STANDING ALERT [quote]Pancake poured over the latest scout reports… all quiet. Not in here; in the command center of the Brotherhoods most prominent base it was crowded with busy and chattering scribes and initiates studying technological finds and monitoring the many sensors and spyware available to the Brotherhood, but out there, it was quiet, for now… He rolled his neck and felt the pop of the joints, he had slept on it wrong again, ‘heh, who am I kidding I haven’t slept’. he winced slightly at the sharp pain as he stretched it.[/quote] [quote]His exhausted and overworked expression was a mirror of the faces of the scribes and young initiates rushing about, He attempted to hide his yawn from those around him and his mind wandered. ’I should’ve filed a protest’ The President-Elect of Offtopic, Elder Ring, had insisted on personally retrieving the imperiled Proctor Bosheezi. For some reason the old man had always held the young soldier and his Robotic companion as a personal responsibility. ‘I should’ve told him to stand down.’ And now the whole brotherhood, and possibly The Presidents life would be his responsibility [/quote] [quote]‘get a grip Monk’ These were troubling times; the great cataclysm had meant countless refugees had been expelled from their homes, their great and glorious forum obliterated by the power of the gods; they poured into Offtopic. That meant new recruits, and new unknowns. Pancake wasn’t born yesterday, he was good at his job. And no weight was too great where bringing back the president was concerned. The recent battles against the alien hoard of Toaster had been a drain on the Brotherhoods resources when they had already been draining fighting crime alongside the sheriff’s department and rooting out the many criminals of whom Toaster had been leading. The ruthless nature of that sentient appliance had hurt them in exactly the way he had wanted; they had persevered with these challenges But now the president was been abducted. Lancer squads had been flying hourly and things were looking hopeless.[/quote] [quote]The denizens had been welcoming to the refugees mostly, but a few clashes here and there were common, many had already been dual citizens and this smoothed over a few differences. But the senate of Offtopic had still not been elected, and emergency powers had been invested in the Chancellor to oversee the courts and the government. It had fallen to the people who worked for a living to step up. The president had been missing for weeks now. And the weight of Elder Ring’s position had come crashing squarely down on his lap.[/quote] [quote]But their was a glimmer of hope. [/quote] [quote]Troubling readings that had been showing up for weeks prior now and were becoming cause for concern; odd thing was the intensity of the ambient emissions had been increasing. ‘They had started at a mere >1 on the Universal Energy Rad Scale four weeks ago; two weeks ago it was 2 Rads, last week it was 6 Rads, and now the anomalous emissions were reading almost 11 Rads … it was 4 weeks since the anomalies in offtopic had been occurring… It’s got to be connected’[/quote] [quote]Pancake thought about the insane happenings, strange beasts, missing people; Pancake and a few others suspected the society of daggers but their involvement in the land had been mostly business conquest and white collar crime. They weren’t the type to shred random folks to bits; that’s why most people agreed with him when he suspected the Toaster… oddly, no Toaster bots had been reported in months. [/quote] [quote]The wild rantings of that “Speaker”; formerly the Smiling Serpent; formerly the Pintsizdslasher, and also an odd drunken vagrant; came to mind. This one had been particularly troublesome- changelings always were. He had outed his secret when he descended into madness at the Toaster’s control. A mystery; who was this strange entity? Able to change their form at will changelings were often flighty, flaky and nearly impossible to identify and pin down, Pancake had heard stories about changeling assassins, murderers; they were spoken to put fear in children to keep them safe from the many dangers of the realm.[/quote] [quote]Speaker had gone mad, again, and attacked the people of offtopic several times now, his motivations had been believed to be political before, but his nature belied that fact. His indiscriminate violence and his attempts to control key individuals in the Realm had suggested something more twisted. Pancake moved the surveillance photos of the spectral man aside, he hated that… thing. He knew without a doubt in his mind that Speaker was behind this; him and his damned Deep, whatever the hell that was…[/quote] [quote]Pancake leaned over his control console; ‘so,tired’ [/quote] [quote] “Sir, we’ve found the source.” Pancakes eyes widened, and he snapped to reality. the young scholar stood next to hime him . He turned, seized the file and opened it; atmospheric data, wind patterns, pages and pages of Raw Sensor feed, and a detailed triangulation method listed on the accompanying report there was also holo footage of… something… ‘Yes! I knew it…’ He had been right to have his men track the source of the emissions, there before him on the viewer was a rift in time and space.[/quote] [quote]“Is that what I think it is?” Pancake inquired pointing at the image “It’s a spacetime tunnel sir, we’re not sure what’s holding it open, normally these anomalies close as quickly as they open and they were thought to be theoretical only-“ “-Yea yea, I get it, you’re very smart- why is it there?” he said pointing at the image “…We don’t know, it’s possible whatever technology he used was malfunctioning when he sent the fortress… wherever he sent it. Or somebody is deliberately holding it open.” “Are we able to calculate the exit?” No sir. The Dark particle emissions near it and obviously whatever is on the other side creates too many paradoxes in the equation we don’t- Pancake groaned. ”-we have no way of knowing what’s on the other side… That’s all you have to say” Scribe.[/quote] [quote]He stormed away, ‘now what?’ knowing Speaker it was another trap, and he couldn’t afford to lose even one Lancer. He opened the airlock to his office. He was giving Sherlock bad intel, he was certain… “Pancake!” The wild sight of Acrocanthus rushed into the office behind him, “I’ve figured it out, the new data about the Rift includes gravitational data!” Pancake was getting tired off this all these eggheads in his command center any longer and he’d eat a plasma rifle. “What do you mean?”[/quote] [quote]“Gravitational Data, it’s in the report, something is warped in the space time continuum at that exact point. Using that we can map the immediate area and even calculate the-“ “What is the point Acro? If we don’t know where it goes what. is. the. Point.” “… I… uh…”[/quote] [quote]The hailing noise on his personal comm beeped ‘if we find you ring I’m never going to let you forget this…’”What is it?” ^Lancer squadron: Tigris reports a Brotherhood beacon signal emanating from the gate^ “Say again Paladin?’ ^Its broken but we cleaned up the interference and it’s definitely the Presidents emergency transponder^[/quote] [quote]Pancake leapt to his feet and rushed to his command stationto examine the incoming data, he would recognize that signal frequency anywhere; ‘Ring’. Acrocanthus arrived by his side and inspect the readout, and Pancake grinned “well, looks like we found the break we’ve been looking for, your gravitational data may come in useful just yet...”[/quote] [quote]Acrocanthus sat down to study the data coming in as Pancake stepped away and made a private call. “Sherlock… you better get down here” [/quote] [spoiler]Chapter 1 part 2 [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/251987136]here[/url][/spoiler]