and diplomatic situations had also included some pretty efficient mnemonic techniques. Some of those learned from a species of giant walking oak trees. Those techniques now allowed her to recall most of the message.

"Interrogation at Osaka XIII...unexpectedly successful...paid by anonymous...reboot the old systems as backup for when...hit the fan...don't understand that last part. Some ancient idiom...Murgreev."

Our book Voices in the Darkness e-book is out! It's alive! It's electronic! It's supernatural!

And it's also paperback now!

Voices in the Darkness paperback

Stories authored by:

@janenightshade, @improv, @felt.buzz, @jeezzle, @manoldonchev, @stinawog, @giantbear, @blueeyes8960

Huge thanks to everybody involved, to our ninja editor, to the initiator @jeezzle and the @steemfiction, and to everybody else supporting our work!

Of course, I invite all of the above mentioned authors to take part, but also many other that I know know of. Like @quillfire, @girlbeforemirror, @thekittygirl, @foxyspirit, @mattifer, @tryskele, @iamjadeline, @joeylim, @wales, @kaerpediem, @wonderwop, @aejackson, @theironfelix, @michaias, @brisby, @f3nix, @dirge, the whole @bananafish realm, actually, @vermillionfox, @mellindor...

And everybody, who's up to such an experiment exciting adventure!

Yours,

Manol