WACK! An iridescent crystal staff smack’s a rog's temporarily unprotected head with a sickening sound. A federation soldier’s aeroarmor has energy shields that protect them from both physical and magic attacks, but most felacs have ways to get around those, for now at least.
The forest people use simple anti-chy grenades developed by the urs and owlwins during the war. The felac’s weapons, mostly bought or stolen from the federation, have been modified by the owlwin wizards and the urs crystalsmiths with anti-shield capabilities. However the federation has upgraded and adapted its technology and armaments so the urs owlwin anti-shield technology only works about a third of the time. So as a result the felacs are never quite sure when their outdated anti-shield technology will work. But as the old chee warrior saying goes, "Where’s the fun in knowing everything?"
The crystal staff is the preferred weapon of the chee warrior because he can use it to strike with both physical force and magic energy. Felacs flitter and flutter around the federation soldiers successfully avoiding or blocking most of their magic attacks. The male felac warriors are trained from the age of three in the martial arts of chee. Chee utilizes the ability to focus one’s own energy against an opponent, as well as understanding and using the opponent’s energy against himself.
Thirty minutes into the fight it is obvious that there could never be a clear winner of this small bar battle. Both sides have sustained heavy losses as unconscious felac warriors and rog soldiers begin to litter the floor of the Tigers Tail Tavern. The forest warriors not only know how to fight effectively but also understand that as soon as anyone gets seriously injured the soldiers can press charges and start using lethal force themselves. They all keep the powerful magic and serious physical blows to a minimum, luckily for the sake of continuing the fight no one has crossed the line yet.
The colonel, the captain, and a handful of officers remain seated back against a wall avoiding the mayhem, for the most part. The officers are occupied by monitoring their men and giving commands when they see a problem. The soldiers are in constant contact with each other through their thoughts and visors and can even watch their own backs in the crystal lenses. The officers can see through the men's visors and with a few eye's in the sky they are able to compose a three dimensional picture of the whole "battlefield."
The captain is by far the best at holistically assessing hostile situations and giving the sergeants a series of orders to pass down to their men. However, this evening Slade cannot keep his eyes off the lone female warrior. The way she moves her body hypnotizes the usually well disciplined man. He is surprised at how well she has adapted the laser whip into a formidable weapon. Mainly used as an offensive "instrument" for restraint and discipline, the multispectrum magic whip is found primarily in federation rehabilitation facilities.
"By Aries!" The stunned man swears. "She’s unreal." Slade looks over at Nocte and sees that he is enthralled with the female felac as well. Turning back he watches as she fights with one of his best men. Switching over to the perspective of the soldier's visor the captain can see that she is getting tired, but still in complete flowing control.
"I can’t move another inch." Tyc groans as he slumps to the rocky ground, exhausted. The slow slope has stopped and leveled out, the cliffs are now about two hundred feet above the sea. He has found the going easier since he found a well used trail and started following it. Although it's only been an hour or so since the teen emerged from the mud, he feels like its been an eternity. Frustrated and frightened the boy finds it difficult to focus his mind on his situation. All he can think is, Where the hell am I? What'n the hell is going on? Over and over.
As he's gotten closer to the strange unmoving storm cloud directly ahead of him, the boy has noticed that there are thunderous sounds and bright lightning flashes coming from the cloud. Tyc really doesn't want to get rained on, but this is the way the trail is going, so this is the way he's going.
It is darker now, the large moon having gone down a few minutes ago. The light of the stars and mini-moon are the only significant lights he has had to go by. Although there are many glowing crystals, plants, and bugs all around him, they do not give off very much light, for the most part there effective illumination is very localized. Tyc sits at the edge of the cliffs and stares at the water, his blown mind mesmerized by the lapping waves and completely devoid of any coherent thoughts.
The cool constant breeze from the sea refreshes the boy’s aching legs and feet. Tyc realizes he's very hungry and thirsty. He had noticed dark shapes flying low overhead and below the cliffs. Unsure whether they are birds or bats, he is sure they are very interested in the low lying shrubs growing close to the rocky ground. Every once in awhile he would brush up against a thigh high shrub and multiple flying animals would burst out of the bushes and fly over the cliffs or into the forest. Tyc decides to give the nearest shrub a closer look.
Large dark berries are clustered all over the bushes. The boy picks one and squishes it between his fingers. Sticky juice and pulp drench his digits as he brings them up to his nose. There is no bitter or acrid smell, in fact it is one of the most appetizing smells he has ever encountered. Well versed in the facts of the forest he knows that he shouldn't eat the strange berries, despite the circumstantial evidence that they are edible. Just then a large dark winged creature lands on a shrub about ten feet from he boy. It does not appear to have a beak, so he assumes it's a bat. Tyc stays completely still as he watches it lower its head to an enormous cluster of berries. Fascinated by the strange creature, which is by far the largest flying animal he has ever seen, he's certain it is eating the dark berries. The creature scarfs down the cluster, which is half its body size, in less than a minute. Extremely exhausted, and painfully hungry Tyc watches the creature with openmouthed envy. He licks his dry lips so as not to drool on himself. It is then that he realizes he cannot remember when and what he ate last.
"Oh well!" He says, scaring the bat away, as he brings the sticky pulp up to his mouth. Sticking out his tongue he slowly touches it to the squished berry.
As soon as the sweet scrumptious nectar hits his taste buds all doubts about the fruits safety vanish, as if by magic. Tyc ravenously scoops up and devours two handfuls of the dark delicious berries. Then two more and then two more handfuls after that. Finally after about a dozen handfuls, of the most awesome food ever, the boy feels full.
Sticky and sedated by the sudden surge of blood from his brain and limbs to his stomach Tyc decides to stay seated a little while. As he sits gazing dazed at the mesmerizing movement of the surf his eyelids become heavy. Eventually they close for a moment and he quickly snaps them open. Tyc doesn't want to fall asleep but the lack of sleep and abundance of stress is catching up to him. He closes his eyes for another moment as he slowly lies back.
He sleeps only about fifteen minutes when something awakens him. He sits up startled by whatever it was that woke him up. He is unable to find or even remember what made him wake up.
Surprisingly he feels refreshed and his head is only a dull throbbing pain rather than an intense pounding pain. His gaze lingers on the large storm cloud which is much bigger now, taking up nearly half the sky in his field of view. But even though he's gotten much closer to it, it does not appear to have moved or shifted in any way.
Strange considering the strong breeze. The boy is able to think through his grogginess. He zones out on the cloud as he sits in his stupor and realizes it is very low, hanging over the cliffs and sea on one side and towering just above the tall forest trees on the other. He suddenly has the horrifying thought that it could be a smoke bloom. No, it hasn't spread or changed shape in like an hour. What the hell is that?
Curiosity gets the better of the boy and he overcomes the lazy euphoric feelings that comes with a snack and a nap. Groaning as he gets up Tyc slowly continues to walk towards the... cloud? Err... Actually, he's not quit sure what it is anymore.
And then he hears a disturbing series of sounds, and suddenly he's able to distinguish that the lightning in the "cloud" is colored. That's not lightning! Is it chy? What in the f#@k is that? The teen thinks as the feeling of foreboding begins to creep into his curiosity.
The forest has slowly been creeping closer to the cliffs edge and Tyc has stopped several times to examine some of the beautiful enormous trees. But strange howls, growls, chirps, squawks, groans, and even screams continuously pour out of the thickly vegetated forest keeping the timid teen from getting to close. But the natural sounds of the forest are nothing compared to the increasingly loud and foreboding unnatural sounds coming from up ahead.
One of the large trees, bent and gnarled by the constant wind grows right along the edge of the cliffs and the trail curves into the forest around it's giant twisted trunk.
"Amazing! They must be redwoods or sequoia." Tyc mutters craning his neck up as he slowly follows the shadowy trail around the plants monstrous stem. Unable to see where it leads once on the other side, the trail is very dark beneath the huge trees foliage. Tyc must use all his concentration not to trip over a huge roots of the largest tree he has ever seen.
A thick darkness suddenly surrounds the boy and he is instantly taken back to the painful void. Remembering the last time he was thrown into an abyss he panics. Petrified and scared beyond the ability to think, Tyc reluctantly looks around, afraid he has once again been thrown into the mysterious black abyss.
Several glowing crystals and flicking flying insects relieve the boys troubled mind. A bright flash and thundering noises penetrates the nothingness. His heart now pounding Tyc looks up ahead where the noise seemed to come from.
Large dark clouds blot out most of the stars and the moonlet. "Damn I’m gonna get caught in a storm after all." But as he watches the clouds he notices something really weird.
"Are the clouds swaying back and forth!?" Shocked and confused to his very core Tyc tries to comprehend this newest development. Beyond the unnatural rumbling non-thunder he hears a rustling which sounds like millions of leaves held up to an amplifier.
An almost crippling shock comes over the stunned boy when the moonlet appears for a moment and reveals just what he has been walking towards for the past hour.
"Oh my god, it's a... ...a tree!!!" The colossal plant towers above the tiny boy dwarfing all of the other giant tree’s in the forest. Tyc is awestruck, as he stares openmouthed at the monolithic life form unable to move his body or mind.
The gigantic trunk about three quarters of a mile in front of him towers up into the stars. Almost in a dazed trance, the boy stumbles over rocks and exposed roots as he approaches the trunk. He cannot believe his own eyes until he comes to a huge, root growing out of the ground and over a large boulder on the rocky cliffs. The exhausted teen walks around the boulder encased by tree's time-pliable wooden appendage.
The teen comes to the trunk and cannot absorb what he is seeing: for one thing the trunk takes up his entire field of vision a hundred yards away, and another the large cracks in the old bark are big enough to live in, as a great many plants have done. Tyc is amazed at the diversity of epiphytes, different species of plants with roots growing into and wrapping around the larger plant fissured bark, searching out water and soil caught in the vast crevices, or just plain feeding off the giant plant itself.
As Tyc slowly walks around the huge trunk he suddenly makes a very startling discovery. The diameter of this trunk must be more than an acre. The tree once again blows his mind. Standing at the bottom of the trunk Tyc looks upward towards the towering triumph of nature. The first actual branches are at least two hundred feet off the ground. He suddenly realizes that the thunderous sounds, momentarily pushed to the background of his brain, are coming from somewhere up there.
The boy backs away from the giant tree trunk before he gets halfway around it, so he can get a better view of the whole thing. Random flashes of colored light illuminate underneath the tree for brief moments. The tired teen is amazed at the reach of the branches, as he stumbles over the rocky ground and into the forest. "They are the size of the rest of the trees in this bizarre place!"
Tyc moves a ways back from the trunk and looks up at the tree again. The teen is suddenly struck with how much the tree reminds him of a fractal. Tyc uses the fractal geometry of chaos to help study and recreate nature using chy, and he is always amazed when he sees such overwhelming examples of geometric chaos in natural objects. Tree’s are always the best examples with their continuous branching, but this tree is by far the most exponentially intricate he’s ever seen. The branches continue on for hundreds of generations. First the trunk splits off into smaller branches which are similar to the entire tree and in fact are similar in size and shape to most of the trees growing in the forest. Then the primary branches branch into smaller branches also similar to the primary branch as well as the entire tree. Every new self-similar iteration becoming smaller and more populated. But the fractal branching pattern does not stop at the branches, it continues on in the branching veins of the immense leaves and the intricate web of roots. And then there are the epiphytes growing and branching from the tree mimicking their hosts relationship with the soil.
The self-similarity of the whole tree system to its smaller systems and their smaller components is a prime example of the fractalization of natural systems. Patterns repeating over and over, each one smaller and slightly different from the previous one. Each iteration chaotically following the same goal, searching for the sun’s sweet golden rays.
"Whoa!" The boy exclaims, amazed at the enormous tree’s magnificently complex beauty. He cannot even see where it ends and the sky begins.
As Tyc’s eyes become accustomed to the flashing light he thinks he sees what appears to be a disruption in the chaotic order of the fractal pattern of the humongous tree. There seems to be some kind of large mass surrounding the trunk a few hundred feet up.
Once again a bright flash illuminates beneath the tree for a moment. Bent branches, twisted twigs and interlacing limbs converge, combining to form some kind of nest surrounding the trunk about a thousand feet off the ground. The tangled mass definitely seems to be the source of the unnatural thunderous and now he can hear high pitched noise as well as the colored lights. The boy gets very nervous.
The teen is certain that the mass must be a nest of some sort as he gets closer and observes the intricate work that has gone into the intertwining of the branches. "It must have taken centuries to manipulate the branches like that." Tyc says to himself as he marvels over the habitat's almost natural looking construction.
It seems to be made of the living tree limbs twisted and woven so tight that almost no other light except the extremely bright flashes show through. The nest surrounds the trunk like a big doughnut shaped basket. All he can see is the bottom which appears from this perspective to be fairly level. I'd hate to see what creature made that! He suddenly realizes that it might be a building. And then he notices what he thought was a thick winding vine or pattern on the trunk is what could to be steps winding around the trunk several times.
"Curiouser and curiouser." The boy says the line from one of his favorite stories. He approaches the base of the tree, his fear replaced by fascination.
Tyc walks the rest of the way around the trunk and comes to the set of epiphyte covered stairs winding around the trunk and up into the tree’s bottom branches. "It's manmade." The boy mutters looking back up to the "building" as he contemplates the time and techniques used to make such an intricate structure, he realizes that there is no way it could be a nest.
Beneath the plants, molds, fungi, and mosses growing on the wooden steps and hand rail stairs seem to be out of place from the rest of the building. They look like they were made from the rough hewn trunks of other trees. They are put together in the more traditional, dead, way of building with wood, although he can’t see exactly how they are made. it’s decent enough construction.
Despite the unnatural thunderous noises Tyc is so desperate he decides to go up. "Won't hurt to have a look at least." He says as he mounts the first step.
It is the tallest step he has ever seen coming up almost to his knees. The chubby boy heaves his chubby body up onto the first step. It is so wide that he must take almost a full stride before he can mount the second step. The moss covered stairs are slippery and Tyc clings to the rail as he climbs the big steps. Only a quarter of the way up Tyc is sweating and breathing hard.
He stops to rest.
The exhausted, excited, and nervous boy sits on the steps and realizes it makes a much better bench than step. The unnaturally awful noise rains down on him from above and he looks up towards the noise and wonders. He would love to meet the people who built this experimental forest, but can't help and wonder what they're doing up there. Maybe it's chy experiments!
"I sure hope they’re friendly, whoever they are." He says to himself as he gets up and reluctantly presses on.
Just then a horrific crash comes from up above, a terrific shattering sound is followed by softer smaller crashes, which are quickly getting louder. Before the exhausted boy realizes what’s going on, a large black shape turns the bend in the stairs above him.
The large figure smashes right into him. A sharp jolting blow to his left side sends the small chubby boy flying against the tree trunk. Tyc hits the bark hard and oozes down into a pool of mind numbing pain. The old pain in his head quickly returns, and he lies on the stairs for several long minutes balancing on the edge of consciousness.
Tyc fights to regain control. Frantically tearing at the foggy webs settling over his consciousness, he tries to grabble with a question.
"W... Wh... Wha... What the hell was that?" Three brain cells scream from his subconscious to the one brain cell in his consciousness that still has a grip on reality. The lone brain cell calls in support and the boy slowly breaks through the dark sticky webs of sleep as the pale smoke of reality stings his eyes, mind. and skin.
Stunned and jumble-headed Tyc looks around to find what hit him. He can't see anything at first and is about to start crying from pain and frustration when a bright flash illuminates everything around him. What appears to be a shiny dark figure is laying sprawled on the stairs a few feet below him.
The teen is petrified, it is like nothing he has ever seen. Who the fu...? What in the hell is that thing!? The boys mind screams, his mouth to afraid to form the words. The shadowy shape on the stairs is like something out of his childhood nightmares, or a twenty-first century movie.
Crooked, shiny eyes seem to peer up from the large mottled head. "Geez that thing's as big as a melon!" Tyc says astonished at the size of the creatures bald head. It looks about seven feet tall, and as thick and strong as an oak. In another flash Tyc sees that the creature is wearing some kind of strange outfit made from what looks like black shiny leather. .
Tyc approaches the figure despite the protesting pain in his head, and fear in the pit of his soul. He's sure it's alive by its extremely loud breathing. As the teen gets closer and sees the shape of it's body and it's face he's blown away by the cockeyed creature.
"My god it is a man!" The flabbergasted teen is completely shocked having never seen anyone over five feet nine inches tall. There was a time in the twenty-first century when the surviving world governments of the ecotastrophe, mandated that all babies be genetically engineered to be smaller, a simple procedure that made the human population more "fuel efficient".
Almost on top of the huge man, his heart pounding so loud he's certain it'll wake him, Tyc can see the man's face is completely bald, he doesn't even have eyebrows. The dark skinned man has large full lips, a squared jaw and big nose. He has sunken cheeks and high pronounced cheek bones. The boy can see that the large man is not cockeyed at all, his shiny black eyes are actually eye wear precariously perched on his forehead.
The teen notices that the man has two toned mottled skin. Several big dark spots are scattered over the strange man's tan face. One really large almost black blotch starts on the top of the man's large left ear, and spreads over the bottom of his jaw and down his neck and under his black jacket.
"Oh my god! He has pointed ears!?" The boy thinks as he examines the ear holding the dark shades on. He had heard of people getting their ears surgically altered in the mid-twenty first century, so they could look like elf's ears or an alien's or something, but as far as he can tell these ears look really natural and bigger than all but his grandfathers.
The enormous shiny black foot caught between two steps suddenly slips free and the large man shifts. The glasses fall from his head onto the wooden steps with a crystally clink.
Startled by the movement the teen jumps back against the stair rail as the unconscious man losses his battle with gravity and continues to tumble down the spiral stairs. As Tyc watches, the strange man tumbles out of sight. He's left looking at the black glasses. The boy cautiously scoots over to the shades, and even more cautiously picks them up.
It's very strange eyewear, like nothing the boy has ever seen. They are extremely light, sleek, and curved, wrapping around like a visor, covering the complete field of vision. The iridescent black frames are made of a firm yet flexible plastic material which springs back to shape when bent. Definitely a different material and twice as iridescent the hard dark oval lenses almost seem to be molded into the frames. In fact the entire pair of glasses seem to be one piece. The frames bend rather than are hinged at the curved earpieces. They are so thin and light Tyc can't imagine they have a power source and thus couldn't be chy technology.
Curiosity gets the better of the inquisitive teen and he puts the glasses on. He's disappointed, but not surprised, when the cool shades don't fit. The inquisitive boy can't help but wonder why the man would be wearing the shades at night. As he holds them onto his face the shallow minded boy focuses in on a strange buzz in his brain.
Once again the chy poet instantly recognizes the sounds he is hearing, as he concentrates and actively listens he can suddenly hear a whole symphony of chy songs. Shocked and amazed the teen pulls the glasses off of his face and stares at them.
How... What... But the boy's mind can not form the question from his awed consciousness. He can still hear the complex array of songs all singing around and amongst each other, separately and in perfect synchronicity. It would take the teen many weeks to study and figure out what all the songs are and how they work, but his sharp analytical mind and almost photographic memory begin to pick apart and digest some of the songs. Almost automatically the young man's mind is able to dissect the symphony and because of his vast experience he can even guestimate what some of the songs do.
"Oh my god!" Tyc manages to mutter aloud as he quickly realizes how much energy the chy playing within the visor would take. "These must be made outta some kinda super-crystal!"
As he places the eyewear back up to his eyes his mind begins to form a pattern amongst the songs. All of the songs seem to be branching out from one very strong yet simple chy song, and the stem song seems to be keeping all the other songs from working. The tired yet tenacious teen blacks from his brain the strangeness of this place and loud sounds from above as he figures out the main stem song.
Holding the alien crystal spectacles up to his face the boy begins to think the stem song. Nothing happens! He then begins to think the reverse song, inverting the colors and notes of the chy so he balances out the stem song.
Something moves and the startled teen suddenly lets go of the shades. The squirming crystal spectacles begin to slip off his face. Reaching up to pull the creeping feeling things off his face the boy is freaked out when he feels them stop moving and realizes that the previously huge visor now fits snugly around his small head.
"Holy Shit! They shrank to fit me!" Tyc says as he gets to his feet and pulls the visor from his face again. He examines them and can quickly see that they are much smaller now. He is no longer thinking the stem song, but he can hear a whole series of songs much more clearly than he could before.
The teen's inquisitive nature forces him to put the eyewear back on. "What the f**k!" Tyc exclaims with a start as he realizes he can suddenly see more clearly with the dark glasses on, then he could without them. Tyc looks around. "Holy crap! The main song must be some kind of security song." The teen mutters as he looks around into the jungle and sees it as clearly as if it were the middle of the day. A diverse tapestry of natural beauty is laid out before the boy as it's overwhelming mystique pierces his psyche. The sights, sounds, smells and caress of the cool breeze coming from the forest ignite the boy's spirit inviting it to come play amongst them.
As he gazes around at the alien scene surrounding him the boy discovers that when he stops and look at something for a second it seems to get even clearer and the sounds seem to be amplified. The cleaver boy tries to just move his eyes and not his whole head to look around and the eyewear still sticks with his gaze. It's almost as if they can track his pupils and know where he's looking.
Tyc wonders how the glasses work as he reaches up to touch them. "How could something so light and flexible be crystal?" The boy says. "Black, pliable crystal!?" Tyc tries to comprehend such a thing, having never seen or heard of any kind of ebony, or malleable crystal.
"These must use a lot of energy, but where the heck are the batteries! And the computer with the songs in it's memory" The boy suddenly realizes the implications of what he has just discovered. although they are similar to the computers he and his grandfather use to nourish the oak tree with chy, they are at the same time so much more advanced than anything he has ever seen that the technologically savvy teen is in shock and awed. He closes his eyes and concentrates listening for to the complex chy symphony.
He quickly becomes aware that all the songs stemming from the main security song are now working and performing various scans and even recoding most of the information. He tries to figure out the songs by looking for a common energy source tying them together, but they are so complex it will take him hours. There are so many things going on at once it's difficult for him to separate more than a ten songs before they all get jumbled up in his head. Although there are dozens and dozens of chy songs the boy has the odd feeling that they are just a fraction of what this thing is capable of. After a few minutes, Tyc stops listening, overwhelmed by what he is hearing.
Ripping the shades from his head the excited teen reexamines them as he tries to calculate in his head the amount of energy needed to run the prerecorded chy he has figured out.
"They must be crystal... black crystal!" He can't believe anything so small could contain so much energy and computer memory. Tired and unable to think clearly Tyc shrugs his shoulders and puts the glasses back on.
He continues to climb the steps while using the black crystal glasses to see, many of the strange songs running through his head almost automatically. Looking up toward the building Tyc hesitates as the unnatural sounds of sizzling and crackling followed by thunderous thumps and bumps are amplified. Looking up and listening for a moment he realizes he can hear voices now, with the visor on. The boy is unable to make out the words but he is sure they are voices most of which seem to be shouting.
"I sure don’t like the sound of this!" The teen mutters as he forces himself to look back at the steps so he can navigate them without slipping. Whatever is going on up there he will see soon enough.
Finally the exhausted teen comes to a landing which he quickly realizes is a large porch. As he steps onto the porch he notices very large dark green leaves covering most of the walls around the open air area. The giant leathery leaves rustle in the breeze allowing the boy to see the jungle beyond. Drawn by the natural beauty Tyc walks upon the well worn woven wood floor over to the edge of the branch and leaf porch. "They must be at least twenty square feet." The boy whispers, marveling at the wondrous leaves.
Pushing the leathery leaves aside like a thick stiff curtain the teen looks beyond them to the wondrous beauty of the forest. From this vantage he can see the sea the cliffs and the tree line for miles. Once again the boy is overwhelmed by the grandeur of this place.
After a moment of stunned reverence the teen is so startled by the noise inside the building that he is forced to turn away from the jungle.
Just as he's turning an extremely bright flash illuminates the branches above the porch like a flash of lightning, and to his horror he sees hundreds of alien eyes staring right at him. Tyc moves back to the porches very edge and cranes his head up he suddenly sees hundreds of long tailed primates sitting on the branches hugging each other. He can't see them very well and they seem a little strange somehow, but his heart slows down a little when he see they have tails. Wow, real live monkeys! I thought all the primates were extinct! The boy thinks before turning away when another thunderous sound emanates from the branch building.
Slowly and cautiously the teen crosses the large porch and stands against the intricately woven wall. Excited and apprehensive Tyc looks for a window or door but sees none. The boy is amazed at how the building is put together. It seems it was woven from living branches and then they grew together over the decades or even centuries, making an impenetrable wooden wall with no cracks or holes. He creeps around the branch wall slowly unable to see too far ahead because of the walls curve. It's not long before he comes upon a large blue crystal set into the branches as if it had grown their.
The porous blue crystal's use is obvious to Tyc. The cooling blue crystal is perforated with millions of tiny worm holes left by the nanobes which produced the crystal. Assuming there is a green crystal on the other side the air is pulled into the tiny chambers of the blue crystal, cooled and then released into the building through the green crystal. It is the least energy intensive way to cool a building using the passive chy properties of the two crystals.
He cannot see through the "window" at all, and he's just about to move along when he sees something. Tyc had only been looking at the crystal window for a few seconds when light, shadow, color, and movement suddenly begin to fill his field of vision.
Within moments the stupefied boy realizes that he can see inside very clearly, as if he were looking through a large translucent window. But what the boy sees throws his perception of reality through such a loop that his mind cannot keep it's grip any longer.
Like the cliffs he had had to walk along the past hour the teen finds he had been skirting another edge as well. And now with the incredible scene before him the exhausted, frightened and extremely confused boy slowly slips off of the precarious edge of sanity, and into the chaotically crashing insanity sea.
A clashing scene of colorful chaos erupts before the boy's eyes as two very different looking factions of fighters combat each other inside the enormous tree-building. There are many of the large black clothed men in the huge building, at least twenty on their feet and a bunch lying unconscious on the branchy floor. It's difficult to see too much beyond the enormous trunk in the middle of the tavern.
The boy can hear the battle clearly with the visor. As he had assumed the black clad soldiers are shooting chy energy beams from their gloves and... their glasses! Tyc almost pulls off his eyewear again when he suddenly gets a good glimpse of one of the smaller people the dark soldiers are fighting.
If there are any fragments of the boys sanity left they are dashed to smithereens by the appearance of the small extremely quick martial artists.
My god... he has a tail! They all have tails! The startled boy thinks as his body goes numb his legs get rubbery and he nearly falls down on the tightly woven floor. Unable to believe his eyes, he looks away from the alien battle.
So far he had been dismissing the strangeness of this place as nothing but his muddled mind or some kind of misunderstanding, or the forest could be an experimental forest or something. The fast moon and moonlets could be crystal satellites with chy amplifiers that work as night lights. (He had designed such a device as a school project when he was younger. As a child he was very scared of the dark and he figured if the moon could do it then why not man?) The size of the soldier could be genetic engineering. The markings on his face could be make-up or a skin disease. And the pointy ears could be some kind of physical manipulation or cosmetic surgery. But now he can't escape it, this place is like some kinda alien fantasy.
He almost forgets the enormous tree he's in. Looking around marveling at the scale of the plant he could even explain this with chy nourishment using lots of energy and genetic manipulation.
The boy could even explain not knowing about this place considering he has never been outside of New Appalachia. And much of Earth has not been explored for many centuries due to energy cost of such travel and deadly contamination. What he doesn't know about the world could fill up half the world and definitely a place this big. But as far as he knows about genetics there has never been human-animal interspecies manipulation.
"What kind of place is this?" The boy mutters as his mind grasps at the slippery sphere of reality surrounding his swooning psyche. Needless to say reality squirts through his fingers as it melts under the sunbeams of logic.
"No!" Tyc says shaking his head as he pulls the visor from his face. As he holds the glasses in his right hand he rubs his left hand over his head and closed eyes.
He is unsettled when he opens his eyes and the scene around him doesn't change. But he still can't except people with tails! "No Way!"
Hesitantly he puts the crystal spectacles back on, briefly wondering if they are in some way pulling a phantasmagorical trick on him, like virtual reality. Looking at the big leaves covering the porch the boy suddenly sees through them as well. Tyc slowly looks up at the "monkeys" and realizes that he can no longer make that assumption. Oh my god I'm surrounded! Tyc thinks remembering that all the eyes were looking at him earlier. And they know I'm here!
Scared out of his wits the nearly petrified boy very slowly turns back to the branch wall and listens to the chy song that allows him to see through it. It is a fairly complex song that the boy analyses quickly. He can tell the song is actually looking through the branches and blue crystal window, and not just producing the images he is seeing, mainly because of the amount of energy that it takes. It takes much more energy to see through matter than create an image that looks like you're seeing through the wall.
He can hear and see most of the battle inside. Although he can hear the men yelling at each other he's not sure what language they are speaking. He almost recognizes some words from the common language, or advanced English, created by scientist and computers before chy and used on earth almost exclusively since the twenty-third century, but if it is common the accent is so thick and the shouting voices so incoherent in the melee that he can't be sure. Although they might just be using words unfamiliar to the boy, maybe battle commands or something.
The chy poet almost automatically listens to the various songs emanating from the warriors weapons on both sides. There is a virtual symphony of chy energy being blasted around the large room and as soon as he hears it Tyc knows it is like nothing he has ever heard. For starters the chy from just one visor requires so much energy that they would require a large two or three pound crystal battery in New Appalachia, and that's for just one of the blasts. Like the high energy applications he has used, these songs are multilayered and will require some analysis to tell what each layer is doing. He assumes one layer is an anti-song energy shielding to protect the "people" from any residual radiation.
The new weaponized, extremely high energy songs are not part of the array of chy running automatically through the visor, like the viewing and listening songs that are allowing him to see and hear everything so clearly. He listens to one of the blasts and hears at least a dozen songs playing in two main colors. The multilayered symphony of energy is like a mini-version of the songs in the visor with a simple stem song and then more complex chy branches of energy. The stem song he quickly realizes is probably another security song, but the more complex ch y branches would require more brain power than the boy is willing to muster up at the moment. So, instead of figuring the songs out the boy simply thinks them over and over, in his ususal obsessive way with chy, as he watches the scene inside.
There is one of the smaller native warriors unconscious on the floor right in front of the boy and he examines him a bit, especially the tail. Coming out from the open bottom of his tunic, the man's alien appendage is the same two toned color as his striped skin. Also like his skin it seems to have a fuzzy coating like a peach or a woman's arm. Like the soldier's face on the stairs the unconscious forest warrior has two tone patterns on his skin. Although his skin is lighter than the solders it is still darker than Tyc’s and covered in an intricate pattern of slightly darker stripes becoming small dots around the face, fingers, and toes... "Kinda like a tigers!" Tyc mutters as he looks around the room at the other small, striped fighters.
The black warriors are shooting at the bizarre race of men who are two-thirds the size of their enemy and much less sophisticated. Wearing only leather tunics, like Tyc has on, they are using simpler, black crystal, chy weapons. He can see from the small men lying on the floor that they too have very pointy ears. The image of an elf from a twenty-first century cartoon Tyc watched as a child suddenly flashes in his head.
Didn't they live in trees too?! The boy wonders as he tries to figure out what he's seeing, it's like a puzzle or mystery. But it's neither. It's real living breathing seething life and it's right in front of him.
The round sculpted features, and large almond eyes of the small warriors have Tyc instantly thinking off Asians. They have olive toned skin with very bushy manes of unkempt, shoulder length hair. Their high broad cheek bones and long oval noses remind Tyc of native Americans. But their eyes, now they are much stranger than the small men's pointed ears. The wild warriors eyes all have oblong pupils within brilliant blue, deep turquoise, and even light greenish irises. Given their simple attire and general wild appearance the teen naturally has assumed that this is their place and the soldiers are an invading force.
But despite the fascinating scene before him, what makes the boy slip deeper and deeper into his stupefied insanity are the forest "people's" long tails.
Tails!?............Tails!? Is all the enfeebled boys mind can think as he watches the violent melee.
