o/~ One day more / another day, another destiny / this never-ending road to Calvary / these men who seem to know my crime will surely come a second time, one day more... o/~
The briefing was, as briefings go, unremarkable. A summing up of our situation and perfunctory orders, which would probably be changed as soon as we hit the other side of the portal. As the less prepared left to grab their gear, I strapped Tee's dagger to my leg, the sword to my back, and slipped on the rings. I did manage to try to talk with Mal, but "try" is always the operative word with that man.
The portal, when we were finally let in to wait around it, reminded me less of Malik's equipment back at his rat hole than Tanasha's room on the one occasion that she had decorated it in "Cyberpunk/Mythic" style. The gateway itself was on a slightly raised platform, a rectangular doorway of steel in the middle of the room with wires sticking out of every side, wires connecting to the equipment and energy coils spread around the base and to the computers lining every side of the room. Between the mission crew and the techs, it was pretty stuffy in there.
An electric hum filled the room, mingling with shouted orders as the machine before us powered up. I could nearly taste the power being generated as electricity flashed across the portal - once, twice, three times, then a hum that was felt more than heard as a surge of electricity set the gate glowing. The smell of ozone floated through the air as sparks flew from the doorway, until it finally stabilized. I sneezed and wished that I had had more than one cup of coffee at the briefing - I was falling asleep on my feet.
Mal shouted at us to move. The ranks in front of me ran, leaping across the portal into the light and fog. I charged, then was hit by a feeling so strong that I literally stopped in my tracks and stared.
The portal was coming apart, my sense of disaster was coming together, and my sense of humor wanted coffee. I turned to Mal, who was screaming, "Get in the fucking portal or you're all staying home! It's about to collapse!"
I leapt.
I had been through enough teleportals to know when one was working and when one was not working. I had also been through enough portal disasters to know when one was occurring. The portal that we went through to get to Marraketh from VRDET HQ was, at the time I passed through it, in the midway state between "working" and "not working," gravitating rapidly towards the latter.
As I thought to myself a number of socially unacceptable words that would sum up our situation, a portal disaster occurred. This time, I didn't even try to censor anything. "Oh, shit," I said as we tumbled through oblivion, then tacked on a number of Th-varian phrases that the original builder of the portal and his mother would find extremely insulting.
As I was fighting to keep my sanity and hold back nausea at the time, I didn't really care about the builder of the portal, only to wish that he had installed a few failsafes. When the fog cleared and we reached the other end of the jump, I was tossed forcibly onto the ground. Rolling from the impact to dissipate shock, I finally lay flat on my back in the snow and stared at the cheerful, sunny, blue sky.
"Okay," I tried to growl, but it came out like a moan. "That's it."
I slowly pushed myself to my feet, using a nearby tree to help. Leaning against the bark and not caring what kind of gunk got on my unitard, I sighed and pondered my situation.
I wasn't cold, one plus. I had my..."My sword!" I exclaimed, my eyes flying open. I saw it, only a foot away, and grabbed at it quickly. Okay, now I had my sword, two pluses. I also had my dagger, strapped to my leg in its sheath, and my backpack. That made four pluses so far. I was also alive and with my wits intact, which I tacked on as the fifth plus, rather belatedly.
I was starting to feel like a female version of Jim DeGriz. "Yeah, sure," I remarked sarcastically to the landscape. "The stainless steel dragon. Sure, Aris."
It was then that I noticed the other guy, over by the edge of the pine (I assumed the trees were pine trees, or at least a semi-related species) copse. He had the look of a woodsman, and was scanning the horizon, presumably for threat. I recognized him as another VRDET officer after a few moments of thought. "You late out, too?" I asked. He nodded.
I sighed, pushed myself to my feet and walked over. "Well, shit. Hello, I'm Aris Merquoni, and I'm supposed to be the XO of this pleasure cruise. I don't personally know you, so I'd like a name...and an idea about our lovely situation here."
He shrugged and took another glance at the horizon. "I'm Selvane. This...doesn't seem to be Marraketh, at least not where we were heading for," he said.
I nodded. He continued, "There seems to be a city over that way," he pointed away from the mountains, "but it looks like a long hike through a lot of snow. And," he glanced at my spandex "uniform," "you don't seem to be dressed for it."
"To say the least," I added sardonically. "Plus, if you're feeling anything like I feel, and I'll wager you feel a good deal worse, we're both sick." He nodded again. "So, my vote is we stay right here by the trees, where we'll have some protection in case of a storm."
"Sounds reasonable enough," he agreed, but I wasn't paying attention. He continued anyway, "I scouted the perimeter. Looks like we're alone." By that time, he was noticing what I was.
Murphy's Law. I shouldn't have said it, I know, because as soon as I mentioned the word "storm," the wind picked up, bringing large, dark clouds over the mountains next to us at a frightening rate. I sent a hurt glance at the sky. "Great. Just great..."
We dived into the pine copse as the first snow began to fall.