Chojin Patriarch
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Ah, the Lord Protector of the Thundercats reboot. Or did we call him 'Yaul'? Ugh, no thanks. At any rate. I wonder if this is his first trip into space, and where he's come to explore. from the looks of it... Someplace the powers of Evil have been before.Day 383
A graveyard world
From orbit, it's obvious the damage this planet has suffered. The pattern of inland lakes in places where it would have made sense for there to have once been cities. A few of them even have ruined buildings on their shores and large roads whose presence makes no sense if all their builders had in mind was a fishing trip.
Not especially handsome to human eyes, I'm sure they're quite rugged by their own standards. And it seems like they have a long-held respect of the destroyed areas. Probably ancestral tales of 'the day the sky fell' or the sort.The way the remaining intelligent population is as far away from such places as they can manage. Whatever technology they once possessed has been abandoned as they regressed to the level of hunter gatherers. I can't even see farms, though their… Brown skin and horse-like faces… Remind me of something, but I can't quite call it to mind.
Heh. Playing tug for their little shuttle, eh? I doubt it's any larger than a pleasure yacht, certainly."There it is. You were right after all."
Even a technological savant like Panthro couldn't build a craft capable of faster-then-light travel in such a short amount of time. But as long as I give them a tow, the…
Incredible genius... Naming sense of a seven-year-old, huh? Or the father of one, given that is such a dad joke.I sigh inwardly.
The 'Feliner' can function in space and in an atmosphere, fly at a respectable speed and provide basic fire support. Panthro learned a great deal from the birdfolk, and from the scan I was able to take of the Black Pyramid.
Fortunately, FTL is relatively easy for a Lantern, even hauling a bunch of catfolk along. So not a lot of risk involved."The record in the Book of Omens was right. This location was a guess on my part."
Because Mumm-Ra either just remembers his ship's course, or he's protected his charts with magic. I had to use the birds' astrology charts to work out which stars were likely to have small rocky worlds, and then plot probably routes using Third Earth as an end point and the… Horrifying empty blob where there was once a giving stellar neighbourhood before Mumm-Ra's ritual annihilated it for a…
They're already dead, LP. Remember their existence, but don't worry about mourning for them.I look at the Sword of Plun-Darr on my hip, the turquoise soul stone on its quillon block. That thing has made recharging a good deal easier, though I'm sure that it has other powers that I simply don't know anything about.
A few pounds of magic-conducting metal. Millions, billions of lives…
Interesting. The reason they're here, I take it.But it wasn't that hard to work out the Black Pyramid's most likely course. And so here we are.
Looking down on a huge white pyramid framed by four white obelisks.
Or the land is being tended, possibly by some sort of magic.The land around it is covered in a grass analogue. There are small groves of trees in a few places, and I can't see any animals that might be eating the grass to a uniform length. I can only assume that there's something about the quality of the soil which is preventing it from growing any higher.
I guess whoever brought it here wanted their privacy... Or to avoid involving innocents in a fight if it came to them.I can't see any sign of civilisation in the area. No ruins. No roads. No pattern of plant growths that would suggest where one or the other used to be. It's been at least a dozen generations but archaeological evidence shouldn't vanish quite that quickly.
Did the owner of the pyramid plant it somewhere isolated by choice? Pilot it away from the towns or cities under their control in the hope that Mumm-Ra would leave them alone? Was it caught in the air and managed a controlled landing in an open area?
His ego is big enough to do that shit. It's say it's a safe bet.Or was Mumm-Ra really malevolent enough to glass the whole area and then leave the pyramid in one piece as a monument to his victory?
I have my suspicions, but I don't know him well enough to say with any confidence.
Ah, that ever-classic separation of magic and science. Given their foes' predilections, you'd think they'd have developed something to get around that."Sensors aren't showing any power sources."
"Unless you've plugged the war stone in to them, they won't detect magic."
Good show of skill, LP. Benefit of Enlightenment, I take it."Are you seeing anything?"
I narrow my eyes slightly, and thin yellow wisps of old yet intense fears embedded in the world as death rained from above and its people died make themselves known to me. None of them are strongly associated with the Pyramid, and I've already scanned the area for mundane things.
No, it could mean anything in there isn't afraid. Or possibly not alive to feel it."No. The way seems clear."
"If you're not seeing any fear-" Cheetara. "-does that mean it's abandoned?"
Heh. Bit like the pilot of the original series. But with LP sort of playing the Jaga role. No relativistic time stuff here, though.On this mission she's probably more of a threat to me than anything in the Pyramid. Lion-O has been most put out by my refusal to care about his royal status, but tends to respond childishly to the implied insult. Tigra seems to mostly find it funny, so long as he's not the one being challenged. Cheetara on the other hand is sworn to support the monarch, and if it wasn't for Mumm-Ra then I'd be the biggest threat to his authority.
He does know your Ring is the ultimate level of technology, right?"I'm seeing plenty of fear. I'm just not seeing fear from anyone still alive in the area of the Pyramid. I would caution you however that it's perfectly possible to use magic to hide from me."
"How about technology?"
And there's the man I'm displacing. Not a bad young man when viewed objectively, but our respective positions more of less drive me to undermine him as much as possible.
...The real question is what of its occupants, current or prior."My scans aren't stopped by thermal or electrical insulation, nor repelled by reflective surfaces. I'm not detecting any subspace pockets or other forms of exotic disguise. I suppose that I cannot claim to know all technology that exists in the universe, but I have yet to encounter anything more advanced than this ring that was not built by the people who made this ring." I consider the White Pyramid again. "On the other hand, I can't see any damage to the White Pyramid. If we're fortunate, its database could be intact."
...That sadly seems like something he'd do. And hopefully get smacked for by Panthro a moment later."Then what are we waiting for!"
The… Feliner angles towards the atmosphere and increases its thrust. I double check the course just in case Lion-O just grabbed the controls, but their vector looks good.
Admit it, LP, you're more concerned with your sweetheart than the town. Of course, if it's safe, she's theoretically safe, after all.Do.. I.. wait for them? Naturally I'd much rather have Pumrya here as my support. Imbuing a temporary ring with the power to allow her to act as a Lantern has made her far more powerful than any of Lion-O's party, but that's also why she needs to remain on Third Earth. While the.. town is far more secure now than it was in the aftermath of the Fall of Thundera, having a Lantern on hand is extremely reassuring to the population and a fearsome threat to any potential attackers.
A local recruit would help, but none to be found, eh? Pity, knowing what's going on down there would be good.And an excellent way to undermine Lion-O in his absence as people come to associate the yellow sigil with authority and power.
But going into a novel situation with no backup seems unwise, and the only other backup available would be…
I look across the primitives, searching for one with greater than usual control of their fears. None really stand out.
Heh. That Enlightenment driving him to disarm potential rivals, eh? and space-diving without a ship is a good way to do that.So I'll have to make do. But I still have time for undermining their self-confidence. Without changing my posture I accelerate towards the planet, flying past the Feliner without bothering to look at it. Dropping through the atmosphere at an angle their ship can't match without any difficulty as my environmental shield protects me I start planning our approach.
Perhaps its occupant can be revived, if they're lucky.The main objectives are the armoury, the central computer and the sarcophagus. Of the three, the armoury is least important. I've already seen enough to Mumm-Ra's mundane weapons to be able to recreate them, and he beat whoever used to rule here. But between the sarcophagus and the computer…
At least, along the lines of Mumm-Ra's kind. Still, it's a decent starting point, unless their tech runs on the tears of orphans or something.I'm working on the assumption that whoever used to rule here was something like Mumm-Ra. That assumption appears to be borne out by the presence of a Pyramid, but that might just indicate a shared culture. And even if they were like him, Mumm-Ra might well have been able to kill whoever it was in such a way that it stuck. The central computer could well give me the knowledge that I need to fully industrialise Thundera, create the wide variety of machines that technologically sophisticated society needs…
Yeah, the kid still has a lot to learn about rulership. Very much still at the 'callow youth' phase of his maturity...On the other hand, the cats can secure and open the database and I doubt that they'd destroy it just to keep it from me. But I could definitely see them-. Lion-O, messing up a diplomatic first contact if he was the one who went to the sarcophagus and the former ruler was still alive.
...I shudder to imagine why the texts were like that...That's simple then. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up something about this civilisation's culture on the way in. And the hieroglyphics won't be full of giant penises like they were on Earth; the kittens insisted on coming along and I don't want to have to explain their expanded vocabulary to Khoah.
An interesting chance to see what one of the few alternate-colour alt!Pauls has been up to since the mini-Crisis. It'll be interesting to see if the Controller makes an appearance, and what he might be after in this world. Regardless, I do enjoy seeing him dealing with the Yellow Ring's apparent influence towards challengers to his power. Bet he and Lion-O are like cats and dogs at times...