Hello, Guild! It's been a while.

I wrote part of a story until I got bored/moved on from the site for a bit. I've thought about it, and decided to pick up where I left off. It helps that I've come up with some more things to write about.

Here's where it gets interesting. I'll repost what I've written so far, and then where we go from there is up to you. It'll be a voting process; most votes wins. Votes should take the form of [Place or Character] and [Time]. So, for instance, you might vote, "Korinne, Future", and the next segment would be about Korinne in the future. Or you could say "Lt. Ouverwald, Present", and the story would continue from Lt. Ouverwald's current perspective without a time skip. Or you might say "Helios, Past", and the story would switch to what happened in the star system Helios in the past. You get the idea. Note that, to keep things sane, you can only vote for characters/places that have already been mentioned in the story.

Should nobody vote, then I'll continue the story from whichever place/character and time I feel like.
~o~0~o~

Cast and Locations
(by no means a definitive list)

The Traveler - a time traveler. Probably alcoholic
The Machine - the time traveler's machine.
Col. John T. Ouverwald - Black ops Colonel
Korinne - a gorgon's daughter
Euryale - Korinne's mother, another gorgon
Stheno - Korinne's aunt, also a gorgon
The Beast - A monstrous denizen of the Island
Dvork - Aquattian, works for the ExtraSolar Affairs Association - the organization that also operates the remnants of the humiliated Aquattian military.

---

The Island - where the Traveler crash-lands and the Beast lives
Mavine - alien star system, home to the Aquattians, who are moving the entire system to flee from something
Earth - our home planet
Helios - a heavily industrialized star system, part of the Interstellar Nations (and owned by the United States)
Station Prime - rather ornate alien station orbiting a black hole, serves as the religious headquarters for the Vihroulli (the aforementioned aliens)

[reserved in case I want to post a timeline or something]

Orbital
-by Raidne Skuldia, aka Queen Raidne

1. The Traveler and The Machine
The Traveler looked at the great Machine that would bear him upon the waves of time, and felt blood drain from his face. What madness had seized him, that he had the arrogance to flick off God? And why should he dare activate the Machine when he hardly understood it's inner workings? His work upon it had been feverish, performed in adrenaline-filled spurts at odd hours of the day. Always intoxicated. The arcane principles involved fell from comprehension unless he was drunk.

Even now, the Traveler had a bottle of vodka, should he doubt himself.

So he was obviously drinking from it.

The Machine was a filmy thing, built from solid aluminum and brass. The rest of the Traveler's studio - formerly his ballroom - was oak paneling, mirrors, and chandeliers. The Machine had exposed wiring, gaudily-painted commercial generators, and repurposed steel pressure tanks. He felt as out-of-place as the Machine was, already anachronistic.
The principle of the Machine was circuitous, but as best the Traveler could discern, it would separate itself from the flow of time, and then the Machine would gravitate back toward the time stream. It was like throwing a ball: gravity would force its return to Earth, but the more energy you put into the throw, the further the ball travelled.

The Traveler found himself sitting in the machine, outer hatch already sealed, partially-drained bottle of vodka at his feet. He didn't remember entering the Machine, but felt no mystery toward the inexplicable gap in his memory. Nothing arcane had happened yet.

He picked up the bottle of vodka with care, not wanting to damage the exposed circuitry in the control panel.

Should he impose on God, and take up residence with Him? No mortal would— or, no mortal would be allowed— no; no mortal could be considered a mortal still (yes, that was it) with powers over time. His head throbbed mildly. Or maybe he thought his head was throbbing, and couldn't tell the difference.

Even if he didn't follow through, it couldn't hurt to prepare for departure. So he flipped the switch on the generator, primed the electrical systems, and powered the computer system that would stabilize his flight through time. And he turned the knob this way and that. When would he like to go? The future, the past, the near-present? Every time seemed the same. Did it matter if he only went three minutes into the past? Wouldn't knowing that he could touch the universe and change its weave be enough?

To hell with it.

He spun the knob forward.

The Traveler caught himself staring at the knob. He could, with effort, make out the number he'd set it to. That wouldn't do. He spun it again. With the force of a man sure of his next action, he spun it over and over, ensuring that he'd never know the electrical discharge - and thereby the date - it was set to, even if he happened to glance it on occasion. And then, before he could doubt again, he smashed his fist against the button.

A field instantly engulfed the Machine, tearing it from the universe.

The interior was flooded with aquamarine brilliance. They were falling now, reliant upon gravity's subtle hand to pull them back into the Universe and slow time down again. The Traveler felt his stomach churn, perhaps from alcohol, or perhaps from the great speed at which they were moving now.

The Machine arced above the universe, momentum thrusting it into the fifth dimension and speeding it rapidly through the fourth dimension of time. Time does not run backward, nor does it jump from one hour to another, skipping all the minutes between. Therefore, no matter how much momentum the Traveler told the Machine to inject, no matter how far above the Universe they flew, no matter what curves the Universe took in the fourth and fifth dimensions, the Machine would always land back into the time stream. Even if the Machine managed to escape an entire Universe's worth of gravity, and flew in a straight line, they would intersect with the Universe again. Time was infinite, and unless the Universe was perfectly regular in shape and movement (what in nature was ever so predictable?), every iteration of movement would necessarily be executed.

They would crash back into reality.

The porthole glowed with extra-universal light.

It would be a while maybe. Time for the Traveler to calm his nerves. Time for more drinks.

Still the porthole shed its defiant glow.

Surely they would land. It might be a while, though. The light was unsettlingly soothing. Nothing so strange should be so calming. Perhaps it was darkening. Or perhaps the Traveler's eyes were playing tricks on him, adjusting to the light. He'd rather not think about it, so he covered the porthole with a greasy rag that he'd been sitting on for some time.

He wondered how violent the landing would be.

~o~0~o~

The Traveler realized he was awake. Something was blue, bright, and highly annoying. He remembered the rag covering the porthole, and saw that it had fallen. He re-placed it, being more careful to secure it to the sides of the plastic. Groping around, the Traveler found his water canister, and drank greedily. Not too greedily, though, because he already felt pressure in his bladder.

It was when he was in the thrall of half-sleep that his brain suddenly connected the dots, chemicals flooding across synapses. He tore the rag away from the porthole. Light, blue light, blinded him. If there still was blue light, then he was still outside the Universe. Flying in a self-contained pod, cut off from everything. Flying through an impossible space-scape in a vesicle of familiar universe, like cosmic endocytosis. Ridiculous.

They should have landed by now. Something was definitely wrong.

The Traveler was dismayed to find the vodka bottle empty. He tried staring out the porthole, cautiously nudging the rag out of the way.

The extradimensional view was starkly empty. Why shouldn't it be? Outside of the Machine's bubble of Universe, the laws of physics might be completely different. Constants could be altered. How could anything even exist beyond his bubble? How could the Traveler know? What could penetrate the walls of universes?

The Traveler stared as the rag gradually drifted down and away from the porthole. No, it was only drifting away. He was drifting up. They were in free fall. The Machine was falling at the same rate as all the objects inside it. Why hadn't he noticed— oh. The bottle of vodka drifted past him, spiraling toward the ceiling. A solution to his bladder problem occurred to the Traveler.

~o~0~o~

Why hadn't the Machine landed yet?

~o~0~o~

Some time later, having exhausted most of the songs that he could remember, the Traveler's thoughts returned to his predicament. He'd missed something. Not that he knew how to fix it, and anyway, even if he did, there wasn't much he could do. The Machine needed a solid anchor to launch from. He wasn't sure why, or even really how the Machine launched, but he knew it needed an anchor. If he probed the subject, his mind threw barriers up, and he found himself despairing. He wanted another drink.

Even if he could lurch the Machine in one direction or another, he wouldn't know where to lurch to. That he'd somehow missed the Universe was obvious now. In the realm of things concerned with gravity, movements were circular, not linear. Paths were marked by loops, arcs, and spirals, not straight lines. He needed to go down again. Which meant launching not in a downward direction, but a backward one. However that he'd missed the Universe, the action that caused him to do so was an increase of momentum in one direction. If he killed his momentum, gravity would win and bring him down again. But — and here was the other problem — what direction was "backwards"?

The Traveler glanced at the porthole again. Uniform, pale blue light. Useless. The formerly emptied vodka bottle drifted into sight. He wished he could go back in time and find a better solution to his bladder problem. Which only made him want another drink more.

Frustrated, he stared blankly at some dust grains dancing erratically and without weight in the cerulean light. Behind them, the blue light began to take on a greener tint. Or were his eyes deceiving him? He mentally photographed the color of his white shirt, closed his eyes, waited a minute, and looked at it again. Yes, it was definitely greener.
He stared out the porthole again.

The space was definitely green outside of the Machine. And streaks of other colors began asserting themselves, too. Here a brownish smear, and a long, winding silvery gray one over there. The entire view wasn't replaced with green, he noted. Just the bottom half, so that there was a sort of aethereal horizon between —.

It occurred to him then that he was seeing the Machine's reintegration with the Universe. And that he had no idea how to slow down. Nor whether or not he even needed to slow down.

He buckled himself back into his seat, just in case.

Details outside the porthole started to come into focus. Things began to arrive at a certain amount of clarity. Everything was still very streaky outside the porthole, but now he could very clearly see that the green was some form of grass, and the brown was trees, and the silver a river.

Casting about the control panel, he found a small button that had "STOPPING" in his own handwriting scrawled in permanent marker underneath. He pressed it. The generator gave a throatier growl, clearly under more strain. The view out the porthole distended like a circus mirror.

Even so, things began to get decidedly less streaky. It was only when one of the streaks resolved itself to be the path of a bird that he understood. Mostly. Somehow, the Machine was slowing through time. Perhaps there was some form of spatial drag that it made use of. That seemed familiar. Mostly.

Things began drifting downward, slowly coming back under the influence of gravity, at any rate. The Traveler felt like a lab rat exiting the maze and at a loss to explain the world.

The Universe was approaching its normal speed through time. Things outside the porthole only moved jerkily, like in an old-time movie spun through the reels at the wrong speed, rather than at nearly-indistinguishable-streak speed. The carnival-mirror effect was dissipating, too. Seconds later, he was very glad that he'd buckled in when the Machine juddered violently. Time outside the porthole stayed constant, but the view became blurry again. It slowly refocused, and there was another fit of violence while the view unfocused again.

The Machine was bouncing. After that long fall through the fifth dimension, it was bouncing. The — he decided to call them spatial flaps — must only have slowed down their passage through time, and now they were rebounding back and forth into the Universe like a two way door into its groove. Probably. Which meant, for as long as he'd been outside of the Universe's stream, that the final impact would probably be very violent.

Hell, they were going to crash.

The Traveler braced himself, but the final crash wasn't much worse than a metal-denting (terrifying, that was) shudder. He came through unscathed.

The Traveler had stared out the porthole for a good five minutes before actually opening it. Just because there were trees didn't mean the air was breathable this far into the future. He presumed it was the future. It would take a great deal of energy to even slow down against the momentum of the rest of the Universe's journey through time, let alone travel backwards. And he presumed that he was far into the future solely based on the length of time the Machine had spent travelling. Well, that and the fact that his house wasn't there anymore.

Eventually, however, relief at being wrong won out. He hadn't missed the Universe. The concept seemed absurd now; how can you miss something as massive as the Universe? Maybe, he thought, he ought to lay off the sauce.

It probably wouldn't be necessary, though.

So the Traveler opened the door and was startled at the tropical fog of heat that enveloped him. Strange birds and insects made stranger yet sounds. Something moved in the underbrush, rattling leaves and small branches indiscriminately. He caught sight of a beast's leg, thick and muscled, gnarled, calloused ,and scarred.

The Beast vanished shortly after the Traveler had caught sight of it. After a moment of terrified rigidity, the Traveler whirled around and hunted in the capsule for something with which to defend himself. Even the vodka bottle, in this instance, would be very useful. A nearby presence caused the Traveler to spin back around in half a moment, clutching a pen and rag.

The Beast loomed eight feet tall directly behind him. It had four incredibly thick, obviously muscled limbs and was hunched like an ape. The head, a smallish triangular affair with beady eyes and three-inch razor-sharp needles for teeth, was mounted atop a long neck. Rather than one uniform color, the Beast's skin was mottled browns and greens.
Once again, the Beast demonstrated its remarkable swiftness. The Traveler thought that perhaps it had even anticipated his own actions. For, as the Traveler was whirling around to face the Beast, the Beast had simply stuck out a tree-trunk-sized arm and let the Traveler's rotational inertia do the work. The Traveler was knocked out cold. 

2. Ouverwald

Colonel John T. Ouverwald (officially retired) glanced briefly in the direction of his 9mm. It was, reassuringly, safely holstered on his hip. If (God Forbid, of course), he should find himself under extreme duress, then he was authorized to consider its use. Not only did the brass see fit to cheerfully throw him behind enemy lines, all-but-rob him of his only practical weapon (sure, he had his knife, but there's a well-known saying about that), and leave him stranded for three days, they'd also failed to warn him about the thirty or so enemy reinforcements that were likely also officially retired. From the looks of them, a few might even be officially dead. If he had any sense at all, he'd march back into the recruiting office however-long-ago that was and slap his young and very green self until he turned right back around.

At least he'd stop himself from volunteering for the blacker ops.

Meanwhile, he was stuck underneath a leaky dumpster, and had been for at least nine hours, ever since the impossible reinforcements had shown up. And set up camp. For nine hours. Of all the God-Damned half-assed "villages" they could have chosen, it was the only one that had access to the goat path up the Thrice-Good-God-Damned mountain. And up that track, if you cared to call it that, somewhere behind a "really big tree", was hidden a small piece of paper that would convince some upper-echelon motherfucker to get his ass in gear and join the cause of patriotism.

It had been an hour into lying beneath the dumpster when Col. Ouverwald finally got a proper glimpse of the mountain.

It didn't have any motherfucking trees.

He wasn't even really bothered by the smell of the dumpster, or the nefarious juice soaking through his generic fatigues. You got used to that. You got used to the discomfort caused by never being able to move, but never being able to relax. After a while, the prods of ill-placed stones disappeared, too. No, what really got to you was the boredom. He couldn't even hum, couldn't even tap out a tune with his fingers. Brief naps, so brief that he could never tell if he'd even taken one, were all the sleep that he could afford to steal.

He'd gone over his options automatically when he saw the mountain. John was well-versed in dealing with screw-ups. That's why they kept giving him more. A rueful smile spread across his face at that. Truth be told, there weren't a whole lot of other places he'd rather be, at the moment. So he considered the possible situations he might be in.

Option 1: This is the wrong mountain. That meant he'd have to figure out which mountain was the real one. Let alone where and who the brass' contact was. And he was cutting it awfully close to the three-day deadline as it was.
Option 2: This is the right mountain, and the objective is any-God-Damned-where on it. Deadlines. Time.
Option 3: This is the right mountain, there is no objective, and those reinforcements are for me. Shit.
Option 4: This is the right mountain, the objective is there, and those reinforcements already have it by now. Which meant a whole host of worse things. Like: a leak the size of Mississippi.

Of the four, only 1 and 3 seemed at all probable. Either those men would disperse, or they wouldn't. Sooner or later they'd check beneath the dumpster. Likely sooner. Even though it looked flush to the ground, some over-zealous bastard would notice a small scattering of dirt and figure it out. They had, of course, checked inside the dumpster proper before settling in. He laid odds on Major MudFace filling the role of over-zealous bastard. MudFace sat apart from the rest of the soldiers, and would regularly get up and check their perimeter. He never relaxed, always sat bolt upright, never seemed to fucking blink, and always glanced at the dumpster right when Ouverwald was going to make his move.

What he wouldn't give for a crossword puzzle. He hated crossword puzzles. His grandfather had been obsessed with them, constantly pouring over this or the other paper while Ouverwald was busy with the dishes. Crossword puzzles had always taken a stale, bourbon-smelling air after his childhood.

Where the hell was MudFace?

He wasn't on his favorite rubble pile. He wasn't grabbing food. He wasn't sitting near the fire. There's no goddamned way he was asleep: that would involve actual good luck. There was a man, back to Ouverwald, on the other side of the fire, peeing. The man was the right height, right build, probably the right posture. It had to be MudFace. Either way, MudFace wasn't staring straight at Ouverwald.

Ouverwald slowly shimmied back, moving toward the small pile of dirt that led out from underneath the dumpster. His nose twitched of its own accord. Ouverwald froze. Probably just sweat irritating his nose. And it was utterly moronic to attribute mystical powers to a random muscle spasm just because he'd happened to have noticed it once right before his unit got ambushed in Afghanistan. There was even a whole psychology behind things like that. Like "always" getting red lights when you were late. You just noticed it more because it mattered.

But, still. That one time, in Afghanistan. Now here, on some jungle island the Brass couldn't even pronounce right. He waited.

A blur of movement in the corner of his eye - muddy boots, right next to the dumpster. Silent as hell. MudFace. Undoubtedly. No other soldier bothered to move that silently any more - fires tended to give your presence away more than footsteps ever could.

His nose fucking knew it, somehow.

MudFace's boot stopped by the dumpster, facing it. "I know you're there. You can come out now," MudFace said.

Shitshitshitshit.

No. This was the oldest trick in the book. MudFace had probably said that to a thousand different hiding places that night.

But what if…?

Ouverwald didn't dare to fucking breathe. You never knew. He carefully moved his hand toward his knife.

"Hmm," MudFace said, and then he walked back toward the fire.

Fuck it. Either he'd die or he wouldn't. Ouverwald scrambled from beneath the dumpster while MudFace was walking away, and moved to the other side of a building, covering his tracks as best he could. After the dumpster, the evening air felt freezing. His muscles were rigid. But he backtracked from building to building until he was safe uncer cover of the jungle.

He'd never doubt his nose again. Now all he had to do was find another way through the village, or another way up the mountain. His nose twitched again. Fuck. He dropped to the ground, scanning the foliage.

"Colonel, Meringue pie," a voice whispered. That was the abort phrase. What the hell? He stared at the place that the voice had come from. There was an honest-to-God Major General staring back at him through mud and sweat. His opinion of the brass fluttered a bit.

"Sir," Ouverwald attempted a salute from his position while remaining concealed. You never knew which general would be a hardass.
"At ease. Major Branston will complete your mission. Your new orders are to brief Branston and then follow me aboard the North Dakota for immediate evac. There you will await further instructions." the general said.
"Yes, sir," Ouverwald said automatically. Now that he knew where to look, he could see Branston. Branston looked green as all hell, weighed down with 15 different things he wouldn't need. What the fuck was going on?

Ouverwald revised his opinion of Branston after his briefing. The kid had a wild-eyed determination on his face. He looked like he was going to Disneyland, not some op gone so fubar that Satan wouldn't touch it. Ouverwald recognized that look. He'd had it himself many times.

As Ouverwald got up to follow the Major General, he couldn't help but wonder again what the fuck was going on.

3. The Gorgon's Daughter
[Although this tale might not be true, it has enough truth in it for me. I pray that you might overlook what fact is wrong and what fact is right, and instead revel in a good myth re-interpreted, expanded, altered, and outright ignored, so that another might rise.]

Medusa — a monster with snakes for hair and a stone-turning gaze — was killed by the Greek hero Perseus. She had two sisters, also monsters, also with snakes for hair, that survived her. The eldest, named Stheno, had red snakes for hair, and reacted poorly to her sister's death. She gained a fearsome reputation amongst Man, killing many. Euryale, the middle sister (Medusa was the youngest), was said to have bellowed loud enough for the whole world to hear when her youngest sister died. Needless to say, she did not take Medusa's death well, although, unlike Stheno, she did not slake the thirst of her grief with man. Instead, Euryale withdrew from the world, permitting only the visits of Stheno.

Not that, of course, anyone else came visiting.

Life wasn't always this way for the Gorgon sisters. They'd been human once, and each was born fairer than the last. Stheno was said to make men stare as she walked to market, and her hair was so vivid, it was said to be live fire. Euryale was likewise admired by many men. All the more so because, unlike Stheno, Euryale did not flaunt her beauty. Many men would sit beside their wives and ponder, not on affairs of state or war, but upon Euryale's raven hair. Medusa, however, shone like a 4000 watt bulb. Suitors nearly lined the streets for a sight of her, or simply to hear the sound of her laugh. It is no wonder then that the deities of the time found Medusa's beauty similarly attractive.

Regrettably for the sisters, Zeus and Athena were not getting along at the moment (as many fathers and daughters are wont to). So when Zeus chose to seduce Medusa, it was when they were visiting the temple of Athena. Specifically, it was when the sisters were in Athena's temple. Such an action made Athena understandably more angry.

However, it is not a good idea to actually lash out against the patriarch of the gods, and so Athena — being clever — saw an alternate path. She instead cursed the Medusa, transforming her face into a hideous, twisted versions of its self, and giving her a head of snakes, not hair. To her sisters, she exacted a likewise punishment — for they had not moved to stop Zeus (though, what mortal would?). Athena did not, however, curse Medusa with immortality like she did Euryale and Stheno. Athena felt sorry, in a way, for Medusa; the act had not been entirely consensual. Athena also, in one of her lighter-humored moments, cursed the sisters according to their perceived beauty: the sister with the most would literally turn men to stone should their eyes ever meet, and the next most beautiful would turn men to stone only in moments of anger.

So Athena's sense of justice toward her father was placated.

Obviously, this meant severe changes for the sisters, now known as gorgon (dreadful, in the ancient tongue). They were forced to leave society, and after many years took refuge upon the coast. And they lived a solitary life, accepting of their fate. And they learned to fish, and they learned to hunt, and so they continued away from civilization for a few years. Then history twisted around, and took the sisters back into its gaze again.

So it came to be that Perseus crept in amongst the three while they were asleep, walking backwards, and only looking through the reflection of a sheild to prevent petrification, and beheaded their sister Medusa to satisfy a far-off king to prevent his mother from being forced to marry someone. Euryale, who slept closest to Medusa, awoke to the sickening sound and let loose the bellow for which she is famous. The same bellow, of course, woke Stheno, who slept nearest to the entrance of their hovel. Perseus had already begun moving to the door, and Stheno, uncertain of what was going on and fighting off sleep, let him pass. Euryale was shortly behind Perseus, and as she moved past, Stheno clearly saw the bloody scene for the first time, and joined her sister in the chase.

Perseus was faster than any mortal they'd ever seen. It was then that Euryale caught sight of his shield, surely given by Athena, and knew despair. If Athena no longer cared to maintain the sisters' punishment, then there was nothing stopping the other deities from assisting Perseus. And now that she looked upon the mortal's feet, following the font of blood dripping from her sister's severed neck, she saw shoes made from Hermes.

Euryale knew that it was hopeless. You can't defeat the will of a deity without a deity on your own side. Yet, she kept running, her anger driving her forward. All Perseus had to do was look into her eyes, and then her sister would be avenged. Perseus did not look into her eyes, however. Instead, he ran into a copse of trees, and disappeared.

They searched for days, but could not find him. Enraged, Stheno began killing mortal men at random. Euryale did nothing to stop her sister, partially to allow her to handle her grief in her own way, and partially because she herself would have liked to kill a few men. She did not, however, because she knew it wasn't the fault of men, but rather, the fault of deities. So be it.

Many hundreds of years passed.

It came to be that, in her vanity, Euryale wanted a child. She had hopes that perhaps the curse would skip a generation. These hopes started out as idle curiosity toward the scope of her curse, and then developed into something more as the years progressed. Euryale began to see a child as her hope at redemption; as a chance for her to live a normal life.

The issue that had always prevented Euryale from acting on this plan was husbands. No man would consort with her. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Some men would, but that class of man was hardly fit for the trials of fatherhood. Nor was she entirely certain that she could hold her anger in check during a parental dispute, and she had no doubt such a dispute would happen. Better to not try it.

As the years passed, and her longing for child steadily increased, the answer came from an unexpected place. Mortal humans had by then developed artificial insemination. And so Euryale put on a broad-brimmed hat, as was the style at the time, and visited such a facility.

So it came to be that Euryale gave birth in a small shack on the gulf of Mexico. The rhythm of the sea set the mood, and when Euryale saw her daughter for the first time, she was ecstatic. Her daughter wasn't ugly, and her head was blessedly free of serpents. Euryale named her Korinna Medusa, after her curse-free innocence and her long dead aunt. But when baby Korinna howled at the world for the first time, Euryale cried. Her daughter's tongue was black and forked; like a snake's, it was long and thin. Years passed, and Korinna grew a bed of midnight-black snakes upon her head. Her skin never tanned nor blushed, and instead remained the color of fresh white sugar, in bright contrast to her black tongue and serpents.

Euryale could not help but notice these changes and despair, for they meant the curse was eternal. Yet Korinna still gave her hope — throughout the years Korinna's face remained beautiful and unmarred. Perhaps with sufficient generations, the curse would be lifted entirely. Yet, her daughter's appearance wasn't Euryale's only worry.

Korinna drifted apart as she grew older. She was far too curious about the forbidden world of mortals. At first, Euryale fostered curiosity, believing it to be a sign of early intelligence. Euryale even bought her daughter black lipstick, to match her hair, and beautiful dresses to wear. But it wasn't enough. Korinna wanted to see the world; she didn't understand that she wasn't normal, that they were monsters in the eyes of Man. She yearned to show her dresses to someone apart from her mother.

It should be no surprise, then, that Korinna sneaked away one night. Her mother felt a sad vindication when Korinna returned two days later, eyes red with old salt, dress ripped in a hundred places, but no mark left unhealed on her flawless skin. Euryale felt it was time to explain their curse.

So Euryale told Korinna about her old, old aunt, and the unimaginable squabbles of the gods, and her aunt's death at the hands of a Greek man who had died thousands of years ago. She explained her own patience toward the curse, and told Korinna about her other aunt, who might visit from time to time out of obligation to her family. Korinna asked about the gods. Where were they now, and maybe if she could just talk to one of them— but Euryale explained that the gods lived far away, and that she didn't know how to speak to them. However, her sister (Korinna's aunt) had spoken to them, once, long ago. And then, satisfied that the matter was settled after Korinna was quiet, Euryale resumed trying to give her daughter a better life, and forgot the matter.

But Korinna didn't forget. She was waiting for Aunt Stheno to visit, because she had a plan to make the gods listen. Surely after all this time they'd release the curse. If not on her mother and her aunt, then certainly on her — after all, how had she offended Athena? Since her mother had obviously given up, it was up to her to find out how to speak to the gods and then do it. Or at least try. As Korinna grew older, she always held onto that thought, even if only in the back of her mind.

And then, one day, Stheno visited.

4. Dvork
-Planet Terrsubia, Mavine system-

The Old Corridor's brown stone buildings and cobble streets obscured the City of Dream. It was a pleasant effect, or at least the residents of the Old Corridor thought so. To Dvork, it was just another window shade. Downtown threw skyscrapers up in the way. The Glens had literal windowshades - nothing to stop you from seeing the slowly moving, unfamiliar stars in that open country. The Old Corridor preferred to obscure modern technology instead. All its streets and buildings were carefully calculated so no part of the downtown Dream was visible. Each to their own.

As it was, Dvork was getting plenty of glances-that-hurriedly-looked-away. No different than when he had to visit any other district of the City of Dream. Aside from failing to blend with local custom and habit, his Terrsubian augments made him bulkier than average, even if they were toned down from a full star-warrior's. As he walked, he left a wake, citizens skittering out of his way. He wasn't a star-warrior. Nowhere near. But apparently that didn't matter to people.

Finally reaching his destination, Dvork hurried off the cobbled street and down a narrow curving ramp. Something was dripping onto his back and sliding down his foreleg. It was probably water. A pipe did, in fact, run overhead, droplets condensed onto the side. His way was only illuminated by the faint glow of a wireless power line to his right. The City's white noise faded as he left the cramped entrance to the ramp behind.

At the bottom of the ramp, a scanner took a moment to identify Dvork's musk before irising open the doorway. Beyond was a dimly lit room, tubes of orangeglow providing warmth. He could only just see the blackness of another doorway on the far side of the room. Citizens huddled near the tubes carefully avoided even looking up at him. Likely they'd been conditioned not to bother anyone sporting the ExtraSolar Affairs Agency's logo.

"You have summoned me," Dvork said to the other doorway.
"Yes. Come," came a response.

Dvork made an effort not to examine the citizens too closely as he walked through the room. A horrendous stink came from what was presumably a ramp to a lower level in the corner. He stopped in the other room. It was completely black, but he could smell another's musk.

"Sir," Dvork said out of respect.
"My eyes, you see, need to be dark adjusted constantly."

Dvork felt the Researcher's claw nudge his foreleg.

"But I made a map for visitors a long time ago. Transferring."
The Researcher's claw dug into the gray-matter nodule in Dvork's foreleg. Data transferred into Dvork's implants, reprogramming the artificial glial cells in his brain. Stimulated optic nerve impulses overlaid the darkness with a wireframe.

The room was small, originally some form of antechamber, now with the Researcher's nest piled over what may have been furniture. A sparkling purple node in the corner represented a data point. It was linked into some form of older data architecture, not the modern quantum trinary. Physically, the data point was a spike that disappeared into a hole in the floor. Peering down, Dvork saw that the hole went deep. Very deep. Perhaps deep enough to reach the earliest salvageable layer of Terrsubia station. Sparks glinted off of metal wiring somewhere in the twisted mass, far below. Dvork even thought that he might be able to see the sphere of orangeglow near Terrsubia's original station body that kept the planet warm. Dvork knew that Researchers had been experimenting with accessing the Old Grid by driving a data-point spike deep into the earth, but this went much deeper than he had thought possible.

"Now then, present this file to the ESAA Director at once. Possibly from there to the Aquattius."

A small file transferred to Dvork's internal network.

"Respectfully, Researcher, what could possibly be so important?"

"An unaccounted for gate emission." It took a moment for that to fully sink in. The only gate technology that the Aquattians knew about belonged to them. Either someone had hijacked Central Gate Command (something so foolish and dangerous as to be dismissed at once), or the enemy had finally developed gate technology. The very thought bowed his forelegs. Every Aquattian's nightmare was the loss of their technological advantage before the solar system left local space.. Of course, there was one more possibility that re-stiffened Dvork's forelegs. the Researcher could be wrong.

"Impossible!" Dvork proclaimed.
"I believed the judgment of impossibility still lay within the Researcher's domain, half-warrior," the Researcher said.

Dvork wanted to counter the insult, but knew it would be pointless. All anybody ever saw was the ESAA logo. And all anyone knew them for were the star-warriors, and all anyone knew them for was losing the most important battle in Aquattian history. That, and having highly-regulated Terrsubian augments, inflating their bulk to easily twice an average Aquattian's size. Their musk reeked of blood, and it was never an enemy's blood. Dvork turned to leave without so much as a goodbye. The Researcher apparently did the same. Neither protocol nor politeness could convince them to stay in each other's company, and Dvork wanted to leave the stinking underground lair as quickly as possible.

5. The Lake and Other Water-Adventures
The Traveler awoke on the shore of some lake amidst unfamiliar jungle. The Beast, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen. Although he had his clothes, nothing else from the Machine was with the Traveler. Which meant the first priority was simply to survive. Followed by finding the Machine.

He was rather surprised to not be in a cave, or some form of oversized bird's nest. Surprised, but thankful. There were no walls here, and he made his escape into the trees easily. From there, he set to climbing one, so that he might locate the Machine. The ascent, although more difficult than he'd thought, posed no major challenge. The Machine, however, was nowhere to be found. All the Traveler could see was trees, wooded hollows, and heavily forested hills. And the lake, of course.

The lake, still as glass, reflected bright sunlight back into his face. Except—

Except, now that he looked up, he couldn't find the sun anywhere. All that hung above him was uniformly bright, cloudless, and azure. So he looked back at the lake. Vodka would've been drunk, had the Traveler had any.

It was like looking at a mirror, except the mirror wasn't reflecting his world. Instead, through the mirror were stars. He was staring into space. The lake was some kind of hole in spacetime, and it led to space. Or something. Stars, too many and too varied to be either a figment of his imagination or created by some artist, lay in the hole. Perhaps "in" wasn't the right word. More like the hole lay atop the stars, like the entire world was hollow and full of stars. And the starfield moved, slowly, twisting and translating beneath his feet.

As the Traveler watched, one of the stars flared brilliantly. He held up his hands, looked away, and turned back, blinking. An expanding cloud of gas and energy sourced from the nova brushed against a nebula, and feeble red pinpricks resulted. The surrounding nebula slowly contracted inward, spiraling. Just before the nebula fluttered out of sight, the Traveler saw the sudden ignition of a newborn star.

A great "harumph" sound made him look to the shore. The Beast was there, staring at the star-lake. Whatever it was, it was incredibly fast. The Traveler slowly started to work his way down the tree, taking care not to rustle the branches too much. Unfortunately, he slipped and ended up hanging from a branch by his hands. The resulting cascade of leaf-shaking alerted the Beast. Its head turned, slowly looking away from the lake. The Traveler could see its eyes darting from tree to tree, searching for the source of the noise.

For a moment, their eyes locked.

And then the Beast started to advance, slowly, toward the jungle.

The Traveler panicked. He vaulted from his branch toward the ground, landing with a painful half roll. He was rather inelegantly sprawled face up in the dirt. While it may have saved him from twisting his ankle, the roll also completely disoriented him. Quickly, he managed to get on his feet, picked a direction at random and began dashing through the trees like a wild boar. Some part of his mind, still functioning despite the adrenaline flooding his system, wondered if he'd have been better off climbing the tree again.
His progress, however fast at first, slowed to a stumbling crawl as the foliage thickened. Broad leaves were constantly slapping his face, vines and roots grabbed his feet, and thorns had already torn his arm to shreds. The Traveler wasn't even sure that he was going in the same direction. There were so many bushes and walls of vines that he had to change path every five seconds.

The thickness of the jungle, however unnavigable for him, must be twice that for the Beast. It was eerily quiet. All the commotion must have caused the animals in the vicinity to flee. He must be far in the future for something like the Beast to exist. Surely some scientist would have noted the existence of such a thing in the fossil record. And that would explain the climate shift from his era. Unfortunately, it looked like civilization shifted, too. His house wasn't here — the road wasn't even here — let alone the sleepy town that enveloped the estate. Presumably all civilization hadn't disappeared. So he'd have to get out of this jungle, and hopefully find either the Machine or someone who could take him to it.

Surely Mankind was very far advanced by now. Teleportation, wormholes, interstellar flight… the possibilities were endless and quite within his reach. They probably had quite a few new drinks to sample. He'd give his eye for a bar.

The trees abruptly ended. He'd found a path. And where there's a path, there's civilization.

The North Dakota
The North Dakota's shielded room was anechoic and designed to prevent electromagnetic penetration. The end result was that the walls, floor (at least, most of the floor), and ceiling were covered with blunted metal spikes. It was fucking ominous. Like Maj. Gen. Easton was some kind of James Bond supervillain, ready to bring the world to its knees. Not some brass about to show Ouverwald a powerpoint on a beat up laptop.

"Colonel, you've been selected to head an exploratory taskforce based in Hawaii," Easton started. Wonderful. A desk job. Just what he needed. Some part of Ouverwald wondered what his 'taskforce' would be 'exploring'. The Major General continued, "You will be in command of 27 people. Seven of those are civilians."

What the hell did he do to deserve this?

"Seven years ago, a Dr. Marcus Harding developed an advanced rocket motor for use in the new Arrowhead missile system. It used a combination of exotic matter and magnetic fields to mask the thermal signature of the exhaust plume." Easton advanced slides. "Dr. Harding's system worked better than it should have, however. To make a far too long and technical story short, he'd tapped into an alternate reality. We've taken his work and developed the Harding Drive, an engine capable of shifting a vehicle into an alternate reality. Now, after seven years of development, we're ready to give the Explorer 1 a test drive, and we want you heading the taskforce."

Colonel Ouverwald waited. The room was alarmingly silent — soundproofing prevented engine noise from leaking through for the most part.

He couldn't be serious.

As a rule, though, generals never had a sense of humor. They must drill it out of you with your first star.

"Sir?" was all that Ouverwald could manage.
"I'm serious, Colonel," Easton said.

This was worse than he'd thought.

"May I ask why I was selected, sir?"
"No," Easton replied.
"Sir, I'm no leader. I've been alone the last four years on 'training missions'. I don't know a damn thing about… whatever science thing this is. If you talk to General Marks—"
"General Marks has already signed off on this. There's a reason that we're sending civilians with you — so you don't have to know string theory. And let's be frank, since you apparently already want to. You're a waste of resources. The United States Marines did not spend time and money so you can play commando. You're an officer. It's time to lead, no matter how well-connected you or your father is."

Ouverwald stared at the laptop. Some part of him wondered how ingrained powerpoints were in Easton's head that he had to make a two-slide presentation.

"We've got three more hours in here for today. Then another six hours each day until we make Pearl Harbor. That laptop contains everything you need to know about your assignment. Study up," Easton orderd.

"Yes, sir," Ouverwald replied.