Cyba_Zero

Disclaimer: Knightmare belongs to Broadsword Entertainment, The Old Kingdom belongs to Garth Nix, Star Trek belongs to CBS Paramount, Medusa of Greek Myth belongs to the Ancient Greeks, Men in Black belongs to Columbia Pictures and Lord of the Rings belongs to the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien.
The PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia, the concept of minis belongs to Miss Cam, and the Exonet was originally the idea of Huinesoron.
Many thanks to the Irish Samurai, Outhra and Star Albatross for beta-ing.

Chapter 8: Interlude - Blackouts, Beasties and Bored Canon Characters (in which Eagrus ends up on an unbidden quest through the DTE and beyond).

"That's it!" snapped Cyba, finally. "Eagrus, I've had enough of this! I don't care if there might be an invasion; I'm not going to hide in this RC any longer! I've had enough of this blackout, and I'm going to DoSAT."
"I wouldn't advise it," replied Eagrus, who had been surprisingly settled since nailing the trapdoor shut.
"It's alright for you," retorted Cyba, "you don't need power to your Borg alcove to get any sleep!"
"Then hibernate or whatever it is you're supposed to do," shrugged Eagrus.
"No," said Cyba. "This is getting ridiculous. Besides, it might be a localised power outage. We don't know if we don't go and look, do we? Maybe I'll be able to use Sigma's alcove, or one of the ones she's been putting on that ship." With that, she seized a claw hammer from the cupboard and began taking up nails.
"Well, I'm staying here," stated Eagrus, putting his feet up and making the most of the fact that any non-battery-powered equipment was also down due to the blackout, meaning there would be no missions.
"Suit yourself," muttered Cyba, and without any further ado, pulled open the trapdoor and jumped through. Above her, Eagrus slammed the trapdoor shut, blocking the candlelight from the RC and leaving Cyba in a pitch-dark corridor. Cyba gave it a moment, and sure enough, her Borg night-vision kicked in.
The normally-bland corridor had, for some reason, taken on the appearance of a gothic castle, complete with walls made of a slightly-bluish stone. Somewhere within the dark recesses of her mind, it looked oddly familiar, but she quickly discarded the notion - her Borg-vision was probably playing tricks on her. Not bothered by the scenery, she distracted herself from thinking about DoSAT and started down the corridor.

Eagrus, meanwhile, was preparing coffee until he realised that the kettle was offline. Maybe he ought to go with Cyba after all, he realised. Noticing Cyba's two sleeping minis on the way to his sword rack, he gestured to his own mini, Zouh, to guard the RC. With that done, he picked up his favourite sword in one hand and a candle in the other, and jumped through the trapdoor.
Cyba was evidently a little way ahead of him, because there was no sign of her when he landed in the bluish dungeon corridor below. The presence of stone over Generic Surface worried him, though - that was certainly not normal. This was not good; he needed to find Cyba and get back to the RC fast. With no sign of which way Cyba had gone, he put her out of his mind and chose randomly, hoping the crazy rules of HQ would guide him to her. Unfortunately, he had forgotten one of the other crazy rules of HQ: the Ironic Overpower is always out to get you...
***
Sigma One took a break from scanning the power flow to look at the kitten sitting beside her. The kitten was a dark, subtly-marked grey tabby, with ice-blue eyes. Around her neck was a black velvet collar, covered with ever-changing golden runes, and from it hung a far-from-ordinary bell.  She was sitting upright in a most regal posture, looking for all the world like she was inspecting Sigma's handiwork.
"Well, abhorsen?" asked Sigma.
The mini-Mogget swished her tail as if to say: 'Acceptable.'
"Dear me, you're more of a perfectionist than the Borg Queen," said Sigma, half-joking.
'Of course,' suggested the flick of an ear.
Sigma guessed she should expect abhorsen to like everything done properly, given that while the mini was a mis-capitalisation of Abhorsen, she was also a cat. Still, abhorsen had the skill of her namesake - the tiny version of the necromantic bell, Belgaer, on her collar, only ever rang when and how she wanted it to. Belgaer was the bell that controlled independent thought - and while at that size it was very limited in its power, it and Sigma's Borg implants made a very interesting combination. Being a cat, abhorsen had been quick to take advantage of the fact that she could manipulate how much the residual Borg signals bothered Sigma's subconscious - particularly when abhorsen was hungry or otherwise wanted something.
"You know," mused Sigma aloud, "I wonder how long it will take Cyba to turn up asking about power to her alcove?" Sigma was silent for a moment, apparently consulting with her other resident implant - the little Exonet that was still developing into a full-sized web on the more organic side of her face. Apparently the person she had traded with for it had been from DoSAT in the future - or a possible future - which was nice.
The mini-Free Magic Entity in kitten form watched curiously as Sigma's face went from absent-minded to near-panic.
"The DTE section of HQ is built WHERE?!" squawked Sigma to nobody in particular. She turned to abhorsen suddenly. "Abhorsen, I need you to go and check Cyba and Eagrus' RC, please. Run until you reach the HQ storage rooms, look for a small plothole to Cyba's RC, then come back and tell me if she and Eagrus are still in there or not. I'll be in the armoury on the Silver Hound."
The mini understood responsibility well enough, so she put aside her annoyance at not being treated like royalty as much as any self-respecting feline would like, and ran off at top speed. Sigma kept pace with her for a while, then disappeared in the direction of her RC, down a side corridor themed in a suspiciously USS Voyager style.
The corridors went through several forms before she reached the storerooms. Getting in was an easy matter of meowing at the door and charming her way past the person who came to investigate. After all, she looked like an adorable kitten... and she knew it.
With abhorsen dashing through the storeroom in no particular direction, the plothole she was after soon appeared - obligingly enough in the form of a cat-flap - and she slipped through into a dark tunnel full of clutter. When she reached the end, she put both paws up against the blockage and pushed open the cupboard doors.
The suite of rooms was empty, apart from a pair of sleeping mini-Colossi and a mini-Hun who tried to ambush her on the way out. She, in true cat style, smiled sweetly, walked up to him and purred around his chest, deliberately leaning hard enough to knock him over. She was gone back through the cupboard before he recovered.

"Were they there?" asked Sigma urgently, a few minutes later.
The mini shook her head, and Sigma immediately uttered something that sounded distinctly like: "Picard in a dune buggy!"
Sigma then snatched up a backpack and filled it with several important items, including a DORKS, sunglasses, a neuralyzer and an RA in case the power came back online. Then she strapped her chosen weapon to her back. Given she was almost certain to meet the one particular monster she least wanted to meet, she had foregone lightning-based weaponry and chosen a sledgehammer.
That done, she headed for the Department of Technical Errors as fast as she could, instructing abhorsen to remain aboard the Silver Hound.
***
For some reason, the normal rules of HQ were not functioning. Cyba had been thinking very hard about everything but finding DoSAT, but she still had not found, well, anywhere. She carried on, corridor after corridor, but she did not seem to get very far. In fact, it was not long before the doors to the DTE RCs stopped appearing entirely, and she found herself in what felt more akin to a dungeon than HQ. There was still something familiar about it, too - it was as though vague memories were stirring from when she was little.
At long last, the corridor ended in a room. Again, it looked like a room in a castle. At the far side were two arches leading into blackness, and in the centre of the room was a long, wooden table, scattered with a host of seemingly unrelated objects. It did not look like any room in HQ she had ever seen before, and there was no sign of a console, portal generator or disguise generator anywhere.
"Hmm," said Cyba, walking over to the table and inspecting the objects more closely. There was a bunch of grapes, a polished stone, a piece of paper with a riddle written on it, a magnifying glass and a large, brass key.
Somewhat confused, Cyba ignored the lot and went towards the left-hand arch.
Something else came out from the left-hand arch first. It looked like a suit of magically-animated armour, and was carrying a long, black sword.
Cyba stopped next to the table and watched it. "Hello," she greeted it, assuming it must be an agent. "Do you, by any chance, know which department I'm in? I don't recall HQ looking like a castle before, you see, and I'm a little los-"
It swung its sword at her.
She ducked.
It swung again.
She rolled clumsily under the table. OK, so it probably was not an agent. The question was, what was this construct, and why was it in HQ? Why did it, along with this castle, seem familiar? Then there was the important part: how was she going to get away?
There came a massive THUD as it swung at the table, nearly cleaving it in two.
Cyba came up with a pretty simple answer to her third question: run. Rolling out from under the other side of the table, she got to her feet and urged her legs into motion. The construct came after her, still swinging its sword, but she made it to the safety of the right-hand arch just in time.
She ran into the blackness, not stopping until she came to a thick, wooden door, dashed through and slammed it shut. To her relief, there came a click, and the door locked itself.
Her relief was short-lived.
Ahead of her stretched a blue-walled corridor with a silver floor, and it looked even more familiar than everything else so far. She was pretty sure she knew this place from somewhere, but where was it? She took a step... and the floor started moving forward. There was a gleam of silver in the distance, approaching rapidly, and then several things happened in very quick succession.
The distant gleam resolved into a circular saw set into one wall at about head-height.
Cyba felt there really was something very familiar about all this, and also, quite sensibly, ducked.
The saw missed, but there was soon another at ankle-height in the other wall.
Cyba sidestepped only just in time, vowing that if she survived this, she was going to have some serious words with the Flowers for booby-trapping the DTE. (Of course, she might have wondered what was powering the blades, had she not been so focused on having to dodge them.)
The floor started moving faster, causing Cyba to mutter a quite a number of things that will not be repeated here.
A pair of saws appeared at head-height, forcing her to drop to all fours. Another pair at ankle-height required a jump to clear.
This was, indisputably, based on the Corridor of Blades from Knightmare - a particularly nasty Level Three challenge that had caused the end of many dungeoneers' quests. The thing was, if a dungeoneer 'died' here, all that actually happened was that they got magically teleported back to World One, safe and sound - after all, it had been a kids' game-show using pioneering (at the time) virtual reality environments.
Cyba somehow doubted that counted for PPC agents.
The other possibility was, of course (duck, sidestep), that she had somehow fallen out of HQ and was in the actual Knightmare Castle.
She vaulted, crouched, and dived for the other wall.
Now the actual Knightmare Castle was somewhere she really did not want to be.
(Near miss.)
Well, at least she was not a dungeoneer going in blind, guided only by her teammates. Then again, this corridor was not designed for heavily armoured and rather slow cyborgs.
As if to emphasise that point, the second-to-last pair of blades (ankle left, head right) managed to shear off one of her cables. These saws were not the type that teleported you, then.
There was a brief pause, during which Cyba regained her balance, and then the final set appeared - a full four saws, both walls, both heights. She was pretty sure that had never happened on the show, but there was only one thing for it. She took a run-up, and dived through the middle. It was a clumsy dive that ended up in a belly-flop and a screech of metal, but it was metal meeting floor rather than blades. The conveyor-floor rolled to a stop, leaving Cyba dazed but relieved by an exit door.
She got to her feet, fingering the severed cable with an odd sense of loss. She guessed she never would have expected to miss one of her hair-cables...
She shook herself. This was no time for sentiment. If she was in Knightmare Castle, there were far worse things than missing cables (which, incidentally, would probably repair themselves later, and if they did not, the RAs would come back online eventually). There were things in this castle that had made her scared of the dark for years. True, she was not a little girl any longer, but she was not sure how well her courage might hold if actually faced with one of... those monsters.
She gulped. Thinking about the possibility... she would father face the Borg Queen.
Then again, those monsters were level guardians. She had gone through the Corridor of Blades, meaning the odds were she was on Level Three, which was the last level. Hey, she should be well past any of those monsters...
***
Eagrus rounded yet another corner. There was still no sign of Cyba. He was in an endless maze of blue, stone corridors, hopefully somewhere near either DoSAT or Cyba. Yet all he found himself faced with was a dead end. Well, it was a dead end unless you counted the black square he had thought was part of the floor... that he suddenly found himself falling through.
He landed in a small, square room, built from a rather more welcoming brownish-grey stone. It was totally bare, apart from a latched wooden door in one wall. Eagrus, thinking it might be somebody's RC, knocked. There was no answer. Given that there was no other obvious way out, Eagrus tried the latch, but it failed to budge. He knocked again, but still there was nothing. Resolving himself to knocking the door down, Eagrus backed up against the opposite wall and charged, shoulder-first, at the door.
"Enter, stranger!" announced a voice on the other side, followed by the CLACK! of a staff on the stone floor.
The door opened all by itself; Eagrus came charging through and fell flat on his face.
"Why hello, there! You are an eager one, I must say." The owner of the voice extended a hand to help Eagrus up.
"Thanks," said Eagrus, taking the hand and getting to his feet. From standing, he was able to get a better look at the person: a man, dark-haired and bearded, and dressed in a pleasingly medieval style. He could probably have visited the Lord of the Rings continuum without seeming that out of place.
"And a polite one too! Well, that is a pleasing change from some, I assure you," continued the man, enthusiastically. "Did you know that you are the first dungeoneer to take up the gauntlet in nearly two decades? Nearly twenty years! Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. Welcome, and what might your name be?"
"Eagrus Khan, Department of Technical Errors," replied Eagrus, resisting the urge to back away slowly. "How about you?"
"I am Treguard, Dungeon Master of Knightmare Castle," replied the man.
"Oookaay..." replied Eagrus, now fairly certain that he had fallen into the RC of what had to be one of the more crazy agents in HQ. The walls had been done up to look like stone and were adorned with hangings, and there was a small portcullis blocking what was presumably the front door (as opposed to the one he had entered through). Crikey, and he had thought Cyba was crazy. Still, it was polite for Eagrus to humour him.
"So, how far away from 'Knightmare Castle' is DoSAT?" asked Eagrus.
"Well, I could not say that I have heard of this 'DoSAT'," answered Treguard.
"Alright... is the power back on yet?" Eagrus tried another tack. "Can I get to your console?"
"I am not sure I understand what you mean by power, unless you are referring to sorcery?" came the response. "As for a console, I presume you mean the communications pool?"
Treguard beckoned Eagrus over to a raised, rectangular, stone basin, which was full of water. Eagrus poked it hopefully, but only achieved getting a wet finger.
"No, no," said Treguard. "First you must summon your advisors, to aid you on your quest."
"Advisors?" asked Eagrus, confused. "I don't have any advisors. Well, unless you mean my agent partner, Cyba. Where's your agent partner, anyway?"
Treguard sighed. "I am afraid my assistant left me long ago, after the dungeoneers stopped coming. But no matter! Summon your advisor, so they might guide you through this dungeon!"
"Er, well..." began Eagrus, "therein lies the problem. I was actually hoping she might have come through here already. We got separated, you see, and I was actually trying to find her."
"Ohh," said Treguard, opening his eyes wide. "So you are on a quest to rescue a maid?"
"I wouldn't exactly call her a maid... or even a maiden..." responded Eagrus, "but yes, I suppose you could say I was on a quest to rescue her - in a manner of speaking."
"The dungeon will be dangerous, and the way will not be easy. Do you still wish to venture forth?" asked Treguard.
"Yes!" cried Eagrus, trying to hide his exasperation.
"Very well," affirmed Treguard. "You should know, then, that the opposition has filled the dungeon with illusions. To protect you from these illusions, and from seeing the danger ahead, you must don the Helmet of Justice." He fetched said helmet from a corner of the room. It was adorned with a plume and a heavy, vision-obscuring visor.
Needless to say, Eagrus was not impressed.
***
::Approaching Department of Technical Errors. Obstruction present. Lifesign detected,:: warned Sigma's Exonet.
Oh really? thought Sigma. So soon?
Ahead of her, the metal starship corridor she had been walking down ended abruptly in a stone wall. Sigma approached warily, allowing her Exonet to perform a full scan.
Her worst suspicions were soon confirmed.
::Creature type 98.2% match: Knightmare continuum monster - Blocker.::
Sigma weighed her options - she could search for another way around, but it would be time-consuming, and it would be irresponsible of her to leave a password-obsessed wall with a taste for eating people wandering around HQ.
That settled it then.
"Alright, Blocker, you're not exactly camouflaged," challenged Sigma, glaring at it.
The wall rearranged itself such that it now had a face. "PASSWORD?" it demanded.
Sigma sighed. She knew full well she did not have the password, but this was exactly what she had come prepared for.
"Sledgehammer," stated Sigma.
"INCORRECT!" declared the Blocker triumphantly. "YOU KNOW, I HAVEN'T EATEN A DUNGEONEER IN TWO DECADES?"
"Yeah," said Sigma, walking a little closer. "About that..." She hefted the sledgehammer. "Like I said, I'm not a Dungeoneer..."
"NEW DISH... TASTY," it responded, and tried to eat her.
Sigma swung the sledgehammer. Instead of being eaten, she ended up showered with dust and smashed stonework. It would reform sooner or later, but she suspected it - or whoever had sent it - might think twice about invading the Department of Technical Errors again. Straightening up, she realised she had finally defeated what her childhood self had considered the scariest monster in the multiverse... and it felt really good. She picked up a stony eyebrow, considered stashing it in her rucksack to decorate her RC with later, then thought better of it. Twirling the sledgehammer with one hand, she replaced it on her back and carried on down the corridor - which was now a dungeon made of blue stone - trailing a distinct Aura of Cockiness.
***
"What wass that, Lordnesss?" a reptilian henchman asked of his master, as the image in the communications pool was abruptly cut off. The duo were standing in their dark stone lair, the Tower of Goth.
"It would appear to be some new form of creature," stated Lord Fear, intrigued. He was dressed in a full set of skeletal armour, a style that he had not changed in nearly twenty years.
"Lordnesss? It ssmashed your Blocker!" pointed out the green-scaled humanoid.
"I can see that, Lissard."
"What do you intend to do about it, Lordnesss?" inquired Lissard cautiously.
"Actually," decided Lord Fear, "I was considering recruiting it."
***
"No, thank you!" said Eagrus. "I'll use my own helmet!"
"I am afraid your helmet will not work," responded Treguard, patiently. "Only the Helmet of Justice has the correct enchantments."
That stopped Eagrus in his tracks.
"Enchantments? Magic?" he pressed eagerly.
"Sorcery, indeed," Treguard confirmed.
"Hmm," mused Eagrus. "OK then - but only so long as you don't look when I take my helmet off."
Treguard looked puzzled, but agreed.
A few moments later, Eagrus had swapped helmets, and Treguard nodded approvingly.
"You will also need this knapsack, to place food into to restore your life-force on your journey." Treguard placed the knapsack over Eagrus' shoulder. "Lastly, this is the Eye-Shield, which will enable me to follow your progress in the viewing pool. Ah, and you will not be able to take your sword with you. You will need both hands free to carry useful items, which would otherwise disappear if placed into the knapsack."
Eagrus' hand immediately jumped protectively to his sword's hilt.
"Your equipment will be kept quite safe," Treguard assured him.
Eagrus glared at him, and clutched his sword tighter.
"I cannot let you continue onward from this room while you are carrying that sword," Treguard told him patiently.
Eagrus debated what to do about this. The other door was the only exit not at the bottom of a pit, and he had to leave this room, no question about it. This crazy agent had a sword too, and he doubted the Flowers would approve of them both fighting - it would be better to humour the man.
He sighed and unbuckled his sword, watching Treguard very carefully. If this agent did not give his things back after this, Eagrus would be certain to report him to the Flowers. Besides, he did not exactly believe he was going into a danger-filled dungeon, which was possibly fortunate.
"Are you prepared?" Treguard checked with him one last time.
"Yes," responded Eagrus, and Treguard lowered the visor on his helmet with a heavy clunk. Now all Eagrus could see was a small patch of floor just in front of his toes.
"Then step forward, and begin your quest," Treguard pronounced.
Eagrus did so, hearing the portcullis between him and the exit door raise as he approached, and then lower again behind him.
To his surprise, he stepped out into what felt like warm sunlight - it was difficult to tell beneath his armour.
"Where am I?" he wondered aloud, internally suspecting the courtyard.
"The village of Wolfenden," Treguard's voice informed him, much to his surprise. So that was what had been meant by enchantments...
"This place used to be busy and bustling," Treguard continued, "but everything is much quieter now. With no dungeoneers, the traders moved away, the elves retreated to their groves and caverns, and many of the denizens of Knightmare Castle have fallen into slumber or gone too. All of Lord Fear's henchmen have left, with the exception of Lissard. The levels are not as full or maintained as they used to be, and most of the challenges you will face will be the insidious traps or constructs of techno-sorcery."
"Techno-sorcery... yeurgh," shuddered Eagrus. "Magic and technology should never be mixed."
"While many of the rooms may be empty, it does mean that passwords for the guardians will be more difficult to obtain," concluded Treguard.
"Alright..." said Eagrus, unsure of whether to take all this seriously or not.
"Go forward two steps, and then to your right is a door to a house. There may be useful items inside," Treguard advised.
Eagrus was glad for the instructions, given he could see nought but the ground beneath his feet, and followed them precisely. Soon enough, his fingers found a wooden door, which he pushed open.
"There is a table ahead of you," Treguard informed him. "This place does indeed look pretty abandoned, but whoever once lived here seems to have left in a hurry. Put the bread in your knapsack to sustain your life-force."
Eagrus did so.
 "Now, you can only carry two objects at a time, so choose carefully from what remains," said Treguard.
Eagrus craned his neck to see what was on the table: a smooth pebble, several gold pieces, a bottle containing some unknown liquid and a string of beads.
"Any ideas which two?" he asked.
"Well, I would once have suggested the gold, to trade, but almost everybody has left. I would recommend taking whatever you think could be the most useful later on."
"Any idea what's in that bottle?" questioned Eagrus.
"It could be a potion; alternatively it could be water. It might even be vinegar," responded Treguard, somewhat unhelpfully.
"It might come in handy." Eagrus shrugged, picking up the bottle, then took the pebble. He could at least think of more uses for it than the beads. He had to admit he was surprised - the objects felt real enough. Maybe there was more to this Agent Treguard's crazy 'quest' than met the eye.
Several areas later, Eagrus came to a place that Treguard called 'Wolfglade'. Eagrus could hear birdsong, and grass swished beneath his boots.
"Lying on the ground in front of you is a scroll," Treguard finished. "Take two steps forward and..."
A horn sounded.
"What was that?" demanded Eagrus, his head whipping around instinctively even though he could not see much more than his feet.
"Step right, fast!" instructed Treguard, urgency suddenly present in his voice. "Keep going until you reach the rock, then get behind it! Quick!"
Given the force with which Eagrus' knees collided with said rock, he was glad he was wearing armour. Nevertheless, he did as he was told and ducked behind the rock. Moments later, he heard the footsteps of several - somethings - enter the clearing.
"Goblins," said Treguard. "Nasty little things."
Eagrus' hand immediately went for his sword, which he then promptly remembered was not there. He went for the visor instinctively, but Treguard noticed and warned him:
"No! Raising the visor will render you vulnerable to illusions! You must keep it down!"
Eagrus paused, but did as he was told. Still, he was liking this 'quest' less and less.
"Stay very still and quiet," advised Treguard. "Now, you have two options. Run for it, or try and grab that scroll on the way. The scroll could be very important, but the goblins will almost certainly catch you if you try to get it. The choice is yours."
Eagrus was already formulating strategies, most of which he soon ditched thanks to his lack of a sword or a decent field of vision. Still, he was a clever enough man, and the solution...
"Hurry! Your life-force is starting to deplete!" Treguard warned.
Eagrus gripped the pebble, took a deep breath and threw it across the clearing. It clattered off a nearby tree, catching the goblins' attention.
"Good plan!" Treguard praised him. "Quick, get the scroll and get out of there!"
Eagrus dashed out from behind the rock, snatched up the scroll and ran off as fast as he could.
Only once Treguard informed him that he had probably put enough distance between himself and the goblins did he finally slow down, panting.
"You failed... to mention... that there might be goblins..." puffed Eagrus. "Anything else I should know about? Orcs? Trolls? Ringwraiths? Mary Sues?"
"Ringwraiths?" repeated Treguard. "I see you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings. I have heard of various things from where you dungeoneers come from, although I cannot say I have met many dungeoneers who have read it."
"Read it?" gasped Eagrus. "That's one way of putting it... mildly."
***
Cyba crept cautiously into yet another room. She looked around carefully, taking in the vaulted ceiling, the almost empty room and the door in the opposite corner. The reason it was only almost empty was due to the bowl of food in the middle of the floor.
She approached, frowning, then realised it was full of peas. Peas, of all things. Oh, she had been craving peas since her last mission...
She took a good look around the room, but it was definitely empty.
She took a pea, her eyes roving the room suspiciously. When nothing happened, she tucked in.
She was soon interrupted by a very ominous grinding sound. Her head snapped up, and she did another sweep of the room. It was still empty...
Wait.
Too empty.
Where did that far door go...?
Cyba glanced frantically around the room, and quickly tried the door she had come in through. It was locked.
The grinding started again; as Cyba watched, the rear wall crept forward and part of it began to resolve into stony facial features. Cyba tried to bash the door down with her mechanical arms, but it was protected by the canon rule of no going back. Reversed up right against the locked door, Cyba stared in terror at the advancing Blocker. Completely of its own accord, her cable-hair untwined from its usual pony-tail and appeared to be attempting an impression of Medusa's snake-hair. Unable to fight her panic, Cyba screamed a scream that rivalled the one after her disguise-generator accident, and raised her arms to shield herself.
Unbidden, her nanoprobe injectors extended, bringing her to her senses somewhat.
"AAAAAARRRGGGHHHhhhhh... ohhh," Cyba trailed off, remembering that she was a scary creature in her own right. Her confidence rallied.
Cyba drew herself up to her full height, brandishing her injectors and snarling. It made her feel better, if nothing else; she must have been quite a frightful sight.
The Blocker stopped advancing, and Cyba noticed that it had a chipped eyebrow.
She took a step forward, making it sound as heavy, mechanical and menacing as possible. She followed it up with another, and put on her very best Disconcerting Borg Stare for good measure.
Then she stepped into the light.
The Blocker retreated a little.
"NOT A DUNGEONEER," it stated.
"Affirmative," replied Cyba, making an effort to do the Borg voice and everything.
"YOU AGAIN," it spoke. "YOU MAY PASS." Then to Cyba's surprise, it dismantled itself and vanished in what looked suspiciously like a hurry.
"Me again?" Cyba put to the monster free room... which was actually a corridor, as it turned out. Her organic eye narrowed. That meant Sigma or Phi - or both - were around here somewhere, as well - and one or other of them had seen that Blocker off already. Thinking about it, she reckoned Sigma.
Holding up her hand as she walked, she inspected her nanoprobe injectors with interest. It was nice those were working, even if she was not quite sure how. It was a pity she was not allowed to use them for their intended purpose, but...
Cyba caught herself, and promptly told the signals sowing tendencies in her subconscious to stop it.
Still, being scary had its advantages, apparently. Maybe this natural form was not so bad after all...
She smiled, rubbing the metal of the two narrow tubes that extended from the central fingers of one hand. She was in a surprisingly good mood.
That was when the magical barrier sprung up around her.
***
Sigma banged her DORKS, willing it fruitlessly to work.
It stuttered, changed its appearance to a paper aeroplane and fizzled out its last bit of life.
So much for that plan. Typical, just typical, thought Sigma crossly, stuffing the useless object into her bag. Oh well, no time to go back now, if the castle would let me, anyway. I guess I'm still sort of in HQ, so it doesn't properly count as going undisguised into a canon continuum...
Well, she could take that up with the Flowers later.
She pushed through another door, and nearly fell into a chasm. Arms flailing, she managed to right herself just in time. She tried the door, but it had locked itself behind her.
Well, isn't that wonderful, she thought, swallowing the Sar-Plasm.
Her eyes swept the room for clues. The far wall had something carved onto it, but it was too old and damaged to make out. By her feet, the edge of a tile clung onto the ledge on which she stood. She touched it, and it crumbled away into the abyss.
Sigma frowned. It looked like she had found a fallen causeway, but it had not bothered to reset itself since the last dungeoneer's passing. She got her Exonet to run a full scan, but it did not tell her anything more than she already knew. There was only one thing for it, then.
Sigma closed the eye she could and focused her thoughts inside herself. The Exonet had shown her how, and it was becoming easier with practise. Eventually, it would become second-nature, but for now she had to concentrate. Reaching her right arm forward, she imagined following the paths of the nerves through it, interfacing with the machinery and activating the tractor-beam contained within.
There was a whir as her arm opened up. She opened her eyes to see the green glow of the device now ready for use.
Good. Now, I only have one shot at this.
She backed up against the door, took the tiny run-up she could, and jumped off the edge with a scream. Now, she was heavy and slow, so she could not jump very far. Her tractor-beam also had limited range, so she fired it at the ceiling, feeling a jolt as her arm took the weight of the rest of her body. Her scream became a roar of triumph and enjoyment as she swung from the ceiling, deactivated the beam at the furthest point... and missed the exit ledge.
The roar turned rapidly back into a scream again as she flailed wildly in the air and fired the tractor-beam frantically at the ledge. It caught, stopping her fall with a jerk and allowing her to scramble desperately onto the ledge, through the exit-door... and into a sewer.
At least, it was wet, and it smelled bad enough to be a sewer. Also, thanks to her awkward method of entry, she could confirm that it tasted as bad as a sewer, too.
Getting to her feet, she spat out the mouthful she had got and shook herself as best she could. Now she wanted a tissue - or maybe a nice sonic shower. Either way, her poor implants did not deserve to be covered in that.
She splashed onward down the tunnel, a bad mood brewing, until she came upon a staircase that led upward. She marched up it, scowling, and eventually reached the top. Pushing the wooden door open a crack, she peered through.
Beyond lay a suite of stone rooms, which she now recognised as the Tower of Goth, lair of Lord Fear. This could be either very good or very bad, because Lord Fear had a very good surveillance system running throughout the castle. Still, her Exonet reported that it was empty, so maybe the resident villain had moved out in the two decades since the show had been stopped...
Sigma crept in (well, she did not thump much), and hid herself in a small library room. The shelves were adorned with ancient tomes, bound in heavy brown or black leather. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be spellbooks. If Lord Fear suddenly returned, such a thing might be useful, so Sigma flicked through one and put it in her bag. She knew how spellcasting worked in this continuum, and besides, she could always return the book later.
She snooped around a little more. The main chamber looked like it had been used recently, which was worrying. However, the communications pool was what she was looking for. In fact, it was still showing a residual image of Cyba, trapped behind a magical barrier somewhere near the end of Level Three.
"Show me Eagrus Khan," she whispered at the pool, but nothing happened. "Show me... er... any dungeoneers in or around the castle!"
This time, the pool rippled and the image changed to what looked suspiciously like somebody wearing the Helmet of Justice and Easterling armour. As she watched, said somebody used a potion that enabled him to find a hidden letter 'F' by the edge of a lake, and narrowly avoided being eaten by something lurking beneath the water. Then he moved on, stepping onto a wooden platform in the next area and settling himself into a saddle on the back of a huge, green dragon. Sigma could not help wondering what his reaction would be when he found out what he was riding. That did not stop her feeling jealous, though.
"Ohhhhh, I've always wanted to ride Smirkenorff!" she huffed.
"Or," suggested a voice behind her, "you could join me and have a ride on a red dragon."
Sigma whirled around, finding herself face-to-face with Lord Fear, and very nearly fell into the communications pool in shock. Without a disguise to help her blend, along with the possible residual connection to HQ, the canon villain could see her quite clearly.
"Eeep!" she squeaked.
"Eeep?" repeated Lord Fear, not sounding very impressed. "Here was I thinking I had a fearsome creature prowling my dungeon, possessed of the sheer audacity to smash one of my monsters and sneak into my tower. I might have fireballed you for your impudence, had I not left the door open to let you in, thinking you might be useful. Although... perhaps you know your place, and fear me as you should. "
"My Lord, you took me by surprise," Sigma spoke, bowing deeply.
"Invisibility spells come in useful," smiled the villain, and his minion, Lissard, appeared at his shoulder, grinning too.
"I have heard of you," Sigma improvised. "When I saw to where the portal led, I sought to find you, so that I may aid you with my devious contraptions." She produced the sunglasses and donned them in her best impression of a mad inventor. Then she drew the neuralyzer. "Look deep and see what my inventions can do."
"Spellcasting: H-O-L-D!" Lord Fear rattled the spell off so fast that Sigma had no time to react. The next moment, she was suspended in the air by a large, magical hand, her arms pinned to her sides.
Lord Fear tugged the neuralyzer out of her hand. "I do not think I will be taking that chance," he said.
Sigma managed to wriggle her fingers just enough to free her nanoprobe injectors, and stung the magical hand with them. None too surprisingly, the magical construct was not affected. Sigma gritted her teeth and tried something else out on it.
"Spellcasting: L-I-G-H-T-N-I-N-G!"
Nothing happened, and Lord Fear seemed to be more amused than anything else.
"Good try, but I cannot sense the slightest drop of magical potential within you," he informed her. Coming forwards, he tapped the metal plate that covered part of her face. "What are you, anyway?" he asked. "Such a strange creature... you look like something I once saw on - what do they call it? Television."
Sigma stared. "You've been watching television?"
"Oh, come now," explained Lord Fear, as though it should have been obvious. "It was a simple matter of using magic to channel images from the world of the dungeoneers to my communications pool. I had to do something when the dungeoneers stopped coming. I cannot spend all day plotting against Treguard, you know. I can, however, learn to make my plots better."
Oh dear, thought Sigma. He's spent twenty years getting dangerously genre savvy.
"It seems," grumbled Sigma aloud, "that we are at an impasse."
***