Starchaser: Beyond ~ Autumnhollow Chronicles – S03E12A – “Inside Rogue Rift pt.1(A)”

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Story So Far:

• Ingrid lectures Burgers and Freedom to stuffy aristocrats, a Giant Spider raises the American flag while dog-sized mice squeak out the "Star Spangled Banner."

___

"Welp." Zefir said "Since you guys are already there, get me a truckload of Marlboro Black and a crate full of Coke."

"Ten-four, Baseplate." Ingrid said, sighing deeply.

Siria looked around, they were not in the moorlands as described by Khorak. The Whales emerged in front of a house, which stood in a row of identical structures. Tall, wooden fences covered the remaining three sides, while trees provided privacy from neighbors upstairs. They stood on slightly overgrown grass, ahead, a wooden patio led up to the house.

Ingrid put a finger to her lips, motioning for everyone to be quiet.

"We're on Earth." she said quietly. “And in someone's backyard.”

 

The mice quickly scurried into position. One group quickly stacked up at the edge of the patio, taking aim at the doors and window at the back of the house, another quickly scurried up the trees to provide overwatch over the neighborhood, while others quickly located the back gate and stood guard.

In response, Viel quickly cast a cantrip over the windows. It caused anyone, or anything looking through them to perceive the view outside like a hazy painting, obscuring any onlooker from seeing outside properly.

 

"We're in your world!?" Kvaris hissed quietly. Ingrid nodded in confirmation.

"And we're trespassing." Philia added, though her tone indicated she could care less.

"It's too quiet." Cecil said, flying over to a round table by the patio, the type that had in the middle an umbrella hole, but there was no umbrella to be found. There was a newspaper on it and he picked it up.

"The Lakeview Tribune, August 6, 1991..." the slime read aloud. "Ingrid, this paper looks recent."

Neith launched Aquila high in the air.

"And we're in Illinois." Ingrid said, scanning the front page.

The rest of the Whales looked around, it was a pleasant quiet afternoon.

"There's a gate leading to the back." Kinu observed, "We should just leave."

"Don't!" Philia urged quietly. "We're in less trouble here."

"But why?" Kinu tilted her head "You said we're trespassing."

 

The mice watching the back of the house quickly scurried ahead. Quiet squeaks from the mice at trees had confirmed there appeared to be no one watching from the windows. Ian tried the door and found it locked.

Johnny, finding a bird feeder, quickly snatched it up with a vine and ate bird feed.

"It's too quiet." Philia said, looking around. "Something's very wrong. It's best we stay here where nothing can see us."

"Wrong Lakeview, wrong Illinois..." Neith spoke up, after running her analysis. "Wrong Earth."

Siria turned around to face the spider-bot. "What do you mean?"

"We're in the past." Neith explained "Ingrid and Philia's parents weren't even born yet in the year of nineteen-ninety one. Second, according to my GPS coordinates, this location matches the Lakeview Illinois in our Earth except... unlike ours, this town is abandoned. My drone finds zero activity in this suburb."

"I haven't heard any birds." Cecil added, looking up from the newspaper. "Nor have I heard a single squirrel run around."

"Or racoons." Ingrid said, smiling as she saw one of golden the mice poke a garden gnome with his glaive, "An abandoned house like this would have lots of them. The usual animals that live in a suburb are gone."

 

With a quiet click, Ian's lockpicks undid the door's simple lock. Ingrid wagged her finger, signing she will open the door.

“It could be booby-trapped. Let me.” Ingrid said quietly. She waited for them to scurry back to the edge of the patio before she, Viel, and Kvaris approached the door.

Ingrid waited for Kvaris's sense of smell and Viel's hearing to confirm there were no occupants inside.

"I hear a faint humming sound, and some ticking noises, but nothing else,"Viel said.

"I don't smell anything human, or any creature." Kvaris whispered.

"Still no movement in the streets." Neith said over their earpieces.

"Keep us apprised, Glados." Ingrid replied. She motioned for the Garm and Ciltran to retreat to the back.

The door opened without a sound, Ingrid boldly strode forward then flipped the light switch, bathing the kitchen in off-white fluorescent lights.

“Clear.” she waved at everyone “Everyone inside, we’re harder to notice in here.”

The patio and back gate mice quickly flooded inside along with Ingrid, and the Valkyrie team. The kitchen was still in good condition. Like Autumnhollow, it had an island counter, but that's where the semblance ended. The room reeked of 1970's interior design sensibilities with tiles everywhere, and even retro appliances that would be selling in the four digits if she put them on auction online. There was even a breakfast nook with some magazines lying atop it.

It appeared that half of the kitchen had been cleared out, there were still some canned goods, bags of dried beans, jars of coffee and sugar. In the fridge, the freezer was empty of perishables, leaving only the predictable box of baking soda and cans of beer inside the refrigerator itself.

Ingrid closed the door. There was a calendar mounted on it through magnets. The last crossed out date was August 12, 1991, four days after the newspaper Cecil was reading. That in itself only told the last time the family that once lived here occupied the house. It did not answer what the actual date today was.

 

"A lot could have happened between this era and the time that Ingrid grew up in..." Iohann suggested as they entered, but Philia held up a hand to politely interject.

"No..." Philia said, looking into her smartphone, observing the aerial view that the Aquila Drone was giving her. "We're only a few miles from Chicago... the richest, biggest, and most populated city in this region. Nobody who lives here could have any valid reason to leave, it's too profitable. It's as unnatural as say... if any of those hamlets near Teth-Odin was suddenly abandoned. It makes no sense."

"Aaand..." Cecil added, looking up at the caddy-mounted monitors at his room-side portal. "This Downtown is trashed... definitely did not happen in our history."

"Maybe this city got attacked in the past?" Kvaris suggested, opening up the cabinets. These too were half empty, unlike the canned goods that Roofe and Minke were selling, these did not depict hearty soups or stews but fruits and vegetables, her interpretation spell suggested that these may have been prepared ingredients for larger dishes, which could be the reason why the family that lived here did not believe them important enough to take with them.

“Ermm…” Cuddly held up a box of cereals and chewed a hole open. The adorable hare took out the bag inside and began to tip the contents into his mouth.

 

Cecil, Philia, Ingrid, and Zefir shared a chuckle at Iohann's suggestion.

"Impossible" Philia replied, chuckling as she knelt down at the island counter and began placing atop it various cans, "at 1991, America had and still is the most powerful military in the world. Ten years from now, two large towers were collapsed. In retaliation, America destroyed that country. So attacking us is extremely foolish. Our biggest rival in this era was tottering in near-collapse, we had no equal."

"Even if our Chicago was attacked in 1991," Cecil said, turning the page "We would have known about it. An attack like that would take hundreds of years before it ever became forgotten."

"Or fifty years ago from this era." Ingrid added, hauling hefty sacks of rice and potatoes from a pantry. "One of our ports in an tiny island far, far away was burnt to the ground, America destroyed two entire cities as revenge."

"Perhaps it was some sort of disaster" Iohann suggested. She saw Kinu let out an excited squeal as she opened a cabinet and found several spices.

Meanwhile the mice had discovered cans of Chef Boyardee Ravioli. Philia, noticing their discovery nodded to them, letting them know it was safe to eat. The mice opened the cans with their knives and started squeaking in delight as they helped themselves.

"It has to be a disaster." Philia assented, pulling out several kitchen appliances from the power sockets, laying them next to the microwave and electric oven that Ingrid also laid atop the island counter. "Or some kind of cone hat experiment gone wrong... the American people wouldn't let this destruction stand, there should be thousands of people in there right now rebuilding the city and undoing all the damage. Something really dangerous has driven them away..."

 

Sammy picked up the phone’s receiver, her sharp ears heard a buzzing sound.

“This one’s making a sound.” The orc remarked.

“That’s a telephone. It works like our earpieces.” Ingrid told her. “You’ll need to dial, or press those numbers in a sequence to reach who you want to talk to… it’s all in that yellow book that Viel’s reading.”

Viel looked at the book in awe, in her eyes it felt like an impressive tome of summoning with the sheer number of telephone numbers written on just one page alone.

“Most of those numbers are no good right now, Viel.” Philia said. “If all of the Greater Chicago area is evacuated, there will be no one to answer any of those numbers. Still, feel free to take it, even for us, it's a piece of history. They’re no longer in use in our era anymore…”

Sammy put the handset down. “We’re not speaking to anyone, are we?”

“No,” Ingrid shook her head. “They must not know we’re here. They won’t be our friends.”

“Treat everyone here as hostile.” Philia said. “All they will do if they find us is throw us in a laboratory like it’s Elion-Nosco.”

“You fine with killing your own people?” Siria asked, her elf-ears wagging incredulously.

“They’re not our people.” Philia said “Terragalia is my people. This Earth’s cone hat experiment now threatens our world. They should be lucky with what lives we take.”

"Oh and in case you're wondering, Ingrid." Neith quipped, entering the kitchen at last. The door was wide enough to admit the refrigerator, thus giving her enough clearance to enter with her porter rig "Radiation levels are non-existent, we're not in a nuclear holocaust."

"Are we in a zombie apocalypse scenario?" Ingrid asked, unplugging the refrigerator as Kvaris and Kinu emptied it.

"Ingrid's asking if this world has succumbed to a plague that turned everyone into a flesh-eating undead." Zefir clarified for the sake of their less-experienced-in-fiction companions.

"Inconclusive, I detect no mass movement anywhere."

"H-how are you so casual in assuming such a horrific scenario?" Kvaris asked, looking up in half-horror and amazement.

"As I said..." Philia shrugged. "We're in the most powerful country in the world... if it's this deathly quiet... the worst has already happened."

 

Siria was poking at some cabinets and discovered bottles of wine, she held them out to the Enthana sisters and Sammy, who examined them excitedly, their eyes lighting up at the unfamiliar labels. These too, joined the pile atop the island counter. Cuddly was still busily chowing down on the cereals, his Fae Harriers now brought to him a still-unopened box of chocolate flakes.

Meanwhile, Selphie was giggling as she read an Archie comic book she found at the breakfast nook. While most of the jokes escaped her, some elements transcended borders. A thought in the back of mind began to grow; it now dawned to her why Ingrid was so learned despite not being some aristocrat’s daughter. Earth’s children apparently were all required to attend an academy. What struck her as most humorous was how the narrative of this “picture-book” omitted all mention of academic scenes, focusing solely on the characters’ lives in-between classes, and somehow despite being in such an academic demesne all acted like world-class buffoons with their antics.

Sammy on the other hand was reading a National Geographic magazine she had picked from random. Flicking through the pages, she stopped to begin reading when she saw the pictures of long-dead humans wrapped in elaborate gold and fine cloth. The words gave way to her Interpretation spell and revealed it to be findings of a long-lost tomb in some far-away land, of a civilization that once flourished there, though the reasons for their flight baffled these explorers. Even more baffling to Sammy was that these explorers in turn had no intention of selling the loot for wealth. Instead they would be transferred to a "museum", apparently some hall open to the public for scholarly purposes.

The orc snickered, she could only imagine the Sages back in Terragalia frothing at the mouth at the idea of providing the general public such scholarly information. Knowledge that probably would not affect their lives at the slightest and probably cost so much to keep such an exhibit everyday.

"Huh" Cecil said, turning his newspaper "...looks like Bush didn't become president."

"And no mention of Kuwait either..." Ingrid frowned, reading the paper. "This world's history is quite different from ours."

"So it's like we're in a mirror image of your Earth." Viel said, leafing through a cookbook. Meanwhile, Ingrid busied herself taking a stack of china and glassware such as pyrex dishes and adding them to the pile.

Siria looked like she had a lightbulb go off in her head "...so that's what it was!" she exclaimed.

"What?" Kvaris asked, Kinu, Sammy, and herself had settled on the breakfast nook and were helping themselves to the cans of beer fished out from the fridge. Kvaris snickered as she read over Selphie’s shoulder, seeing a funny exchange occur in the Archie comic book the dryad was reading.

Kinu too was also engrossed in Sammy’s magazine. It seemed unthinkable to her that the elaborate necklace as depicted in the page was not going to be sold. Like Sammy, she too was intrigued by this lost kingdom’s origins. The text ran through some probable theories yet the author respectfully maintained that they were just that; mere conjecture. The younger Garm smiled derisively at the thought of her own scholars, who couldn’t help but pass off their own as fact.

"Oh! Umm... Well, this wouldn't be the first time I've been in a Riftworld like this..." The elf began, "At one time, I entered a Rogue Rift and it looked eerily like the Arlon Highlands. It had the Star Trees but they looked much smaller-" she paused for a moment as Ingrid was handing everyone cans of beer.

"Those are like, really tall world trees." Zefir said, explaining it to Ingrid and Cecil. The latter continued to read his newspaper while he expanded his portal, allowing Ingrid and Philia to stuff into his dimension all the goods they had laid atop the island counter.

"They were only a quarter-height to what we have now-" Siria continued, opening up her beer and taking a generous draught. It was pleasantly cold and strong, just like how she liked her ale.

"Everest high." Philia added for Ingrid and Cecil's benefit.

"...and it didn't have the Skyeater Titan's bones either." Siria added.

"Okay, now that's just impossible in our Terragalia's timeline." Philia said, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "Because that Titan predates the growth of the Star Hrove. I would know, I carbon dated them."

"A what?" the elf's ears drooped inquiringly.

Ingrid meanwhile, frowned and shook her head as she saw the mice hold out a can of dog food.

“No! You are not animals!” Ingrid said. Arthur shrugged and opened the can anyway , then dumped the contents into Johnny’s eager maw.

"Carbon-dating. It’s a way to get a precise age of an object" the ex-princess said, laying down a stack of pyrex tubs into Cecil's dimension. "The Terragalia you went to is just like this world, a mirror of the one we know, shaped by a different history."

"So what do we do now?" Peanut squeaked, looking up from a Betty Crocker’s cookbook, "shouldn't we be looking for the ether quartz and shattering them?"

"We need information." Cecil said, turning the page on the newspaper. "So far, nothing in this paper says anything wrong going on, and this is a local newspaper mind you. So it should be the final word on what goes on in this neck of the woods."

"I got something on the radio." Neith spoke up. “Playing on speakers now…”

"Vector One-Two-Two-Seven, Nine, Eight, Five, Six Four..." said a man's voice, droning on with more and more numbers.

"Sounds like the military." Philia remarked, "anything else?"

"Standby..." there was a burst of static followed by another man speaking.

"...if you are in the Greater Chicago Area, be advised, in 48 hours we will initiate Hammerdown protocol. You will not be safe within the city limits. I repeat, this is the US Army, if you are receiving this message this transmission you must head to the following major roads: either Lake Shore Drive, or the Northwest Highway. Do not, I repeat do not attempt any other route for they are overrun. Do not travel at night. If you are in the..."

Neith cut the transmission.

"It's on a loop. They're trying to evacuate as many people as they can." she said dully. "After that, the city and everything around it will be ash and rubble."

"Sounds like we don't have to do anything at all." Ingrid said. "They're going to glass this city and that should take out any and all Ether Quartz formations."

"I guess we should return." Zefir suggested "I mean we could raid the city for supplies but we're not really hurting for those."

Philia sighed. “There is one.” she began.

Ingrid smiled, knowing what she was about to say next.

 

"Site Epsilon-four." Philia said, causing Ingrid and Cecil to chuckle darkly.

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