Infinitium

(Day 180) Aprilis 24th, 12th year of the Dragon, Age of Enlightenment

Adam chewed his breakfast as he stared into Adaline's eyes. With a smile on his face, he asked, “What are your plans for today?”

“Well, I had thought to check the location of the tower and also thought about moving my hoard into the Vault, if that is okay with you. I would ask for a simple agreement that my treasure remains mine.”

He looked at her with false hurt in his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that. Logically I know that you could replace everything in the hoard if you wished, it’s a dragon thing. We get a bit testy when creatures touch our stuff.”

Adam laughed, “Fine, what’s yours is yours and yes you can store your hoard in the vault, it won’t take up the entire 18 square miles will it.?”

“No,” she said indignantly. It shouldn’t take up more than 1,000 square feet.”

“Sound’s good. If you’d like I could scan your cave and make an exact duplicate of the area in the vault. Wouldn’t be hard at all and would make it seem a little more like home?”

“That sounds good. Let’s finish breakfast then go. You can ride me while I fly from your tower’s location to my cave.”

“You can ride me,” he started then grinned as he said, “Well if you insist.”

She threw a biscuit in his general direction, purposely aiming off to the side of him then said, “I will have you know that as soon as this vow is over I am a very aggressive female. I will explore the extent of your physical endurance to biscuits when you get sassy.”

“I look forward to it,” he responded as they both laughed.

They finished breakfast and headed to the entryway. “When Thor was checking out his ability to open portals, the portal he opened into the library, the first location I entered your universe at, opened into the sky. I’m going to open our portal about 70 miles west of the tower's location so we can fly up and get the lay of the land and check on everything. From there you’ll be able to switch into your dragon form and we can ride over there together. I’ll have the nanites make us headsets so that we can talk to each other without screaming to be heard.”

“I can’t wait. The toys you can make with your nanites are interesting.”

“Truly, you haven’t seen anything yet. If you can stay in your high elf form in a nonmagical environment, we might have to go back to my planet, and I’ll show you all the technology you’re missing. Of course, it would be interesting to see if you could fly in your Dragon form there as well. Of course, most people would be scared to death. Eventually, I’m going to have to let the people of my world know that magic exists and mythical creatures are real.

Adam opened a portal, and they stepped out onto the campsite where he’d met the hill giants Dob and Zar. Adam scanned the area. There were no predators or dangers of any kind. He jumped into the air as Adaline transformed into her new Umbral Dragon form. She wasn’t quite a black dragon anymore. Her coloring highlighted the tips of her wings and the ridges on her head which appeared to be constantly lit as if in the moonlight. In this early morning light, she was stunning. in twilight or the light of the night sky, she would be gorgeous. As he admired her new dragon form she circled around and leveled off. He jumped to the middle of her back just ahead of her wings and had his nanites create a form-fitting harness that would allow him to stand on her back like the stuntmen on the biplanes of old from his world. As they headed west toward the tower's previous location, she rose higher and higher into the early morning until they were just under the few clouds that were present. It took a minute or two as he worked with Thor back on Earth to create an earpiece and microphone that would fit her and work. Eventually, though they had success as he asked, “Can you hear me now?”

“I’ve been able to hear you for the last two minutes. It was your mi-crow-fa-own that wasn’t working” she said.

“Yep it's working, thanks Thor,” he said so Adaline could hear his response to Thor as they released their mental sync and each focused on their own universe. “Very good Adaline, seen anything interesting while I’ve been working on communication gear?”

“Nope though if you look down to your left you can see where trees have blown over. It looks like something happened to push the trees toward the village you stayed at.”

Alarmed, he created some binoculars and surveyed the area. Adaline was right it looked like the trees and had been bent towards the village from the general direction of his tower’s direction to the northwest of the village. As they flew west the damage became more pronounced until they were five miles out. Then the landscape of the mountains to the north were either flattened or scoured clear of snow as if something had hit them with a sandblaster. Also, the forest was gone. Even the grass and bushes were gone. Only bare dirt and rock could be seen.

“Stay this far away from the tower's location and fly in a giant circle around the tower,” he said.

“Okay.”

As they flew around the tower at a distance of five miles to a point just south and east of the cliff face they noticed that a sphere, not unlike the geography of his pocket dimension, seemed to have removed the tower, and the mountain. The area looked to be smaller than his one-mile radius though. As they continued their circular trip from five miles out from the location of the catastrophe, Adam had his nanites look for radiation of any kind. The readings remained normal.

When they made it all the way back to the southernmost point of the damage Adam said, “I’m going to go take a closer look. If something happens to me Thor will open a portal back to the Tower on the ground below us. Well, get your hoard transfer set up as soon as I’m up and about again.”

“What do you think will happen?” Adaline asked.

“I have no idea,” he said truthfully. “Just stay in this area and keep an eye on me. I shouldn’t be gone too long.” With that, the nanites released him and he flew toward where his tower used to be. As he came closer to the tower's location he started paying attention and triangulating the blast patterns he saw. very soon he noticed that the center looked to be the roof of the tower, which meant that some external force was at play. Staying at least 100’ away from the center point of the explosion he had his nanites survey the whole area.

A couple of the nanites found something that was subatomic that he’d never encountered before. They were reporting that it seemed to be a hole of some sort. It was too small for air molecules to pass through, yet it was an opening to somewhere. He sent one nanite through the hole and recorded all the sensory data that it sent back. The data it sent back made no sense. As far as the nanite was concerned it had been flung into a hyper-viscous fluid of some sort where atoms of all kinds both existed and ceased to exist within a picosecond.

The “fluid” was constantly shifting and wouldn’t stabilize. The quantum entanglement remained but the nanite was useless as a point of reference for a portal. Adam had Thor take over monitoring the environment of that nanite and brought his attention back to his current location. As far as he could tell a non-nuclear explosion had occurred in his Place of Power that had devastated the local surroundings.

Adam double-checked for radiation fallout. Finding none, he went back to Adaline and had her fly them to the village. As they flew over, Adam dropped off her back and floated to the ground. The guards had noticed the dragon and saw him drop off. As he came into range a single arrow was shot at him which he caught and held in his hand. After which he heard Raz yell, “Hold your fire, it’s Adam.”

Adam adjusted his course and landed next to Raz, “I’m glad to see you are okay my friend. What has happened?

“I was going to ask you the same thing. The Elders tried to contact you two days ago when Elder Jasilla was warned of calamity by her Goddess. Even with her shielding the village still took some damage. When you didn’t answer the elder communed with her goddess and learned that you were no longer in the Universe. We all thought the worst.”

“I’m touched Raz, truly I am, but you know that I am from another Universe, and I can come and go there as I please now. A recent change, in fact, it happened right about the time this explosion did.” He paused for a moment then asked, “By the way, does anyone know what happened.”

“Truthfully, no. However, some of the scouts who made it back right before the explosion reported seeing a red dragon off to the west flying near your tower the day before. Any that might have witnessed what happened that was in that area of the woods have not been heard from,” Raz told him.

“I surveyed the damage, if they were near enough to the blast that could affect the village over 60 miles away, you probably won't be hearing from them anytime soon, if ever again,” Adam said regrettably.

Raz nodded before he said, “We best be getting you to see the elders. Is your dragon friend going to land?”

“Yes, to meeting with the elders. No, to Adaline landing. I’m only going to be here for a few minutes then we must be off again.”

“Okay, this way,” Raz said as he led Adam to where the elders were helping others rebuild a structure that had been damaged. Adam noticed that everyone was working on rebuilding the town. Searching his memory, he recalled every little detail of the building they were working on as well as the layout of the village. As they approached Elder Jasilla stood and turned.

“Peace be unto Adam. It is good to see that you survived whatever happened to your Place of Power.” Elder Jasilla said.

“Peace be unto you as well. Our Goddess had not informed me that you might need assistance. Of course, I may have been beyond her reach for a bit.”

“Doubtful Adam, Knowledge and the ability to learn is Universal.”

Adam thought about that for a moment then considered what he’d been doing for the last two days. If his nanites had not detected and compensated for the blood rushing to his face he would have blushed a crimson red. “It would seem that our Goddess is most generous,” he said as a warmth embraced him and a whisper from the Goddess entered his mind, When you get back to your Place of Power contact me, we have much to discuss.

“It would seem our Goddess is indeed generous,” Adam said hurriedly as he looked thoughtful for a moment then said, “Elder Jasilla, would you like me to help repair the village? I could perhaps save the people days. I can do nothing for the plant life but I can help rebuild and repair the structures already here?” Adam asked.

“If you can, that would be wonderful. We need places to sleep and we must still replant all the crops that were lost.”

“Then I’ll get to work.” Raising his voice, Adam called out. “Everyone, step away from the buildings for a moment this won’t take long.”

Adam expanded his nanite field to its maximum range and walked slowly from one end of the village to the other. Using his memory of the village, he had the nanites rebuild or repair any structure that he’d seen before. He couldn’t replace things he hadn’t seen but he was able to repair and replace every single building. He had to make three passes, but he was able to repair all the structures of the village. After only ten minutes, he was done.

As Adam made his way over to Elder Jasilla he recalled his nanites as she called, “Truly amazing Adam. Thank you. Are you sure you must be going?”

“As I’m sure you’ve noticed there is an Umbral Dragon above us. She’s been circling patiently for the last ten minutes but I’m sure if I don’t attend to her needs soon I’m never going to hear the end of it.”

“Perhaps, when you are not busy you will introduce us?” she asked.

“Perhaps, but for now I must bid you a good day,” Adam said as he used his gravity-based ability to rise into the air to Adaline’s. Once he was there he used cloud running to run back to her back and reformed their earpieces and mics and harness to hold him in place as she turned to the North and flew towards the mountain.

“That was nice of you Adam?”

“Well, Jasilla is a fellow cleric of Serena. Helping her truly does help myself. Also, she said she’d like to meet you.”

“Perhaps, today though, I need to move my hoard,” she said as she flew over the cliff and then headed towards one of the peaks to the northeast of the tower. Adam realized that the peak she was heading toward was behind a higher peak which would have obscured it from his vision when he was at his Place of Power unless he’d gone exploring in that direction. It looked to be only 10 miles away from the tower’s original location in a straight line. If someone had to travel to it by land though that would have taken a day at least. Halfway up the mountain, there was a cliff face that had a tunnel hidden from view behind a sheet of ice. It looked like her lair had been shielded from the full brunt of the blast though cracked ice lay here and there all around the entranceway.

Adaline landed as Adam hopped down to the ground expanding his nanites to their maximum range again. As he entered the lair he made sure to have the nanites leave the treasure alone. As he analyzed the cave and the mountain he had Thor open portals into the vault and provide the mass the nanites there would need to recreate the mountain and her layer exactly. He accessed his interface and adjusted the vault’s settings to mirror the location of the mountain. Once that was done he had the nanites build her mountain along the edge and then made an impassible cliff a half-mile out from the mountain. The only way to get to her lair would be to fly over the half-mile-high smooth rockface.

As Adam walked around the lair he had the nanites analyze and record the structure of the mountain and Adaline’s lair. While he walked around Adaline switched to her High Elf form and watched him. When he was done he came back over to her, “All done, we need to wait about another 30 seconds then we can head to the vault.”

“Why do we need to wait, I thought we were going to move it into the vault and then make the lair after?” she asked.

“Adaline, you’ve seen how fast my nanites can construct something right? Well, now that Thor and I can communicate I can pull on nanites from my home universe. Things will happen a lot faster now,” he explained.

“Oh,” she said.

Adam had Thor open a portal for him with an exit to another portal that opened into the center of the vault aimed at the cliff and mountain behind it in the distance. As Adaline peered through the portal he said, “Go on, fly on over and check out your new lair. I’ll keep track of you. When you’re inside, I’ll shift the exit point so all you’ll need to do is carry your treasure from this cave to the cave in that mountain over there with a couple of steps. You’ll be able to set it up just how you like.”

Adaline ran through the portal and jumped up as she changed into her dragon form and flew to the mountain. He watched as she flew around the circumference of the cliff that her mountain was resting on then landed on the entrance to her cave. Watching her through the nanites he noticed how she looked around in wonder as she sniffed the air. She even went over to one area that looked like it had worn down a bit and provided her a place to rest in her dragon form. Once she was satisfied she transformed into her high elf form and walked over to where her hoard should be. Adam shifted the portal and stepped through as he asked, “What do you think?”

Adaline jumped forward and gave him a long lingering kiss. As she pulled back and stepped away, “I really like it.”

“I can tell. Maybe we can continue that thought later but for now, I need to head back to the entryway to the tower and commune with my Goddess. She contacted me earlier. It seems we have a bit to discuss. I might even learn what happened to the mountain. Will you be okay moving your hoard on your own?” he asked.

“I will be fine, how will I let you know when I’m done?” Adaline asked.

“Well, you see, I have flooded the area with nanites. I haven’t flooded you with them yet, because I do not know if it's even possible, plus I never asked. Anyway, while you’re here both Thor and I can keep track of you. This portal will stay open until you’re done then just ask Me, or Thor to open a portal to the tower for you. I’ll try to come to see you if I have to run off. If not, I’ll relay a message through Thor. As long as you’re in the vault or tower Thor can contact like this.” Immediately Thor spoke from the air. “Hello, Adaline, it is nice to see you again.”

“He can talk to me from anywhere inside the tower?”

“Yep, and he can see and hear you also.”

“Not much for privacy is he?” she asked.

“It’s not like that, but I can see how you could see it that way. Tell you what, Once you’re done moving your hoard into your new lair the nanites will not enter this area. If you need to reach me or Thor you’ll need to come out to the cliff. The Nanites will be in the vault.

“The Tower wasn’t like this before?” Adaline asked tentatively.

“No, and I haven’t flooded it with the nanites yet either. One of the new abilities I was awarded states that I can use the nanites anywhere in this pocket dimension, but I only released them into the vault. I haven’t tried mixing magic and technology so wanted to keep that to a minimum,” then a thought crossed his mind, “Damn.” he said.

“Damn?”

“I just realized; we are in our own pocket universe. The larder may not be resupplied if the portal from Venoran isn’t powerful enough. I’ll have to check with the supply store when I get back to Venoran. In the meantime, I’m going to release nanites into the dining area for now. they will be analyzing anything that enters the room beside us. That way if the larder runs out the nanites can supply us with an endless supply of food.”

“Will it be real food?” she asked.

“Oh yes, it will be an exact copy of whatever it scanned. If we had a Juicy steak, it’d be a juicy steak. Don’t you worry, we won’t go hungry. If that’s all I’m going to head back into the Entryway, release the nanites into the dining room, and contact my Goddess.”

“I’m good, see you in a bit. There is a lot of treasure so I’ll be here for a while.” Adaline said.

“If you’re still moving treasure when I finish communing with Serena I think I might start heading towards the Kingdom of Crimson Blood. I think the Council’s reprieve is just about over,” Adam said as he opened another portal and stepped back into the entryway of the tower.

As the portal closed Adam heard Adeline call out, “Have fun!”