Beat the Heat

[Ohm Zui]

The escape pod, transported across space from one place of intense heat to another, juddered to a halt as it arrived in the magma chamber of its destination. The interior was already boiling, and upon arrival another of the heat resistance runes fizzled and died.

Ohm Zui was not a creature well adapted to high temperatures. Their amoeboid membrane was already feeling taut and papery, after minutes in a steadily hotter compartment. Ohm passed a flagella to the scratches they had picked up from the escape from Govermorne, and drew it back to see plenty of congealing blue lathered over the flagella.

“That… doesn’t look… good.” The arcanist who had helped Ohm implement their jury-rigged design was clearly struggling with the heat. A lot of the passengers were.

Ohm shook their head weakly. Up until they had crossed the boundary between Govermorn’s slag ocean and wherever they were now, they had been operating off an intense need to solve the puzzle of escape and a tenacious resolve to beat whatever or whoever was responsible for the planet’s plight. Now…

They wiped their flagella wearily on a nearby rag. Now was not the time to sit down and hope that they would be alright. The escape pod had already beaten the odds and survived not only being fired the wrong direction, but also managed to complete a near blind jump through a fire-aligned leyline. Now was the time to make sure that that counted.

The jury rigged automation was already at work. Ohm glanced through steamed up goggles at the navigation, checking the lights. That light was on so they should be… correcting course? Ah, that was now turning to face upwards. Which would require the counterweights to spin. Which they weren’t doing.

“Ba-zoo… hey, I need someone who can connect wires.”

Ohm’s voice came out raspy, their nose rattling uncomfortably against their vocal and sensory organs. It barely carried far. That wasn’t good enough, five minutes ago they had been staring down the console and clearly reading out the results. They prepared to speak again.

“Hey!”

The gendarme squirrel woman, Alix, spoke up loud and clear, voice cutting through the sweltering heat.

“Ohm needs someone who can connect wires!”

Ohm glanced gratefully at her, and Alix returned the look with a nod. A few murmurs came from around the cabins before one young woman, barely older than a girl, raised a shaking hand. Ohm gestured for her to crawl over, and the woman did so, picking her way gingerly around the poor soul who’d broken their neck and the vomit of those nearby.

The woman crawled over, mechanical legs whining feverishly as the fans inside struggled to cope with the motion.

“Um… wires. Soldering iron… leg.”

“Good.” Ohm spoke with relief. “The hatch. At the bottom…”

Ohm trailed off. They stared up at the hatch that had previously been in the floor, before the bullet had been inverted during loading. The hatch that was, therefore, now on the ceiling.

The woman filled their gaze, and let out a soft whimper. Ohm didn’t blame her. Climbing up there would involve copious contact with the hot metal of the outer walls, and a risky jump from what was now the top compartment.

It wouldn’t be too bad for Ohm to do it.

A voice in the back of Ohm’s mind, the voice that told him that he’d failed a puzzle, the voice that told him he’d made a defence that the defenders would suffer at… a voice was ignored. It had to be.

It wouldn’t be… too bad… for Ohm to do it.

“I need to borrow the soldering iron.”

The woman nodded, clearly relieved, and detached the power cell and soldering iron from their left leg. The lead was then wound tightly, and the bundle handed to Ohm.

Alix and the arcanist looked uncomfortable. They didn’t speak up. Ohm was grateful for it.

It wouldn’t… it couldn’t… be too bad. Ohm had to do it.

Returning flagella that had already been pushed to their limit to the propeller, Ohm unsteadily climbed into the air.

The silence was as oppressive as the heat. No-one in the compartment could bear to speak up. Aside from the engraver, who had been hard at work this entire time (Ohm envied the man his immense stamina, his gritty determination, and most of all, his ability to sweat copious amounts of expended refrigerant), no-one was up to giving support, let alone trying to help.

Metre by hard won metre, Ohm climbed towards the hatch. Two metres left. One metre left.

It… hadn’t been… too bad. Ohm had done it.

Ohm needed a drink.

Ignoring the thirst was… well, Ohm was going to focus on solving the puzzle of what bit of jury rigging hadn’t worked. Puzzles were good. Ohm was good at them.

Wires, swimming through the air. No, that was the dizziness. Ohm perched on their propeller and rested their eyes for a moment, letting the exhaustion seep away. A moment later, they were ready.

Red wire, check. Blue wire, check. Control lead, check. Flywheel axle brake, check.

If those were all connected…

It was the gyroscope.

Ohm looked at the gyroscope. It was blinking, slowly, a piece of digital and pneumatic engineering inside the clockwork.

A loose wire.

Ohm soldered the connection back in place, vaguely registering the piece of debris that had knocked it loose. They focused as the gyroscope whirred.

It beeped.

And the screen required a manual reset.

In a programming language Ohm didn’t understand.

Ohm… was okay with this.

This was a puzzle.

And they could solve those.

---

Two minutes of careful pressing of buttons and switches, Ohm had readjusted the gyroscope. The sound of flywheels beginning to spin filled the baking oven of an escape capsule, and a weak cheer rose from below, barely four voices. The pod began to turn, and Ohm took the moment of ease to buzz weakly, painfully out of the hatch before the pod righted itself and the propellant fired again, the pod thrusting towards the surface.

Aware that this could take a lot of time, perhaps more time than they had to live, Ohm pulled their pneumatic post and phonic piece from their pack.

Time to do research.

---

exodusAlighted started a private message
exodusArrived: miningDespot
miningDespot: eA! you’re alive!?
eA: Yes
eA: But
eA: I need help
mD: you escaped G in a pod
eA: Yeah
mD: uI is the spacefarer closest to G right now
eA: Not in space
mD: … you escaped by pod, but you’re not in space. wtf eA
eA: GPS says Nos
mD: Nos? Where abouts?
eA: 500 metres below the surface of lava volcano’s fire moat.
eA: but rising
eA: slowly.
mD: I… take it you need rescue.
eA: Yeah. We’re baking alive.
eA: Most of us should survive to the surface.
eA: But I doubt we’ll be in any state to eject.
eA: I’m… not sure I’ll make it that far.
eA: mD, I’m going to send you some data dumps over the next few hours. It’ll have as much information as I can gather from the Medium.
eA: If I don’t make it, get it to someone who can use it.
mD: ...don’t die
eA: I’ll try.
exodusAlighted sent miningDespot a location.

 

[Ohm Zui]

Two hundred metres left to go, and the engraver had reached the end of their stamina. Ohm didn’t blame them. The zoombini had been simply lying limply on a few clothes, sending and receiving messages through their pneumatic piece, and they could feel themselves shuddering and struggling to breath. The more water that they lost, the more concentrated their insides would become, and at some point they’d lose consciousness. Ohm wasn’t sure of the exact amount of time a zoombini could last without water, let alone the inside of an oven.

Until that point, they were going to just… pretend everything was fine. Every so often they had to blink rapidly to moisten their dried out eyes, extremely glad that their goggles meant that evaporation was kept to a minimum. They’d gone from using both flagella to one to weakly tapping their device on the floor, moving intelligence from one place to another, sewing together a picture of what exactly was going on.

It was interesting, they noted as they perused a letter downloaded from Cevanti, how rapidly the situation had developed. Enemy action in Govermorne was swift and brutal, with a miasma that had spread rapidly across the planets surface serving as cover to an outburst of demons, mutations and strange warping of creatures and beings. But Cevanti was not. A lot of demons had appeared there (Ohm double checked the descriptions and yes, they were the same winged monsters) but no miasma, no choking and overwhelming tide of enemies. The warship over Govermorne had not moved from orbit, as one might expect if it was the catalyst for the overwhelming assault. The evidence pointed towards there having been hidden movements and quiet attacks well before they arrived on the scene.

Talking with other survivors that had come online helped Ohm paint a stronger picture. Those who had escaped Ashport had flown in ship after ship past the giant warship, and some had been able to take pictures. Those pictures had quickly brought the ensignia of the being behind this to the fore: a arched gate, apparently called an omega, used by some civilisations as a letter and common symbol of the end. With it, several conspiracy theorists had linked it to several archaic ruins on Kraw and Cevanti, both of which contained references to nine arbiters, despite the general acceptance of there being eight (plus Karl Jak, but they were new on the scene). This ‘ninth arbiter’ was referenced by a variety names, but combined with a broadcast that had been intercepted from a selection of suicidal last stands in orbit and on the surface of Govermorne it was soon clear the name of their enemy. Of Ohm’s enemy. Darkseid.

Who this being was, what they were capable of, that was still to be determined. But already people of the Crossroads were moving into action. Ohm dropped copies of their compiled information anonymously into the inboxes of several members of a faction that had managed to launch a space station from Erde Nona. If they survived here (they would survive here (they were dying)) they would begin correspondence proper.

Ohm rested their eyes, exhaustion making their body throb with pain. There wasn’t much more they could do.

“Hey”

A raspy voice from next to them made Ohm open their left eye. A humanoid woman looked blearily across at them.

“You don’t look so good.”

“Neither do you.”

“You going to make it?”

“... yes.”

“You sure?”

“... yes.”

Almost as if to refute their words, a fizzle of pixels appeared over Ohm’s head. They looked up in curiosity and calm acceptance.

“... no.”

The box that read “Status Effect: Dying of Heat” began to count down, 10 minutes going quietly and quickly. Others began to join them in the air, most with around 30 minutes of time left.

As exhaustion left the passengers in a quiet fugue there was a sudden cutting of the thrust, and gravity slowly toppled the bullet on its side. The pod had breached the surface of the lava… but did they have enough time left?

 

[Edward Elric]

Jake moved at a brisk gallop, outpacing what many steeds were capable of. This was due in part to a high sense of urgency, but there also weren’t many steeds that could grow to a height of twenty feet. There were fewer steeds still that could shrink down to a height of eighteen inches - and not many people’s steeds could talk, either. This was all pretty commonplace for Jake, though.

Moving at nearly thirty miles per hour, they passed a shifting plethora of landscapes that changed gradually over time and with progress. They’d begun their trek in 8-Bitain which was a brilliant and unique cityscape in most areas, and a comical slum filled with gritty underdogs at its worst. From there they’d transitioned to the city outskirts which gave way to a sprawling grassland lined with occasional roads jutting out in the directions of the major settlements. They’d taken the south-bound road towards the aptly named Imagen Nation. Somewhere a few miles short of that destination and off to the west was the spot, marked with a vibrant ‘X’ by their quest giver: a volcano with the title Mount Ventsooveeus.

They had traversed nearly three quarters of the distance at this point, and taken the southern road as far as they could. They’d have to trail-blaze the rest of the way.

“How are we going to find this place?” asked Jake, voice taut with worry. They’d paused momentarily to strategize. “This is some WAY bunk biz, brother!”

“Jake,” Finn nudged him.

“I mean, it could be anywhere!” Jake rolled the map up, and sunk to his knees in despair, now regular sized. He shook his fist to the sky. “By Glob, those survivors are going to die in there! A horrible, gruesome death! This is cray ba-nay-nay!”

Finn jostled Jake once more, more demandingly. “JAKE.”

“They won’t be survivors anymore, man! This is DIRTBALLS. They’re gonna get their buns roasted in that roasty-toasty volcano of DEATH!”

“JAKE!”

“WHAT!?” the magical dog turned his big ol’ eyes Finn’s way, and noticed his pal pointing off in the distance.

“Shushers for a sec. It’s right there, dude.”

Indeed, the volcano towered up over the horizon maybe a few miles in the distance.

They were quiet for a moment, then took the opportunity to share a quick laugh.

“Come on, man. Let’s go de-toast some buns,” urged Finn.

Jake took his cue to balloon up, while the human boy deftly flung himself up in tandem in time to land on the growing dog’s back without missing a beat. They moved from walk to trot to canter lickety-split and were on their way, bee-bopping an improvised tune about toasty buns along the way.

“De-toast some buns, gonna de-toast some buns,
The people need some help and we’re gonna be the ones,
We’re gonna de-skronk those buns, cause toasted buns are no fun!”

The adventurer’s harmonics died out as they drew up close to the volcano. Jake stopped short and allowed his human brother to dismount, and shrunk down as well. As far as mountains went, it was closer to a hill, but it was craggy and scraggy and altogether none too nice looking. Bubbling sounds not unlike a delicious soup emitted from the mouth of it, way up there, though something about the volcanic gasses scenting the air did not hint towards any delicious contents awaiting them at the summit. Despite all of this, the boys began their climb.

“Hey Jake?” Finn grunted, carefully locating foothold after foothold. His ascension seemed practiced.

“Yeah, buddy?”

Jake had grown to his full height once more, able to shift sizes quickly and at will. He was making short work of the climb and was already far ahead of his human pal.

“Mind giving me a hand?”

Jake stopped on the first ledge he found wide enough to stand on and leaned over it. He began to applaud his best friend loudly, and shout loud whooping cries of encouragement.

“You’re doing great, buddy!”

Finn’s eyebrows flattened.

“That is not what I meant, dude.”

At that, the magical mutt stroked his jowls for a moment before the lightbulb went off. “OH! You meant...heh heh. Right.”

At his twenty feet of height, Jake proffered a large human-like paw which Finn took gratefully. In this fashion they scaled the rest of the volcano at a pace that would be the envy of many mountain climbers; when they reached the top they high fived vigorously, and there was much fist-pumping and loud whooping to be had before they remembered exactly what they’d come up here for.

“Dude! The people!” Finn gasped shrilly, pointing into the volcano, mouth a wide ‘O’.

“Are you sure they’re people?” queried Jake, narrowing his eyes. “What if they’re...corruptions?”

Finn slapped him once, quickly, but not with his full strength.

“Snap out of it, Jake. This is no time to whack out with poo brain. We’ve gotta figure out how to get that thing out of there.”

They stared down into the depths of the volcano. There, far below, and near the center of a simmering soup of magma was a huge structure. It had lolled on its side, and looked super-heated - if they’d been geologists, they may have suspected that it had emerged from beneath the lava’s surface recently. However, they were not, and they could venture no such guesses.

“Well, let’s go down there, I guess,” offered Finn, shrugging at his buddy who met his eyes and shrugged right back.

They hopped down a series of jutting platforms in a frantic descent. Those platforms lined up well for a clean trip down for the boys, and they had little concern about their return trip. With a massive, magical, anthropomorphic dog on his side, Finn was pretty sure he could climb back out of here, no prob. Likely they’d have Jake piggy-back the survivors right out of here and onwards to safety, right? What’s the worst that could…

A massive bubble began to form beneath the floating vessel in the volcano, stopping the duo in their tracks.

“What the Bjork!?” screamed Finn, pointing, and looking from Jake to the vessel back to Jake again. “Jake, not good! Not good, not good, not good! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO, MAN!?”

The usually vivacious dog seemed quiet. Thoughtful, even. The spark behind his big black eyes had grown and he had the air of a detective: puzzling, piecing together the situation, and ready to solve the dilemma.

“Hmmm…” Jake began. “I dunno.”

He shrugged.

Then, the bubble surged in size and gave a loud ‘POP’. Both Finn and Jake shrieked audibly, while the force of the lava bubble’s expansion and subsequent eruption projectiled the two story tall escape pod into the air; it travelled rapidly up, then over, then right out of the volcano in a geometrically impressive parabola. They could hear it land with a loud crash, but couldn’t see exactly how it had landed as they were still trapped in the flippin’ volcano! More bubbles were growing by the moment, and the pair of heroes danced from side to side, panicking.

“We gotta get outta here!” yelled Finn.

“If only we had some kind of magical growing way of - “ Jake stopped mid-dance-hop. “...oh.”

He ballooned up, assisting Finn in his climb, and the two emerged from the volcano without looking back; raining globules of lava landed on and around the platform they’d stood just moments earlier. Their escape had been a narrow one, but they didn’t stop to revel in it. They booty-scooted right on down the ash and soot ridden slope of the volcano’s side, right on down to the cracked and charred planetary crust below.

A field’s worth of yards away lay their mission’s objective; point down, highly damaged, and still glowing red-hot was the escape pod buried nose-deep in the ground like a leaning tower from a universe far away and parallel. They approached it in a mad-dash and skidded to a halt just short of its surface, which was radiating heat so palpable that it could be felt from several feet away.

Despite this, Jake rose to his fullest magically expanded height, grabbed a rock, and began battering away at a sealed hydraulic door. Whether it be from Jake’s bashing or from some force unseen inside of the pod itself, a pneumatic hiss alerted the boys to a happening, and the door of the pod began to slide open.

The first being out of the door was an exhausted looking...what was that thing? A small, blue, and tired looking being spilled out of the door in a heap, and landed on the ground before them. Jake shrunk down to stand next to Finn, who ogled the thing with a growing fascination.

“Dude…” the human boy intoned, kneeling down to look at whatever it was he was looking at. “What is that thing?”

The magical dog walked right over and prodded it, prompting an utterance from the being. Whatever it was, it seemed sentient, and had a disclaimer hovering over it’s noggin: ‘Status Effect: Dying of Heat’ in blatant and unignorable pixel text.

“I think it’s dying,” Jake pointed out. He nudged the thing with his foot a couple of times.

“Cut it out, dude,” commanded Finn, glowering at his best friend. He fished around in his green backpack, momentarily, retrieving a water bottle from its depths. It wasn’t ice cold or anything having journeyed the entire duration of the trip with them in a canvas pack, but it was better than nothing and would definitely help with heat exhaustion. “Here ya good, little dawg. It’s water. It’s got that good nooch that’ll de-toast your buns.”

He twisted off the lid to the bottle and went to insert it into the mouth of his designated rescue, only to find that it did not have anything so conventional. Where he may find a mouth on a regular beast or beastette, instead he located a large schnozz. That schnozz, however, lifted right up off the head on a fleshy looking hinge that might pass for a lip (or body, it was impossible to tell) and revealed a grody looking bunk patch of membrane or some jazz. If Finn had known more about this specimen’s culture, or physiology, he might realize what a desperate plight it was in to reveal its biology in such a vulnerable fashion.

Instead, he widened his eyes in something between horror and disgust.

“Dude, just dump the water right on that sudsy looking part,” offered Jake in earnest, pointing at the newly revealed patch of odd goop. “I think it’s trying to ask for it.”

What were unmistakably eyes looming over the raised nose practically begged Finn to do as his dog companion asked.

Closing his eyes, Finn did. He dumped water right on whatever that thing was, and turned his head away, fighting down the urge to gag lest he be perceived as insensitive. It was simply not heroic to wretch over another alien. And besides, that’s like, xenophobic, man.

When the deed was done, the water seemed to absorb into the membrane like a sponge. Jake let out a low whistle, fascinated, while Finn watched with something more akin to the expression one wore while observing a bad accident. He’d emptied about three quarters of the bottle and it didn’t all go down immediately, but it did seem to wick away not dissimilar to the way moisture might get consumed by a towel touching it.

The nose-flap swung shut and covered back up the intimate piece of alien biology, much to Finn’s relief.

“...did they just...baste Ohm with a water bottle?”

A voice from above drew Finn and Jake’s attention - standing in the open doorway of the vessel was a cascade of exhausted and bone-tired faces. Some looked too worn to care, but some of them wore the expression of someone who’d just walked in on a nude granny stepping out of the shower.

The twelve year old boy’s cheeks flushed red and he wished, right then, that he could simply vanish into thin air.

“It’s not what it looks like! I mean, I don’t know what it looks like! I actually don’t even know what it is!”

“I don’t know what it is either, but it was raunchy, dude,” murmured Jake. “Feel like I’ve gotta scrub down my peepers after that.”

Finn elbowed his buddy, and then noticed that the little blue being on the ground was beginning to stir. Their eyes -- previously half-lidded in their most lucid moments -- were now roller-blinding open with some confusion, but also some relief.

“Woohoohoo-hoo-ee!” they yelled, lifting up off the ground with the help of an anatomically confusing propellor. A little sluggish in its trajectory, the creature circled Finn and Jake like a cat with the zoomies despite its clear exhaustion. Being brought back from the brink of death would do that, Finn supposed. Two flagella, tentacle-like appendages, operated the propeller its body seemed to be mounted on.

“You saved me! You’re heroes!”

“Hahaha!~” Finn giggled, pointing at the creature, waggling his eyebrows. “Look at you, little dawg! You’re biiiizooonkers!”

They zoomed around the two adventurers a little more before coming to a stop before them, apparently worn out from the momentary surge of activity. Highly intelligent eyes looked into Finn’s own beady human ones, making him feel strangely seen, and there was a delightful benevolence in those irises that made the boy feel sure that he’d done something wonderful by taking this quest back in 8-Bitain. Seeing it through to its conclusion had been in the cards all along, he knew that, now. Maybe this is part of what he’d been chosen for? Maybe this was what that voice, way back in Sweetzerland, had been trying to harken him for.

...or maybe it was just a small part of it, and the larger leg of the journey was still looming.

“I am Ohm Zui,” bubbled the creature, its voice peppy though bogged down with a weary burr. “...the people on this escape pod and I have undergone a tumultuous journey. You have saved us. We would have cooked to a crisp in that pod!”

“Are you sure you’re not a corruption?” asked Jake, scoping the creature out warily.

“I am sure I am not a corruption,” answered Ohm Zui, bobbing its head, almost mirthful. “I have, in fact, just fled from the corruption.”

“THE CORRUPTION!?” exclaimed Finn, his body taut with excitement. “I’M SUPPOSED TO BE CHOSEN TO STOP THE CORRUPTION FROM TAKING NOS’TALGIA!”

He grinned widely, and fist bumped Jake on the side, down-low style.


“This is it, dude! This little dawg has the answers!” he turned his attention once more towards Ohm Zui, and tried to gather himself a bit. Finn knelt down before Ohm Zui, bowing his head. “Little dawg, would you do me, Finn Mertens, the honor of explaining this crazy biz, so I can stop it from taking over my planet?”

He lifted his gaze to meet the hovering alien’s, while Jake shifted awkwardly next to him there in the soot. This would be the beginning of a wild time in history, they could all feel it. A time of adventure.

This post is to meet the requirements of the quest ""The Fleeing Masses" for the Unmaking event.
Word Count: 2539/2500
+1 zoombini relationship

 

[Ohm Zui]

Ohm Zui buzzed alongside the human as rescuers and rescuees descended the slopes of the volcano. Jake, a remarkably flexible and extendable being, had expanded to carry the weariest of the refugees, especially those who had broken their bones during the ordeal.

As they travelled, the oppressive heat slowly faded. The status effects that hovered over everyone’s heats changed from “Dying of Heat” to “Suffering Heat Exhaustion” and the timers vanished, much to Ohm’s relief. Still, they were looking forward to getting everyone to the nearest village.

Finn, for all their exuberance and excitement, was clearly a genuinely caring individual. Ohm was thankful for their aid, mentally making rude gestures at the voice that had doubted in their own survival chances. The zoombini was more than happy to help fill the human in on everything going on across the crossroads, but they couldn’t help but feel like they should do something else on top of that. Something with a personal touch.

As they flew down the next stretch of the volcano, a glint of metal caught their eye. Hidden behind a small, fiery red bush was a large hunk of metal ore, embedded in a hunk of obsidian. Ohm flew over to examine it. Fascinated at the clearly unnaturally lucrative find, they landed next to it and poked at it with a flagella.

It vanished in a pop and fizzle of light, and a new icon appeared in the air: “Silicobsidian Chunk added to Inventory”. Aware that this was likely part and parcel of being within the bounds of 8-bitain, Ohm pressed a flagella against the window and it vanished in a spark of digital light.

The train of people proceeded on down the volcanic mountainside to a small village nestled in its base, where lava flowed out of the mountain across lavaducts to power the local mills and forge. Throughout the journey, Ohm kept an eye out for the strange mineral formations, collecting them as a matter of course.

Once they had arrived, Finn and Jake set off to request food and drink from the village leader. Ohm took the time to head to the forge, and asked the dwarvern owner politely if they could use their forge.

“Sure, but the minigame’s a tricky one. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get exactly what you wanted!”

With that warning carefully considered, Ohm buzzed into the building.

---

ALIGN THE BLOCKS TO BREAK OPEN THE MATERIALS!

AVOID OVERFLOWING! YOU’LL LOSE MATERIAL!

EVERY ITEM HAS A TIME LIMIT! ADD COAL TO EXTEND THE TIME LIMIT, BUT BE CAREFUL! IT ADDS CARBON TO YOUR MATERIALS!

FIND THE WORDS THAT DESCRIBE YOUR ITEM! IT WILL GIVE YOUR ITEM SPECIAL PROPERTIES!

TRY TO FIND THE COMBOS FOR MAXIMUM ITEM CRAFTING POTENTIAL!

AND MOST OF ALL, HAVE FUN!

“WHACKA WHACKA - THE BEST ITEM CRAFTING MINIGAME!”

---

Five minutes later, Finn was searching around for Ohm, a water bottle and snozzberry tart in hand.

“Ohm! Ohm! Where are you little dawg?”

He ducked to check under a bench, then climbed up on top of the bench to peer at the horizon.

“Not here… not over there…”

As he pondered where the small blue being had gone, the sound of intense music slowly drifted in the breeze. He turned to see where it was coming from, and saw the window to the forge lit up with strobing lights and the sounds of intense music.

“Huh. What’s up with that?”

The human wandered over and peered in through the window. Inside, he was surprised to see the zoombini dancing frantically around the centre of the workshop, moving and shifting digital lights on four different screens situated by different workbenches and the forge.

“Wow. That’s some serious minigaming,” Finn muttered to himself, tilting his head. “Wonder what the puzzle’s for?”

As he asked, Ohm’s frantic dance was cut short as the timer on one of the screens finally stopped.

“Ba-zoo!” Ohm shouted, grumpily. “How are you supposed to solve that puzzle? Not even I go through that level of complexity.”

They turned to leave huffily, but was interrupted as the owner of the forge burst into the room.

“CONGRATULATIONS! NEW RECORD!” the dwarf shouted, beaming from ear to ear. “No one’s lasted five minutes twenty five seconds and twelve milliseconds at Whacka Whacka before!”

“Wait, that puzzle wasn’t supposed to be solved?”

“Solved? It’s a minigame, it only ends when you finish!”

Ohm perked up instantly, goggles glinting in the light of the forge.

“Zoo-ee! I didn’t know! So, where do I get the item I was making?”

“It’s right here!” As the dwarf walked over to the closed door at the base of the furnace, Finn leaned in to try to get a closer look. The window swung open and he tumbled through.

---

Ohm looked up happily as Finn landed face first on one of the workbenches.

“Finn, just who I wanted to thank! Hopefully, the communicator I was making is ready for oh no that’s not what I thought I was making.”

Gleaming in the dwarfs hands was a small dark sword, shined obsidian inlaid in two large panels on the flat of the blade. Along the matte black metal ran glowing lines, culminating in dots that gave it the look of a stylized circuit board. Ohm slumped slightly: they had been trying for a communicator, not a weapon. Bazooing puzzle had clearly taken some of the words like sharp and sturdy as something other than what they wanted.

They turned back to Finn to apologise for the mistake, but instead found themselves surprised by the wide eyed look of wonder that crossed the boy’s face.

“You made that for me, little dawg?”

“Uh… yeah, I did!”

“It looks rad, dawg. What’s it called?”

The dwarf presented it to the two of them, a box displaying the details above it.

“It’s… a phone sword?” Ohm said in confusion as they read the item description. As they spoke, the item received a name: ‘Phonesword’. “Oh! It *is* a communicator!”

“Sweet! Thanks a bunch, Ohm!”

“No, thank you for saving me!

---

Once the refugees had all eaten and recovered from their injuries using health items, the train of refugees headed off towards Sweetzerland. As they did so, Ohm buzzed up front with Finn and Jake to explain what they knew about the corruption and the recent events in the crossroads.

“So the situation on Govermorne started with reports of shadows spreading across the planet,” Ohm said. “I was lucky, and one of my online friends gave me a warning that something was going on: the corruption was visible from orbit.”

“That’s whack!” Jake whispered.

“Totally whack!” Finn replied, whispering just as loudly.

Ohm blinked at the pair, amused, before continuing.

“The corruption first made itself known in the form of a miasma, a malaise that spread and affected every being in its path. I don’t believe this is a typical phenomena, since its not present in reports from Cevanti, but the ‘killing blow’ of corrupting a planet.”
“This suggests that the effects of the corruption: mutation of wildlife and beings, catatonia and madness, are all signs of the corruptions spread even before widespread disaster befalls a planet.”

“So where’d this corruption come from?” Finn asked.

“Reports suggest that the organiser of this assault is an entity known as Darkseid,” Ohm replied, landing on a bouncy mushroom in order to pull out their pneumatic piece and displaying a blurry image of the Omega symbol. “People have associated them with the attack, and evidence suggests they’re on the same level as the arbiters.”

“So this bad boy is seriously bad juju then,” Jake wisely nodded. “Finn, we see this Darkseid, we’ve gotta stop him aye ess aye pee.”

Finn frowned. “I dunno Jake, this guy sounds scary strong.”

Ohm buzzed their agreement. “That’s right. From what we can tell, the arbiters are very powerful beings, and this Darkseid is attacking them with their corruption. Instead, we should prevent that corruption from taking root, and banding together to turn the tide first.”

“So what are we looking for then?”

“The corruption in Govermorne was a start, but there was also another threat that made itself known,” Ohm changed the image on their pneumatic piece to reveal a picture, taken mid evacuation, of a collection of winged monsters wielding guns and with red eyes. “These demonic beings are being called parademons, presumably because they were dropped in by Darkseid’s warship like paratroopers and they look super demonic. They’re very tough customers, so you’ll want to be wary when confronting them if you find them.”
“Additionally, there’s a lot of other information that’s being turned up. Reports from across the crossroads of strange and unnatural dangers, beyond what is natural for the planet they occur on: plants on Kraw that are more malicious than voracious, caverns in Invernexe filled with writhing pustules, polluted waters on Opealeon. Keep an eye out for anything strange and terror inducing, and I’ll give you a message if my contacts turn anything up.”

“Oh yeah, you’re in that online group with Lindsey!”

Ohm blinked for a moment, before realising what they meant.

“Yes, a friend of mine is part of an information brokering network. I’m going to ask them to help me keep track of what’s going on in the Crossroads.”

“That’s cool jazz, dawg,” Jake said. “That’s how you know all this other planet biz!”

“Correct,” Ohm said. “The biggest problem will be getting everyone to work together. There’s a lot of faction conflicts that need to be solved, and just bringing everyone to the table is going to be tricky. Or, most people that is. A group of people from Erde Nona have already launched a space station to co-ordinate efforts against Darkseid. They call themselves the Alliance.”

“That’s cool,” Finn said. “So we go seeking out the corruption here to protect Nos’talgia, and this Alliance group can help protect the other planets!”

“Exactly. It’s likely that the corruption has been here for a while, but it’s been hiding. Look for stuff that’s unusual, keep people from doing dumb stuff because of their fear and get people to work together.”

---

Soon the group of travellers made their way to a lemonade river, where they got on a boat that would take them to Watermelon Windmills, one of the villages that was open to receiving refugees.

As the river boat paddled its way downstream, Ohm found themselves sharing a section of benches with Finn, Jake, and the three other people who had been essential during their escape.

Ohm already knew that the squirrel gendarme was Alix Mosquile, but she introduced herself to Finn and Jake and the other two with a wry smile.

“I’m glad we got as many as we did out of there,” she said. “I just wish we could have saved some of the others.”

“I agree,” said the artificer. The spindly magic crafter was a draconic man, with wattles that were pierced with small metallic rings. “But we did what we could. Slag, I was certain that we were doomed when the cannon got mangled. Ohm, you’ve a twisty brain, but I’m glad you were there. A De’Merlina… it’s simple, but explosive. Don’t think I’ve ever put something so volatile together since my collegium days.”

“I’m just glad you knew what I was talking about,” Ohm said. “I’m not exactly from the Crossroads.”

“Well I did. The name’s Furnache Stipple. If any of you ever want to commission some arcane artifice, let me know, and I’ll be your drakon.”

Alix laughed at that and patted him on the shoulder. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but I’m just a run of the mill gendarme. Not sure what I’d do with anything more fancy than a truncheon. What about you?” She turned to the engraver, the man’s hulking metal augmented body showing only their head unadorned with clockwork and pistons.

“I vould happily take you up on ze offer,” he rumbled in a soft, deep voice. “But I am afraid zat my augments require all my attunement slots.”

Furnace giggles at what is clearly a magic joke. Ohm blinks in confusion.

“Anyvay,” the engraver continued, “it is thanks to little blue and their traps that I vas not overvelmed by those demons. I shall let Ohm reap my re-vords.”

Ohm blushed a dark blue.

“That’s very kind of you,” they said.

“Not at all, little blue. Here, take this. It is the reason I was able to keep engraving those heat resistance runes for so long: now that we are safe, I’ll give it to you for the next time you are about to die of the heat, eh?”

“Thank you!”

“No problem, little blue. Drop by and say hello to me anytime, just ask around for Gustav Geist.”

As Ohm reached out to take the bottle, it fizzled into a digital display briefly. “Quest Rewards” was written in digital light, and Ohm was surprised to find that, in addition to the ‘Bottle of Slag Juice’ they’d also received a cupcake. Accepting it as part of the strangeness of Nos’talgia, they accepted the rewards and entered into light conversation with their five companions.

---

Half a day later, and Ohm, Finn and Jake said their goodbyes to the refugees, leaving them to settle into the temporary housing at Watermelon Windmills, and headed out to discuss what their next move was going to be.

 

[Edward Elric]

“Zoo-ee!” exclaimed the zoombini, sounding sleepy.

They were a few miles out from Watermelon Windmills, and things had grown quiet save for that occasional zoombini exclamation.

After the flurry of social interaction and the altogether frenetic day they’d experienced, it seemed all of them were ready to wind down a tad - even Finn and Jake, who were usually full of social energy. They’d started the day like any other; zipping about on the back of a Bee Princess, bouncing off marshmallows, receiving psychic harkenings from seemingly omniscient beings...but one could only take so much in a day, and the sun had begun setting some time ago.

“Yeah, you said it, lil’ dawg,” agreed Jake.

Finn and Ohm Zui rode on Jake’s back slung lazily about. Bone-tired, Finn could feel every bump in the road, and his exhaustion left him uncharacteristically grumpy. His eyes seemed heavy like two big, warm marbles had been buried in his sockets. Rubbing at them with his fists, he shook his head to try and stay awake. A little further up on Jake’s back, a small lump between his shoulder blades, Ohm’s head-body rested in their make-shift nest.

Jake’s head seemed to droop, even, and Finn was growing increasingly concerned that his pal was about to walk them into a tree. The boy got up and tight-rope walked the line of Jake’s magic dog spine, stepping carefully in an arc over Ohm who had dozed off. When he reached the nap of the dog’s neck he dropped down, sprawling, and put his hands on either side of Jake’s head at the temples. ...then he shook him lightly.

“Hey. Buddy.”

Jake started noticeably, prompting another ‘zoo-ee’ from behind Finn. Simultaneously the mystically enormous dog corrected his walking path because he was definitely about to walk right into a huge flippin’ tree.

“I’M NOT SLEEPING YOU’RE SLEEPING!!!” Jake yelled defensively, voice sluggish.

Finn patted him on the head. “Come on, buddy. You’ve gotta listen to your melon heart. Your stems are whack with sleep juju, and you’re gonna crash us into a tree.”

He stroked his chin thoughtfully, and stood up on Jake’s neck, looking about.

“We can set up camp over there,” he stated, pointing out an area in their surroundings, which seemed to grow thicker with forestation by the pace. “You’ve gotta rest your patoot.”

“...my patoot could use a rest,” Jake conceded, sounding every bit as sleepy as he was acting. “Yeah, alright, brother. We’ll womp up a camp.”

They set about putting a camp together as a trio. Despite their size, Ohm Zui performed with at least thrice the efficiency of their fellows and seemed to have an organizational talent that blew Finn and Jake’s noggins. Little Blue treated the chore as a puzzle and seemed almost feverish in their attempt to solve it; in short order Finn and Jake were lounging languorous in their sleeping bags a comfortable distance from a meticulously built fire.

The only touch Finn had insisted on was a ‘spirit bridge’ - a construct of wood on the fire that, as a child, he had some lingering memory of being taught. His magical dog parents had impressed upon him that such a construction might ward off any malicious spirits from a camp.

“...should we swap some stories by the fire?” asked Finn - putting together the camp had awoken him a little. “Or talk about who we like, or something?”

He looked at Jake - his dog brother was fast asleep and snoring gently. Then he glanced at Ohm Zui - they, too, were sleeping.

“...g’night, my glorious pals,” Finn whispered, smiling. He rolled over and snugged deep into his sleeping bag to snooze the night away.

---

And yet snooze the night away he would not. In the middle of the night, something in the air set the human boy’s stomach a-rumblin’. The fruity aroma of banana had flavored the air with a delicious scent that woke Finn. Assuming Jake had decided to roast some fruit over the fire, he sat bolt upright, and pumped his fist in the air.

“Alright!” he yell-whispered.

But the fire had died down significantly, and with what little light it gave off Finn could not see the silhouette of his brother or his new zoombini-buddy. Out in the depths of his peripherals, however, he could see several unknown shadows slinking up out of the trees.

“WOOLOOLOOLOO!” bellowed Finn, half-jumping half-wriggling out of his sleeping bag. “WE’RE BEING FLIPPIN’ FLAPJACKED! EVERYBODY WAKE UP! WE’RE BEING FLAPPIN’ FLIPJACKED!”

In a frenzy the twelve year old dashed towards the fire, power-slid, and grabbed a log in each of his mitts. Twisting, he lobbed ‘em up in a spiral toss towards the fire whereupon they landed in the dying embers, sat a moment, then reignited. The new light cast a glowing rouge lens across the surrounding environment in a dome of sorts originating from the fire.

Banana Bandits.

They’d come out of the night like a whisper. A whisper of death. Each of them was a slash of yellow in the night with a bolt of cloth wrapped about their eye-holes, leaving only glowing white peepers looming in the deep black of the evening.

“It’s time,” Finn whispered dramatically. “...to bash some coconuts.”

Jake had slumped up out of bed, at this point, and grown to a behemoth of twenty freaking feet. Finn had quickly grasped the phone sword from the ground beside his sleeping bag and stood poised to bang-a-rang any bandit whose daring brought them across his path.

Ohm, for their part, had awoken and seemed eager to witness the duo in action. Lacking the time to set up proper ensnarements, Little Blue found themselves a witness to the chaos.

And chaos there was.

There were perhaps a dozen of them in all and they came from all angles. Jake, twenty feet tall, could scarcely tell what his fist was bashing in the flickering half-light of the campfire. At one point he was pretty sure that he’d cracked Finn in the noggin.

Finn carved a swatch of destruction, leaving half-peeled banana-men in his wake. Banana pulp littered the ground, as did stick feet and peel arms. In the course of about three minutes he’d produced twice that number in groaning incapacitated banana dudes, and Jake had taken care of the rest. Their camp had turned into a veritable fruit salad - its centerpiece was the trio of zoombini, human boy, and dog standing back to back by the fire...though, by now, they had dispatched the bandits.

Finn panted, Jake had shrunk back down to a normal dog size (as normal a size as a dog standing upright could be anyway), and Ohm Zui buzzed about excitedly around them.

“BA-ZOO!” chirped the bubbly little blue buddy. “That was...wow!”

Finn lowered his phone sword, having just begun to catch his breath. With his combat adrenaline waning, he was realizing quickly that they’d wrecked their camp - his sleeping bag was mere centimeters from the fire, though luckily had not caught aflame yet.

“I’m all jazzed!” Finn hollered, watching Ohm float about. “...that action was MATHEMATICAL! Let’s collect up the camp and keep moving!”

---

Dawn had broken by the time they’d gotten to the spaceport. Ohm Zui hovered across from Finn and Jake, using their flagella to keep their propellor in motion while they bobbed in the air and sadly regarded their two new companions. Despite their chemistry, the three of them had different paths - the adventurous Nos’Talgia natives had a planet to protect, and Ohm had their own mission to undertake across the galaxy.

“We’ll miss you, little dawg,” Finn confessed, giving a sad quirk of a grin to the little blue zoombini. “ When we’ve slapped the buns off this ba-nay-nay biz, come back and find us, okay? And give me a jing-a-ling on the phone sword if you need us!”

He held the phone sword aloft, still regarding it appreciatively. It was as fine a gift as any he’d received in recent years, and worth more than most as a sentimental token.

“Ba-zoo!” agreed Ohm Zui. They dipped in a nod. “Don’t forget to investigate the weird cult activity here on Nos’Talgia! I’m going to head out to Cevanti and join the resistance there!”

Finn went to say something, but a loud and ditzy voice over a loudspeaker drowned him out.

“BOARDING THE, UH...THE UH...STEAMSHIP MAC...UH...MACDON. Olds? MACDON-OLDS. ALL ABOARD WHO ARE GOING ABOARD, OR WHATEVER!”

Soon there would be no time left - Ohm Zui had to board the loading dock on the ship leaving for Cevanti before the ship left the Sweetzerland spaceport.

“Goodbye, Finn. Goodbye, Jake.”

Finn flashed a peace sign. Jake burped, chuckled, and then scruffed Ohm Zui’s oddball hair.

“See ya later, little dawg,” Jake said, sadly but with a hopeful tone. “Once this is over.”

With that, Ohm turned and hovered away, towards the ship for Cevanti. Finn and Jake turned their backs on the departing ship, and readied themselves for the next leg of their quest - there was something sinister afoot, here, on Nos’Talgia...and there weren’t many other heroes around to stop it. Seemed they had some bunk biz to bop down.