[Ragnarok]

Note: Here is the third installment. It is the final introduction part of the story. Next installment will be actual in-game story line. Again, comments and suggestions are welcome.

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Chapter 1, Discoveries.

“What? You remember?! Honey, that’s great…I think…” said Shearma as she heard the news.
“Yeah… great…” says Qullum as he looks out his 3rd floor window, “I remember screeching, horrible screeching. The pain…it was unimaginable. Just when I thought I could not take any more, it stopped. Just like that,” said Qullum as he snapped his fingers, “then, I heard what sounded like people talking. But I could not recognize the voices; they were from someone I didn’t know. In fact, they didn’t sound like they were Hevordian at all; they had a lisp to them. It was as if they were… not from this planet, or race, but from outer space. At first I could not understand them. But the longer I lay there I started to understand words. Not whole sentences but words, but just as I was about to figure out what they were saying, I woke up here. ”

Shearma just squinted her eyebrows, or what was supposedly her eyebrows and looked at husband perplexingly. Once again her skin turned from a purplish color to a purple and green mix. But this time not out of fear has had occurred that dreadful day her husband had his first spell, but this time out of worry, worry for his well-being, and from what he had just said about these ‘aliens’ it was beginning to seem like he was ‘going nuts’, as the young ones would say.

“Doctor, would you excuse my husband and I, I would like to speak to him alone for a couple minutes.”
“Sure thing Shearma, I’ll be down the hall if you need anything.”
Shearma smiled at the Doctor as he walked out. She waited for him to walk completely out then she went over and shut the door for some privacy. She turned around and smiled at her husband, but it wasn’t a smile of ‘I love you’, it was more like “What the Hell…”

“Qullum, about these ‘aliens’ that you speak of, what are you talking about? There are no such things as aliens you know that. That is just a bunch of stories that are told to entertain the young ones. It helps develop their imagination.”
“Yes, you are right, that was what I believe. Until I started having these spells, well, at least till I actually remembered what happened during them. This was not just a hallucination; it was not just a dream. It was real, very real. At one time in my life I told these stories, and I would laugh at the though of aliens out there. But now with this ‘vision’ if you will, I believe there is life out there. And I believe we have to go out there and find it. This ‘vision’, it is our calling from the Goddess herself.”

Shearma had a look of disbelief at what her husband was saying when he was talking about life out there. But now this? What is this talk about a ‘Goddess’? What the hell is he thinking? Or…was he thinking at all? He had to be thinking, just not very straight obviously. These spells must have done something to his brain, that has caused him to start believe in aliens and a Goddess.

As Shearma continued to ponder over these things, her husband spoke up.
“Do you not get it? There is a Goddess out there watching over us, and the many other races out there. We are not alone. There is more then one planet in this universe. And it is our jobs to find those other planets and extend the Hevordah to many other solar systems.”
Shearma just shakes her head at how strange her husband is sounding.

“Honey, listen to yourself! You’re claiming the impossible! There are no other planets out there. Even if they were, where are they? Our planet is located in a nebula; planetary scans show no other planets in this nebula. Pictures taken from the most powerful telescopes on Kriekaal don’t show anything but a huge puff of gas out there.”
“And how would you know this?!”
Amy just laughed at this comment. “Honey, I work for the scientific lab & exploratory studying the nebula if you’ve forgotten.”
“Oh…right… I…uhh…forgot…” said Qullum. He then playfully looked at his wife but then immediately went back to a serious manner.

“But still Shearma, there is life out there! I know it! I heard the Goddess herself say so!”
“Then where do they live Qullum? Tell me that, where?” At this point Shearma was getting upset at her husband.
“I told you! They are on another planet in another solar system.” Said Qullum trying to argue his point. “When I had my Last spell I did manage to make out that the voices, whom I will call the Shar’Tol from here on out, mention something about “Warp Gates”, and they mentioned that these “Warp Gates” can lead you into a whole other solar system. From just a few light years away or many, many light years away.”
“Qullum” began Shearma, “this just isn’t possible. We have run scans after scans and studied the nebula, there is nothing out there but different gases.”

“You are right and wrong about that. To you there are only gases because you aren’t scanning on the right frequencies.” At that, Qullum grabs a H-Padd and inputs some information. “Here, take this to the exploratory tomorrow and scan on these frequencies and at these coordinates. There you will find the Warp Gates that the Shar’Tol were talking about.”
“Qullum, you know how I feel about this. And you know how everyone else is going to feel about this. They are all going to think you are crazy, here lately I almost think you are myself. But I will take this into the lab tomorrow just to prove to you that there are no “Warp Gates” out there. I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?”
“Sure thing,” said Qullum, “I will be here. Where do you expect me to go? They aren’t going to let me out of here till they find something wrong with me, which will not happen. Oh, and thanks, I appreciate what you are doing.”
At that Shearma just simply nodded and gently kissed her husband and left the room.

It had been a long day for Gorgas family. Many hours spent in one single room today discussing the spells. Then Qullum thinking that there is a Goddess, and other planets, and races. It was all nonsense to most of the hospital staff. Even for Shearma herself, she could not believe it. It just was not possible. They were in a nebula and they were the only race, on the only planet in the universe. Or where they…

The next Day…

The day after Qullum discovered that he was supposedly remembering what took place during his spells, Shearma took the H-Padd her husband had given her to take to the exploratory to scan on the frequencies and coordinates that were indicated. Shearma being the team leader of her division barked out commands to everyone. She then took a sip of Vordian Tea, which could only be found in the most remote parts of Kriekaal. Then she walked over to Cadet Jotag, who happened to be a long time friend of the Gorgas family, and made a special order.

“Jotag, delay your assignment for now. I got something a little more important for you and I to work on. I need you to set the long-range scanners to run a multi transiting frequency at 137.82-5.”
“Yes ma’am. But where would you like me to scan?”
“Jotag, drop the formality, you have been working with me long enough to know that you do not have to call me ma’am while on the job. Shearma will do just fine.”
Jotag just grinned evilly then piped up in a sarcastic way; “Yes ma’am…”
Shearma just gave him a look of death if he had ever seen one. She then said, “Ok, enough witty remarks for now Jotag. Back to the matter at hand. Set the scanners to scan the coordinates of 192 mark 13.5-7. Prepare to initiate scanning. Do it Jotag.”
“Aye Shearma,” he said in a professional tone, “initiating scan. The scan should be done in about 25 minutes.”
“Thanks, now we wait…”

20 minutes later…

“Scanning is complete Shearma, results coming in at scan-station 7.”
“Alright, lets see if my husband knows what he is talking about then.”
Shearma stood up from scan-station 1 where she normally works and walks over to station 7. She swiftly punches in a few codes to unlock the station and she starts pondering over the information being brought in by the scans.
“Well this all seems to be in order, nothing that we have not seen before; gases, a few space rocks, more gases.” Shearma continues to look over the information which seems to all be normal readings. Then she spots something not so ordinary.
“Jotag, come look at this, tell me what you see.”
Jotag left his station he was working at and walked over and lean over Shearma’s shoulder to view the information she was looking at.
“What the…what is that?”
“I do not know, I was wondering the same thing, it appears to be the usual gases’ but they are more concentrated then usual; and they appear to be swirling in a way. It is as if there is a Vortex (tornado) in space at those coordinates. I wish I could get a more detailed scan, but technology at this point will not allow it. Ok, I want you to do every possible scan on all frequencies and resolutions and run a level 1 diagnostic. I want to have a general idea of what these are by the time I return.”
“May I ask where you are going?” said Jotag as Shearma picked up her jacket and walked into the lift.
“I am going to the hospital to speak to my husband. I will return shortly.” At that the lift doors shut and Shearma headed to the hospital.

Arriving at the hospital Shearma headed for her husband’s room.
“…Another fire as broken out at the mining plant in Ku’lah killing 3 and injuring 22 others as an uprising of Hevordag terrorists have set a bomb in facility 25. That is the news update for the hour, I am Zor’ka Mi’cle signing off.”
Shearma arrived to find her husband playing with their son.
“Hey” said Shearma as she leaned over and gently kissed her husband. She then picked up her son and gave him a hug and a kiss, “And how are you big guy?”
As Qullum reached for the holo-control to shut off the view channel he began to speak, “I am doing just fine.”
Shearma rolled her eyes and in a frustrated voice she replied, “I was talking to Jr.”
“Mom! Guess what?! I beat dad at Galactic Chess!”
“Well that’s great honey, but let me in on a little secret, I can beat daddy at Galactic Chess.”
As Qullum looked at his wife in a annoyed manner, he couldn’t hold a straight face, he had to smile at the comment, he then said, “Hey, how did the scans turn out? Did you find anything?”
Shearma slowly looked down to her hands where she held a H-Padd with the most current information from the scans. Qullum look down to her hands as well and then he reached out and grabbed the H-Padd. He began to go over the information in a hurry to see what she found out.
“Ha! I told you there were warp-gates!”
“Now wait just a minute Qullum. Just because there are swirling concentrations of gases’ at the coordinates you provided” argued Shearma, “ does not mean a thing right now. For all we know this could be just a common phenomenon!”
“’Common phenomenon’ what are you kidding me? Since when have you seen enough concentrations of gases like this in one sector of space to call it ‘common’? You do not know that for sure! It is just as likely to be warp-gates that the goddess spoke of.”
“True, you got a point there. But lets not jump to conclusions just yet. We have a lot of detailed scanning we have to do before we can make a assumption either way.”
“But you yourself are thinking that these are not just ‘common phenomenon’. You think these have to be something of significance.”
“How do you know what I am thinking or what I am not?”
“Well for starters, I have been married to you for 45 years, that is enough time to grow and understand what a person is thinking. Plus while you were gone Last night I had another spell. But it wasn’t a normal spell. After this spell I seemed to be able to read peoples minds. I tested it out on a couple nurses and I can indeed read their mind. I was able to successfully tell what they were thinking 9 out of 10 times. But also this time I controlled the spell. I understood the voices, the conversations. They were…the conversations of everyone on Kriekaal. I- I am telepathic now Shearma. I don’t know how but I am.”
“This is…this is amazing. I never thought this would be possible, that it was only for the children in their stories. I cannot believe I’m saying this but…I am starting to believe everything you are saying. So far everything you have said has indeed come to be. The scans showed up mysterious phenomenon, you can read peoples minds now. This all is just…just overwhelming, but at the same time I can understand it all. But I cannot and will not believe those swirls of gases are ‘warp-gates’ until I can get more detailed scans. But with our technology right now it doesn’t look like we can do that. We must get funding back into the researchers guild. We must begin to explore this system. Now I still do not believe there are other planets out there or other beings, but we still need to explore.”
“It is about time you see things my way. Ok, if you do not want to believe in other life that is fine, but in time you will see that there is life out there. In time you will believe.”
“Maybe I will. But for now what should we do?”
“Well Shearma, we first need to start up the research developments again. We need to convince the High Lord that there is a necessity to get into space, to explore this system and investigate those swirls of gases. I feel that each and every one of us have this unique power, we just have to search for it.”

Over the next 100 years the Gorgas family held numerous fundraisers to gather funds to provide the researching guild they opened. The High Lord laughed at their arguments and sent them away without ever a second thought. The Gorgas family did not allow this to get the best of them, but they more then ever tried to convince the public of the findings. They held rallies in public squares trying to gain members in the space program that they had named, “Gorgaspace, INC.”
Shearma and Qullum raised their son to be a great public speaker they thought him the ways of the goddess herself. The family uncovered and learned how to control their newfound powers. One day they would use these powers to help people; maybe not Hevordians, but possibly even other races in space. Yes, one day they would reach outer space; one day they would prove their High Lord wrong for turning them away. One day…they would explore the galaxy.