TWLA 11

As they approached the outer edges of the 'Egg Machine Plains', Jeremy called out to King who was roving a bit farther ahead. "There's a geode over here that's... clean inside. It's hard to tell at first glance but the top is less than an inch under the dirt."

The man's good mood had worn off a few short times back and was slowly returning to a surly, mildly ill temperament. But, upon registering what Jeremy had said, he swallowed down whatever sharp words he was going to say and adopted a curious face instead.

"King, there are few places to safely pass The Hush in, between here and Fort Tesla," Rainmaker said.

"As long as Blue Jay isn't wasting our time, he's found one," the tyrant shot back as he went over to where Jeremy was pointing.

"Those salt and pepper shaker eyeballs of yours gives you x-ray vision?" Caesar asked.

Jeremy shook his head. "It's hard to explain but... That over there looks like a big marshmallow that got rolled in sandwich cookie pieces. You know, except the cookie pieces move around a little. It's not so much that I'm seeing through things. It's just strong enough to shine out."

"I don't know if I get it. But, if that was a candy bar, I'd buy it," Caesar said.

While the two 'boys' were engaged in a favorite sweets share session, Rainmaker was watching King with growing worry. She had offered to help but the tyrant had told her to stay back. Though their youngest members weren't aware, the Egg Machine Plains had endless horror stories related to explorers breaking open a geode without rigorous testing first.

A corruption filled inside was the most common result. That was dangerous enough. But, sometimes the geodes held things that resented the intrusion. An incubating nightmare class monster had been released from more than one. The same with lethally toxic vaporizing mineral deposits.

With those dark thoughts dancing around in her head, she saw King finally lose patience and kick downward with a golden energy wrapped foot. Despite being as ready as a poorly equipped group could be for the consequences of an angry power stomp to a potentially fragile structure, the results were out of everyone's expectations. Nothing happened. A few moments later, King spent the next few cursing with every dirty word in his vocabulary as he hobbled around.

"It could be a dangerous metal infusion one or a valuable gem cluster geode. I can protect myself enough from the first possibility that I'm willing to burn out my focus for the second one... Your call, King," Rainmaker said as she looked at the dark crust uncovered by a clear boot print.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath through his nose, King growled to Jeremy through clenched teeth. "Get a closer look, Blue Jay. Maybe your stigma can pick up something that would make this better than a coin toss decision."

After using his boot edge to kick a little more cleared space on the dark crust of the geode, Jeremy got down on his hands and knees to get a little physical contact.

Rainmaker said nervously, "Don't use the magic sense thing we taught you. It would-"

A bit slow on the draw from checking King's foot for fractures, Rainmaker's caution reached Jeremy a little too late. She expected him to go flying backwards like a person who received a large jolt of electricity but he didn't. He froze in place, unable to move, as his closed channels were forcefully opened in a damaging manner.

Within Jeremy, there were several things taking place: Power looked for a place to flow. A fragile inner nature that vaguely looked like a coiled centipede was waiting to mature into a fully formed thing. A talent was constantly looking for wrong things to make right. The withered string of a supernatural bond was slowly being absorbed into him along with the grain of opaline brilliance at its other end.

As it had once before, the power stimulated grain carried out the final instructions carved into it by the soul it had once been a part of. It shunted the contents of its 'space' to it's maker's little brother and uselessly attempted to separate itself from the rest of a non-existent Theo to keep from dragging Jeremy into death with the long dead man. Having carried out its task, the bits of memory stored in it flared to life once more.

In a shattered and jarring re-run projected into Jeremy's spiritual consciousness, pieces of disjointed knowledge and experiences spilled over and into him. Fed by the high pressured ball of magic power under him, multiple harmful and helpful things happened far too quickly for the power drunk young man to follow. Even if he had been completely lucid an prepared for it, too much had happened at once.

At some point during the seemingly endless chaotic pain, a young man's voice broke through and grabbed his attention. He couldn't focus on it but he thought hard at it. The distant voice drowned out in replaying memories and agony seemed to be able to hear him. So, he spouted as many facts about his situation as he could in the nearly two breaths he had before he felt his physical body enter a very short lived free fall. The 'bed of nails' feeling impact ended the contact and his small thread of remaining awareness.

***

He didn't know how long he'd been asleep but it felt 'not short'. Everything felt like it was in working order aside for a hitching pain in his chest. Craning his neck, Jeremy looked down the unfamiliar plane of a chest and abdomen a little more impressive than his own had ever been. Holding back a groan from the blossom of spasms moving had caused, he looked around himself.

A smooth and soothing glow came from chunks of blue chalcedony around him. Beyond, inside the oblong and massive geode, his three companions were in separate spaces with a pile of things beside them. The one thing all three piles had in common was that they were things that couldn't possibly have been found anywhere but Earth.

Aside from a quick check to make sure he was recovered and not in or posing any danger, all other niceties were shunted or actively blocked by Rainmaker. She immediately had him working with her on trying to preserve pieces of what appeared to be spell work from a couple of moldering journals. It was nearly another full day later before everyone collapsed into an exhausted Hush rest and he could finally get some answers.

From what he could see, all the junk surrounding them had once belonged to a very young Ray Ray. Trauart Gray had a problem, it turned out. If he forgot what he put in his space, he couldn't call it back out. Once Ray Ray had reached around seven, he'd mastered the art of lists and that wasn't so large a problem anymore. A few years later, he figured out a way of marking things before he put them in and only lost the occasional panic stored item.

"Yeah, you were like a human pinata. When you fell in here, you busted open and spilled out a whole bunch of stuff," Caesar offered cheerily.

After shooting the leaf crowned guy a withering look, Rainmaker said, "You were in a critical state that first day. I think a couple of the things you produced may have saved you... I'm glad you're alright. As for your silence on your connection with this Trauart person, we understand."

King added, "If anything important comes up that affects us, I expect you to let us know. It's a reasonable request in exchange for that respect."

Jeremy shrugged at the tyrant helplessly. "There's not much to tell. I haven't seen him since we were little and I moved. I didn't realize him and his family were anything special until after I came here and all this weird stuff happened.

"I was only saved because he begged his older brother to heal me properly or I'd have spent the rest of my life as a very damaged person. Whatever goodwill was there, died with the man. And, this pinata pop thing was only the result of an old spell or ability working one last time. I wouldn't bank on whatever friendship I had when I was just a little kid to do much for us now."

Rainmaker said, "How sure are you that the connection was only temporary? At the very least, we might be able to establish a private trade line with the outside world if it wasn't. Perhaps rare and valuable resources could move your childhood friend and his family where old affects might not."

Jeremy sighed. "I'll keep you posted if anything changes on that end as long as you all keep this between us. If you can't trust my word on that, know that I realize I have a lot more to gain by being honest with you than I do keeping that to myself. I don't want to give a thing to the a**holes that put us here that I don't absolutely have to."

Caesar mimed zipping his lips as Rainmaker and King gave more formal agreements.

After looking over what they'd managed to preserve before the original material had become worthless, she said, "I can sympathize with your frustrations on making heads or tails of what happened. Just looking over your friend's notes on his personal journey understanding the fundamentals of magic, it's a time consuming and bitter discipline to delve into. I do have a working theory on a general idea, however."

Jeremy wasn't the only one interested in hearing it.

"I believe you acted as a middle man, a conduit. The power you channeled flowed through you to your friend's space and the resulting affect was that all the forgotten items within were pushed back out through you when the pressure abated on your side."

King nodded and offered, "Kind of like siphoning gas out of a car's tank."

He pantomimed sealing off a hole with his hand and blowing into an invisible hose before sticking that into something sitting on the ground."

Caesar smiled and said, "Except what you're doing is s*xy and what he was doing was spewing junk out of a huge hole blown out of his chest. That... was gross and scary looking... Oh, by the way, Blue Bird. Your buddy liked to squirrel away food like nobody's business."

King hesitated for a moment before Rainmaker gave him a 'you tell him or I will' glance.

He said, "There was a magic storage bag mixed in with everything. It has food and emergency supplies in it. If something happens to me, make sure you grab it if Rainmaker doesn't. The magic on it's pretty good since it hasn't shown any signs of corrosion or twisting after nearly three Hushes. It'll last for a few drop's worth of time, at least."

Jeremy closed his eyes and let a summer storm of negative emotions wash over and out of him. For many reasons, it only made sense that something so precious be kept by the strongest of a group. However, it was getting harder to ignore. Time and time again, things that came to him ended up collecting in King's hands.

"Take care of it. It was a birthday gift from his grandfather. I'm pretty sure that wasn't something he forgot about. It's probably just been a long time since he's taken it out," he said.