ALL NOVEL Loop 24 - Part 1
“Well Ralth, we all saw what you could do, and we also all saw what they could do. How do we catch up?” Cal asked his brother. It was two weeks into the new loop and everyone except Andy was gathered around a table in the void house. Cal was still in awe at what he experienced at the end of the last loop. The level of power that was brought to bear against Ralth was something mankind had no current defense against. Cal planned to change that, he just didn’t know how to do it, yet.
“One correction on your statement, you saw what they were willing to do to stop me. As I said I would be much more powerful in a reality where my powers are native to, and I’ve never been able to stop their invasions before. Some of the people who have trained are capable of destroying a galaxy on their own, and still they have fallen before the forces of the Gryalth. I’m sorry if this disheartens you, but I believe it’s important to know where we stand. This is just the start of our journey and together, and together we will climb to higher mountains than any of you have ever imagined.” Ralth rested his hands on the table as he spoke. His head swiveled across the table making eye contact with each person in turn.
“As for the question of how we catch up. Ethel, what do you think?” Ralth looked back at her.
Ethel stood up and started speaking. “We need to increase our magical abilities. After this meeting I intend to build a door in the backyard to a spirit realm myself. We have as far as we know unlimited time and do-overs, so we need to spend this time connecting ourselves to as many mana spirits as possible. Though I don’t know how we do that as it seems most of the wells have been corrupted.” She slumped back into her chair.
“Hrm, if we continue the assumption that the mana wells are some quantum source of energy tied into the universe itself, it stands to reason they wouldn’t only exist on Earth. Not that I know how much good that does us. We have no way to travel the cosmos and find other civilizations that may have spawned them.”
“Andrew is onto the answer I think. The Gryalth invasion isn’t localized to just our planet though, at least I doubt that it is. Generally they invade all sentient civilizations at the same time in order to destabilize any real chance of resistance to their full scale mana extraction plans, but if we start closer to home and get a little lucky perhaps we can find an intact mana well aligned to something like time or gravity. I believe we could work with Barron to establish some cracks to more distant parts of the universe then.” Ralth nodded at the spirit.
“Huh, yeah I think I could do that, but the further we want to make the pathways the stronger the elemental resonance we’d need. I’m pretty sure any basic source could get us anywhere in the Solar System though. So yeah, let’s start there.”
“This still doesn’t answer how we find one of those sources if we can’t do it on Earth.” Cal’s frustrated words were cut off by Andrew.
“Actually it does. Honestly with our wealth and technological access I don’t see why we can’t go to the moon or hell Mars. Getting back might not be easy, but we don’t actually need to do that. We just need a one way trip and enough resources to find a well.”
Jen joined in excitedly. “Here’s what we do. Stan needs to go do some giant gambling wins and then invest that money into a tech startup. We just push out future technology this loop a few years early through it. We then just have Stan announce his desire to go to Mars. It’s not like he would even be the first tech billionaire to try it. Oh and before anyone else claims a seat. I’m going. My childhood dream was to be an astronaut, so I’m not missing out on this.”
“I guess I've volunteered.” Stan added.
Cal burst into laughter and loudly yelled out “I guess we’re going to Mars. Not at all what I expected we were doing this loop, but hey at least we can use the tech company idea to get Andy here earlier. We can just award an internship to him.”
“Well now that that is settled I need to pay a visit to Grannus and see how the rehabilitation of his realm is going.”
“I’d like to join you, Cal.” Ralth’s request surprised Cal. He had assumed his brother would be going with Ethel on her undertaking. Then again he let him do that entirely alone, maybe it had to be that way. “Happy to have you.” And he was.
“Have fun gentlemen, I’m off to build a nature reserve.” Ethel stood up and walked out of the room. “Coming Bug?” Her words drifted in from the other room.
“Yes professor Ethel.” Bug followed her out.
“Cal, can I talk to you in private before we go to the rock realm please?” Ralth asked his brother.
“Sure, what’s up.” Cal went into a different room in the void house instead of heading back to what used to be his bedroom and had now become an entryway to other realities.
“I don’t believe Grannus will be able to fully remove the corruption, likely due to the time loop. We will need to acquire some sort of cleansing or healing abilities and assist them in fully securing their domain.”
“Ah, I was worried about something like that. No matter how many times we removed the monsters, new ones would randomly show up.”
“If it’s any consolation, it should be deeply confounding the Gryalth that the mana spirit is so capable of fighting back.”
“I’m sure they will be happy to hear that.”
*
Cal was a little shocked that it had only taken them two decades to put this all together, but here he was touring the launch facility. It had been decided that Andy, Jen, Stan and himself would be going, plus a few extra people to help maintain the base they had to put together once there. Several rockets had been launched in the last year to deliver payloads they would need once there. On paper it was a ten year mission. In reality they had zero plans for return, though Cal was very curious if the Gryalth would quickly move in on them or they would need to end the loop themselves.
Ethel and Bug were going to be spending the rest of the loop in Portland working on tracking down the scientist they saw in the last loop. So far that was the only clue they had of what their new coloopers were up to. Ethel was now one of the more powerful members of their band, which now that he thought about it really needed a name. Something for the next loop he decided, something that would drive Andrew even more insane.
“Cal, are you even paying attention? We launch tomorrow!.” The man guiding him around the facility had noticed his wandering mind
. “Sorry Tim, just caught in thought. It’s still all a bit overwhelming you know. We are going to be the first people to walk on Mars.” He lied, slightly. He did find the entire idea of Mars just being a sidequest hilarious at how historic it should be. Cal liked the man, he came at the recommendation of Ethel. He was one of their first big hires. He was a very skilled pilot and exactly what they had needed. They had debated several times about possibly bringing him on the loops, apparently Ethel had done this before, but they ultimately decided to avoid it for now. Until Andrew figured out a reliable way to bring another individual into the loops themselves, it was best to keep people as ignorant as possible to avoid information leaking to the other scientists out there.
“Yeah, I get it. I never expected this was where my life would end up either, but turns out making a good impression on Ms. Rose all those years ago was the trick to cementing my future as a Martian. Alright let’s call the tour for now. I think we honestly all know everything the best we can at this point. Go get some sleep.”
“Thanks, I’ll see you in the morning.” Tomorrow Cal was heading to Mars.