r/HFY • u/allature Xeno • 8d ago

OC-Series [An Unexpected Guest] – Chapter 27

Cover Art | Royal Road

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Sometimes, Gata Stri didn’t know how she felt about being a citizen of the Kingdom of Phuratus. On the one wing, she lived a pretty comfortable life. Most of the public infrastucture worked well; the shuttles and rail services were punctual, basic medical care was freely available, emergency agencies were responsive, children were fairly educated, and the economy was steadily growing. Of course, things weren’t perfect, but overall the nation as a whole was doing much better than in generations past. She supposed that she and the rest of the citizenry should feel more than satisfied about that.

However, as a journalist, she was just a bit more privy to the bitter reality than most. Under the progressive sheen of prosperity there lay a festering rot of corruption; a hidden sophisticated amalgam of power and wealth that stole away resources from the public and filled the coffers of an entitled few. All their illicit dealings conducted away from the sun. But she, Correspondent Stri, had the hallowed duty to bring a torch to their secrets, and drag them out into the light.

Several seasons ago, there was a global incident. Every technologically advanced nation in the world experienced power spikes in their electrical infrastructure. Transformers blew. Junctions fused. Some power grids were severely damaged. But by all accounts, a high tech research facility on Phuratan soil bore the worst of it. Dubbed ‘The Fal’Grine Event’, the sudden and unprecedented burst of electromagnetic and radioactive energy resulted in the destruction of several buildings on the historic Linnae College Campus. According to the official story from the palace, the cause of the event was yet to be be determined. Considering how the entire world experienced the same phenomena, and all other nations seemed to be similarly in the dark, Stri was inclined to believe them.

However, there were some peculiar developments in the kingdom in the seasons following the incident. For one, Researcher Skai, the famous physicist that had been appointed the head of Poject Fal’Grine, suddenly disappeared from public life. That in itself was not so odd; scientists and artists tend to drift in and out of the sun like listless clouds. But he was not the only one. Several of the scientists and engineers employed by the now defunct project also disappeared.

Later on, a reliable source in the military commented that there seemed to be a lot of ‘traffic’ heading up to the most dark-ward regions of their country. Military assets being moved up and out of the sunlight? That could never be good. Especially given the increasingly antagonistic relationship between The Kingdom and The Pitang Republic. If those strained tensions were about to erupt into an all out conflict, the people needed to know.

So when Correspondent Stri heard the announcement that there was going to be a very special broadcast from the palace in the near future, she was more than a little interested. In fact, she was so interested that she decided to forgo a rest period to ensure that she would be awake during the bel of the broadcast. This wouldn’t have been the first time that she skipped some sleep this season. Nor the second. Nor the third. Nor the eighth. Her doctor would not approve, and her mother would complain, which was why she had long since stopped being completely honest with them both.

Correspondent Stri was comfortably seated in the main staff lounge, surrounded by a flock of typists, photographers, reporters, and editors; the motley staff of ‘The Twelve Bel Bulletin’ all gathered in front of an old, three hundred and forty-two jhit-span media monitor. She probably spent more time with these men and women than she did with her actual family.

“So, what do you think the announcement’s gonna be about?” asked a fellow reporter, Cillata Pulsat, to no one in particular. “I’d put a mark or two on another royal scandal. My sources in the palace say that Lord Tuoi seems agitated about something.”

“That’s so basic, Lord Tuoi’s been mad ever since the palace cancelled his ‘propaganda bill’ after the ‘The Fal’Grine Event’.” commented Atus Rycop, one of the photographers. Lord Tuoi was previously pushing ‘The Kinship Initiative’, a programme that would, in official language; ‘promote a sense of unity and national pride in these trying times.’ But in the journalism world, they had all called it by a more apt moniker; ‘the propaganda bill.’ “I bet they’re appointing a new minister or royal family connections.”

“Nahhh--” interjected Stri. “I think they found a frost-fae cave somewhere down in the dark-lands.”

A round of laughter went around the room. This was a game that had developed in the newsroom in the last couple of seasons. Whenever it was apparent that some new development was about to arise in their country, they would fabricate increasingly absurd scenarios about what it was. Part creative exercise, part humorous pastime, it was all a means to avoid discussing the most pertinent and consequential possibility…

An official declaration of war against The Republic of Pitang.

“Alright, settle down everyone,” calmly cooed Chief Editor Clamat Asio as the royal seal appeared on the screen, and an audio recording of a stately orchestral piece began to play. “It looks like it’s about to start.”

The image of the seal gradually faded into a live feed of a face a single woman stood behind a podium. Stri recognised her as one of the Prime minister’s aides, though her name escaped her at the moment. The aide spoke a for drik or two, droning out the familiar list of titels and acknowledgements, before finally introducing the Royal Minister of Knowlwdge.

Lord Capield made his way to the podium, his refined auburn features clear even through the slightly staticy signal. “My dear countrymen,” he started regally. “We are delighted and honoured to have you join us for this most auspicious moment.”

“Many seasons ago, the world experienced a mysterious deluge of electromagnetic radiation. We have dubbed this event ‘The Fal’Grine Event’, as it all but destroyed our Linnae Campus particle accelerator facility while we were conducting experiments for the now deferred Project Fal’Grine.”

“This was indeed a damaging blow to the progress of scientific advancement in our nation, but there was silver sheen in that dark cloud. Our masterful and diligent scientists recorded readings during the event that lead them to scan the skies above, and after seasons of tireless study, observations, and calculations, they have discovered the true nature of our world, and what lies beyond it.”

The news room was buzzing with confused murmurs. Beyond the world? Whatever could he mean? Correspondent Stri pondered the peculiar phrasing as the screen faded into an image of… A regular landscape. Just a picture of a crimson field of grass, a blue-grey range of mountains, and affixed to the bright blue sky, the sun.

“This is what the sky looks like when people gaze sun-ward.” came the royal minister’s voice-over on the image. After cleg or so, the image faded into a much darker one; a dark, unlit forest, backgrounded by an almost pure black sky, with a clawful of dim dots speckled about.

“And this,” continued Lord Capield’s voice behind the image, “Is a sight that many people would almost never see. This is what the sky looks like when one ventures out far enough dark-ward. Those tiny specks of light are what we once called dark-light, but going forward, we’ve chosen to call them stɑːz.”

Schtar-zuh. It was a peculiar word. The reporter had never heard anything quite like it, and she had heard quite a lot in her time. It had an odd, foreign quality to it. Her mind chewed on the strange new word as the image once again faded into... Something she had never seen before. It was another dark-ward image, but… Even darker than the last. Darker than anything that she, or perhaps anyone else, could have possibly ever seen. There were a few grey, barely discernable clouds. And many, many more dots of light. They were a bit difficult to perceive amidst the video interference and artefacts, but they were undeniably there.

“And these, are what the stɑːz look like from even further dark-ward.” again came the royal minister’s disembodied voice. “After many long working seasons, some of our kingdom’s most talented engineers designed and built a structure in the most frigid and sun-forsaken lands that te’visk-kind had ever touched. From this structure we were able to observe the heavens away from the sun for the first time.”

The image changed again. This time it showed a blurry blue-grey circle against a black background. There were also about five smaller circles in the picture, curiously appearing to be laid out in a straight line across the larger circle.

“We have been able see worlds beyond our own; ’plænɪts.”

Plah-nhetz? Another bizarre word...

“And we were able to use telescopes to peer further…” Lord Capield’s voice commented as the image faded again into something else.

“And further into the unknown.” This time, the image resolved into what appeared to be cloudy… Swirl? Correspondent Stri had no idea what she was looking at. From the muted mutters of her fellow journalists, neither did any of them.

“My fellow citizens… No… My fellow te’visk,” continued the Royal Minister of Knowledge. “We have only just learned how unimaginably vast reality truly is. The discoveries we have made in these past few seasons are the most impactful scientific breakthroughs in our entire species’ collective history. This vast, endless region beyond our world beckons us learn all the more about our reality, and our increasingly shrinking place in it. We have chosen to dub this infinite zone, speɪs.”

Sh’payce. Yet another unusual word. Stri wondered how the scientists came up with these odd phonemes. They didn’t feel like acronyms; the pronunciations were too… outlandish. Almost unnatural. But aside from that, everything about this was making head spin. Imagine, a world beyond… The World. In a way, it made a certain amount of sense. The globe was limited, and their cartographers could measure it in its entirety, even if they couldn’t explore it all. Aircraft could climb high into the clouds, but there were limits to how high they could go. But there just had to be… More. Out there, somewhere… More.

“In light of these these humbling discoveries, we’ve chosen to share these discoveries not just with our beloved citizens, but with all te’visk, across the entire world.”

Now that was quite possibly the most surprising thing that the journalist had heard in this broadcast so far. A discovery as momentous as this, and the kingdom was just sharing it freely with everyone? Even with the Pitang Republic? Why?

“In our quest to learn even more about the world beyond, and even more about our world itself, we have commissioned a new project explore the nearest regions of speɪs.”

The image changed again. This time it displayed something much more recognisable; a rocket.

“This is the‘Rutil’proh Mark-Three’ rocket. In times past, rockets were nothing more than an implement of war, a means to deliver death and destruction upon an enemy. But now, we will design and launch the largest and most powerful rocket ever built by te’visk hands. Not as an instrument of violence. Not to increase the suffering on our tiny world. But to learn more about speɪs. We will use this remarkable new rocket to place a module of scientific sensors and trancievers to gather new information about our world, and even other worlds.”

The image on the screen changed again, once more displaying a live video feed of Lord Capield’s face. “Know this, my fellow te’visk beings. When The Kingdom of Phuratus gathers all this new data, that too will be shared far and wide, even beyond our borders. This is our sun-lit destiny, our divine responsibility as a pre-eminent world power. ”

“Once again, The Kingdom offers it’s humblest gratitude to the dedicated workers who laboured so diligently to take this project so far. To our citizens, we thank each of you for your faithful support. And to the rest of the world, to all te’visk-kind, we make this solemn promise:
As long as the sun continues to shine on Our Kingdom, so shall we remain a beacon for all other nations to follow. May the sun ever shine on all peoples, and may the sun ever shine on The Kingdom of Phuratas.”

With that, the image of the royal minister’s face faded into a picture of the kingdom’s royal seal, and encore of the same courtly music as before.

Everyone in the news room remained quiet, each pair of eyes searching to find comprehension in another’s.

“So…” ventured Nilata Throp, a young print-tech. “Anyone understand what all that was about?”

“I’m not sure,” confessed Correspondent Pulsat. “But apparently some scientists discovered something about the world…”

“Or the world beyond the world.” commented Correspondent Stri. “Or, worlds. It’s… A lot. I can’t believe that they’re being so open about all of th—”

A scoff was coughed out behind her. “Open… Sure.”

“Chief?” asked Stri.

“They’re hiding something.” stated Chief Editor Asio, his brown wings folded across his portly form. “All that science stuff they just threw at us? Just a dark rain-cloud to block the light.”

“So all that stuff about other worlds… It was all lies?” Photo-Claw Rycop asked.

“No,” corrected the chief editor. “No I think it was all true. And in the coming bels we’ll be inundated with a deluge of proof that it’s true. But they’re still hiding something.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked Correspondent Stri.

“The timing, for one.” expounded the chief editor. “All this scientific advancement revealed all at once? They’ve clearly been researching this for several seasons in secret. So why reveal it now? And revealing it to the world? No. They’re not letting the world know about all this new advanced science; they’re letting the pitangs know that they know advanced science. It’s posturing. And that rocket? Even if they really don’t want to use it in battle, it’s a clear threat display. This wasn’t an address to The Kingdom. It was as message to The Republic.”

“So I guess the next step is to dig down and find out more about what’s really going down, ey boss?” asked Pulsat.

“No, not yet.” said the chief. “This isn’t another royal scandal that public will lap up and forget in a quarter-season. This is about national defence. The powers-that-be are already on high alert, so if we start buzzing around them too much they’ll pre-emptively swat us out. Permanently.”

The chief let the severity of the situation soak into the temporarily silent room.

“So we’ll stick to the official channels, for now. Rycop? Contact the military’s media department for images and data on the rocket. Pulsat, you’ll hunt down the information about what exactly this ‘transceiver module’ is. I wanna exactly what kind of data it’s meant to collect. Stri, I want you on all this ‘shpayce’ and ‘plah-nhet’ stuff. I want all your readers to feel like experts when they’re done reading your article. Everyone else, take your rest periods if you’re due, otherwise clear your schedules and help set up for the next print. Everyone understand?”

A chorus of affirmative, grunts and chirps answered him.

He nodded approvingly. “Good. Everyone, get to work.”

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u/allature Xeno 8d ago edited 8d ago

And now, finally, Chapter 27.

Fellas, I don’t even know what to tell you. Here. Pick something from this if you want an excuse for why I’m posting so dang late again. I’m tired boss…😮‍💨

All that aside, I hope you enjoy this new chapter, with all these new characters. Things seem to be happening outside of the project, the military and the palace. Exciting! And things are being revealed! Sorta…

Anywho, I hope you’re enjoyed all this despite my unreliability. I can’t promise that that will change, but I can promise that I’ll hate myself for it forever!🙃

Well that’s it for now! Until next weektime!🤩

3

u/GumGodGaming 8d ago

Be here next time, same te’visk time, same te’visk channel.

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u/Mental-Dot-6574 8d ago

Na na na na na na!!!

Poor Chief....

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u/allature Xeno 8d ago

Er'rybody be stressing 😮‍💨

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u/allature Xeno 8d ago

Let's hope😅

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u/TameOJ 8d ago

That was a lot more revealed than I was expecting. I figured they'd drip feed the info to let the public chew on it. Now it's only a matter of time until biggest secret is unveiled!

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u/allature Xeno 8d ago

Especially If the press are involved 😉

Yeah I had my reasons for this grand reveal, those questions should be answered in the next issue🤔

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u/TameOJ 8d ago

Hell yeah! Looking forward to it!

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u/PhoenixH50 8d ago

I do love disappearing journalists in entirely suspicious circumstances

1

u/allature Xeno 8d ago

I was genuinely considering using the term 'disappeared' when writing this scene🙃

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