Otto's Multiversal Mayhem

[Otto]

<Lights activated, ambient room temperature of the kennels 16 degrees centigrade. Homestead temperature 22 degrees centigrade. Coal reserves remain for ten hours intense operation until generator hibernation. No faults or diagnostic discrepancies at present. Engines muted and oscillation and vibration factors compensated for your current tasking. > An electronic voice reports. The voice of sounded like an engineer through a sounding tube on a Gothican warship.

‘I should bloody hope there are no faults! It took me an age to shovel the stuff into the scuttles’ Otto mutters as he cracks his knuckles and begins a trademark chaotic tune on the difference engine he made from a large grand piano. This is where the voice had come from. The Xert had named it Stradivarius, and had managed to imbue it with form of artificial intelligence that could track and monitor etheric and radio waves over great distances of interstellar space. ‘Strad’ had proved invaluable on countless occasions, and would do so again on this new venture Otto thought.

Otto’s ‘engine room’ hadn’t changed that much, with the two U-Boat type engines still dominating one side of the large room that had been hewn out of solid rock below the foundations of his dogs large kennels.

A deep bottle green carpet had been laid with care on the floor, except for below the engines themselves which had scuppers for the inevitable oil and fuel leakages that happened from time to time. On the other half of the room, as well as the piano, there was an extensive study and a large comfy sofa of which his wife Amdea had insisted that he install. Even more sepia photos now decked the walls, mainly of his wife and children, and their pets the huge Acturian Megahounds, in various states of amusing chaos.

A large bowl of pot pourri hung from the ceiling in a flower basket, so the smells of Jasmine and Lily battled with two stroke and diesel for domination of the room. Otto always managed to bang his head against it, but would not suffer the wrath of the wife in removing it. He would rather attack the dark ones of Scarathera than risk that encounter.

All in all it remained a rather homely place for the mechanist.

[Otto]

‘Wallpaper could do with replacing though’ he squinted at the fading and peeling rose patterned decor that adorned the whole room as he brought the chaotic piece of music on the difference engine to an ear splitting crescendo on Strad.

And as the final chord was struck, the sound of the engines returned in all of their noise.

<Engine mute disabled due to power distribution> the engine spoke through the engines vibration, almost like a set of stereo speakers.
Otto hadn’t expected this, but he stood and walked over to the door where an oily set of overalls and a set of ear defenders were hung. He placed them on, and the deafening sound of the engines were muffled.

<Sub ether communications initiated> Strads voice crackled into his headware.

The Xert returned to the piano chair, crossed his arms and closed his eyes in concentration.

<Good> he said. <Monitor power usage, and warn me when you reserves fall to ten percent.>

<Understood> Strad intoned.

<Draw up all interstellar comms records on the isotope Ofskiosium and feed the images to my sub ether sensamatic viewer.>

<Magic word requested........>

<Ah fer fucks sake! I thought I had fixed this! Amdea! >

<Profanity detected>

<Why you little....>Otto seethed etherically. <PLEASE> he barked.

<Magic word accepted. Stand by.>

[Otto]

<Sensamatic view initiated. Interrogating all known uses of the word ‘Ofskiosium’ in the last 400 years on etheric comms and radio waves.>

Otto’s etheric sight was suddenly bombarded by images of planets, systems and galaxies that was at once confusing and hypnotising. A few he recognised, many he didn’t. They shot across his vision like the flick books of pencil drawings he had made at school, almost creating some sort of strange cosmic dance.

<Estimated time to completion of task please?> Otto asked.

<Fifty nine Thurucycles, equating to two point two Gothican days >

<Hmm, I’m off for a pint then.> he stood and opened hie eyes. <Disable all non essential tasks, and let me know when you have some results for me if you please.>

Otto extinguished the lights of the room with a gesture . And as he exited the room he replaced the ear defenders on the door hook, and closed the door.

[arcanus]

Previously
"Eeugh" Otto broke into wracking convulsions as he began to suffocate, he was surrounded by a thick billious fog consisting of silver particles,
particles that his sensors identified was a vaporous metal.

Fortunately the digitalised portion of his brain remained focused, forcing himself to hold his breath and pull his breather mask on.
He took a long deep breath, expelling the crap in his lungs and allowing the filters to purge it.

Looking down at his sensor gauntlet, he pressed a sequence of touch apps which immediately lit up his inner vision with data.
He's crossed into a world with no oxygen, the atmosphere was heavy in Hydrogen, Helium, Ammonia and other caustic heavy gasses.
The ground shuddered beneath his feet, the terrain was definately volcanic, seismic spasms shuddered along threatening to topple him.

So far his attempts to develop a form of Inter-Spacial communication had got close but not complete, however Strad was able to scan for 'Ofskiosium' via its radio frequency.
By setting off a small radio pulse resonated through the Isotope element Otto was able to set off a flare of sorts.

This is exactly what he did, breathing a sigh of relief as the doorway materialised, a sphere of swirling bands of golden light,
he hurriedly stepped through.

[arcanus]

"Damn and blast" swore the Xert, he peered down the sandstone cliff face, the stone ediface peppered with bushy outcroppings of foliage.
Far below at its base the terrain levelled out into a flat plain, one dominated by a sprawling camp of mining monsters and their technical handlers.

In his search for uninhabited or indeed uncharted Worlds, Otto Von Weirdigan had been hopeful that this would be the one, however this one was full of human cockroaches as well.

He froze, his sensors indicating that he wasn’t alone.
Slowly crouching, he turned very slowly just in time to see a large saurian move in a predatory way past him, fortunately the creatures eyesight seemed to be poor and Otto’s lack of motion coupled with the heat retaining qualities of his survival suit had made him virtually invisible.

He remained frozen until the monster had moved off, grumbling he fired an Isotope enhanced ping into the cosmos and awaited the golden threads to appear.
Small lines of light materialised, each then impossibly curving and growing, as they did they began to rotate, doing so in such a way to eventually form a sphere.
The sphere having formed Otto stepped through, another frustrated trip and more 'Ofskiosium' used without replacement.

[arcanus]

<Constant vibrational rhythm detected>
Otto sat within his saddlebag captains chair, a worn mass of leather and springs brought all the way back from his exploits on Gothica’s Frontier.
<Constant vibrational rhythm continuing>
He had stared at the Etheric dimensional maps for hours, waiting for a small shining point of light and inspiration to catch his eye, as of yet nothing.
<Warning constant vibrational rhythm continuing>
He broke from his reverie “What!” he grunted, then looked to the bio-mechanical fingers of his right hand which were tapping a beat upon Strads Beech Outer Rim.
“You stroppy bastard”
<Vulgarity recognised and noted for later report>
“What are you talking about you arse”
<Vulgarity recognised and noted for later report>
“Reported to who, you idiotic machine”
<Vulgarity recognised and noted for later report>
“Don’t you play the dumb robot with me, you stuck up git”
<Sticks and stones>
“Aha I knew it”

<Multi-string Anomaly detected>
“Don’t you start again” Otto warned
<Sigh trans-dimensional multi-string Anomaly doesn’t not resemble previously recognisable radio scans>
“Oh your being serious, well stop buggering around and bring it up!”
The map revolved, being holographic it seemed to flex, resembling a star chart, the difference being pulsing lines and threads that ran from multiple points.
Most Dimensional points resembled a silver black hole in the place of stars, clouds of gold drifted between the points, he was so far unsure what these clouds were.

The Anomaly Strad had identified resembled something very strange, it resembled a ball of interwoven feathers floating within the dimensional space.
“What the hell is that”
<Vulgarity recognised and noted for later report>
“Knock that off, any further readings”
<Nothing further, insufficient core data to extrapolate analysis>
"What about Ofskiosium"
<Surrounding frequencies suitable, nothing specific>
“Sounds like there’s only one way to find out what it is”

[Otto]

“Right!” He said with purpose as he stood up, flexed his knees and grabbed a large rucksack off the sofa. Rummaging through it he produced his large shotgun and proceeded to load it with a rapid and precise action. The heavy full metal jacket cartridges were emblazoned with glyphs, runes and machine code of which he had tailor made to interact with his abilities to make ‘interesting’ results.

He cast the fully loaded weapon on the sofa, and dove back into his rucksack and made his final equipment checks, which among other things comprised of another more advanced re-breather.

‘Do you at least know if there breathable oxygen to be had on this ‘thing’?’ He asked Strad as he scanned the breather with a practiced eye for any deficiencies. 'Don't want to have to try and beat a new universal record for holding my breath again!' he snarled.

He paused from his scrutinising and his head snapped around to glare at the ‘piano’.

‘And did I hear a sigh from you a moment ago?’ he asked incredulously as his eyebrows quivered alarmingly.

[arcanus]

<We have no current method for evaluating amospheric integrity> replied Strad

<Have you informed Mrs Von Weirdigan of your departure?>

<A sigh I do not think you included that within my makeup>

[Otto]

'No I haven't managed that yet have I?' he mused as he continued his inspection of the breather, and then a large multiscanner.

'And, no I haven't let Amdea know I'm going.' he hissed in irritation.'Yet.' he added pointedly.

'And bloody right I didn't include sighs and other expressions of emotion in your 'makeup' as you so eloquently put it.' he snapped.

Could I put this down to the AI, gaining knowledge itself? Or does this smack of the Missus?

'Not necessarily a bad thing though if that is the case' the Xert thought.

[arcanus]

Almost in perceivably Otto thought he heard another sigh, he eyed the piano suspiciously, it seemed that Strad was both learning and being coached.

He would have to rework the locks to his lab, his wife seemed to defeat the current set far too easily.