Rita Pearl

The Metataxi

12/6/2023 11:08pm

I wear the Cloak of Knowledge, and hold the Scepter of Vision.

Behold my brilliance! And I see all from my throne atop the sacred mountain.

Belphang! Perlatz! My Hounds of Wisdom! Fly now to the reaches of my kingdom and show me where my light does not yet shine.

The Metataxi

11/7/2022 11:46pm

"Looks like another of the G types," Ryung Brightness says. She's been categorizing the different kinds of desiccated remains we've been finding. She's up to J.

Like the others, this one is in its own alcove. Like a museum piece. The G-types are especially tall -- almost 11 feet, draped in a thin cloak, four arms hanging at its side. Giant empty eye sockets and a mouth full of fangs.

"Any artifacts?" I ask. Really hoping one of them has dropped a wallet or a set of keys or a guidebook or something.

"No," Ryung Brightness replies. "Only dust."

"Ok, let's keep moving."

Our group continues down the tunnel, lighting up the path with our headlamps and flashlights. It's been feeling more like a catacombs the farther we go.

Ryung Brightness signals for a halt. We all freeze, weapons ready. There is light ahead in the tunnel. She calls off a pair to move towards it.

We all wait in silence. Fingers on triggers.

"All clear," she calls. "But you're going to want to take a look at this."

The Metataxi

3/12/2022 11:35pm

RUNNING DARK: Day 65

To evade the giant moths, The Metataxi has been running with no lights. Which means pitch black here inside the incomprehensibly enormous structure we're lost inside.

"Object at 400 clicks receding to 450 clicks. 500... OK. It's out of range," Ran Pleasing reports. Random giant moths flitting in the dark, we assume.

The whirring of the engines doesn't seem to attract them. Nor our radar emissions. But with no lights on, you can't see your hand in front of your face, much less a cliff wall or some kind of abutment. Which is why we're keeping the speed so low.

"Steady as she goes," I tell Ran Pleasing.

And it's why we've rigged up a sensory net around the ship. Not an actual net, but dozens of sticks, bound together end to end to make longer sticks, sticking out from The Metataxi in all directions. Like a great hedgehog or sea urchin, floating in the dark. That way, if we brush up against something, we'll know it. And so long as we're not going too fast...

crrrrrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkk.... coming softly from the larboard bow.

"Hold our position," I said.

"Hey, shouldn't that be the kind of thing I say?" asks Reema White Antelope.

The Metataxi

8/12/2021 11:58pm

It's always a great sign when they bring in the doctor of pseudoscience and stop talking to the science officer.

I'd been taking readings across the EM bands since the electrical event, and spectral analysis of the statues as we approached. They were definitely solid, and made of natural stone. And inconceivably huge. No human figures should be so large.

Have you ever been in a warm calm ocean and looked down to see little tiny skinny minnows floating there, pointing their noses at you? It was a little like that. But we were the fish.

We’d been heading towards what looked like an ornamental box being held between the hands of one of the largest figures. As we drew closer and closer, the truly enormous size of the statues became even more clear. And our ship more small. Eventually the terrain became abstract, and we were enfolded by the cliffs and ridges.

“There,” said Runa Secret Tradition. “That dark area. It’s cave.”

“It’s an entrance,” she said.