2025-05-07 10:30:29
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Ch. 59 Field Testing Day
The Coral Chorus, a group of sea elf bards and minstrels was good, but they weren’t good enough to distract George from the implications of what Starstorm’s reconnaissance had revealed. As George wondered what he should do, his learning pad beeped. So did the learning pads of everyone in the crowd who carried one. The beep tone was the public emergency broadcast beep tone. Anemone, George, and Starstorm all looked into the screen of George’s pad while the rest of Team Maverick all looked into their own respective pads. The emergency broadcast streamed live video of the renegade bots rampaging through the streets of Wonderdome, rotating through clips of them terrorizing entire neighborhoods.The Sea Spider bot was skewering innocent elves who could not flee fast enough with the sharp, spear-like tips of its legs. The Sea Urchin bot, a spherical robot covered in long, articulated spines that doubled as sensors and weapons, terrorized another neighborhood. Its core was a rotating gyro
Ch. 58 The Frogfish Forfeit
“Maverick looks great today,” Anemone said as she held George’s hand next to him in the Team Maverick area of the seating at the continuation of the robot combat tournament. George was pretty sure that Maverick looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen him. But, he felt touched that she wanted to compliment him, to make him feel good, regardless of whether it was a little exaggerated or not. He remembered what his father had said in his dream last night, that Anemone came from a strong, supportive family that took good care of her. Hopefully, they’d take good care of her when he left Wonderdome. But, George wondered if he could ask her to come with him. He’d had to break up with Melindra when he’d left Sutter’s Village. Melindra couldn’t have come with him, couldn’t go through the kind of magic-less life he had. What about Anemone? Could Anemone adjust to life in the surface world? Or would she be miserable and always feel homesick for Wonderdome? Did he dare ask her to co
Ch. 57 Fame
George grabbed up as much of the most necessary equipment from the Team Maverick workshop as he and Maverick could carry: recharging equipment, commonly needed toolsets in their designated tool boxes, and a Robot Jockey helmet and haptic suit combo that would allow a pilot or a tech to interface remotely with Maverick. The Robot Jockey helmet and haptic suit combo was George’s graduation project from the Wonderdome Science Academy. It hadn’t been field tested yet. He dreamed of the day that all his friends and the people he cared about in Wonderdome would see him present it as his graduation project: Anemone, Starstorm, Kelp and his other teachers, Nereia, Stingray, Wavebreaker, Team Maverick, the younglings like Misty from his first science kindergarten class, even Yörg. He wanted to show them all that their faith in him was not misplaced, that he could make them all proud. Considering the dream he’d had earlier that night, maybe he’d even make his father and Barolias proud. He thou
Ch. 56 Rescuing Maverick
George walked through Nereia’s garden confused. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there. The last thing he remembered was going to bed after the servants had found beds for the other members of Team Maverick. He heard two male voices ahead, coming from the gazebo. One was very familiar. He hurried along the path to the gazebo.“Father, how are you here?” “Because you’re dreaming, George. I’m really back at our house in Sutter’s Village. But Barolias here invited me to visit you here in this dream.” The second man, seated next to George’s father, was indeed Barolias, but the human form of him, not the elven one. The beard was the same in both forms, though. And this human form did indeed have something of a belly on him. Barolias never spoke, but his eyes gleamed as if he could communicate volumes through them just by looking at you. Right now, George felt curiosity coming from them. “George, you have enemies now,” his father said. “Congratulations! Having enemies such as you have mea
Ch. 55 General Crabshell
Team Maverick, Starstorm, and Yörg appeared in Nereia’s house’s main room. It was already occupied. Nereia was sitting in a luxurious seat, made from an enormous shell from a giant clam. She was entertaining guests, military guests, one in particular looking very important, surrounded by his attaches. Nereia didn’t skip a beat, though the military attaches looked terrified that they’d just been taken flat-footed completely by surprise. “Team Maverick, this is General Crabshell and his associates from the Grand Wonderdome Army. General Crabshell, this is Team Maverick, an up and coming robot gladiator team. George is my houseguest. They are accompanied by Starstorm, a p’ckit dragon, and the Staff of Xee.” “We are well aware of George Fothergill, jr.,” General Crabshell said gruffly. “It was our job to evaluate him as a possible security threat to Wonderdome. We made a dossier.” “A dossier? Cool! Way to go, George!” Fin beamed with pride at his best friend. George had never seen an
Ch. 54 Deus ex Yörg
Tentacles slapped the floor, wet and fast.George struggled in the grip of the orange octopus-thing wrapped around his chest and face. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. And most significantly, he couldn’t call out for Yörg.He heard Jellyfish shriek as a green octopus with glistening skin slapped her learning pad out of her hands. “No, no, no, no, no!” She dove after it, grabbed it mid-slide, and rolled under a lab table just as another beast lunged.“Don’t hurt it!” she barked as if the genetically mutated cephalopod would listen to her. “That pad has all the Kraken Cult's genetic research and—ahhh!”A tentacle smashed down on the table above her, spraying shards. Jellyfish gritted her teeth, looked at the pad in her hands… then looked up at the mass of suckered flesh squeezing through the gap after her.“…Mage farts!”She screamed in frustration and whacked the creature with the learning pad. It cracked in two. Data loss warning lights blinked red and died. The octopus shrieked a
Ch. 53 What's in the Tank
“Beautiful, isn’t he?” the death shaman intoned solemnly. No one on Field Team Maverick responded. George even forgot to breathe for a moment. The thing in the tank, the tank as big as the Great Coral Plaza, was gray, a soul-sucking gray that had the opposite effect of the blackness before. The blackness before had made George feel like it could lunge at him, like the eldritch ooze spilled out of the ruptured Kraken bot had lunged at HAZMAT workers. This gray, as George stared at it, made him feel gray inside, like it was sucking all of the color out of his soul just by him looking at it. He remembered the energy-draining feeling of Sirena’s last kiss.The next thing that he noticed about the thing besides its grayness, was that it had tentacles, because of course it did.The death shaman beamed with pride. “He is magnificent even in death. You should have been privileged to see him when he was alive. I was, you know. It was the greatest day of my life.” The strange elf walked past Ge
Ch. 52 The Tank
George felt the familiar tingle of teleportation magic, but it was powerfully intense. The tingling was so strong it was like the tingle of blood returning to a limb that had fallen asleep, but all over his body. Yörg was so powerful that George could feel it when exposed to Yörg’s magic, even for a quick teleport. He recalled the talking staff’s comment about being able to find George anywhere in the multiverse–the multiverse! He had called himself the Staff of Xee. George thought that might sound familiar from his studies in Sutter’s Village. If he remembered correctly, Xee was on a list of powerful mages who had lived pre-Society before its founding as government rule by the Sorcerers Born. The history books and lessons at the school in Sutter’ Village didn’t focus too much on pre-Society history. That time period was given only a short description and not very detailed. Who was this Xee? The group of first-time spies materialized somewhere in sub-basement 5 ostensibly, if Yörg had
Ch. 51 Mission Prep
Team Maverick took a little time gathering the things they thought they might need, including personal lights, diagnostic leaning pads that they normally used on Maverick, and other gear. They didn’t bring along any weapons. They weren’t warriors, and, hopefully this would be a stealth mission.“It’s getting close to the Period of Sleep,” George reminded them. “Hopefully, there won’t be a normal working crew there overnight. They may be a crazy cult, but they do need to go home and sleep like anybody else.”“What about security systems?” asked Jellyfish. “I’m a good hacker, but I’m not a superspy. I don’t think I could hack the security systems there into thinking they don’t see us.”“Could you delay the alarms a little? Maybe give us time to see whatever Shark wants us to see and then get out?”“Probably.”“Even if the alarms are delayed and we get out, security will still have recorded us,” Eel pointed out.“Do you think we could get our hands on enough festival reveler cloaks for a
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