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Wow!

I just spend most of my day reading the whole piece. Once I started, I couldn't really stop...

A few scattered thoughts:

I really like the setup with the essay at the beginning. The double alternate experience is really something.

After the first few chapters with Isabella and Antonio I really looked forward to finding out if they would ever hook up. Seeing that the thread was pushing on page 25, I never ever imagined that by the end of the day, I still wouldn't know!

And with all these pop references, I'm amazed no one has mentioned the Darth Vader thing. Or maybe I just misssed it. Or maybe it was so obvious, that no one felt the need. I was kind of hoping that the zombie they stowed in the cellar in San Fransisco would turn up and make a reference to George R. R. Martins brilliant "a Song of Ice and Fire" series.

Anders
 
Well, I must say, the interview process has served it's purpose again. I have come away with a completly different perspective on Turin than I had originally imagined. Once again I state, it is the true purpose of this peice, to shatter pre-concieved notions. And I agree with Turin. This must follow into whatever transpires once Timelines is done...not that that is going to happen for awhile. :D
 
Thrashing Mad: Thank you , sir ! Always a pleasure to see you stop by !

Turin: - cracks the whip - Not until you're housebroken ! But seriously thank you for doing the interview , I'm very glad to have been a means of introducing you to the community a bit more !

afb: Greetings and welcome aboard ! I'm very glad you've caught up ! I'm glad you enjoy the alternate-alternate history premise since it really makes for some fun scintillating narrative ! And yes , Antonio and Isabella .. nowadays I'm not even sure I want them together anymore ! Har har no hints ! We shall see ! And i'm also glad you picked up on the references . One of the most fun things about this work is that the references and Easter Eggs cover a large basis of pop culture that someone found something that spoke to them . Unfortunately I haven't read any of Martin's work =( What are they like ?

grayghost: My good friend , I'm glad to see you around as well ! As through popular demand I will indeed keep the interviews going ! And you're right , Timelines won't end for a while . I won't rest till I have more posts than Sforza !!! (I love you , mr. rens !) haha . Talk about a long story ! But yes , we'll be here giving interviews for a while =) .
 
Martin? IMNHO he's the best fantasy author ever
 
grayghost said:
Well, I must say, the interview process has served it's purpose again. I have come away with a completly different perspective on Turin than I had originally imagined. Once again I state, it is the true purpose of this peice, to shatter pre-concieved notions. And I agree with Turin. This must follow into whatever transpires once Timelines is done...not that that is going to happen for awhile. :D

'Completely different perspective' eh ?

Interesting how one manages to say absolutely nothing - rather transcendentalish of you Mr. grayghost. :p

And yes, it will take good ol' canonized quite some time to finish this up, at least, if the idea is for the story to cover the entire period of game play plus carry over into Vicki/HoI possibly ?

As it is, he could wind up concluding the story before the 16th century is over with :eek: ...
 
Grubnessul: an interesting way of describing it ! I wish I had more time to read aside form all the other stuff going on ! =(

Turin the Mad: Yes i'll definitely be going to HOI/Vicky with this AAR . Then might do a prequel for CK , PERHAPS . As it goes I don't plan on ending this AAR until the expansion comes out and we reach 1820 =)
 
Turin the Mad said:
As it is, he could wind up concluding the story before the 16th century is over with :eek: ...

Yes, the Spanish seem to be accomplishing entirely too much in a short 100 years, but what with the talent on their side and all sorts of nifty timepiece devices...

It's like why you can't ever really lose in Onimusha....
 
thrashing mad said:
Contgratulations - you are new WritAAR of the Week ! :D

BTW. i`m catching up with reading :)

Wow !!! Thank you so much thrashing mad !! I'll express my gratitude and apprecation for this award on the thread asap ! Thanks again !!
 
wow, congrats again cannonized, you've deserved it.
 
Grubnessul said:
wow, congrats again cannonized, you've deserved it.

Thanks ! Update coming up too in a little bit !
 
canonized said:
Thanks ! Update coming up too in a little bit !

Wuhuuu!

And congratulations...

Anders
 
afb said:
Wuhuuu!

And congratulations...

Anders

Thank you very much !
 
Congrats on being WritAAR of the Week canonized! I still need to catch up on the reading. :D Darn AP tests.
 
wilcoxchar said:
Congrats on being WritAAR of the Week canonized! I still need to catch up on the reading. :D Darn AP tests.

Thanks Wilcox ! Hope you do well on your tests :D
 
chapter37tile.gif


Chapter XXXVII: Journey to the Timepiece​

December 21, 1582

The plan would be to change five ships along the long journey from Shanghai to Lisbon, and Jakob planned to barely have enough time to sleep on the way. Along his route, backlogged petitions and orders were expected to pour in from all over the Empire to be intercepted by him before being resent throughout the globe with their proper responses. The orders that would be pertinent to Madrid he would keep to himself to deliver personally.

Despite the traffic, most of Spain’s internal affairs were in rather good order. Merchants followed on the heels of missionaries to such places as Cuzco and Zacatecas. Jakob would be passing through the Isthmus of Panama by caravan to a ship on the other side and if he had time to tour the local Indian tribes, he would have realized how well they were already learning to speak Spanish. He might even have been distracted by the choral performances by natives at the Opera House in Panama City scheduled to occur at around the same time he’ll be passing through the capital of that province if he had not planned to immediately board the special transport which would take him on the next leg of his long journey back to Spain.

The Americas were slowly but surely adopting the Castillian way of life and Jakob had found it interesting that Castillian merchants would rather do trade in Mexico or Peru than in the closer commercial center in Seville due to the unfavourable atmosphere of competition in that Andalusian run port. Already, the grand scheme the old Duke Jimenez laid out to lay claim to most of the centers of trade of the world began to take their intended goal: to have foreign merchants from these lands transfer over to the rich trade cities of the Americas.

Unfortunately, no marvel of macroeconomic trade or peaceful assimilation could easily distract the young German from his more personal task at hand. He was not just on his way back to assume control of the Silent Room, but he must find his uncle. The man who had nurtured and protected him ever since his father died was now mysteriously missing and even the guardsmen of honour at home could not find him.

Sweet, who had been mostly silent to his evenly aged friend, seemed to feel the constant anxiety that gripped Jakob into a frenzy of speed and insomnia. To that end, the young spy pored over intelligence reports alongside his companion with a hidden studiousness hoping to be ready to take the field as soon as they had landed on Spanish shores.

Indeed, their destination, the port of Lisbon was a marvelous homage to the maritime tradition of the Iberian Peninsula. Its innovative ports housed the cutting edge of the Spanish naval research. Being at the mouth of the Tago River, it was a natural exit for the communications of Madrid to the rest of the Empire and the barques and flytes of this former coastal nation were the fastest in the world. But that was still nearly two months away. For now, it was as if the very globe confounded their wills. The very earth was their greatest obstacle.

---​

“So… what do you think about it?” one of the hooded ones spoke as he fiddled with the cell room keys.

“Master Zio’s plan?” the companion replied while he stood to his friend’s left and watched him find the proper key for the cell directly in front of them.

The holding cell in front of them was a peculiar piece of work. Not only accompanied by a built in latrine with running water but along the hewn floor was a thick carpet and a bed with sheets worthy of an inn. Certainly it was no palatial suite but it definitely was not the average dungeon fare.

“No, idiot, what do you think about The Box!” the first corrected disparagingly before finding the right key to unlock the cell.

Behind their standard low hood, the corrected companion hid an embarrassed look. “I don’t know what to think about it.”

“But didn’t you hear it speak too?” the first one asked sourly as they both entered the cell and began searching around.

There was no answer from the accomplice who hid his edging curiosity from his friend by the thickness of his cowl. He would, for now, concentrate on the task of cleaning and preparing the former cell of the Cardinal for other prisoners.

“I heard it,” he finally let out as he lifted a pillow from the bedside, “but I was busy focusing on my job…”

The first one looked back to his companion with a half grinned expression. “Afraid of the red churchman are we?” he chided his companion.

Once again, the second didn’t give a response. After checking the inside of the pillow case he shoved it aside with feigned frustration. “It’s not like you were there,” the second one began to explain, “I saw what happened that day in Toledo and the Cardinal is no easy person to control…”

His companion looked to him with an almost apologetic frown. It was true, it was his partner that was in the administrative building of Toledo almost two months ago and indeed, it was him that had almost died. The Cardinal had not only injured Zio during that conflict weeks ago, but he also managed to kill or hurt twenty eight of the fifty acolytes Zio had accompany him just in case.

For that now slightly jittery acolyte checking under the bed, the memory was as fresh to him as if it had been just a week ago:

“You’ll have to do better than your pitiful parlor tricks, Zio,” he remembered the Cardinal had challenged Zio at their first meeting inside one of the vast chambers of the administrative building of the University of Toledo.

With Zio having disconnected the now slacked wires from his gauntlets, he maintained eye contact with his adversary.

“Parlor tricks?” Zio replied with a toss of his dark hair against that pallid face. He nearly laughed. “This is an art, my good Cardinal. Pain and fear are my trade!”

With a quick twist of his wrist, Zio gripped the wires once again before raising them up and snapping them downwards. The wave front stealthily whistled through the darkened air of the room before striking a burning termination onto the raised forearm of the Cardinal. Despite the blocked attack, the sheer force pushed the prelate slightly aback and smoked a bleeding stripe against scarlet garment and flesh.

“Your Eminence!” someone called out from one of the side of the room. Raul, the Cardinal’s assistant, had burst in through one of the entrances with obvious concern at the sight he beheld.

“Get the President out of here and call for help!” Immediately commanded Cardinal DeWitt before raising his other arm to intercept the blistering slice of metal wire whipping through the air.

“Calling for help won’t save you!” Zio declared as he sent another volley outward this time with the twisting and turning of his arm to elaborately transmit explosive energy to the end of the wire, “Nothing can survive my Black Wave!”

The Cardinal might have found Zio quite humorous if it weren’t for the fact that Raul was tugging the wounded President out of the room. He had to endure the searing inflictions of those scourging wires just a bit more…

“Black Parades, Black Waves, how about Black I’m going to beat your face in,” the Cardinal retorted as he quickly seized one of the incoming wires and pulled on it tightly. Zio naturally resisted on the other end as the wires were now gripped by both men.

In this small tug-o-war, the Cardinal had waited for Raul and the President to have safely left the room before striking at Zio with an immense grin.

“Come here!” the Cardinal roared as he heaved on the cords. Despite the heavier armour adorning Zio’s body, the sheer strength of the Cardinal propelled him closer into a running start. In half surprise, Zio’s face connected with a stretched arm and a closed fist.

Faltering the cords out of his gauntleted hands, Zio fell backward at the blast that nearly crushed his cheek bone. Blood was already seeping into his right eye and a small rivulet of crimson liquid followed a tear down the middle of his face. With a stumble backward, his eyes narrowed at the obvious violation of his pristine visage. With reddening orbs, he raised his right hand to cover his face and raised his left to signal. That’s when the acolytes watching from behind the main doorway flooded the room.

“But aren’t you curious at all? Zio and the Cardinal have left so we can go look at it again!” the first one insisted breaking the second worker from his aria of memories.

It was true, of course, having sacrificed nearly half of the fifty to subdue the Cardinal and then after a month or so of incarceration and isolation, Zio had introduced the Cardinal to the strange speaking Box which these two acolytes were privileged to have witnessed before handing over the guardship of the prelate to the next shift.

“What about taking inventory here?” the second one asked attempting to find some legitimate reason from peeking at the strange box that Zio had seemed to shock the Cardinal with just by the mere introductions.

It was not surprising, that acolyte thought, seeing as how any box that can somehow speak must have been a great enigma for their captive. But then again, he thought, he believed he saw something emergent in the Cardinal’s face. It was as if the box itself was something he’d seen before… something he recognized.

“Leave it, we can get back to it later!” the first one insisted tugging almost violently on his friend’s shoulder and pulling him out of the room.

With tacit agreement, both now wound their way through the makeshift halls of that deep holding place until they found the staircase leading upward into the main building. From there, it would only be a few rooms away before they were once again in front of that talking Box.

If only they had taken inventory first, they would have realized that the metal plate that Cardinal DeWitt had been given for food every day somehow had disappeared now that the prelate had been shown out of his temporary prison…

---​

It would only be a short ride, he reminded himself. The clever Zio had kept him in a nondescript building near the edge of Toledo and thus it would only be a short time until they would reach the Imperial Store House in that same city where the Timepiece was well hidden.

These thoughts passed through the troubled and pale face of the Cardinal as he sat chained and gagged to his shackles within the coach. Zio even had the audacity to forego a blindfold but merely added the gag to protect him from the Cardinal calling out for aid.

“Amazing isn’t it,” Zio began with a grin that seemed to stand in defiance to the incredulous bruise he now bore on his cheek. It was almost as if the Cardinal’s punch formed a pocket of death on Zio’s otherwise pale beauty. “When we had found it abandoned in the store rooms of the University, we at first didn’t understand what it meant.”

The Cardinal was forced to look at his adversary who sat across from him on the coach. If he was not so chained, Zio might have found it difficult to breathe between the prelate’s massive constricting hands, but apparently these were solid iron shackles that now bound him to the seat of the cab. Partly, it was their own carelessness, the Cardinal thought to himself; they should not have trusted the Talking Box so easily to research groups. Possessing the Timepieces had given him a false sense of security.

“But the others at the university helped to illuminate my mind on matters of cartography and mathematics,” the Italian professor continued.

With a steely cobalt stare, the Cardinal gave his obvious disapproval. Zio seemed to sense his frustration and kept going anyway.

“When we figured out that the machine was giving us map coordinates in a more accurate level than our current mapping techniques, it had become quite obvious. Putting together all the other source material the government surreptitiously decided to give us as reference; we were able to formulate the existence of your most coveted secret…”

The Cardinal looked out of the window once more seeing the approach of the store house with a tense dread. It was supposed to remain a secret, he thought. The location of the Timepieces should have been forever a state secret. Who knew that a strange talking box could have given such exact coordinates of these two objects this whole time… Regardless of these facts, he was more amazed at the preoccupation this man and his cult had with the Timepieces.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Zio interrupted those thoughts, “you still believe that without the keys my possession of the Timepiece will mean nothing.”

The Cardinal faced that smug pale grin once again and watched the dagger like bangs sway across the madman’s face with every kick and bump of their carriage. Like a caricature of frozen night, Zio’s pale blackness sat without menace but with the smug mantle of the imperial nature of insufficient light. Half-truths and half-lies all made into conjecture inside his head every second the crazed cult leader let his oculars flash from one of the Cardinal’s eye to the other.

The sun chose the colour of bleeding gold for its final curtain as it penetrated the window of the carriage. It was then that Zio spoke saying, “but we pride ourselves in new solutions. People don’t need the orthodoxy of the authority of the keys in Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, or Alexandria. The new key is the potential of the human spirit—it is the Apotheosis of Man!”

The insanity was interrupted by a caricature cackle as well. “And when the new energies of man overtake your heavenly sent keys, you will truly understand the superstitions of your ways.” Zio’s eyes seemed to flash a radiant red once as these windows of the soul reflected the death of the day.

The Cardinal seemed to chafe against his shackles in the presence of this mad existence sitting across from him. It was not simply the arrogance of the man, no. The Cardinal knew that there was much more at stake. The destruction of the world was no myth. The Timepiece without the keys—especially the key from Rome—will not be able to be controlled. Without bounds or checks, the power of the Timepiece would choose any direction to take. The unbound freedom would result in the very destruction of the world itself; all would be swallowed into the darkness of night and the universe will see the creation of the darkest of stars with no window of hope. This was the true danger of the Timepiece, and the Cardinal could do nothing to convince the faithless to understand.

“Of course I can make the Timepiece work!” the Cardinal remembered Zio saying earlier that day when they had first had their interview with the Talking Box present. “All I have to do is read the Instructions for myself!”

“Instructions which you are not qualified to understand!” The Cardinal had yelled back at his captor.

“And you are? What makes you so sure your interpretation of the Instructions is so right, cleric. You’re just a churchman; you have no understanding of the science behind the very thing you possess! Through careful debate with my colleagues—all experienced scholars—we can find the interpretations which make the most sense. Just because you’re a successor of the guardianship of the keys doesn’t make you right about everything.”

The Cardinal had remembered taking in what Zio had said and the appeal of his argument. Believing that any person’s interpretation was not a human element and thus infallible just like the Instructions seemed straight forward, but the Timepiece was no cabinet or chair… Despite the research of his opponent, Zio did not have the collective experience of those charged with the commission to take care of these objects.

Oh yes, the Cardinal reminded himself, his office in the Silent Room meant that the very stories and understandings of the Timepiece have been passed down from one generation to their chosen successors ever since the second Timepiece descended from the heavens. This was the true nature of his office. This was the raison d’etre of the Silent Room that was kept secret from even the highest monarchs of the globe. Guardians of the keys, these offices had existed since the second Timepiece came and crashed onto their world in the frozen seas of the southern hemisphere before being taken back up to Europe on the third day after the crash. Ever since this Second Impact, the guardians have been charged by the surviving witnesses of the arrival of the Timepiece with keeping it safe from the likes of Zio while searching for the location of the original Timepiece and finally to prepare for the inevitable resolution that was meant to come.

The Cardinal rued himself silently in his seat after digesting that memory. He had been sloppy. Even though they had fulfilled the security of both Timepieces, he had overlooked the Talking Box. That queer little machine that would repeat the coordinates of the Timepieces wherever they went he had allowed it and the original Instructions his predecessors had compiled to get into the hands of untrustworthy men. That bastard Zio even decided to rename the stupid contraption in his usual way: it was now the Black Box.

interlude2.gif


Interlude​

“And you say these Black Boxes were installed the other month?” General Novaposhyn asked his colleague who was studiously engrossed in blueprint manuals displayed on his console.

“Yes, sir. On the transport planes we’ve been using for continental flights in the Americas. These larger ones here were designed with voice recognition, playback and guidance as well as the usual interface. They also featured a GPS-like tracking system for their cargo in case the stuff ever got raided. It’s one of the reasons we got it for military use to make sure sensitive cargo wouldn’t get misplaced.”

“GPS-like?” the General asked. General Novaposhyn was definitely the very model of a modern Major General in the sense that he knew the Milevski Doctrine of tank warfare quite well, but he was a bit limited in matters of electronics or software.

“Well, most of our old tracking devices used the network of geosynchronous satellites to maintain constant contact with our packages, but this new model that was designed uses a focused gyro-stabilized particle pulse that can pass through basically anything. This allows a signal to go through even the entire planet. The signal is too rudimentary and too narrow to fit communications but it does work to pinpoint locations and distances relative to each other.”

The General nodded and said “of course” as if he possessed the same quantum engineering degree as his lieutenant.

“But if this positioning signal goes through anything why did we lose the nuke on Transport 626 five weeks ago?”

There was a small spatter of typing before the manifest was displayed on the screen in front of them.

“I don’t know, sir, everything pre-flight checked out perfectly,” the younger man said as he scrolled through the information presented on the larger screens.

Perhaps his lieutenant didn’t know, but for once the General noticed something that his subordinate was not aware of. “Recall all the Black Boxes that were installed in the past five months.

With a slightly disturbed look up to his superior, the lieutenant nonetheless picked up the phone to make the appropriate communications. General Novaposhyn, on the other hand, continued to stare at the one area of the screen where his contemplations were focused: “System provided by Schwarzschild Industries.”

Chapter XXXVIII: The Black Box (coming soon)
 
I'm glad we're still hearing something about the cardinal, I feared you would forever let us wonder what happend to him (actually, that is what I would do if I would want to let one of my characters disappear). Also good to finally hear something more about those Time pieces.
 
Grubnessul said:
I'm glad we're still hearing something about the cardinal, I feared you would forever let us wonder what happend to him (actually, that is what I would do if I would want to let one of my characters disappear). Also good to finally hear something more about those Time pieces.

Yep , I plan on having little glimpses into the actual cause of our good Cardinal's disappearance ! And I wanted to have a chapter to help explain some of the mystery a bit ! Something sweet for everything to eat ! XD
 
The Cardinal is still alive. Thus, he is still playing his game (or should I say, His, game), whether Zio accepts it or not. Keeping the Cardinal alive is likely, I feel, to somehow prove to be a cardinal error.
 
stnylan said:
The Cardinal is still alive. Thus, he is still playing his game (or should I say, His, game), whether Zio accepts it or not. Keeping the Cardinal alive is likely, I feel, to somehow prove to be a cardinal error.

Yes he is , and even if Zio tries to make it differently , bad guys have a way of making His plan work out in the end (as you pointed out) .