The Grifon's Quiver - Chapters 10-13

Chapter 10 - People of the Sun

Quid and Nils found Gnosa waiting in front of a hill-borne temple, where the connection to Atlantis was concealed underground.
Nils smiled up at the stones circling the crown of the peak, then turned and greeted the sun. “This is a temple dedicated to honouring the Solar Dragon Tribe,” she said to Quid, “there have been a number of deities who reached out from that tribe to interact with the Terrans across the ages, but they never quite managed to convince people that the solar Dragons literally are all of us.”
Quid looked skeptical. “Is this some unity consciousness deal?”
“Yep!” Nils nodded excitedly. “Once you reach the level of ascension where you attain liberation from material bondage, you essentially become everything. Even time doesn’t really exist anymore.” She ignored Quid’s cynical expressions. “The entire solar system will eventually reach that point, and after the supernova compresses us all into a singularity, we’ll all realize we’ve just been them the whole time, working our way up into something bigger than we can imagine.”
Gnosa knew Quid wasn’t buying it. “The point is, the solar Dragons will always look on us as their children, and they’ll always be around to give us advice or a blessing if we ask nice.” He pointed to the masterfully crafted architecture. “And there will always be Terrans who are willing to create magnificent temples to honour them.”
Quid ignored the parts he wasn’t interested in. “So we’re going to ask them for a blessing, is that what’s happening?” He never believed in the old gods of his own world, he didn’t see a reason to start now.
Nils knew his cynicism toward religious concepts was programmed into his species to prevent them from reaching out to those who could save them from servitude under the Empire. She could be patient with him until he decided to open up his mind to the possibility of something better. “We’re here because they have a path to Atlantis that doesn’t involve navigating ocean currents any more than we need to.”
They walked to the top of the hill. No buildings had been made there, small shrubs and flowers were allowed to flourish without trees. The temple wanted the hill to be clear of any tall objects. Around the crown of the peak was a series of massive stones arranged to line up with various astrological positions that helped the Avaloni mark various turning points in their extremely complex calendar systems.
A group of clerics was measuring the shadows cast by the sun and preparing to measure positions of the stars after nightfall. They took no notice of the visitors and simply continued their work.
The Order walked past a wide circle in the centre, engraved with various symbols and degree markers and surrounded by a tool that looked like a gyroscope, used for measuring positions and angles between celestial objects.
On the far side of the area they followed a stone staircase downward a few feet and then directly into the hillside.
They found Tremplir waiting for them along with a priest wearing a tall winged hat and a white robe with colourful feathers. “Welcome,” said the priest, “please cleanse your faces in the holy water.”
Quid irreverently washed his hands and face with water from a blue stone basin on his right, wondering what made the water ‘holy,’ and stood almost defiantly in front of the priest, waiting for the next round of ridiculous religious weirdness to commence.
Tremplir was a little embarrassed by Quid’s attitude, which she knew the priest could see as plain as day, but they all allowed him to feel what he needed to. As the priest led them out of the entrance and into the temple, she held his hand gently and whispered, “could you please try to be a little more respectful? This is sacred space.”
Quid’s heart was racing as they held hands but he took deep breaths and managed to remain calm and centred. He was trying to get over his attraction to her, it didn’t seem to be getting him anywhere and he had better things to think about as he navigated through this strange world.
The temple’s interior was a hollow dome, somehow transparent to see the skylight despite the opaque hill they’d traversed to arrive here. The sunlight illuminated the layered circles of seats around the altar in the centre, where ceremonies were conducted. Only flower blossoms could be seen from the hill itself, decorating the sky with fragrant colors.
They walked around to the opposite side again and when they reached the armed guards blocking the way, the priest nodded and the guards stepped aside. No one spoke a word while they were inside the dome.
As they walked down a spiral staircase the light grew dim rapidly and they could no longer see the sky. Orange and yellow flames illuminated the space beneath, imitating the sun as best they could from the braziers that lined the walls of the lower hall as they walked the straight path to the centre.
Beneath the altar in the dome above them was a third circular space, carved with symbols and other markings similar to the circle on the crown of the hill. The priest was aware of the need for haste here, and didn’t hold the visitors to ceremony or traditional processes. He simply wanted them to move through his space and be gone so he could go about his business.
They stood at an even spacing around the circle and the priest sang a series of tones that didn’t seem like words but Quid couldn’t be sure what they were exactly. Then the circle began to vibrate gently and a wind spiralled around the room as a light began to grow in the centre.
The light continued to grow into a large orb that consumed the entire space, right up until it was about to engulf them, then simply sat, spinning as it awaited its new voyagers to enter.
Without being told, Quid instinctively reached out to touch the surface, it looked like fluid that emanated a soft, light blue as it swirled. When he touched it, the surface rippled out and the swirling fluids that swam past his fingers left a wake as it moved. He felt a faint electric buzz.
Nils touched his elbow. “Are you ready?”
He stepped forward without a word.
For a brief moment he could see them all standing around him, watching. Then everything slowed down and stretched as he sank into the floor. He flew through the ground, watching the translucent fluid dance and ripple past distorted objects. He felt infinite, like he was standing everywhere at once, and like time would go on for eternity without him even having a moment to blink.
Then he emerged in a hall of white marble pillars, filled with activity as Atlantean clerics prepared for their upcoming rituals.
He stepped forward and looked back at the orb, which seemed to be the same as the one he’d stepped into for all he could tell. He marvelled at the strange concept of travelling this way, wondering what kind of technology could produce this energetic tunnel.
Nils and Sheran emerged, followed by Gnosa and eventually Trem came through. Nils giggled gleefully as she ran through the hall to a balcony ahead of them.
Some of the clerics looked uncomfortable as the visitors moved through without supervision, even more confused by the emergence of a strange, foreign being none of them could remember having witnessed before, but by the time Quid made it to the balcony where Nils was standing they’d all returned to their work.
Huge eagles circled above them as flying metal vehicles buzzed through the air, making strange sciency noises like Quid had heard on the interstellar freighter on which he smuggled to Terra.
Atlantis was a highly diverse society, run primarily by amphibians and avians. With such a wide variety of backgrounds and perceptions of life, their spiritual and scientific progress was far ahead of most other realms in 5D Terra.
Atlanteans were known across Terra as masters of transportation. They had machines that could fly, swim or traverse landscapes at rapid speeds, and allowed others to use their technology at will. They could have been the primary interstellar port on Terra but chose to remain a hub for global travel instead, preferring to avoid direct contact with outsiders, although they sometimes allowed interstellar craft to use their airspace if required.
Due to their close natural connection to collective memory, they had no need for schools and every member of Atlantean society had instant access to any form of information that had ever been known across Terra. While this crutch kept them in a position of having difficulty with more creative approaches to problem solving, their scientific advances were unparalleled.
“Welcome to New Atlantis!” squawked a proud, firm voice behind them.
They all turned and found the King and Queen of the Sky standing behind them, two humanoid forms with beaks instead of a nose and jaw, talons for hands and feet, a mane of greyscale feathers and four large wings with red and blue feathers. Quid’s amfur could see massive, radiant solar crowns hovering above their heads.
Sheran and Nils bowed respectfully. Quid looked at Gnosa and Tremplir and only bowed when they followed suit.
“We apologize for our late arrival,” said the Queen. “We intended to meet you here but were busy tending to clerical needs.” The Festival of Low Tide was approaching, when the aquatic races that lived around their land would recede, leaving biowaste to be devoured by the Atlanteans. It was a sacred time, and the whales and fish were to be honoured before and after the feast began.
“No apologies are necessary, your honors.” Nils said respectfully as she slowly stood upright. “We were simply enjoying the view while we waited.”
The King looked at Quid curiously. The tentacle-looking appendage on Quid’s head reminded them of a feast they’d once enjoyed when a giant squid washed ashore, but they didn’t mention it.
The Queen nodded to Nils and said, “we understand you have urgent work to attend to, we will take you to the admiral and he will fill you in on the details of your mission.”
They guided the Order through the majestic halls of the palace, all of which had openings to the cerulean skies and seas around the island on which New Atlantis had been built.
The walls of the palace were covered in murals depicting the history of Atlantis. Quid couldn’t be sure why but he somehow understood the meaning of the murals, as if each one triggered a memory he couldn’t possibly have had, but that bubbled up from his subconscious as intuitive understanding.
Atlantis had once been a warlike society, stretching into the human realm to establish colonies on the coastal shores of Africa and Europe where their technological and magical knowledge gave them the appearance of gods to ancient humans.
Due to a variety of factors, including internal and external cultural tensions along with over-extended supply chains and a natural cataclysm, their territories had been pushed back and they’d receded from the human realms.
Here in their own realm they’d reestablished a domain of peace and prosperity, content to remain on a loose collection of distant islands in the Atlantic Ocean, which was vast in 5D Terra compared to its much smaller appearance in the ancient world of 3D human perceptions.
When they established balance between the avians and amphibians, they were able to reach mutually agreeable accords with the dolphins, whales, merfolk and other ocean-dwelling life forms. At that time, the intelligence of whales and dolphins had been drastically underestimated by humanity due to the human inability to establish effective means of communication with other lifeforms.
As they descended in a spiral around the spinal support of the palace, they got a full view of the city in every direction. There were several large basins elevated above the city which collected rain water and distributed it to vast networks of small, steady streams for drinking and farming. There were towers and grandiose temples studding the city, and millions of houses interspersed into a loose but vibrant forest. Birds flew everywhere and on the distant coastline there were spurts of whales spraying water into the air.
When they reached ground level, Quid noticed the amphibians were frog-like in appearance, like the one he’d flirted with in the bar on his first night on Terra. Many of the locals had various cybernetic implants that helped them in their daily tasks, assisted in communication, or supported their bodily functions in some way.
It was strange to see so much technology in a world that practised magic as if it were everyday trivia, and who still worshipped deities like the ancients of Quid’s world. He’d always thought of such mystical, spiritual topics as being nonsense contrary to scientific fact but to see it here, nuzzled up into a technologically superior race was astounding.
They entered a hopper with a light frame and durable canvas body, which used hydraulic pistons to jump hundreds of feet into the air, throwing the passengers off balance and causing them fall all over each other. Nils found the whole experience thrilling and hilarious.
The royalty flew alongside the hopper, keeping up with it while maintaining a safe distance to avoid a collision. While suspended in midair they got another view of the city, rising up past the buildings again only briefly before entering free fall.
The hopper used electromagnetic coils to slow its fall and brought itself to a near-stop before touching the ground at its destination, catching itself effortlessly.
As they stepped off, Quid was thankful to be alive with wild transportation like that but the rest seemed perfectly fine with the experience.
When he stepped back on the ground he had a flash, an intense memory of entering the hopper that was so real it seemed to juxtapose itself with the experience of stepping off, like he was looking at both moments simultaneously. He seemed somehow to be aware of how the electromagnetic coils worked, despite it being several levels above his scientific knowledge.
The Queen stepped off first, followed by the King, then the rest.
Sheran waited until the rest were off, eyeing Quid carefully to make sure he was handling these transitions well. She didn’t see anything unusual in his aura but sensed he may be delaying some adverse reaction. She still found it fascinating to watch his growth, as he moved through lifetimes worth of development in mere days, and was most interested in seeing what would happen as he settled into the Atlantean time-space matrix.
They were led to an amphibian standing nearby in full regalia and armor. The King squawked, “this is Melqart, the admiral who oversees relations with the ocean creatures.” After making the proper introductions, the royalty left them to their business, flying off to the palace which was still visible high above the other buildings.
As an amphibian, Melqart was easily able to swim in the ocean for long periods and converse with the dolphins. He spent most of his life exploring the waters between the isles of Atlantis, peacekeeping among the many species that inhabited them, ensuring that their allies’ needs were met and that their more hostile neighbours were monitored for safety purposes.
The ocean is a chaotic place beneath the tides, and with thousands of different species it was always a place of turbulent political needs. There were many species who, though not actively aggressive toward the Atlanteans or cetaceans, were somewhat prone to disturbing the peace. However, these groups were not seen as enemies or treated with open hostility, simply as beings who needed to be watched carefully and intervened with from time to time.
Melqart, a brave man and strong warrior but also a lover of tranquility, was always glad to assist in ensuring that their neighbours were heard with compassion. He was always willing to find a suitable solution to the wide array of problems that came up within the vast oceans.
The Order were led into a large garrison made of a fiery red jasper, past training rooms and armories, into a briefing room where a holo-map, similar to the one used in the Grifon’s Quiver, was waiting for them.
Melqart zoomed in on a small orange blip, far away from the island. “The wreckage was found here, some twenty kilometres into this large canyon. It’s a dark place with high pressure levels, where we rarely intrude. Mostly deep sea creatures down there, not much else.”
“How will we get there?” Gnosa wanted to know about logistics above anything else. He’d never been this deep in the water and wasn’t looking forward to it.
Melqart nodded. “There’s a crew of merfolk who will guide us there, we have a submarine waiting for us at the port. We’ll meet with the mer at their home in the coral reefs.” He navigated the map to show them where this would be. “All in all it should take about 30 hours to reach the site.”
Quid was confused. “If you all have such intense memories, why did it take so long to find this?”
Melqart nodded. “We can only see memories that aren’t being repressed by collective trauma. Those of the Anunnaki were severely distorted until a recent healing excursion was carried out by the people of Mukasa,” a fertility god who dwells near Lake Baganda. “When the healing had gone deep enough, the memories of the Anunnaki began to surface in the collective, and we became aware of many secrets that were forgotten long ago.”
Nils asked, “what are the surroundings like around the ship?”
Melqart returned the map there. “There are lots of small ravines in the canyon we aren’t familiar with. See this tunnel further into the chasm? That leads down into Agartha. We could let the Agarthans take care of this themselves, I’m sure they’d gladly handle it on their own, but we don’t want to trigger hostilities.”
Tremplir wasn’t expecting there to be danger. “Hostilities? From the Agarthans?”
Agartha is a subterranean world similar to the Dwarven Tribes and the Reptilian Autocracy. Like the Lemurians they are spiritually evolved and magically powerful, except more militaristic, borrowing technological knowledge from Atlantis and others to defend Terra as planetary guardians.
Melqart seemed concerned. “We’ve forbidden the Anunnaki to interfere in our affairs before, they have no right to be here. And we haven’t even told them about this yet but the Federation knows so they could find out on their own, and if they interfere it would anger the Agarthans.”
The Anunnaki are members of the Galactic Federation with deeply rooted history on Terra. They’d mined gold here for ages, exploiting other life forms and unexpectedly contributing to the birth of humanity by creating a soulless golem species to work as slaves.
Nils explained for Quid, "tension is still high between Agartha and any off-world influencers who contributed to the age of strife, they blame groups like the Anunnaki for the collapse of the Terran National Government.”
Quid remembered that from the history book. “Didn’t that war start thousands of years after the age of strife?”
Nils nodded. “Yes but it wouldn’t have happened if external influence hadn’t tainted the human condition with the kind of aggressive dominance they were once subjected to by other groups.”
Being held as slaves always leads to excessive aggression later down the ancestral lines, in some way or another, and humanity has reflected every single aspect of the abuse they received in their early history.
Agartha has always been at the centre of wars with dangerous extraterrestrials, including the Reptilian Autocracy who had connections to the Draconians during the destruction of Pangaea. They take special dislike to the groups who have harmed and exploited the natives of Terra, or who caused wars through their influence on the collective mind.
Quid didn’t want to get overloaded with this geopolitical nonsense. “Alright, well let’s just stick to the issue at hand.”
Melqart agreed. “We’re hoping to be the only people around for a long way. It should be safe, except for the possibility of dangerous wildlife and we can help with that. He planned to send a contingent of their warriors to defend the operation.”
Gnosa had heard enough for now. “I’ve arranged to pick up our stuff at the port, I’ll run down there and then we’ll sleep for the night before we head out.” He pointed to Quid. “Come on boy, I’ll show you around town.”


Chapter 11 - Smoothing the Feathers

A few blocks from the garrison, Gnosa led Quid into a pub called The Cerulean Fiddler and ordered them a pint. When the ale arrived he said, “we gotta finish this quick and move on but first, what’re you feeling about Trem?”
Quid shrugged. “I’m over it. Things are insane right now.” He couldn’t even believe what he was seeing anymore. It all seemed so chaotic. He’d obviously had some kind of mental breakdown lately and wasn’t even trying to keep up with most of what he heard anymore.
He was just watching to see where things went from here. He had nowhere else to go. He didn’t have the energy to get caught up on silly things like puppy love, so he’d let it go. It seemed like the healthiest thing he could do.
Gnosa eyed him very closely. “You’ve grown up a lot in the last few days eh, boyo? Well look, there’s more important stuff goin’ on right now. Just keep your eyes open, alright?” They smiled at each other reassuringly. “Cheers!”
They chugged the ale and left.
On the street, Quid got the sensation he was swimming. “That was heavy, what did you give me?”
Gnosa laughed and slapped his back. “Ah, you’ll be fine! Light weight.”
Quid saw himself devour a seal. “What’s going on?” He felt woozy and started to lose balance.
Gnosa stopped and grabbed Quid's elbow. “You alright?”
“I’m hallucinating.”
Gnosa looked at Quid’s eyes. “Your pupils aren’t dilated. Is that a thing for your species?”
Quid had the feeling of stepping out of his body and realigning a spine that was somewhere else. “I was here before. I remember this, I was a whale.”
Gnosa nodded. “Alright well it’ll take a bit of adjustment but you’ll get used to the memories.” He hadn’t expected Quid to have memories here, they weren’t even sure if his connection to the Terran collective consciousness was strong enough to access basic knowledge here. Usually it would take time for a newcomer to integrate into the collective mind.
Gnosa had heard of Galactic Federation agents whose souls come and go from Terra and other worlds on assignments. They weren’t always able to remember themselves in lower levels of consciousness. Incarnating takes on the hardships of the body-mind complex. Sometimes the soul forgets who they really are until they attain liberation again.
Federation agents move through groups like the Order frequently; sometimes self-aware, like Sheran and Nils; sometimes not.
Gnosa made sure Quid could stand up straight. “You’ll be fine, let’s keep moving.”
They were passed by a group of large toads headed to the shore, leading a ten foot crab spider with long, spearlike legs and an orb for a body, and a collection of different sized claws instead of teeth.
Quid could remember being a mermaid and seeing that species of spider as friendly and cute. “What’s going on with me?”
“It’s the time in this place.” Gnosa stepped up his pace, he wanted to reach the gear before Quid had a problem. “If you stay here long enough you’ll start being present in long stretches of the past simultaneously.”
“So I’ll also see the future?” Quid figured, if he could see his own past, he’d start seeing some future version of himself looking back.
“Nope,” Gnosa laughed, “it only works one way. Native Atlanteans have almost no ability to predict the future. Some of them don’t even comprehend it.”
“Really?” Quid was amused. “That’s dumb.”
“That’s the mindset in a society that constantly lives every past moment. To Atlanteans, the future is just the place where you don’t exist yet. It doesn’t matter what’s happening there because you’re everywhere else.”
Quid nodded. The world still felt like an ocean swimming past him. “What’s life like in your home?”

Rendo was already bored to tears at home. He’d been in Ugradek for a few hours but it may as well have been years.
In the Dwarf realm Nidhavellir, time passes very slowly. Every moment feels like days in other realms.
He was sitting in a massive crystal cavern filled with smokey quartz clusters and pink tourmaline spears, a result of prolonged radiation from an age long past.
Here, nothing ever moves. Changes happen very slowly, over millions of years. Everything simply sits for what seems like eternity.
He meditated among the crystals. He found peace in their stillness, strength in their patience, wisdom in their silence.
He’d be at the tribunal in a few hours. It could last days, there was no way to know. He’d be dying of sheer boredom by then. ‘Boredom shear,’ he joked internally for a very long second.
And they wouldn’t even let him have his tools to pass the time.

“It’s slow there,” Gnosa summed it up. “You’ll get used to this, trust me. Some people prefer one place over another. Some people like seeing the past, others can’t stand it. It’s all just a matter of perspective.”
By the time they reached the pier, Quid was having visions of himself in mirrors, copulating, being a priestess, a warrior. He could see it all happening right next to him. Some a little further away than others. Looking at time was like a spatial dimension, one in which he could be at every point until negative infinity.
He’d been every species on Terra. He remembered coming here during the Great Awakening brought on by the Rainbow Warriors at the end of Kali Yuga. He’d stayed in the solar system ever since. Memories of realms outside Atlantis were still murky, like something he had a vague awareness of but no familiarity with and no way to access them consciously.
Mostly he remembered the oceans. Swimming through endless expanses of water across millennia of Terran evolution. “I miss being a whale,” he muttered.
The dolphins were playing joyfully around the port, jumping into the open sky and leaving streaks of glimmer and rainbow everywhere for Quid’s amfur to enjoy. He remembered as a mermaid, she was able to feel the energies she left in her wake. Through dance she’d made art meant to be felt in the ocean currents, simply by playing with her emotions freely. Everything was so clear back then, not like this confused lifetime he was stuck in now.
Gnosa found the Hippocampi who delivered their cargo and paid the ferryman in gemstones, and as a tip he gave each of the steeds a cherry peach he’d picked from the local trees.
While Gnosa arranged to have the cargo carried back to the garrison, Quid sat on the pier with his legs dangling down toward the water.
An eagle dropped into the water, emerging with a large salmon and carrying it to shore. Before eating, it preserved its dignity by straightening its feathers and shaking loose some water from its wings.
He watched the boats swim past, avians diving into the waters and emerging with fish, whale dorsal fins emerging from the water to carve a wave into the face of the ocean. His mermaid past knew that these wakes would leave a permanent effect, which would add to the cumulative changes of the ocean and be felt forever as they rippled through the continuum of the seas.
He took a deep breath of sea-scented air and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt truly content. Just sitting here, looking out across the waves he felt a sudden inexplicable kinship with, he felt happy for the first time since he’d last seen his long-lost lover.
His emotions washed away like the diminishing tides and he was at such a deep state of peace he couldn’t even relate to the turbulent anger that had flared up, back in Avalon.

The black lions of the Urmah emerged from the base of Mount Shasta on the west coast of Turtle Island. They’d travelled through the Ether Networks to the Lemurian city Telos, which connected to the mountain through the akashic ebbs and flows of 6D Terra.
The Lemurians had provided them a space to rest, for the first time in several days, and they felt refreshed and well fed.
They had to reach the golden cities of the Sky Dwellers by nightfall. Their mission had taken an unexpected turn back in Avalon. Now they had even more imminent news to share with their ship, which was currently orbiting the planet Venus.
Things were about to take a turn for the worse, it seemed, and they needed to commune with their tribe and discuss what to do about it before things kicked off.

On the way back to the garrison, Quid fiddled with the software in the biochip implanted behind his ear. It was wired to receive input from, and give output to, his central nervous system. While it was designed to keep him in an easily-controllable state of distracted, exhausted depression and self-imposed isolation, he’d managed to keep himself mentally independent enough to alter its software by will over time, by forcing it accept input that would teach it to operate differently.
In his amfur he could see small threads of light connecting the cybernetic implants worn by the Atlanteans. There was a group of youths moving the opposite direction with neural interfaces, all of which were exchanging energy through these small streams connecting them. He was curious what these strings were, how they operated, how magic and technology seemed to work together here.
He managed to tune his biochip’s external receivers into the bandwidth being used by the Atlanteans, and began connecting it to their information distribution systems. Communication networks, entertainment systems and other uses for electromagnetic communication devices became available to him and for the first time since he arrived on Terra he had internet access.
He tried to research their technology, looking for clues as to how they functioned with both science and magic simultaneously but there was no such information available. Atlantean communication seemed to be primarily for sharing humour, as they had no need for news or other information to be passed this way.
Quid found their humour difficult to relate to, as they seemed very intricately woven into aspects of the past that he had no familiarity with. Still, it helped him distract himself in ways that felt calming.
He stopped paying attention to his surroundings and didn’t notice that the Atlanteans became increasingly uncomfortable around him as he passed. They could distinguish the technology of his biochip from their own, and some distant memory of Orion Empire technology was beginning to surface as his presence seeped across their airborne information networks.
Although the Empire had very little influence on the collective at this point, they were still an undesirable presence and the Atlanteans could remember well how easily their influence infected the collective mind. They did not, however, know whether or not Quid was a member of their agencies. His intentions being unclear, combined with the threat of the technology he was using, made them all very uncomfortable.
Gnosa noticed their looks and asked, “what are you doing that’s upsetting them?”
Quid looked around and noticed their fearful glances. Suddenly ashamed, he felt like he’d been doing something dishonest or even criminal, and the expectation of punishment rose up again. He was grateful that feeling wouldn’t be given a body of its own anymore.
He disconnected the biochip and slumped into a poor posture, trying to hide his disappointed embarrassment from the locals.
Gnosa stopped him again. He looked back into the past few minutes and got an idea of what was happening. “Look brother, this isn’t a problem, ok? I mean, be a little discrete about that evil tech you’re carrying around, but also recognize it’s not your fault. You had no choice in this, they implanted it against your will. You’re just learning to use it in ways that help you function. That’s transmutation.”
Quid perked up a bit. He had no idea what transmutation meant but he felt reassured that Gnosa would protect him if the situation became problematic. “Thank you,” he mumbled a bit feebly but did feel much better, and straightened his spine again.
Gnosa nodded and they kept moving. “It’s a good thing anyway, you need to practice working with foreign tech if you’re gonna interface with that ship tomorrow.”
Quid had totally forgotten about that, and now the thought of it made his stomach twist a little. What if he couldn’t make it work? What would the Order think if they couldn’t get the ship to start up the right way?
He shrugged his fears aside. He’d learned that they would accept him, and help him through his difficulties. And if he couldn’t make the tech work, they’d figure out another way. He was ready to let go of the fears and anxieties he held himself back with.
The lessons of Avalon had seeped deep into his psyche. The experience of watching himself overreact to his buried emotions had imparted a deep understanding of what was happening inside him, and he felt that he was truly ready to set aside all the nonsense he clutched so desperately, and just live his life.
He’d left his life behind barely a week ago, said goodbye to his family and friends, or what was left of them, and departed from his homeworld. Then he’d found himself stranded in the future, and for a while he’d felt like everything was going wrong. His life was over.
Now he saw it clearly. He’d left behind suffering, and entered a new life. A better life. He was free now, and he’d found friends who would help him become who he was always worthy of being.
He could feel himself swimming joyously through the oceans, carefree and perfectly at liberty to expand his soul into a gorgeous little sea lily, never caring for a moment about what anyone else thought. The oceans of Gaia were the truest freedom he could imagine, and now he’d made his way closer to that freedom than he ever thought possible.
Why would he ever let fear hold him back from being an amazing, liberated being?
He puffed out his chest a little and for the first time in his life he felt truly free to be whoever he wanted.
He could feel a whale singing out from the depths of his heart and it came out so blissfully that his physical body let out a little whimper, like the noises his young lover made when he pleased her.
Gnosa grinned but didn’t mention it. He suspected Quid was about to become a completely different person overnight.

When they made it back to the garrison, Nils and Sheran were nowhere to be found but Tremplir was waiting at the table in a room they’d been given for the night. Gnosa immediately began rummaging through their cargo.
Quid sat down across from Trem. He smiled at her, expecting to feel awkward or afraid, to contract in some way and shrink deeper into himself. He also expected her to avoid his gaze. Neither happened. She smiled back and he felt uplifted, seen, felt.
He knew she was aware of his disabilities, as he now perceived his previous failures at courtship to have been caused by, and yet she seemed perfectly fine with the knowledge that he was attracted to her.
Tremplir was fully comfortable with Quid’s gaze. She had no particular romantic interest in him but she also understood what a difficult position he was in, and how much of a toll that kind of experience takes on someone’s mental health. Even a healthier person would likely have ended up acting in unexpectedly erratic ways, in such a state of loss.
She was comfortable with seeing him as a friend, and felt no need to keep him at arm’s length.
She smiled warmly and pushed a plate of shrimp and seaweed across the table to him. She giggled as he eyed it awkwardly, wondering how to eat it. Then she giggled again as he simply dug his fingers in and ate it like a child who doesn’t know how to use tableware.
The members of the Order always saw each other as siblings, regardless of species or political differences, or any other form of distinction. It didn’t matter. When they came together as revolutionaries fighting for the greater good, nothing else mattered and they were simply siblings, nothing more and nothing less.
She felt uplifted by her recent return home, and was warm and friendly inside after a chance to visit her friends in Avalava. It had provided her a chance to let go of her life for a day, and centre into herself again. She loved being home, there was nowhere else like it across Terra.
There would never be anywhere that comforted her like the experience of seeing every part of herself and choosing to love and nurture every single one of her.
The way she felt right now, it wouldn’t matter what Quid or anyone else was feeling, she would simply float above it all and be compassionate to them, because all that mattered was just being present with herself. Just like a true Avaloni.
Gnosa was fully himself, too. He couldn’t care less what these two felt about each other as long as they worked together in a friendly manner, and he seemed to think they would do so. Trem was content and placated. Quid wasn’t even panicking anymore. ‘Yep,’ he thought to himself, ‘this is going perfectly.’
He opened three bottles of ale and they each had a drink, then he dug into the dinner he pulled out for himself. Seafood wasn’t appealing to his sensibilities, having spent most of his existence underground, and Atlantean cuisine was not tickling his appetite. He had some snake jerky and smoked mushrooms, spiced with cave moss and some pond algae, which was making his mouth water all the way back from the port.
Suddenly, Trem remembered the leather armor she’d spent so long working on. She’d forgotten its existence as soon as they entered Avalon and it hadn’t crossed her mind until just now.
She dug the armor out of the chests and surveyed it lovingly, taking such pride in her accomplishments that this piece alone would amount to a successful life. It was a work of art: a thin titanium ribbing wrapped with buffalo leather, sealed into a few layers of sturdy shark leather, then sewn closed with copper wiring that sealed the magical intentions of protection into a layer of smooth crocodile leather on the outside which had been imprinted with Elven magical wrappings related to the Celtic knots of old Terra.
On an impulse, she held it in front of Quid. “Stand up a minute, let’s see how this fits.”
Quid curiously stood and as Trem slid the leather around his torso he realized he was, indeed, still very much attracted to her. She had a soft, gentle energy that was mirrored in her touch, in her voice, in the look of intrigued sympathy on her face. Her body was equally gentle, yet wavy and curvy like the ocean currents he couldn’t stop thinking about. Her violet hair, he suddenly saw, was the same color as her aura.
“I can’t believe how perfect that is,” she cried triumphantly. “It fits like a glove.” She often forgot that the universe will fit puzzle pieces together through the simplest acts in our lives, in ways we never truly anticipate or even fathom until the completed piece is standing in front of us. “I started this weeks before you arrived, I guess the cosmos wanted you to be safe.” She’d been working on the magical imprints with a fine-toothed comb for this piece, it was crafted to provide both agile protection and smooth transitions, to help navigate the waves of the dangerous seas Terran life had to offer.
She looked up at his grin and with that subtly mischievous but unmistakably loving gleam in his eye, she almost loved him back. But she turned away with a smile. ‘Sorry brother, not tonight.’ She grabbed her ale. “Perfection like this demands celebration!” She drank the bottle in one go and sat down roughly in her seat.
Quid was marvelling at how comfortable the armor was, and forgot all about his disconnected romance. She’d made something astonishing here, and it was crafted just for him by a dear friend. “I agree,” he said and chugged his own ale in celebratory gratitude.
Gnosa grinned and opened more ale. “Don’t go too hard you two, we got work tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Nils and Sheran were on the roof stargazing, their favourite way to pass the time.
Nils’ eyes were caught on the beauty of a gleaming fireball that descended into the atmosphere, expecting it to be a meteor. She loved watching space ore enter the world and add its legacy to the spectacular geomorphic dazzles of Terra.
As the supposed meteor began to burn green, however, they both made a disappointed grimace. They couldn’t say for sure what that approaching object was but it wasn’t natural, and didn’t feel like a friend incoming. Nils could feel a cold, hostile antipathy emanating from the object.
They looked at each other, Sheran comforted her reassuringly. There was nothing that could stop them from carving their destined paths. They embraced warmly and their auras began to unify once more.


Chapter 12 - The Underworld

Rendo sat down beneath a massive cluster of quartz, with his spine resting on a tourmaline spear that ran all the way through the cluster.
He took a deep breath and surrendered all notion of self. He relinquished the concept of identity, and tuned into the essence of his own awareness, that which lacks cohesive identity if only because it transcends itself.
As his consciousness became detached from his body he began to remember that the inherent fallacy of identity is rooted in the resistance to self-awareness. It’s literally the part of us who doesn’t want to lose its identity, which is itself false.
When we step into a body we begin to intermingle with it, and in doing so we begin take it on as an apparent identity. Our awareness becomes infused into the body, thus it deceives itself into accepting a notion of existing as the body.
When we ponder the concept of existing without a body, without that materially oriented identity, the sense of individuality is threatened by the notion of its own dissolution.
‘If I became this man,’ Rendo thought, ‘then who would I be if I unbecame him?’
The question itself drew fear from the root of the body. A tightening in the base of the spine attempted to hold his aura closed, preventing his awareness from detaching.
This fear, this resistance to the release of individuality, is the false self.
Once he managed to let go of that fear, then came the shame that he may have become too attached to the belief in his identity. This is located just above the root, as the opening in the aura moves up it passes through each chakra and each husk must be shed, each shadow transmuted in order to purify the spirit.
The shame was coupled with the guilt for the reason he was here, in this cavern. Was he now attempting to relieve himself of responsibility for his actions, by claiming to no longer associate with the body? Or was that thought a form of resistance to the relinquishing of self?
All that which resists the return to a more pure form of awareness, is the false self with whom we attempt to identify in our day to day lives.
As Rendo released layer after layer of resistance, gradually he detached from every part of his body until even his aura was yet another fallacy with which he now chose to stop holding himself back from dissolution into the life force of Gaia.

Pangaea was formed hundreds of millions of years ago. On it thrived several epochs of planetary evolution, all descended from earlier ages of Terran life.
During this period, all life existed with a natural awareness of its inherent oneness within the web of life on Terra. The gods of Pangaea were simply mass collectives of unified souls taking part in the delights of being an entire forest, ecosystem, world.
Being alive was simply a game, a fun way to explore existence by taking organic form and assuming its identity for a period, then being devoured by the forest.
Within this biosphere, there was no question of individuality. It was known, seen, felt that all life was inherently one living being. The forest itself was one life form sharing a billion ways of expressing, experiencing, exploring itself.
There was no need to fear the releasing of the body, or its eventual dissolution into the forest. The body itself had already devoured other life, and so it too would be devoured. Thus the forest perpetuated itself across time and even into the highest and purest realms of consciousness.
True self-awareness transcends even existence itself.
It was simply known at the time that there would always be life on Terra. The planet had already undergone multiple periods of evolution, collapse, and continued evolution. Mass extinction was merely a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, and allow the new era to select its own primer.
There were insects from an age long past, there was ocean life from the period between these ages, there were reptilians who had since grown into the dominant group on Terra. There were plants, fungi and lichens, there were early forms of coral and many other diverse lifeforms to share in the experience of loving Terra.
There were Dragons.
The Dragons had preserved awareness throughout the ages, watching and experiencing the gradual collapse of the collective mind from purer forms of consciousness, into one from which unity was just barely maintained, and they knew that some day even that would be a distant memory.
The collective consciousness of Gaia thrived and ecstatically thrilled itself with the awareness of unity with all other life in the solar system - life that existed without organic matter. There was no fear of relinquishing the self, it was something to take joy in: to be absorbed into Gaia; only to emerge once again from the womb of Terra.
Eventually the collective became aware that times were changing. Things would not be the same again, and for a time there was a certain trepidation of the events the collective knew would develop.
When the time came for the splitting of Pangaea, the Dragons began to build the ley lines. A network of distribution systems for the lifestream, the ley lines became a firm hold for the abundant healing magic with which the Dragons would ensure that, as the division of the collective deteriorated into the age of strife, they could preserve life’s ability to return once again, when the time was right.
The Dragons built massive temple structures with quantum batteries to enforce the fibres of their selected electromagnetic resonances across the face of 6D Terra and, as the collective broke apart, they shattered the continent into the fragmented pocket realms of 5D Terra.
As the climate shifted rapidly, many races were driven underground where conditions would remain stable. The Reptilians descended from the dinosaurs nurtured by the Dragons, the Dwarves from the Lemurians, and Agarthans from the insects. Together three of the dominant races of 6D Terra descended with their lower avatars in preparation for the days to come, ensuring that they could keep the planet safe as the Terra Experiment was given life.

Rendo had been meditating among the crystals all night. Here, the electromagnetic field was felt in a very tangible way as it affects flux through crystalline latices, and the passing of solar rotations can be felt instead of seen. In many subterranean realms, clairsentience provides what clairvoyance normally would on the surface of Terra, and inner knowing accounts for what the eyes cannot see.
He’d been focusing on the experience of being dark and light, higher and lower, black and pink - just like the crystals.
Sitting with the crystals and feeling their energy is a powerful way to experience how they perceive their tiny pocket of reality and do immense amounts of work for the collective from deep inside the planet. By tuning into them, he was able to realign his perceptions of the external in a way that both amplifies and trivializes the magnitude of each moment, and its affect on the totality of the timeline.
Crystals distribute life force through the veins of Gaia are always ready to forgive and love, but also to remind us of the importance of taking responsibility for the results of our actions. This energy is conscious in its own way, another form of kami which exists in more etherial levels of consciousness and flows only temporarily through the material plane.
Tuning into the frequencies of crystalline kami and sharing their perspective helped him decide what he was willing to do in accounting for his choices. The ancient wisdom of the planet was always glad to share its clarity in the densest and darkest places, from which everything else seemed so subtly complex and so transparently simple.
This cavern, this crystal structure built by the subconscious of the Gaian Collective, was a perfect place to reflect and ready oneself for a tribunal that could take days to arrive at a suitable solution to such a complicated problem as taking a life.
He’d transcended his ego-mind complex, his individual self, and accepted a position in the collective awareness, in a space from which he was infinitely aware of his own essential unity with life.
Now he could feel it was time to return to his individual being, to his physical body, and prepare to meet his new fate with integrity and honor.
As his soul reintegrated into its vessel, he looked at a tiny elestial growth on the quartz clusters nearest to him. Such intricate beauty could hardly be appreciated in other realms, where things passed by so quickly.
Here, every single ridge and valley of the elestial face was apparent in excruciating detail; an entire landscape was visible on the face of the crystal. In Nidhavellir, there was always time to take in every aspect of reality, even when they reached a level of complexity that simply wasn’t apparent from the perspectives provided in other realms.
He breathed in the stale air, relishing the beauty of something that had sat still for millions of years, and would continue to do so for another million without significant change. Only in a place like Nidhavellir could this transcendent beauty be truly appreciated, without the distractions of needing to adjust to the constantly shifting needs of a faster timeframe.
‘Yep,’ he thought happily, ‘nothing to do but sit and stare.’ He touched the elestial gently and felt a twinge of guilt for having disturbed it for the first time ever, in a way that was barely noticeable but would never truly disappear.
Taking a life, in the span of eternity, is not a significant change to any real timeframe - and yet the subtle ripples it leaves on the continuum of life in Terra would never dissipate. It can never be accounted for, nor undone.
Somehow, he would have to ask forgiveness and try to make amends.

The rivalry between the Dwarves and Reptilians began shortly after the fall into 5D consciousness. The Lemurians, a peaceful and fun-loving species, resented being confined in the darkness of subterranean worlds, and as their awareness dwindled they became displeased with the descendants of the Dragons, who they began to blame for what they now viewed as an injustice.
The Agarthans were growing vicious and violent, incensed at the loss of Pangaea and the extraterrestrial groups whose influence had inspired the madness of the Terra Experiment. The internal conflict of the collective mind was theirs to maintain control of and although they did their best to contain the malevolence they felt within, it began to infect the other races as well.
Gradually, the hostility felt by the Agarthans weakened relations between the Reptilians and Dwarves until the two sides forgot their inherent oneness altogether, and even forgot having chosen this course together and the higher purposes they aimed to achieve.
Meanwhile the Lemurians directed evolution into mammals so they could take a form that would be suitable for their future purposes.
Many groups from the Galactic Federation were presenting themselves on Terra, and in preparation for the Terra Experiment they were asking for assistance in creating suitable vessels, many of which would require mammalian characteristics in order to function as intended.
The Lemurians also guided evolution above ground, gradually shifting their own lower species into the mammalian race of the dwarves as their higher seed race became small, harmless monkeys with immense magical power.
The Dragons, needing to maintain balance in both the higher and lower worlds of 6D and 5D Terra, also guided their own evolution. Their magical powers grew beyond comprehension and their thirst for knowledge grew unquenchable.
This shift became apparent as it reflected into the lower race. The Reptilians became obsessive students of magic science, caring no longer for anything other than knowledge. They pursued truth as ferociously as they’d once hunted each other and their own knowledge consumed all thoughts and emotions they carried.
The Reptilians began to assume control of their own evolution, without higher guidance, as the Dwarves became masters of shaping the outer world, building and crafting. This was a fractal mirror of the game being played by their higher selves but, while in these descended and less conscious vessels, the game seemed more like a war of minds: a rivalry that would pursue its own escalation across the entirety of the Terra Experiment.

The tribunal had finally begun and Rendo was standing in front of an enormous map of Terra, one that showed every living being and even mapped the complex energetic connections that guided them all through life. The vast web of life on Terra is extremely complicated and takes a great deal of attention to perceive properly and extract useful information.
The main reptilian representative was a long, stringy lizard who preferred to stand low to the ground on his six legs, but rose to stand on the back four when speaking because he felt it made him seem more dignified among bipeds. The scales on his back were studded with a hard, stone-like material that formed ridges on his head to give the appearance of a beard and crown. Every major joint on his limbs had large stubs of the rocky matter to protect them from injury and could be used as defensive weapons.
The reptiles spoke with a highly sibilant voice and often flicked their tongue into the air, although they didn’t need to because their underbellies had pores that provided them the information they needed to assess the environmental conditions in all ways that mattered for this setting.
The tribunal was composed of a well-known Dwarven diplomat, the primary dinosauric representative and a mantid from Agartha whose role was suppressing any hostility that may erupt and ensure the preservation of peace between the dwarves and reptilians. Agartha’s military prowess made them a common peacekeeper among other realms, not simply by threat of violence but because they understood the subtleties of war and peace enough to ensure a balanced approach.
They were currently using the map to assess the effects of Rendo’s murder and the impact it would have on the victim’s family and friends. The representatives of the Reptilian Autocracy were there to ensure that the impact of this loss would be recognized fully: the lessons that would never be taught to the man’s family; the gifts that would never be created for Terra; all the things that would go unsaid, undone, unfelt across time because of this change in the timeline.
Rendo was being held accountable for all of it.
Here, in the slowly grinding timeframe of Nidhavellir, every subtle intricacy of the effects of his actions would be scrutinized in agonizing detail. There was plenty of time to review it all, and truly take in the experience of every moment.
Here, the tribunal would assess the complex effects of a simple action and find a way for Rendo to make proper reparations for his deed, in accordance with traditional international laws.
Punishment was not an option, it was seen as a useless and unproductive response. The solution to a problem is not found in assigning blame, but in taking corrective action. The question at hand was not what to do with Rendo but rather what he would do to repair his damage to the timeline.
No action can ever be undone, no loss truly atoned for, but reparations can be made which cause balance to be restored and allow the important changes to be made up for in other ways. The timeline would be healed and the dinosaur’s family would have every opportunity he could possibly make available. It was only a question of how.

As mammals spread across the lands of Terra, their evolution was guided further into the races of Elves. Each realm was given its own race that was tailored specifically for the time-space matrices designed by the Dragons. If each realm was to experience time differently, the natives to populate it would need senses and sensibilities to match the unique intentions set for that realm.
This way, each Elven race would be left to evolve according to their own will and experience their own unique ascension journey, and when the entire 5D collective was ready to return to the unity whence they came, the lessons of each realm would be available to assist in the entire collective ascension.
Integration of each set of lessons would prove exceedingly difficult and this challenge would be reflected in the physical world by the conflict and turmoil experienced between various realms. When the collective was ready to set aside their differences and accept each other as a part of themselves, the wisdom of the Dragons would be ready to guide them back to the prosperity of Pangaea.

After several days of tiresome deliberation, the tribunal agreed that they’d grasped the full breadth of the loss of Rendo’s victim.
It was agreed that Rendo would build a homestead which would remain a family heirloom for generations. Projections into the future of this timeline showed that this would be an exceedingly helpful gift to the line of descendants, and would ease many burdens as they challenged themselves to heal this wound.
Further it was agreed that, when the family was ready, Rendo would also assist in educating the children who would be in need of a healthy father figure. A male presence would be established in the family, of course, but Rendo’s knowledge and technical skills would add to the fabric of the family tapestry in ways that would account for those which had disappeared.
Rendo found this a reasonable way to address the situation, knowing he was capable of bringing these requirements to resolution appropriately.
After a short ceremony in celebration of peace, balance and justice, the dinosaurs departed to their home and Rendo was released from custody of the tribunal, on the grounds that he would willingly return when the time was right.
Rendo went straight back to the crystal cavern and said thank you to the clusters by spending another day meditating and giving abundant love energy to Gaia through the veins of the crystalline kami who used this cavern as a conduit.


Chapter 13 - Turbulent Currents

In the Atlantean garrison, Tremplir woke up feeling refreshed, after having gone without sleep the night before and played with her friends all day long in Avalon. She ignored Sheran meditating in the corner and headed outside with her breakfast, to watch the sun rise.
Quid was awake, pretending to sleep while he waited for everyone else to start moving. He’d kept his eyes closed while Trem moved past. He sat up and watched the energy swirling around Sheran for a moment, then laid back down and waited in the quiet.
On the roof, Trem was taken aback by the beauty of predawn emanations. The combination of Atlantean timeframe expanse with the Avaloni ability to view parallel timelines at will, made for some fascinating paintings in the sky.
As streaks of green grew steadily over the horizon, she watched a hundred dawns overlapping. She especially loved the distance between the sun’s position at the solstices, and the difference in intensity between the equinox range and the extremes at the position of each solstice.
Eagles and sea hawks flew everywhere. If she let her eyes fall out of focus, the past of various timelines would turn the entire cerulean dome into a flurry of feathers. She tried to smell the sunrise but could only smell the sea, laughing at her own silliness as she exhaled.
As the first ray of dawn announced the return of light, the rebirth of Re from the underworld, Sheran drifted outside to join her in sunbathing.
Quid didn’t want to acknowledge his looming dread of the day ahead, all the things that could go wrong with a deep sea salvage operation with technology he never encountered in his life.
Gnosa loudly opened the door and yelled, “wake up everyone, let’s go movin’!”
Quid groaned and sat up, suddenly realizing how thirsty he was. He walked over to a basin of drinking water on the table and filled a goblet.
Nils woke up cheery and sprung up into her daily calisthenics, giggling at something from her dreams, and began doing cartwheels around the room for fun, jumping over obstacles and catching herself neatly on a knee or elbow to keep herself on point.
Gnosa pulled out a disruptor and handed it to Quid. “You won’t need it but keep it with you anyway, we want to be prepared.” The professionals who would be accompanying them with Melqart’s contingent would want to see that they were working with people who were capable of pulling their own weight.
Quid’s body knew something big was happening and couldn’t decide if it was prepared or not. He felt a strange mixture of: fear that everything was about to go terribly wrong; numbness to his otherwise crippling anxiety; appetite that felt like it might be bottomless; a desire to lay back down and sleep.
He looked through time, to what felt like his left, and saw himself as a warrior, sorting through weapons and selecting the perfect instrument for the tournament he was about to enter. The warrior was fully assured in his abilities.
Quid knew the man was about to do something terrible, painful and difficult. Yet he had every confidence in his ability to emerge victorious and even managed to stay in a position of gratitude, hope and worthiness of sanctity.
Quid asked, “how can you be so sure that you’re going the right way, when you know nothing about the path before you?” The man didn’t hear him.
He tuned into the feeling of confidence and calm readiness, his belly felt a minor expansion of golden light as he tried to breathe in synch with the warrior, and his anxiety eased. He felt a small spark ignite inside him.
Quid looked at Nils spiralling around the room like her body was a toy, then at Gnosa who seemed to know everything about every item in the armoury he and Rendo brought along.
How had Quid ended up in a position of being needed to help these people? ‘Surely,’ he thought, ‘they must be capable to handling this on their own?’
He looked back at the warrior and felt a growing kinship with him. He felt like a little brother looking at an older one and wondering how to be like him.
He inhaled again and on the exhale he saw a priestess looking at an obsidian mirror. She smiled at him and whispered, “Don’t worry, you’ll do great.”
He gave her an awkward look. “I thought you couldn’t see the future, how do you know who I am?”
She smiled coyly. “It’s complicated but, your time frame won’t allow people you see to look forward to you. That doesn’t mean everyone will be oblivious to your presence.” She let the thought slip aside. “Trust yourself to make it through this. We’ve always known things would turn out this way.”
Quid was stunned and confused. Part of him wanted to cry. “What do you mean? Who always knew?”
Gnosa slapped his back. “Ready, boyo? Let’s head out.”
Gnosa hadn’t heard the trans-temporal conversation. Quid was speaking in a direction that wasn’t meant to be overheard by the external world, directly into his own heart where all those other lifetimes were waiting for him to see them as himself.
On the roof, Sheran stood and gently tapped Trem’s shoulder and they went downstairs to meet their companions.
Melqart was waiting for them in front of the building. He’d been up all night with Gnosa, discussing the finer details of the plan. He’d assembled his twenty finest warriors for this task, he didn’t want any problems and knew they would be able to handle anything that came their way.
Melqart introduced the Order to his warriors and provided a mission briefing. Then they began the march to the port.

The Urmah lions reached the Valley of the Gods in the deserts of Turtle Island.
As a sacred site on the ley lines, this place had always had a strong connections to the Sky Dwellers whose domain rested above them. The golden cities were considered to be a neutral zone between the human realm and their own, a place where neither held authority but both were welcome.
The sky was primarily run by the sky dwellers who shared it with any visitors who respected their domain. The ground was home to a race of fire spirits and desert dwelling spirits who were purifying the region while Terra waited for the time to replenish the life there, they shared the region with a race of Djinn who migrated from the Arabic peninsula after the age of strife.
The Urmah had to reach through the human realm once again, in order to move from Telos to the golden cities, but they’d managed to avoid human contact so far and they intended to keep it that way.
They followed the distinctive smell of a unique fox into a cave hidden beneath one of the megaliths decorating the landscape. When the cave appeared to have ended, they climbed up a wall to a concealed ledge, following the scent deeper through a tunnel just barely large enough for them.
They came to a small spring that trickled out and carved a tiny stream out of the cave, over the centuries it had formed a sacred pond that had never been drank from by any wildlife except the fox who owned this cave.
The lions waited respectfully and when the fox felt safe to emerge from the shadows of its den, they made no motion whatsoever. They wanted the kitsune to feel respected in its home.
After a moment of silence passed, the kitsune changed into a young, attractive maiden. “What brings you here?”
The male lion purred, “we seek passage to the sky,” in its native language.
The kitsune smiled. “Why not cross the human border, Urmah?” As she spoke she transitioned into a pregnant mother with swollen breasts and wide hips, prepared to birth a beautiful new Dineh.
The lions knew she was fully aware of the answer. That simply wasn’t an option, if they wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. The female said, “what would you ask in exchange for safe passage?”
The Changing Woman laughed coldly as she shifted again into a bitter, bent old crone. “There is an alien who arrived on Terra recently. I want you to bring him to me, in the blood of those who followed him.”
They nodded assent. She became a falcon and flew out of the cave. The lions followed behind.

As the Atlanteans boarded the submarine, Melqart discussed final details with Nils and Sheran who felt strongly that extra attention should be paid to security, given the visitor they sighted the night before.
Melqart assured them that everything would be handled appropriately, then dispensed final orders to his captain, Qanti.
Quid looked at the intricate shape of the submarine, which was designed with flexibility that allowed it to bend and twist like a snake so it could masquerade as a sea animal, to minimize or maximize interaction with wildlife, as desired.
There were several other types of propulsion available depending on the type of movement preferred in the moment, adapting to optimize speed, stealth, steadiness or other concerns. The curved face of the outer hull was carefully crafted to ensure optimal performance for any of these functions.
When everything was prepared, Melqart wished them luck and returned to the garrison. He had other duties to attend to. The most important thing on his mind was investigating the apparent illegal visitor, who Nils was quite sure was a hostile presence, and who most assuredly had not filed any official documentation of their entry into Terran airspace.
What most concerned Melqart about this was that the visitor hadn’t shown up on the Atlantean air defence grid, which should have detected any object before it entered the atmosphere. He hoped the Agarthans were equally unaware, but if so then wouldn’t there be even more danger?
The hull of the submarine was also designed to amplify external sounds, and as they lowered into the ocean they could hear the songs of orcas and dolphins, as the cetacean friends of the Atlanteans swam into formation around the vessel.
Quid found the sounds unnerving but the rest seemed to find it relaxing. Nils hummed along and occasionally sang back, though Quid couldn’t tell if they would hear it or not.
Tremplir joined Sheran in sitting quietly and listening to the whale song, and after a while Quid decided to join them. He sat down, folding his legs uncomfortably in an attempt to match Sheran’s full-lotus position.
Trem noticed his uncomfortable awkwardness and helped him settle into half lotus; a much more comfortable way to sit once he got used to it, with one leg sitting atop the other.
There was a long time where no one moved at all. Quid lost track of the minutes until he felt he must’ve been sitting there for a full day.
As he sat and listened to the whale song, he could feel the waters flowing past. His remembered mermaid self seemed to be communicating with him somehow, although she didn’t seem to be aware of it. It was as if her subconscious were trying to telepathically transmit information to him but he couldn’t hear it.
He was consumed with memories, in fact he couldn’t even call them memories anymore. He relived entire lifetimes, watched and felt every nuance of being in a pod of porpoises in the seas of Atlantis. He could feel the currents and even formulated mental maps of the waters and the electromagnetic fields permeating them. He knew exactly where he was in every moment, and could find the quickest way to get anywhere else solely through this sort of cross-temporal awareness.
After quite some time, Quid wanted to move but was hesitant to disturb everyone’s tranquility. He had the sense that he would shatter the peaceful energy of the space, if he so much as shifted his weight. But his back hurt and his legs felt like they might break if he stayed in that position.
He took a deep breath, hoping it would help him preserve the silence even for another moment. The instant he exhaled, his body forcibly moved itself and, sure enough, the silence was shattered irreparably. He stood up and Tremplir immediately groaned and stretched her legs, having been feeling hold herself still just like Quid.
Gnosa saw exactly what they were both feeling, he’d been sitting on a chair and even he was uncomfortable. He’d been watching Quid intently, knowing he would eventually have to move, humorously relishing every moment of Quid’s expression becoming increasingly uneasy.
As soon as Quid stood up his legs hurt even more than they already had, which he’d felt was impossible until that moment. He watched as Nils stretched out the knots in her back, and tried to mimic her movements, hoping they’d make the pain go away but it only intensified.
‘How can meditation be that painful?’ Quid asked himself. He looked at Trem doing the same leg stretches he was trying. He asked her, “what did you see?”
She smiled warmly, thinking of her own experience of reliving her past lives as an Atlantean priest. “I remembered the gods I used to worship. Ran, Sarasvati, Mazu. Triton, Olokun, Tengri. Hathor.” She drifted off, trying to list all her favourites but unsure if that was even possible.
Quid was impressed. “That’s a lot of gods to worship.” He could still only remember one lifetime as a priestess and he wasn’t even sure who she was devoted to, yet.
Trem shrugged. “Well, we’ve had a lot of lifetimes here.”
By ‘we’ she was referring to her own selves but the idea was sown in Quid’s mind that he, too, had faced many powerful lifetimes on Terra and the blessings and challenges that went along with them.
Nils spun in the air and landed on her hands, clapping her bare feet. “There’s no place like Terra!” She cheered happily.
Sheran and Nils could both remember several lifetimes on other worlds, mostly those which were energetically compatible with the purposes of their current incarnation. The truth is, there’s nowhere like any of those worlds and for the most part, the most beautiful world around is the one you happen to be living on right now.
The whale song felt like it was communicating with them and Quid began to feel as though he may begin to understand them if he listened long enough. His mind tried to translate their tones into words.
Sheran whispered, “don’t listen with your brain, listen with your heart.” Good advice for the rest of life, as well.
Quid looked at her curiously. “Do you know what they’re saying?”
Nils stopped stretching and sat down at the table. “Words aren’t important. We only use words because most Terrans don’t currently have the ability to express important concepts in effective ways. They’re singing feelings, ideas, remembrances, thought structures.” She couldn’t think of an easy way to explain light language so she left the explanations there for now.
Quid nodded and then gave Sheran yet another confused look. “Do you communicate with words for my benefit?”
Nils laughed. “Yep! We could transmit thoughts directly to you if you were comfortable with it.” After a pause she went on. “Maybe you will be, some day, but you still haven’t remembered who you are yet, and you won’t be comfortable opening up on that level until you do.”
Trem and Gnosa pretended not to hear, they preferred to avoid getting into Quid’s personal life any more than necessary. They couldn’t really help him anyway, at least not in the important ways.
Quid heard a whale that sounded much closer and inside he could feel she was talking to him specifically and part of him wanted to reach back, to go outside and play with her.
Nils smiled. “Come on honey, let’s go say hi to your friends.”
The submarine was quite large for transporting 30 people and there was a lot of open space on deck. They didn’t pass anyone for several minutes but as they emerged into a viewing room at the front of the ship, they found the leader of the Atlantean contingent sitting quietly, staring out the window.
She smiled politely and said, “hello. We haven’t officially met yet, my name is Qanti.” Melqart had introduced Nils and the rest to them but only a more formal setting.
Nils ran right up and gave the big, strong-looking amphibian a warm hug. “Hello Qanti! We’re here to speak with the whales. Do you know how much longer they’ll be with us?”
“They’ll stay until we reach Rantepol, the merfolk city is as deep as the whales will go to, so they can commune with a wider variety of creatures.” Qanti loved to spend time around the merfolk, who were always so playful and exuberant. “That’ll be a few more hours.”
Quid ignored them all and moved a chair to sit right in front of the window, excitedly looking at the whales and listening to their song. He wasn’t sure what Sheran meant by, ‘listen to your heart’, but he felt a stirring inside that was eager to find out.
An orca drifted in front of him, swimming alongside the vessel, and when their eyes met Quid could feel everything she felt. He could feel the way she was aware of the currents without having to know why they bent this way or that, and she trusted them to lead her to where she wanted because she trusted that she was experiencing this specific current for a purpose, one which aligned with that of the current itself.
She could feel within Quid the heart of a warrior and the flames that burned in him, and she showed him that they too felt the same. They bore flames in the depths of the ocean and found oneness with their environment by balancing the fire and water, the internal and external, the light and dark.
Quid noticed the white and black they adorned themselves with, a reminder to be every side of all conflicts; to bring peaceful balance to each side by being both.
He felt the flames inside both their hearts, he noticed how similar they are to water currents, simply flowing wherever felt natural. The orcas danced between the currents, using them to channel through the will of the ocean.
As he listened to the flames he began to feel experiences of creative joy, making love passionately, raging through battlefields knowing that there was divine purpose in revolution. He recognized that, beneath all the differences of these experiences, the impulse fuelling them is the same fire, the passion that demands the expression of its creative drives.
Feeling this passionate flame rising through his aura, he felt that every obstacle that had ever been placed in his path was just another way to rise. Burning through them all had given him the momentum he needed to break through and, over time, he’d grown into a flame ready to take on more than he’d ever thought possible.
As the Orcas shifted out of the main current and moved for another, the Dolphins joined them and he could feel the playful, childish joy as they swam alongside the voyagers. They too felt the flames of passion burning inside them.
The self love they felt was the only reason for their flames to rise, to burn, or even to exist at all. Self love was their only worthwhile purpose, and that was the reason they chose to bring their playful attitude into every activity they engaged in, even hunting or fighting was simply a fun game, not substantially different from making love or reproducing.
And this was the reason to play in the waters. The flames and the waters loved each other so devoutly that they would love themselves beyond all challenges that would ever be presented to them.
Listening to them sing, giggle and play around him, he allowed his desires to wander, his artistic and sexual passions to be felt and for a moment they were so overwhelming he was glad to be sitting by the window, unable to see Trem or anyone else, lest his passions burn too hot to control.
As an empath, Nils not only was aware of Quid’s emotions but felt them as if they were her own. She embraced Sheran lovingly and wrapped their auras around and into each other, being glad they were beyond the need for sexuality to be expressed physically. They also had much more self control than Quid.
As the energies of fire and water merged inside Quid, he felt a glimpse of what the ancient Terrans called Wu Wei, the art of graceful action in manifestation of one’s will. Dancing, playing, building, fighting, fucking. They all are impulses brought about by the same desire, but that desire will flow and expand wherever is easiest.
This flow follows the path of least resistance because all it truly wishes is to express itself through whatever means are most appropriate, and the most appropriate means are typically those most immediately presented to us by the cosmos - at least in healthy, balanced individuals.
However we find ourselves facing reality, we always have the option to rise beyond the limitations imposed on us, and simply love ourselves past anything that would hinder the most pure and authentic expression of our own will.
The act of allowing ourselves to move through the currents is not the same as simply letting them push us, it is a balance of discernment and intuition, expansion and alignment, life and love. Maintaining this balance allows us to guide ourselves through the currents by our own volition, from a state of self awareness in which the only thing that matters is giving in to the burning desires that drive our manifestations.

As the hours passed, Quid began to feel at ease with his own impulses and not only that but also felt that, if he truly love himself, it would be easy to navigate through any challenge presented to him without ever straying from the path that was most aligned with his true self.
Eventually they reached the edge of the mer city Rantepol. The cetaceans said goodbye in their own ways and departed back to their hunting grounds.
At the top of a large mountain, Rantepol occupied the highest elevation around for hours. There were very few artificial structures but several megalithic formations studding the hillside. The surface was pocked with holes leading into a partially hollow space similar to an anthill, in which the merfolk made homes for their families to rest or eat, and t store their minimalist possessions.
The majority of the merfolk’s time was spent travelling, harvesting food or creating art. They had limited interest in anything else, and even less use for most of the things that would comprise a city by the standards of most other Terran races.
Beneath the populated areas of the mountainside were growths of a unique coral that grew only in the Atlantean Ocean and attracted all sorts of fish and other sea-dwellers. Mixed into the coral were seaweed, anemones and a collection of foods the merfolk farmed.
The submarine didn’t stop as it passed, it simply continued its journey and allowed the merfolk to join at their own pace, the only way to work with sea folk.
As they passed, a small contingent of the most powerful mages in the city joined them. The merfolk knew the valleys they would be entering into and how dangerous it can be if the wildlife were attracted, and they wanted to make sure the party arrived safely without endangering the animals.

As mammals became a more common and diverse section of the Terran evolutionary tree, they became suitable for design into vessels for use by the benevolent extraterrestrials with whom the collective wished to join forces, for the purpose of the Terra Experiment.
Delegations from the Galactic Federation of Light took up temporary residence to assist in the genetic engineering of these races. Specifically, large groups of Sirians, Arcturians and Pleiadians arrived, who would end up forming the bulk of the Interstellar Earth Alliance.
The Sirians inhabit the highest forms of consciousness, having evolved through several planetary cycles and risen beyond even the universe itself to reach into the angelic realms of pure consciousness, in which even aether is only an illusionary construct.
The Pleiadians have long since chosen to collectively embody the energy of the inner child, preferring to view existence through a lens of exuberant enthusiasm over anything else. Creativity and playfulness are their most important endeavours, and they bring their happiness into all forms of matter they inhabit, organic or otherwise.
The Arcturians are a highly motivated culture who enjoy meeting, learning from and assisting other races. They are widely known as gifted healers on every scale from cellular to galactic and enjoy nothing more than improving what they find on their voyages into the depths of the cosmos.
Seeing how important the oceans of Terra have always been for evolution, these three races chose to begin their evolutionary journeys there. They developed the first cetacean species who would evolve into those who now inhabit the abundant and wondrous Terran oceans. From them the Sirians created orcas to inhabit themselves, while Pleiadians inhabited dolphins.
Arcturians created the blue whale to bear the blue flame in their hearts.
A softer, gentler race approached from the star Mintaka who wanted to dance in the waters of Terra, though they were too peaceful to join the Alliance themselves. The Mintakans created merfolk in coordination with the Sirians, so they could share the oceans together as they had in their own worlds long ago.
The Urmah and other feline races originating from the ancient civilization near Vega created predatory cats to stand guard as a fierce warrior race who would maintain order during the age of strife. Though cats were rarely recognized as spiritually powerful guardians during that period, they were able to protect sacred portals from the humans and other developing race.
Knowing the importance of polarity and balance, the Sirians convinced Gaia that it was advisable to allow the darkness to incarnate as well. Not to do so would eventually attract darkness in to counter-balance the light. The laws of the universe will invariably correct imbalances, and hey determined it was best to maintain balance in controllable and predictable ways.
Therefore the ancient reptilian rivals of the Vegans, a dark race from the Draconian Empire was invited to create a single form for themselves to use. They chose the snake, another guardian spirit who protected sacred lands from unworthy hands until they were driven out by archaic human superstition.

The song of the merfolk was very different from that of the cetaceans. While more vibrant and expressive, it also felt more sedate, like a poem read as lullaby rather than the playful but seemingly random chatter of the dolphins.
As they went, Quid could feel the warmth of their inner glow and saw in the darkness the luminosity of their flames. Though they burned as bright as the cetaceans, they were simply candles, glowing warmly in the dark. a gentle, laminar glow and in his amfur he could even see their inner candle illuminating the waters around them and guiding them on their path.
Quid continued focusing on the experience of polarity he been shown by the orcas. He wanted to better encapsulate the meaning they were expressing to him but words would do it no justice. ‘Nils was right,’ he thought, ‘it’s just a feeling without any words at all.’ Had he listened with his heart?
Could he now speak with his heart? He didn’t know what that would even entail but somehow he felt an urge to find out.
In the meantime the magnitude of the feeling seemed to be slipping away as he listened to the lullaby of the merfolk.
He tried to slide the remainder into his belief systems regarding the nature of universe, hoping it would remain intact for future viewing. He’d always believed that chaos and order were a clash, a paradox to be unravelled by the intellect. On meeting the Order of the Emerald Grifon, he’d begun to wonder if it was some form of war experienced only in the realms of consciousness.
But as he eased into the energy of the mer, he began to feel that, perhaps neither was complete. What if the white and black of the orca was just a mask for the essential unity of the flame within? A game to be shared among friends, rather than a competition of feuding sides. What if chaos and order are simply dance partners in the cosmic ballroom?
As this idea permeated his mind, he eased around the notion of desire needing to be expressed. What if allowing the feeling of want to be embraced, is the real purpose of wanting?
Part of him desperately and stubbornly refused to accept this. There was simply no way that desire could be accepted and embraced, without pursuing its fruition.
But a gentler, softer part of him was now emerging from the shadows of his mind and that part of him wanted to feel that desire was inherently pleasurable, without its manifestations being sought after.
The flames inside erupted into the same passionate longing, that yearning to breathe the delights and pleasures of a full life.
The gentler side tried to dismiss the yearning, believing he would harm someone if he gave into the intensity of the flames as they rose. Gradually he realized he was abusing himself, holding back the impulses that were attempting to grow beyond the self-imposed limitations of mental illness, sexual repression, emotional turmoil and so on.
The turbulence of the flames was merely an attempt to reach a state from which they could sustain a more laminar state, to become a massive but gently glowing candle.
As this realization became increasingly undeniable, he released the fears with which he held himself back from embodying the fullest purity of the fires, which consumed him and for a brief moment he forgot having ever felt anything other than the desire for life. He relished the experience as its inherent sanctity became undeniable.
“What’s that?” Nils’ voice broke the silence and everyone stared intently out the window as a distant blur of shadow loomed in the darkness, getting larger as it approached.
The merfolk broke formation and began chanting. The shadow loomed closer and suddenly a megalodon surged forward and slammed its fullest momentum into the vessel, shaking the structure and knocking over several passengers. Quid caught a glimpse of its gills, taller than his own height.
As it swam away to line up another attack, the merfolk arranged into the formation of a merkabah, casting a protective hex between the shark and the submarine. They created electrical polarity between the nodes of the hex and stabilized them by surrounding the cloud with a magnetic layer to prevent the electric potential from arcing outside their grid.
As the megalodon swam back again the structure of the merkabah cast electric arcs between the nodes. Sheran strengthened the hex with a shield of blue flame around the merfolk, which diminished the shark’s momentum and as it swam through the merkabah it received a powerful shock that made it pause momentarily.
The submarine began to writhe like a snake, preparing to whip to megalodon, or attempt to, although the captain doubted it was fast enough to do so effectively.
As the megalodon regained composure it broke out of the electrical field and attempted to devour a mermaid. Quid amfur caught a glimpse of a spectral figure of Sheran floating in the water with wings of blue flame and as the shark closed its jaw, it bit down into an orb she cast to protect herself.
Although physically unhurt, Sheran could feel its teeth as though they were sinking into her body, and Nils hugged her supportively.
For an instant, Quid could see the priestess’ obsidian mirror in front of him but instead of reflecting either of their faces it showed him the warrior stepping into a battlefield with nothing more than a sword and his wit to keep him alive. He couldn’t explain how but the orange flames burning in his heart burst out of Sheran’s spectre in the water and forced the megalodon away from her.
As the megalodon turned away it whipped its tail at the mermaid and Quid’s hand reached out to slap it away. In the water, his amfur could see a black and deep purple wave mirroring his hand’s motion.
“How are you doing that?” Trem asked him, surprised at his abilities. He didn’t hear her but he wouldn’t have been able to answer even if he had.
Sheran could see Quid’s aura glowing a deep, vibrant crimson.
The Atlanteans flew small fighter ships out of the vessel’s dorsal and the merfolk scattered. They didn’t want to hurt the shark but if it was so resistant to their electric field then they would have to use more lethal magic to defend themselves.
In Quid’s past he could see himself as an octopus, escaping dangerous predators by forming a cloud of ink as a distraction and zooming away during the confusion it created.
The Atlanteans were attempting to draw the megalodon into a trap by luring it with reflective sparkles that would dissolve harmlessly into the water after a minute or two. The shark ignored them and swam after one of the craft, outrunning it easily and wrapping its jaw around the tail it used for propulsion.
Quid’s anger boiled over the rim of his awareness and all he could see was the red of his furious aura resonating in his mind. He’d been through far too much to be stopped by an overgrown fish.
Sheran managed to get the attacker’s attention with a projection of a large, shiny and juicy-looking fish. It charged at full speed and right when it appeared to have caught a meal, the projection disappeared.
Quid surrounded it with a dark cloud that shrouded everything outside it from view.
The Atlanteans regrouped and joined forces with the merfolk, and formed a hardened magical arrow strengthened by the metallic plating of the ships. They charged into the cloud and injured the shark’s ribs.
Sheran held it tight with a set of tentacles, inspired by the squids of the Terran oceans.
While the megalodon struggled, Quid furiously punched it in the nose. Even though he consciously had no will to harm it, his anger overrode his will to protect it and he nearly killed the shark, causing brain damage that it may never recover from.
Injured, confused and afraid, the megalodon retreated again into the depths.
Nils could feel the sadness of the merfolk as the recognized how much damage the shark had received and although there was nothing to do about it now, she allowed herself to feel sympathy for it, and to dwell for a moment on the pain they’d caused a hungry animal.
Quid caught another glimpse of the same obsidian mirror and the priestess’ voice whispered, “well done.” Suddenly back in the present and grounded again in his body, he recovered his senses and became aware of himself again. His heart was racing more than it had been when he snuck past the guards to stow away on the freighter back home and for a moment the heat of battle felt more real than the cold window in front of his face.
The rest of the time passed quietly. Trem and Nils slept while Gnosa and Sheran reviewed everything with Qanti. Quid simply sat by the window and stared out at the blank darkness of the ocean as they sank deeper into the crushing pressure of the waters.
The merfolk were much more sedate as they went, feeling sad about their part in harming the wildlife. They chose to spend what little focus they could on protecting themselves from the deep sea pressure by banding together into a shared bubble that maintained comfortable conditions.
When the vessel finally arrived at the site of the sunken ship, the waters were so dark that the crew couldn’t even see the wreck in front of them, they simply took the technology at its word.
No one noticed the small Draconian spacecraft concealed in the rocks beneath them.