Tempest sea 2 back up

    It is easy enough when one examines the multiverse to look at the two extremes, of completly different worlds from one another to parallel timelines just barely outside of a fractured timeline ready to collapse back into its self and correct for the slight variations. Likewise at a smaller scale one may examine alternate timelines with many aesthetic simularities, such as following the time lines in which certain worlds and/or species exist in them; finding many different for example "human" worlds such as Earth, Homnes, Peres, or ones whose histories diverge in drastically different ways such as an Earth that evolves sapient rabbit like life forms vs an Earth where humans evolve and become a dominant race in the galaxy. Likewise one may notice various Earths for example with many cosmetic simularities and aside from some major dividing points in history seem nearly identical at any given point in time; yet in truth have dramatic differences.

   For instance many Earths have the same mythologies, take for instance the god Ra. On one Earth Ra is nothing more than a myth based on exaggerated traits from a king who once lived. On another Ra was based on a bird like alien. On yet another Ra was a fire elemental that believed its self and its kind to be actual gods, on yet another Ra was a super-human, or another where Ra was a human like alien, or Ra was a psionic construct born from the needs of the people as that Earth obeyed such magical rules...as indeed the rules of magic can change between groups of Earths causing massive shifts in their history behind the scenes and the resulting eventual apocalypses that follow.

   Now the Society of Sorcery for all its granduer also sports a "Ra". His life story at its most summarized is a pyrokinetic born on the planet Mars in a timeline where the planet was terraformed and its two moons fused as one. His power grew and he became a pyromancer as he thanks to his allies with more magic based powers (Isis, Thoth, and Osiris) taught him how to tap into the aether and enhance his power further. This group discovered the secrets of immortality, and time travel. Wanting a world of their own as the powers of the Sol systems became more and more aware of their groups growing power and threat to the stability of the fledgling Mars colony (this universe had developed a terraform and xenogenesis seeding of their own species approach to space and came back to their home system and seeded Mars which had long dead ruins of lost tech from earlier pre-terraforming colony days). Well speeding right along they went back in time, not realizing that going back into your own timeline was nearly impossible and ended up in an alternate past, much further back than intended. They became the gods of Egypt for that reality.

  In time their rule over the region was challenged by a nebula creature from space and its cult, calling its self Yah'vin'woh. Ra used a powerful spell he had perfected in sub-space battle zones they had created for that exact purpose to kill Yah'vin'woh; the Demiurge of Ra. An extinction level spell that summons a hurricane of fire (as in the size of an actual hurricane, and made of fire). This drew the attention of the original council of the Society of Sorcery, and Ra and his followers were taken from the Earth by them...and long story short they stayed, earned the local trust, and after countless millenia living there and learning the many truths of the multiverse decided to never leave and many of them even became members of the 300 member strong Council of Sorcery. Ra being one of the 35 that oversee the Magical Mercenaries.

   *******

   The Society of Sorcery, it is rather odd to think that a city that exists outside of the flow time and space for much of the multiverse would have a mercenary division, even if it needs supplies or that it would show concern over relations with space empires and policing organizations. Outside of these multiverse scale super advanced civilizations and the overseers of the afterlife  and other such high end beings; there are few who are even aware the Society of Sorcery exists. Most who discover its existence believe it to be a group of wizards and other spell casters who have ascended to a higher plane where they oversee and protect the multiverse from magical dangers and continue to learn the great secrets of the multiverse. This isn't entirely untrue, although few in the Society would qualify as "ascended" type beings as those tend to stick with their own groups; although there are some.

   While how long the society of sorcery has existed is unknown it used to have a council of 13, then 20, then a countil of 35; and that number shot right up to 300 suddenly after the society began its policy of abducting potentially dangerous spell casters so they could be isolated, trained "properly", and turned into assets rather than threats for the multi-verse. This also began the Magical Mercenaries branch. Prior to this the Society of Sorcery's divisions were divided based on research, study of eldritch seals, magical artifacts, ascended being research, research of the legendary beyond ascended beings, and the combat division. All of which worked together to do exactly what many thought they did, protect the various worlds they had contact with *which they got supplies from and in return placed under their non-interference save for magical concerns protection*.

   Under normal conditions the Society of Sorcery had no contact with any empires, terrestrial or space bound; however they were noticed by three multi-verse scale Empires. The Croon Alliance (which the society avoids as they are extremly hostile to humanoid life, and only reports enounters with the next two). The Ju-el Empire, a millions of years old multi-verse spanning empire with a manifest destiny approach to all humans and human descended races believing they should all be part of the Ju-el Empire; as the Ju-el themselves are the only human descended race known to have reached a multi-verse and multiple galaxies in their own universe level. So they seek to "protect" all other humanoid life...by force if neccessary. The Dimension Police, another group that exists in a different pocket universe outside the normal flows of time, and butted heads with the Society of Sorcery as they too protect worlds and have non-interference laws; however this is their primary purpose, to guide and protect and their laws and rules can vary considerably from world to world, and they also don't just protect but seek out known threats that may cross between realities, and deal with non-magical mundane threats the Society would have missed such as cross-dimensional contamination (reality overlaps releasing life forms, microbes, and entities into each other). Just being noticed by these three forced the Society of Sorcery to reconsider their position (they are just one small city with a population of only a few thousand *larger than some might suspect but no massive space empires with tech that can counter most magic, rival others, or simply out numbered*.

  In exchange for being left alone, and protected from the Croon Alliance, as well as other discovered potential threats like the Suihrai and Kuhrai empires and various other beings and groups the Society of Sorcery made a deal with both the Ju-el Empire and the Dimension Police, they formed a mercenary sub-group; the Magical Mercenaries, who would hire out powerful individuals to aid DP officers, detectives, and agents, as well as aid the Ju-el when dealing with magical threats and beings. In truth over time few have forgotten the two are related, and the Magical Mercenaries have even acted as double agents with Overlords of various Hells and Netherworlds along with various Gods and Goddesses hiring Magical Mercenaries to assist them. The guidelines have grown thin over "time" and increase of numbers. There are now even members of the Magical Mercenaries who don't even live in the Society of Sorcery. Of course Rhulan thought nothing of not recognizing Ruby or Nefaria, she has only lived in the Society of Sorcery for about ten internal years, and of that only this year been allowed to move around freely on her own; something they apparently are considering revoking after her overkill methods, and showing up Ra in the colliseum. Even then the city has thousands of people living in it, and most those listed as Magical Mercenaries are constantly coming and going as they live entire life times outside the city in what internally are mere minutes.

   One of the reasons Rhulan agreed to join the Magical Mercenaries, thanks to the Anti-Paradox Gate. This gateway to and from the Society of Sorcery allows one to leave but not overlap themselves, it won't allow anyone to travel to a point where they "currently" are as the society exists outside the normal flow of time to prevent a "Zen Fusion" event or "Paradox Eraser" from occuring to the individual, depending on local chrono-systems. In fact one could leave on a job, or a research mission, be gone for years, centuries even, and when they hit "return" locally only be gone for a few minutes *barring any overlap with other members who left and met them and already came back causing temporal collision points to occur so they'd come back a bit later as a result, but those are rare and overlaps are carefully controlled*. There are numerous more factors, but that is an entire chapter on temporal mechanics. What is important is there can be hundreds of Magical Mercenaries scattered about time and space through out the multi-verse at any given moment only returning to the Society of Sorcery to call in a completed mission, collect their pay, and leave.

   ******

   This was all gone over in greater detail with Rhulan, who now with Xin are walking down a rather fancy high tech corridor that was down an elevator, hidden among rocks in a forest overlooking a rather medeval looking city that also looked to in part be built out of the ruins of a much more high tech society. Xin the cat witch has a good relation with the Ju-el, and has acted as an emmissary between the Ju-el, the Society of Sorcery, and the Kuhrai in the past. Much to Rhulan's amusement and in a sense "joy" Ra is not liked by the Ju-el; they are not partial to patriarchy figures, especially "All Father God Kings"; as the Ju-el are a feminine built race; even if biologically they are essentially various types of hermaphrodites; but have to deal with such societies on a regular basis as they deal with human civilizations much to their annoyance.

  "I've been meaning to ask," says Rhulan as they stroll down the corridor looking at the orange dress with black cat and bat silhoutes along with spider webs designs on Xin's witch outfit, "your aesthetic seems rather unique, yet I can't help but feel there is something more, like a history behind it."

   *Tee hee*, says Xin, "Its Halloween based."

  Rhulan raises an eyebrow, "Hallo..whatza?"

  "A holiday observed by many Earths," says Xin, "its all about spooky stuff, and honoring the dead, and candy, and fun silliness with stuff that normally scares humans, there are even netherworlds that based themselves on it...and some Earth's whose Halloweens are based on those Netherworlds...all timey whimey stuff."

    "Timey...whimey?" asks Rhulan.

   "Its a reference," says Xin raising her finger and chin up in a proud manner immitating somethin but Rhulan knows not what, "to a television show about time travel."

  "Tele..vision...show?" asks Rhulan.

   "A pre-industrial witch?" the voice comes from a woman just appearing from large white doors that don't so much as slide into the walls but melt back into them. She is well built and wearing a skin tight blue outfit with armor plates on her shins, boot like feet part of the suit, forearms, abdomen, and a chest piece like a mech suit. Her hair is short and light green, her lips violet, and her eyes emerald green.

   "Figures only a pre-industrial witch who doesn't even know what a television is would take this job."

   She sneers at Rhulan looking her up and down, "a cliche evil sorceress look, let me guess, the Society of Sorcery kidnapped you as a" she does finger qoutes, "magical threat",  then continues, "and this is a work release program. Just to make it clear, a television is a magic box with moving paintings that enterain the masses."

  "Oh," says Rhulan hands on hips looking the woman up and down, "A pre-recorded entertainment projection. Yeah, the Lavar Corporation and a few smaller ones used that to placate and distract the masses in their sectors back home, never had the time or patience for it myself."

   The Ju-el narrows her eyes and looks to Xin, "So what's her story?"

  Xin smiles and waves her arms, "She's a crazy powerful mutant sorceress who tried to smash a hole into a hell world from inside Other World, and she just beat up Ra!...oh and she totally originated from Reality-Q where she beat up some Amana, and Sahralia totally has a thing for her."

   The Ju-el officer shakes her head, "What? One moment Xin,"

   She taps her temple and holographic purple sunglasses looking tech appears over her eyes, "Scanning....armor...shadow cloth, advanced natural defense aura, biology...human...Ju-el?"

   She removes her goggles, "So you're a Ju-el?"

  "Aesperian," says Rhulan, "Never heard of the Ju-el until this lot abducted me. However from what I hear I'd say Aesperians are a little more dimorphic than you are."

   The woman smiles, "We're more...morphic than other human descended races give us credit for. The name's Yoshino, come into my office, we can discuss this job a little more there."

   ******


   Yoshino sits behind her desk and *sighs* as Xin and Rhulan stand in her office, "I have to say I am as you might say a bit frustrated at your presence; I understand your organization has a policy where it won't appear earlier in a world's timeline than your latest apperance?"

    "Yes," says Xin, "that way we prevent the timeline from correcting its self otherwise."

   Yoshino *sighs*, "Very well then, we can just declare this hundred year old job dropped then. Unfortunatly that was the one my supperiors were hoping you'd take and not this suicide mission."

  "With all due respect," says Xin, "I don't know what the other members of the Society of Sorcery told you, but I can assure you going after the Primal Shadow is the real suicide mission."

  Rhulan's eyes flash briefly, "What...is this Primal Shadow?"

  Yoshino points up, "This is Earth one twenty three, about a hundred years ago it was a mix of pressure tech and early electromagnetic tech; then a haunted house showed up, turned out there was some cursed mask in its wall. Some random human put the mask on and it possessed them, transforming them into a shadowy monster with a central body like a humanoid female but with long thorn covered thorns all over its body and looooong clawed arms. It turned giant and ravaged this world. We showed up and barely managed to drive it off, in that we cracked the mask with a Quantum Disrupter cannon from a flag ship and the beast released its victim. However the mask and the possessed victim were only mediums, a way for it to gain a foot hold to this world. This Primal Shadow as it calls its self has been randomly attacking various worlds for centuries now based on the times of its apperances. It shows up via various methods to sneak through the dimensions and then just...does random things, acts like a succubus, a ghost, a forest, a destructive kaiju like this time, it makes no sense even for an Eldritch as it seems to have no real motive...the Dimension Police have records of it, but refuse to work with us in tracking where its coming from or what true motive it might have...however..."

   She eyes Xin and Rhulan, "That would be my prepared speach regarding THAT job, and to show you what we found and other masks and items it has left behind like tracers to lure it back to these specific locations...but again I digress...you're here for that millenias old mech suit stolen by some ascended being and left in that basic Hell world like a statue. *Sigh*, we have better mechs since then, but its become routine to send the job to the Society of Sorcery, I guess we can't just leave a Rokonaka core battery just lying around."

  "A...what?" asks Rhulan.

  "Rokonaka, or R-Energy as some of our worlds that use that alphabet call it," says Yoshino, "More commonly refered to as chaos energy, its not so much energy as one of the three types of dimensional displacement state we are able to utilize and localize as energy. The Kuhrai especially prize it as they believe its from one of their three trans-dimensional goddesses. Hyper dimensional being as the source or not, it is very advanced tech relative to most worlds and extremly dangerous. However the Tempest Sea where it is located has unpredictable weather, obelisks and buildings sticking out of a dark ocean with no clear or consistent depth, incredibly aggressive life forms...it is a Hell world after all, and is home to a particularly nasty set of Eldritch that reside in the waters and buildings. Anything alive entering that world is targeted immediatly, there is no hiding from every single centimeter of the place coming after you."

   Rhulan *shrugs*, "Eh, better than sticking around the Society of Sorcery"

   Rhulan's thoughts turn to her cataclysms and the sphere of darkness, this could be her oppertunity...dark magic, a power so rare in the Society of Sorcery, her fire cataclysm out matched their top pyromancer, so this could be her ticket home free from their grasp.

   "Very well," says Yoshino tapping some buttons and a clear plastic looking card materialzing from a slot on her desk, "this locater will take you to a portal, we can get you within a few hundred feet of the mech, your best chances, and this card should also have the override and control lock on the mech, just tap it on the face of the mech and we can target it and teleport it home.

  Rhulan takes the card, Yoshino's fingers brushing hers, "Ya'know by the way I'm the only Ju-el in this base watching these proto-humans develop to the point we can contact them officially; if you survive and still bored of those wizards I could teach you what a Ju-el is trully capable of...and I would love to hear your origins...a Ju-el sorceress whose never heard of us yet lived in a technological society."

   The look on her face spells out other intentions, Rhulan smiles back, "Well we'll have to see about that then."

   She lifts the card up and waves it in the air, "But first, let's see about this mech suit."

   As they leave Yoshino watches them and thinks, "Damned cape, at least let me see her ass on the way out."

   ******

  "Sooo," says Xin walking backwards ahead of Rhulan as they approach a large white hexagonal portal gateway with a ramp in the Ju-el base, "You gonna take her up on her...date?"

  Xin's smile is so innocent Rhulan nearly laughs, "A lonely outpost job at a mostly automated station," says Rhulan, "I've been there, I'd have fucked nearly anyone who walked through the door...or played them a game of cards just to alleviate the boredom either way. Then again....the Society of Sorcery isn't much better."

   Xin taps a few buttons on the side of the gate, "Sorry Rhulan but I can't go with you, your job...and...I can't go to Hell worlds...personal...reason...yeppers."

 "Its fine," says Rhulan as the gateway creates a blue spiral portal that shifts to red in a disturbing blood circling the drain till it colors the entire thing red manner, Rhulan won't admit it, but she is a little nervous, after all...Hell is not a place she'd ever been before.

  ******