87. The Maw

Marius, Fureva-Yung and Nox all appeared in a wedge-shaped room dominated by two half pillars and a door across the room. They arrived almost frozen to the spot, unable to move. The longer they stayed, the more they were able to move. It was like being stuck in amber that was quickly dissolving, or like the whole world, not just them, was waking up.
 
As they gained more movement, Fureva-Yung and Marius noticed thin streams of dust coming off the two pillars. Upon investigating, it was clear that tiny particles from the pillars were disintegrating and floating up and out of the room. Marius put his hand close to the stream of particles and detected a faint updraft, catching the particles and taking them…somewhere else.
 
 
“Hey Nox, come and scan this thing will you?” He called her over.
“Why? There’s nothing in this room,” Nox replied as she was about to go through the next door.
“There’s something weird, look,” Marius pointed out the cloud of particles floating away. Nox bamfed over.
“The columns are disintegrating…” She said turning to Marius and noticing for the first time the stream of particles floating off him, “Ekk! So are you!”
 
Marius jumped back, but the cloud of particles that were once him continued to join those of the pillars, floating out of the room.
“And it seems to be speeding up, “ Fureva-Yung swung her chain around noting the lag from her hand to the end of the chain.
 
Not wasting any more time, the three of them ran for the door and appeared in the next room.
 
This room was circular, obvious the heart of three passages through the datasphere with two other doors to the left and right. A high-domed ceiling was pockmarked with holes that looked out onto the vast eternity of the raw datasphere. Nox was transfixed by the thought of all that raw, wild datasphere, but found it hard to get a good look. Unfortunately, in front of it was the massive circular mouth of a gigantic worm. This room was even more affected by the disintegration. Besides the ceiling, every surface showed signs of being worn away. As the group stood and watched the dust swirl up into the giant mouth, they could feel their own being slowly being dissolved away.
 
Marius created a blue wire frame force cube between the group and the creature’s mouth. Dust on its way up lost interest in the trip and floated down around them.
“We’re just energy here, right? Powered by own intellect?” He asked, not waiting for an answer and started trying to pull his essence back together. He did feel more himself, but he was sure the streams of dust would soon continue to float up to the monster once the sphere was eaten away.
“We have to do something!” Nox cried, now realising the danger such a creature could be to the wider datasphere, “It’s eating the datasphere’s frame!” She reached out telepathically and made contact with the creature’s mind. She was disappointed to find there was nothing but an insatiable need to eat. There wasn’t even any fear response to scare it away. What would scare something so large?
 
The force cube’s structure buckled and folded as it weakened under the monster’s continual eating. He blasted it with his molecular rearranger. The creature and the datasphere shuddered.
“What is it?” Fureva-Yung asked in awe. This was the best pet of all…though it could have done with a few tentacles.
“It is a parasite, a tape worm that had evolved inside the datasphere to eat the organised energy of the frames,” Nox explained with as much disgust as Fureva-Yung had shown awe, “It looks like this frame may have slowed downtime to stop the damage the creature was doing.”
“Is it unique?” Fureva-Yung.
“It’s made of data if that helps,” Nox shrugged, unsure what the truth was.
“No,” Fureva-Yung replied, but set up a shattering shout as far up the creature’s gullet as she could reach.
 
Once more, Marius blasted it with his molecular rearranger as Nox set off a feeble flash in its mouth. The shattering shout went off, sending ripples down the worm's body, but not before the disintegration started again. Layers of skin, hair and clothes started drifting away, draining the party of their essence.
 
Fureva-Yung sent off an earthquake as far down the gullet as it would go. The creature shuddered and vibrated as the party noticed the disintegration slowed.
 
“We’re doing it!” Marius shouted, sending another ray into the monster’s mouth.
 
Far back, the creature’s body shuddered and writhed, and streams of dust like a great data waterfall rained down on the party. Fureva-Yung was buried up to her torso, Marius up to this chest. Nox disappeared under the grey inundation.
 
As the worm vibrated and jittered under the earthquake, Fureva-Yung and Marius continued their barrage as they climbed atop the dust. Nox bamfed away, leaving a cavity in the dust, and appeared on Fureva-Yung’s shoulder.
 
Deep rumblings far in the monster's belly shook the datasphere. Marius rammed another forced cube up its throat and started making a concussive bomb from iotum. Nox pulled from her satchel a cypher she’d been holding onto for a very long time. It summoned creatures from other worlds, and she started scanning through, looking for a terrible beast to come to their aid. On a small screen, the cypher flicked through a number of images before settling on one of a giant four-legged creature with big teeth.
 
Fureva-Yung pulled her heavy blaster off her shoulder and aimed it at the beast. It wasn’t what she wanted, but the beast couldn’t be left to roam around destroying the datasphere. The blaster hit where she intended it to go, directly down the creature’s maw. The monster shuddered, unable to take any more of the party’s onslaught and slid sideways. Beyond it, a vast shimmering matrix denoting the extent of the Datasphere was now clear for Nox to see. She flitted off Fureva-Yung’s shoulder and looked out at the vastness of the datasphere.
 
“What is happening in- “ Jaden walked in through the lower door and into the domed room, falling chest deep in the dust. She looked around and saw the now dead worm slumped against a slowly repairing dome of the ceiling.
“Oh, good, not another pet.” She grumbled as she dug herself out of the dust and joined the others at the door to the left.
“No, it did not have enough tentacles,” Fureva-Yung assured her as they went through the door together.
 
 
The next room was very much like the first, a bare space with two pillars. Now realising that many of these held energy, Fureva-Yung stood between them, a hand on each. Her pick and green fur stood on end, making Nox giggle.
“Furry, you're fuzzy again,” Marius said, and both he and Nox touched the fur to see if they could feel a static charge.
 
Both were smacked by energy, Marius absorbing it into his armour, Nox taking the hit and bamfing away to a random place in the room, only to crash into something forming in front of Fureva-Yung. A small ball of lightning grew and expanded out into the room, growing long, thin legs and a long neck all made of jagged lines of energy. A large body grew, giving it a horse-like shape. Marius leapt on the creature’s back, and the creature responded just like a horse, bucking and rearing, trying to throw off the heavy weight on its back.
 
Jaden, who had sensibly stood back to watch Fureva-Yung’s antics, now studied the creature. Though made of lightning, it did act very much like a wild horse caught by handlers. Maybe in the electrical conduits in which it was native, it lived a similar life to that of a horse. She breathed in and out, letting any nervous energy go with her breath and projected a calm, safe presence. The lightning horse seemed to take note of Jaden's presence, Fureva-Yung emulated Jaden’s calm assurance and purred an assuring subsonic rumble.
 
Nox made a telepathic link with the lightning horse's mind, finding the fear and confusion. As she had done many times since leaving Celeron, she too projected calm into the creature’s mind. With Marius, a weighting it down, the lightning horse finally gave in and stopped rearing.
 
“Can I keep this one?” Fureva-Yung asked as she gently placed her chain around its neck.
“It belongs in the conduits, “ Nox said and scanned the columns looking for a way to return the lightning horse. Hacking into the frame’s source code, she was able to create a path for the horse to go back to where it belonged. Marius slipped from its back as the lightning horse reared one last time and dove along the path and disappeared.
 
“Can we please check the compass?” Nox said, looking battered and tired. She’d taken her share of disintegration from the worm and had just that moment blasted into the forming lightning horse, she was starting to look worse for the hard wear.
 
Showing the compass to the party, it was clear they’d come the wrong way. They should have gone right after dealing with the worm, not left. Draping herself across Fureva-Yung’s shoulders, she allowed herself to be carried back and through the door to the right.
 
They appeared in a semi-circular room with a hexagonal column in the middle, and a door on the other side. Either because it was only one pillar or Fureva-Yung was learning her lesson about touching dangerous columns. Fureva-Yung walked across the room to the second door.
A hexagonal room with a walkway across to one door and a set of stairs going down to another. Two triangular pillars stood behind the walkway, glowing dully. The compass pointed down the stairs, and the whole group marked down the stairs and through the door.
 
A pentagonal room, smaller than the other and bare columns, but with four staves in brackets along the wall. They were about thirty centimetres long and each end glowed blue. Curious, Nox picked a staff and scanned it, the others, taking one each in turn.
“Ha! It turns into a type of transport …a nodocycle,” She said, showing the group how the stick was activated. Marius activated his first, holding a blue end in each hand. The device pulled him down into a riding position as it formed a two-wheeled vehicle with a clear canopy over the rider. The engine purred into life, rady to speed away, but to where, no one could say.
 
Fureva-Yung tried straddling the stick as she would a horse before activating it. The device, flipped her sideways so the nodocycle was hanging sideways in the air, before adjusting itself to its rider and forcing her into the required prone shape. Nox, now with the beautiful lightning horse on her mind, tried to form the cycle into something like the beast. She failed in changing the nodocycles' shape, but did succeed in decorating hers with a lighting stripe on both sides. Jaden, inspired, was able to change the colour of hers from neon blue to bright red.
 
Checking the compass, they headed south out of the small room and out into a white, featureless plain. Above the sky was full of planets, stars and asteroids. A green light on the horizon reached up, connecting several:
A red planet, yellow, blue and green asteroids and finally a bright yellow sun. Confusingly, the compass pointed up.
 
“I guess the green light is the way,” Marius said, before activating his nodocycle and speeding away. Not to be outdone, Nox and Jaden quickly did the same and were soon on his heels. Fureva-Yung tried once more to force the nodocycle to her will, straddling it instead of holding it between her hands. She floated sideways for a while as the bike awkwardly realigned itself to her body, before hitting the ground and racing up behind the other three.