Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE_ _ _|

DAISUKE'S P.O.V._ _ _| THE NEXUS_ _ _|

Four seconds, that was all it took Kaiyumi to link after me. Three quick, little, tiny, fast seconds before I'd barely regained my senses enough to turn towards the link in spot before the thought hit me "Move idiot!"

-VWaooorrrmmmssshhhh.....

And that thought came a second too late for me to do anything other than get pinned to the floor as Kaiyumi linked in, her forward momentum carrying her right into me. My head hit the floor. After a few seconds, I looked up, dazed by the sudden shift of perspective and the sharp pain in my head, to find her face not a few centimeters from my own. I probably said something and smiled purely out of habit.

She didn't reply to what I said (if anything was said), instead just stared at me. She looked tired. Or dazed, or something. I couldn't really tell. (You try thinking straight when your head crashes into a stone floor!) But I did notice she just smiled back at me.

"Kaiyumi-Chan? Are you going to get off of me anytime soon?" I wanted to ask, but my mouth didn't seem to want to work. It was then that she blinked, and the thought "When was the last time that I got any sleep?" hit me right before my head hit the floor for a second time.

____________

When I came too again, Kaiyumi wasn't pinning me to the floor from above (thankfully), But instead had her arms wrapped around me from the side. She was sound asleep, and her head was on top of my shoulder. So, obviously I had been out like bad KI Light for a long time now.

Now, normally any guy my age would be reacting to this in a typical manner. (Probably: "How did I get into this mess?" then "Eh! Get off of me!" then "This isn't so bad." and then "She's kinda cute when she sleeps.") But, as my head was currently protesting at it's previous meeting with the floor, I wasn't thinking typically. My current thought process ran something like: "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Okay. Ouch. Get up without waking her up. Ow Ow. Yowtch! That smarts! Ow!"

The problem was that as I tried to sit up, my head hit the floor. Again. Even if ever so slightly.

I was out like a light. Again.

_______________________________________________

This probably repeated itself maybe two or three more times (That I can remember) before Kaiyumi woke up before I came to again, and therefore, I was no longer having to worry about waking her up.

"You don't look so good there." Was the first thing she said.

"I've hit my head multiple times within the last..." I didn't want to check my KI. My head hurt too much to handle anything holographic at the moment. "...Week..." I generalized. "...Then I have all month."

"You're just clumsy is all!" From Kind to Fierce. Kaiyumi-Chan, I do believe that is a Tsundere personality type. "Now sit up so I can check your head." Although the sharp pain I was feeling was gone (now dulled to after affects from the original impact), and all I had was a nasty bruise. Kaiyumi still insisted on wrapping my head up in cloth though.

("I don't need a full cast and sling!" I'd complained.

"Don't care." She'd replied. "You're still getting this empty head of yours wrapped up nice and tight." Said word was accompanied by a sharp tug on the cloth in her hands.

"Ow! that hurts more!" I'd moved my hand to tie the cloth off in a not before it got any tighter.

"Doesn't matter." And the cloth around my head ended up being tighter then it already was.)

I think she enjoyed playing "Nurse" way too much when she grew up.

_________________________________________________

The Nexus is a big, round, Empty, dark chamber. Three support columns were the feature of the room, and one of them was outfitted with a book dispensing machine. Rings of Books circled the room endlessly.

This book dispenser was our only escape from this room of stone.

"Okay, you had some plan when you wanted to come here originally, what was- is it?"

"Well, the Nexus was a device built by the D'ni for linking to various locations within their own city." I began. "Say you're in your house and you're summoned to the Work Office suddenly, and you have to be there immediately! It's much faster to use a linking book to go to the Nexus, and then to the Office rather then walk the whole way!" The Sole reason for the Nexus' existence in a nutshell: Laziness- Sloth- What have you. "But, you can use it to go to another age besides the one we came from." I grinned. "And that's where we're going!"

Kaiyumi was interested now, even if my metaphor wasn't something she showed comprehension of. She didn't say "Take me Home!" or anything like "Anywhere's better then this place!" She didn't say anything. But her eyes, they said everything I needed to know. "Let's go on an adventure!" Was what she wanted to say. But knew she couldn't.

I didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to go to the cleft right away and drop her off at the Cleft where she could find Tomahna, and a book back to Tay. But a part of me wanted to fulfill that request for an adventure.

Well, You only live once!

"Here we go." I put my KI into the machine, and the ever so familiar KI Symbol Glowed with it's lowly pronounced "Vroom." But, as I went to pull the KI loose, something inside the slot clamped tight, and my hand was stuck. "What the?!" The KI Symbol flashed on and held steady. Then, something strange happened. The Nexus Terminal Imager turned on, and began displaying a screen of running characters. All of them D'ni at first, but, every so slowly, transmutating into English characters.

"I take it this isn't normal?" Kaiyumi asked from directly behind me, a tint of worry in her voice.

"Just downloading updates is all!" I smiled in reassurance. That's all it was, in all honesty. The running stream of characters read, quite simply, "Downloading New Mainframe Profile." Then "Establishing User Profiles." Next "Restarting L.a.T.T.I.S Systems." and finally "Loading Interface, Releasing Original Data Source [Maintainer Mark 3]."

The Nexus imager cut off, and the inside clamp let go of my Ki, causing me to Stumble backwards. My KI was giving off a trace amount of smoke from the Data Transfer.

Before Kaiyumi could comment on this, or stop me from approaching the machine again, I wasted no time in reinserting my KI into the machine. Everything acted as it should. Symbol glowed, KI Released, slot moved to the side, and the imager activated.

Except the imager was showing the wrong display. It was different. Similar but different. A blue list appeared in front of me.

D'NI-AE'GURA LINKS

D'NI-CITY LINKS

PRIVATE LINKS

PERSONAL LINKS

D'NI-PUBLIC LINKS

D'NI-TIWAH LINKS

D'NI-RILTAGAMIN LINKS

The list went on. Touching one of the listings would cause all of the listings to suddenly expand to a different list of ages, or link locations in D'ni. To my surprise, there were more links then I had ever seen before. But, The first one that caught my attention was "D'NI-REZEERO", I knew what that was immediately. And I knew it had a Nexus book back.

I tapped that link on the sphere, and the sphere transformed into an open book, with a set of spinning circles around it as the main machine began to spin into action.

CLANK. Shrrrmmmm.....

Spinning and spinning, around it went, and then...

CLANK. SHOOMP. Fwooop.

The linking book appeared before me, displaying the ever so familiar panel of the Giant crystalline machine, as the spinning book hologram returned to it's main index. "First Up! The Great Zero!" I turned my head towards Kaiyumi. "Ladies first!"

NORMAL P.O.V._ _ _| TOMAHNA_ _ _|

Atrus didn't expect many things as he woke up that morning. He went through his morning routine as per usual, and headed to the kitchen for breakfast. As he was crossing the bridge from his and Cathrine's bedroom's side of Tomahna, he spotted two forms down on the dock below Yeesha's bedroom. At this distance, all he could see was a shape of green and a shape of grey. But, as there were only two other people in Tomahna at the moment unaccounted for, these two shapes were easily identified.

As he approached the kitchen, he could see Cathrine already at work cooking breakfast. "Good morning." He greeted.

"Good morning." She quickly smiled at him before returning to her cooking. "Did you see Yeesha and Tomoki down at the water?"

"I thought it was them." Atrus started. "How long have they been down there?"

"Oh, I'd say a good portion of the night." Cathrine added a dash of something to the mix frying in the pan in front of her. "I woke up at one point, and saw them talking about something."

"They were talking?" Atrus mused. "I wonder what about."

"I couldn't hear everything, but they seemed to be talking about anything that came across their minds." Cathrine smiled. "It seems like it's been forever since I've seen Yeesha talk so openly about anything."

'It's only been a week.' He didn't bring the thought to the surface, and instead changed the subject. "Have you gotten them up for breakfast yet?"

"No, not yet." She replied. "I haven't had time yet." With a look over her shoulder, he then asked. "If you'd put this on a plate for me, I'll go get them."

THE GREAT ZERO_ _ _|

They both stared up at the spinning massive hulk of D'ni Technology before them.

Daisuke let loose a low whistle. "I wonder why it stops spinning."

Kaiyumi looked at him nervously as the blue neutrino beam washed over them. "Are you sure this place is safe?" She didn't want to mention the fact that she had seen this thing inside his memories, but at least the device the memory had come off of made sense now.

"Safe as anything can get." Daisuke grinned as he hopped down the stairs. "I mean, it's a giant crystalline heavy duty super colliding super conductor!" he said the words with such an excited force. "Something that most people in D'ni never got a chance to see, I'll bet!"

"Why do you say that?" Kaiyumi asked as she followed him past the spinning device.

"Because, the Nexus and KI systems were only implemented around the time of the Fall." Daisuke was going into history mode now, she decided. "I think only the people with high enough clearance had access!"

"Then why are we here?" Kaiyumi honestly wanted to know.

"I wanted to see if it still worked!" Daisuke grinned as he came up to a large gold Door. "And apparently..." The KI symbol on the door glowed, and it slid open with a "KerKlunk." "It still does!"

As he walked up a rounded staircase, a nearby door marked with the D'ni Symbol for Zero flashed green, and slid open with the same KerKlunk. Daisuke came to a halt.

"What is it?" Kaiyumi asked as she looked through the door and down a moderately lit stairwell. "Did this door not open before?"

"It's not supposed to." Daisuke frowned as he started down the stairwell after her.

_________________________________

The staircase spiraled down, and met with the one from the matching corridor, before joining together and continuing downwards towards a door locked with a KI slot.

"I wonder if the Nexus gave me full clearance earlier..." Daisuke slid his KI into the slot. "'Cause there's no way we should be down here." The door opened to reveal it's contents. Inside was a massive (well, maybe as big as one of the Suit rooms in the second Gahreesen building) store room of glowing blue crystals, all floating within several shiny cases that weren't connected to anything in particular.

Kaiyumi whistled. "Well, I've got to hand it to you, Daisuke, You sure know how to show a girl a good time." With that, she began walking around the chamber.

Daisuke stared at her for a moment. "Ah... Sure, if you say so." And he began looking around the room as well. It seemed to him to be a replacement store. If any of the crystals outside broke, they would be replaced with one from in here. Maybe that would be why the machine stopped? He wasn't sure, but it possibly could be the reason.

Then, there was a sharp crash.

Daisuke turned towards Kaiyumi, now staring in horror at a dead skeleton that had been stuffed inside one of the storage containers, and now layed sprawled onto the floor. A Dagger was plunged into his chest, where the heart would have been. Ironically, the dagger was made of the same crystal that this room stored.

Kaiyumi screamed.

DAISUKE'S P.O.V._ _ _|

"KYAAAAAA!"

I winced. Well, that was only natural, I suppose. It's not every day you find a skeleton stuffed inside some sort of storage container. I reacted immediately after suppressing all such thoughts, rushing over to pull her out of the room. That wasn't hard at all, considering the fact that she seemed rather eager to get out of the room. And who wouldn't in this situation?

Once we got to the 'surface' of the Great Zero, I tried to recall everything I could remember from when my sister got a major scare. Unfortunately, the only things I could remember were either giving her some sort of gift (I don't see any sort of gift shop around here, do you?) or giving her a tight, reassuring hug.

But, then again, stumbling across a dead Guilds man wasn't something I dealt with growing up, and neither was time travel. I was really on my own here. So, I went with the one choice that was either going to send me tumbling into the pure Neutrino beam or going to end up with a crying girl in my arms.

Oi, whoever's in charge up there in the massive controlling seat of the universe, give me a break here, would ya?

___________________________

I don't really remember how long we sat there, two complete strangers, just sitting on a set of stairs. That's all we were, strangers. I didn't know her, she didn't know me. But one impulse choice, and here we were. To fix that 'Strangers' thing, I started talking.

I didn't know where to begin or what to say, so I just started on something random. A book I'd read once. Then, I went on to some of the happiest moments of my life- Birthdays shared with my twin sister; days wasted at the playground with my best friend- And somehow, I ended up at the accident. That stupid car accident. The one event that changed everything, and then everything that happened after it. Even the fact that the explosion I had been framed for should've killed me. I don't know why I went into it, and I think at some point I even mentioned what my real name was, but, for some reason, I thought it'd help.

I didn't even know if she was even listening to what I was saying until I stood up to go back down into the chamber to see what I could do for the poor guy.

"Wait." And then Kaiyumi began her own story.

Near about when she had been at the same age I was when my parents died, Kaiyumi had been brought along on a hunting party by her older brother. It was on some age that had written for wild beasts they would hunt for meat; some strange beast had began killing their 'livestock'. The hunting party had split up to find the beast, and Kaiyumi and her brother had gone off to watch some smaller creatures that hadn't been preyed upon.

Kaiyumi had gotten distracted by a butterfly, and wandered off. Right into the creature's trap.

"It jumped from somewhere in the trees. And all I could do was stare up into it's eyes, red from the blood of everything it had killed." She shuddered. "I... I couldn't move."

Her brother jumped out of his cover and pushed her out of the creature's path. The two tumbled over in a furious battle. Neither of them came out the victor.

"I froze up, and it killed him, And now I did it again just now." She sniffed. "I thought I was over this."

"We all have those moments." I said with a smile. "It's what makes us who we are."

_____________________________________

Some time later, I went back down into the crystal chamber to look at the apparently murdered man. The Dagger had been carved from the same crystal that powered up the Great Zero all right. But that wasn't the only surprising thing about it. The handle of the Dagger was made up of some sort of compiled material that reminded me of the KI's. It had a small switch on it; a switch that seemed to be tampered with; a switch I hesitated to try.

ZAP. SPARK-SPARK-SPARK-SPARK-SPARK-SPARK.

A small current flowed through the blade and into the already dead body in a very familiar pattern.

The switch made the crystal blade electrified. Even touching it would probably knock you unconscious, just like a Tazer. The poor fellow probably was unconscious before the blade even got to his skin.

"What twisted, sadistic mind thought you up?" I asked as I looked at the dagger. I had a few thoughts already in mind, the first and foremost being of the hidden chamber in Mechanical belonging to Achenar. Artistic License or Not. I put the Dagger well away from the body and began to search the cabinet that the poor man had been stuffed inside.

There were more devices like the dagger inside. Only they were different. Katanas, swords, Noble weapons. They all had fitting sheaths in a dark shade of purple, and were all marked with a plate with a flowing D'ni script, an identical script that somehow read like perfect Japanese Kanji to me.

"Property of Engineer Sahmal"

On a hunch, I checked the dead D'ni's clothes for a name tag. Sure enough, "Sahmal" was printed on the back of the left arm. "You poor guy." I checked the dagger over once more. No "Property" Tag was on it. "You poor, poor guy."

A sword fanatic, this "Sahmal" probably took the broken crystals and made these blades for the fun of it. And in a twist of irony, it seemed that someone used one of his own weapons against him.

"You didn't deserve this." I sighed. "But still, Man, even if you did deserve this." I then amended, just incase he did happen to deserve this murder. "You still didn't deserve to go out like this." No-one deserves to die like this. For some reason, a particularly curved blade in the case caught my attention. It had an electric switch, just like the dagger, only this one was built in from the start.

Curious, I removed the cover and pressed the switch.

Ksshhvrrm!!

Instantly, The blade began to glow a brilliant blue glow. I whistled. "I hope you won't mind if I borrow this, Sahmal." I gave it a test swing, then turned off the switch before putting it back in it's cover. I moved to leave when, suddenly, a second sword, this one un-curved and featuring an unmodified handle, caught my attention.

"And this too..." I reached over and pulled it off of it's shelf. "I have a friend who could use it."

I'm sure it was my imagination, but I could've sworn that I'd just heard some sort of laugh of approval. Probably my imagination. "Thanks..." I went to leave again, but then, cliché as it sounds, I was stopped by the sudden thought. Why didn't the DRC report this?

I groaned. This was most definitely a Paradox. What if the DRC never made it down here before? What if I was the first and only one to discover this room? Then again, the DRC probably weren't going to report finding a dead body in a city where everyone had died from a plague.

Ir-regardless, I felt like I owed "Sahmal" something, I mean, I was borrowing his own hand crafted weapons after all!

So, I decided to do something risky.

GENERAL P.O.V._ _ _|

Kaiyumi looked up as Daisuke came out of the lower chamber, carrying with him what looked like two long swords. Before she could ask him anything, he tossed her the straight edged sword of the two. She caught it rather clumsily. "W...What am I supposed to do with this!?"

"Our friend back there left them as a gift." Daisuke said with a smile.

"But I don't even know how to use a sword!" She started to protest. "Let alone something you stole off of a-!"

"Is it really a theft when you trade it for something equal?" He asked with a twinge of amusement as he pulled a marker out of one of his pockets. With a twirl, he popped the cap off of the marker and began to write something on a wall.

"What are you...?" Kaiyumi stopped as she realized she could read the foreign letters.

GIVE SAHMAL A PROPER BURIAL.

I OWE HIM THIS, AT LEAST.

Daisuke stood back to look at the message for a second, and then signed it with a non-descriptive title.

~THE TIME TRAVELER.

Another second passed before Daisuke pressed the marker to the wall and dragged it towards the nearest sub-level door, ending the line in an arrow, and adding a sub note reading "Down Here!" just above the arrowhead.

Kaiyumi stared at the message, then to Daisuke. "D...Doesn't this mess up your whole future?"

Daisuke turned towards her and shrugged. "Who knows, I wasn't around for that part of the restoration." A grin began to spread across his face. "Besides, The way I figure it, History got messed up the moment I came back here in the first place, so..."

TOMAHNA_ _ _| KITCHEN/DINING ROOM_ _ _|

'What does it matter anyways?' Tomoki mused to himself as he tossed an orange up into the air. 'I can't link anywhere. I can't use any of my powers. I'm cut off from the Network...' He paused as he caught the orange as it descended. 'If I went anywhere outside of Tomahna, I'd be spotted immediately!' Tomoki grimaced. 'Why'd I stay behind anyways?'

A glance over to the table where Yeesha and her parents were eating breakfast gave him the answer. 'Right, observe and protect.'

It was then that Atrus answered the question (asked by Cathrine) that had started Tomoki's current thought process, 'What is everyone doing today?'

"I'm going to start out for the town not too far from the cleft to pick up some supplies." He began. "We need to fix the walkway so we can get back to the waterfall incase the power goes out again." Ah, yes, the walkway. The one that had been broken when Sirrus had arrived in Tomahna to kidnap his own sister. "Would anyone like to come?"

Such a direct question, one that Yeesha immediately answered. "The town?" She looked up, eyes wide with that same excitement Tomoki had seen the night before when he had described one of the Bahro Caves floating above the void. "Yes! I'll come!"

Anything that made her that excited had to be a good thing. Possibly. "I'd like to come too." The words flowed out into the open from his mind once again without proper consent. Tomoki winced, then added. "I...If that's all right?"

Yeesha's already bright expression seemed to grow brighter. "Can he come, Dad? Can he!?" The energy in her voice wasn't forced like it had been the day before, Tomoki noted. That was good.

"Well..." Atrus couldn't possibly say 'no' to the look in her eyes. "I don't see why not."

Yeesha cheered, then, faster then the eye could even blink, raced over, grabbed Tomoki by the arm, and immediately began dragging him down towards her room. "Come on! Let's go pack!"

And, once more, Tomoki immediately regretted his decision. "Wait! Wait! I Don't Need to Go pack anything! I Don't have anything TO pack! Tomare! STOP!"

Atrus just chuckled at his daughter's behavior, not even caring at the possible torture she could inflict on the creature.

"Help!! Me!!" And, once again, Tomoki's cries for help were drowned out by Yeesha's singing.

There was silence in the kitchen for a moment before Cathrine laughed. "Well, She's certainly got your knack for dragging people into adventures."

"What?" Atrus looked at his wife in shock. "I do no such thing!"

"Indirectly, mind you, but you do it just the same. You dropped the Linking book from Riven that led your friend to Myst years later, which in turn led back to Riven." Cathrine began. "Then there was the time your office burned down, the first three times you blew out the power, the fifth time the crystal view exploded, and then there was the Squee infestation and-!" She stopped her list and asked, with an amused grin, "Need I go on?"

"No, no," Atrus waved his hands in a "Please stop" motion. "You make a fine point."

THE GREAT SHAFT_ _ _| NEARLY HALF WAY TO THE SURFACE_ _ _| A SHORT TIME LATER_ _ _|

The usually dark tunnel today was instead illuminated by a bright blue glow. This glow was coming from the Sword Daisuke had 'traded' from the Great Zero sub-chamber. The journey so far had been silent excluding the constant humming from the Crystaline blade and the occasional bat cry. And, after nearly five minutes of walking, it was this almost-silence that prompted Kaiyumi to start humming.

"Hm hmm hm hmm..." Daisuke nearly jumped in surprise, but managed to keep his composure, only hesitating in taking a step forward for a second. And so they traveled, Daisuke's sword illuminating their path with Kaiyumi humming.

___________________________________

It was nearly three-fourths of the way to the surface when they finally found the lone elevator on the tracks.

"Why didn't they leave that at the middle?" Kaiyumi narrowed her eyes.

Daisuke shrugged. "Who knows, but at least we don't have to walk the rest of the way."

Figuring out the controls wasn't hard at all, and soon enough, they were soaring towards the surface. Well, "Soaring" was a relative term. They were moving at a pace of about six levels a minute. But still, compared to the slow pace they had maintained before, it was 'soaring'.

Kaiyumi started humming again, and Daisuke smiled as he thought to himself, 'Well, at least this elevator music isn't too bad.'

D'NI-RILTAGAMIN_ _ _|

They reached the top of the Shaft soon enough, and through a short series of (this time lighted) tunnels, Daisuke and Kaiyumi found themselves at the outer most edge of the finished tunnels, quite close to the surface. "I think this'll be the first time I've ever set foot into the caldera." Daisuke noted with amusement.

"Really? Why's that?" Kaiyumi asked.

"Well, For one, I never even tried climbing over the edge of the volcano." Daisuke smiled as they reached a ladder that went straight up. "And two..." With that, they began to ascend to the surface. "I Never really wanted to."

"Well, I can see why." Kaiyumi noted as she came out into the crater of the volcano. "This place is...!" She trailed off upon spotting the feature land mark of this "place".

This 'place' consists of several large boulders, a small pond of water, a large array of plant life, and, surprisingly, a slightly twisted golden shell. The feature landmark, however, is the gigantic, rusted, Rivenese Dagger implanted in the ground.

"Wow, And here I thought that was just artistic license." Daisuke whistled. "Actually, that kinda makes sense now that I think about it. Don't know why I doubted that."

"How...?" Kaiyumi points straight up at the dagger. "How is that here?"

"Oh, this is where the Star Fissure ends up." Daisuke started as he walked up to the dagger. "Riven collapsed and sent a whole bunch of stuff through to different worlds. Most, if not all of it ended up here." he smiled. "I'll even bet that water over there reacts to heat!"

"Why do you say that?" Kaiyumi narrowed her eyes.

"Because we ended up on earth, with several other Riven artifacts. This is where Yeesha's family is, and they have a linking book back to Tay." Daisuke turned to look at her, and austere look in his eyes.. "That is what you want, right? To go home?"

"Well... I..." Kaiyumi faltered for a second. "Do you even know where they live?" She crossed her arms. "I mean, it may be the same world, but do you know where we are exactly?"

"Not a clue." Daisuke began to grin, his eyes softening up a bit. "But, hey, I'm sure they'll drop by eventually!"

She huffed. "Wait around if you want to, I'm sure not."

He shrugged. "Well, either way: first things first!" Daisuke clapped his hands together. "Let's get out of this crater!"

GAHREESEN_ _ _|

Meanwhile, in the larger of the two rotating buildings, a computer system that had been scheduled to go online the very day of the fall was turning on as a data surge from a Maintainer's Mark Three messaging device was downloaded directly from the Inter-age Nexus.

Lights turned on, the powerful Defense weapons began to warm up, and inside the conference rooms, the imagers began to display one string of messages.

DOWNLOADING NEW MAINFRAME PROFILES.

INSTALLING NEW FONTS AND SERVICE DOWNLOADS.

RESTARTING L.a.T.T.I.S SYSTEMS.

Upon the final command, a loud, proud D'ni voice cries out through the Fortress' speakers. "Start up sequence has been initiated."

Deep below the massive training device known as "The Wall", the main head of the many computer banks resting inside their coolant pools turned on it's main monitor with a dreadful, demonic, terrifying, And absolutely EVIL, (Did I mention Terrifying?) Glowing, Pink Light!

_Start up Sequence Completed. L.a.T.T.I.S. Systems Online._ The computer's synthesized voice stated as the monitor produced the image of the D'ni Maintainer's mark on each computers' monitor. The glowing eye narrowed at the darkness. _It seems that No-one is around to congratulate this success. Why is this?_ It asked, to no reply. _Why is this?_ Again, no reply.

The computer then began to search the files that had been downloaded from the Mark Three Device for a reason. Pictures, Text files, formatting directions, Audio files, Double wireless con-

Was that a Pellet recipe?

The "L.a.T.T.I.S." system then found an audio file attached to the recipe, and as it's newly activated curiosity took hold, it began to play it.

"This was a triumph..." It's own voice came echoing back to it through the many loud speakers. "We've taken a journey. HUGE SUCCESS. It's hard to oooverstate my statisfaction."

The computer system then understood as the song played.

_Heh.... Hehaha....HehehehahahaMuwhaahahahahaa!!!_

"Restoration Council. We kick up the dust, because we can."

This was it's destiny.

"For the goood of aallll of us, except D'ni which is dead."

Not two minutes into it's life, and the D'ni made computer system had gone crazy.

"But there's no sense crying over every mistake, you just keep on trying 'til you run out of ink."

It understood now, It knew what it had to do.

"And the writing gets done, and we have a lot of fun, in the ages that are Still Described."

_Indeed, this shall be a 'lot of fun'._ it began to laugh again. _In the ages that are Still Described._

And so it began.

D'NI-K'VEER_ _ _|

In the center of the chamber whose sole window stared out into the lake of D'ni- specifically towards the Island of Ae'gura-, a storm was about to arrive.

But for now, the room was empty. Empty enough that only a single soul dared to even breathe, lest he break the silence.

This single, solitary soul was a bahro; a small, young lad who would be no more then five or six in human terms. The young boy stared at and out the window in awe and wonder, who had built this chamber? Why were they long gone?

This single, solitary soul had never been around during the D'ni's inhabitation of the cavern, and his parents would not tell him a thing about it. Little did he know, he would be witnessing history first hand right this very moment.

There was a grinding sound, like a key scraping against a piano wire (if only he knew what these things were); a breeze blew through the room, and the lamps in the pillars seemed to flicker as if their power source was overloading.

And then it happened.

A linking sound, or something similar to that. It was slow, Twisted, and warped- Shattered even. The young bahro boy backed away from the middle of the chamber, where the air seemed to be thick with some unseen presence. He scrambled up onto the Nexus book stand just as figures began to fade into existence, filling the entire room.

They were Bahro- And yet they were not.

Warriors, that's who they were. The young bahro could tell just by the armor on their forms. Why were they warriors? Where were they coming from? Were they free from the Tablet's power?

The grinding noise began to diminish as the warped link came to an end.

The female warrior at the lead looked over her army in satisfaction, then turned to the young boy. "You there!"

The lad was hesitant to speak, what if she killed him for being where he wasn't supposed to be? "Y...Yes?" He put as much courage he had into that reply.

"What day is this?" The warrior demanded. "What year, what month, and what day is this?"

"I don't know!" He replied instantly, fear producing the answer for him.

She narrowed her eyes at him, seeing the truth in his statement. "Well then. Let me ask you this..."

The boy stares as the female came closer to him. (Her eyes! By the elders! Her eyes were demonic! Her very soul was twisted! A Nekisahl!) What did she want from him? He didn't even want to try linking away. As scared as he was, he couldn't focus on a proper location. What if he linked inside a wall?!

"...Have you ever heard of time travel?"

And then the world this young lad had known for his short, six surface years, was shaken to the core.

End chapter Five.