Star Dragons: Kelphus's Chase

Kelphus, a Star Dragon, blazes ahead at full speed, her aquatic-like body moving from wormhole to wormhole, jumping over gates where the tunnels meet. Her head still spinning, and she is stunned by what she has just witnessed. All she can think of is Drideon, so she accelerates, that their search and final hope of returning home will not be in vain. The Star Dragon's fate is dependent on stopping the Crystal War by reclaiming a lost gateway to Mirz Uhndersand, the Star Dragon’s home World.

Both Star Dragons had broken their society's vow of never traveling alone outside the wormhole.

"We're the exception," Drideon says quietly in her ear before departing for another frequency. “The Elders will be on our side.”

As Kelphus navigates her way through the wormhole, trailing the special, purple frequency, she remembers how she and Drideon had followed it to a system of five, artificial worlds. One of these unusual planets attracted more vibrational threads. These filaments combined to resemble the Nerrezene Beam, the bright, magnifying lens built by the Pirate King. The search for the Pirate is less about finding him, than about locating the Beam in order to reset the order of things.

The Pirate King, Nerezza used the Nerrezene Beam as a weapon to wage war on Mirz Uhndersand, disrupting the Star Dragon’s way of life as it phased many of them away from their home. When the Beam unexpectedly failed, it threw sections of Mirz into another universe where it didn't belong. The Beam, itself eventually fizzled, cutting off the portal, and stranding many Star Dragons in a divergent astral system that puzzled them. After the Great Phase, Nerezza, and any trace of him, vanished.

Kelphus and Drideon followed the frequency to a set of surprisingly unnatural planets in an out-of-the-way solar system, where the frequency landed on the surface. As more threads arrived, they combined to rebuild a perfect match of the Pirate’s missing array. Within this new Beam, the frequency they followed, was the central filament of the Nerrezene, known as the Lamp Majorus. This special purple thread was the first to arrive on the surface of one of those planets. Over time, other filaments arrived to join it. Together, the whole array could someday open the phase gate, allowing Star Dragons to return to their homeland, once again.

Drideon always believed that Kelphus should be the bearer of the Majorus, the very first of the Nerrezene filaments. It held the same frequency as Diya, a sacred shining star in a constellation in the night sky of Mirz Uhndersand. Diya was the first star to be disappeared by the Pirate King. Even if Drideon were here, most of the other missing filaments of the Beam would still be adrift, having scuttled off in separate directions. Kelphus knew she could not complete the mission on her own; not without Drideon.

While Kelphus and Drideon stood vigil, the five, original planets arrived and assembled, until a variety of incidents destroyed their functionality. While the first four worlds imploded, the fifth was left with an uncertain future. Since arriving in this universe, they had chased every frequency that mirrored the Nerrezene signature, frequently uncovering only remnants. They had risked everything to find the Beam lost during The Phase. Kelphus recalls Drideon's elation at the treasure they once had discovered there. In one devastating moment, they watched in horror as the fifth world unbuckled and spread itself into seven pieces, splintering the Nerrezene. To reattach the threads, Kelphus and Drideon had to reset the planet’s Orbital Line Beacons. These are the transmitters responsible for balancing the planet’s axis.

As of that morning, the two intrepid Star Dragons had collected all the necessary components on that planet’s surface in order to complete the Beam that would reignite the path back home. Neither of the two had figured out how the Pirate King had managed to turn common material such as the star glass, Allira, into something so powerful. What is its energy source? Once the Nerrezene's frequencies were gathered again, they had to discover a means to reawaken it. They knew that an Activitor was required to ignite the Majorus, the core filament of the Nerrezene, but the mystery remained: where could one be found, and how could they identify it? To their dismay, because of the cosmic calamity, the precious lens was fractured and dispersed into the choppy solar winds.

The Pirate King’s brutal star butchery created the dense and violent storms of pulverized allira that suck Kelphus through its deep void of forsaken stardust. A solitary tear evaporates at her temple, trailing off and absorbing into the crystalline squall.

"It will be unbroken," Drideon told her as planetary chunks, and their precious Nerrezene scattered into the endless sea of night.

As Kelphus moves away from the devastation, she feels the distance from her own home world in her chest, like an elastic cord stretching tighter as its ends get farther and farther apart.

"Unbroken," she repeats to herself, staying close to the purple frequency ahead of her. She trembles at the thought of not finding enough filaments to reconstruct the Nerrezene. Without assistance, the probability is grim. Yet, she pushes on, knowing that Drideon will be along soon.

"He knows how to get there," she comforts herself as her speed increases.

"Until Ripperion,” she heard him say earlier, remembering his instructions to meet, in case they are separated, at the rally point, just inside the Ripperion Belt. They will then re-evaluate their plan to reopen the Nerrezene.

"He'll be there," she continues to self-assure.

"Once you have it, the others will gather together,” Drideon’s voice echoes. “Bring them together.”

"He has to be there!” she understands it’s the only solution.

Drideon promised her that he would one day bring her to the rally point, but they never arrived before the fifth planet was breached. She remembered him telling her that she would “know where it is when she sees it.”

"A false poem, a false messenger, a false war," she told Drideon, the first time he returned from the rally point. He had ventured out alone before, without the protective shelter of the Wormhole, and she had been so angry to have not accompanied him.

“I’ll take you where the rest will follow!” As he excitedly described the special location, promising never to leave her again. At that time, they had been forced to break their people’s code of ethics, as they pursued the singular filaments of the Nerrezene, one by one. Their hopes were raised only to be dashed by the disintegration of that beautiful world.

“To Ripperion!” was the last thing Drideon said to her as the planet and the Nerrezene dissolved before them.

“Bring them together,” she repeats his message inside the wormhole. She blinks as another tear releases. The obstacles to creating a way back home are overwhelming, and this horrible setback has been daunting. With resolve, Kelphus models herself after Drideon, who has never faltered in the face of conflict.

"Follow the threads, get to the pocket," he says confidently.

Keeping up with the Majorus is challenging as Kelphus moves through the biting allira winds of the wormhole. She must stay in line with a tiny, adjacent light portal, outside the tunnel walls where the frequency travels in a straight line.

Star Dragons’ eyes are adapted to see through allira storms while inside wormhole tunnels, as well as through the tunnel walls into the space surrounding them. This is how Star Dragons track as they travel through space, jumping from one tunnel to another. If she can reach the Majorus before the light portal ends, she’ll have time to redirect the planet’s coordinates to pick up another frequency trail.

“There’s still time,” Kelphus tells herself, steeling her jaw.

She chases the glowing frequency, nimbly moving as she catches sight of skirmishing groups of marauding Star Dragons. Since The Phase, they continue vying for control over shreds of their former existence in this now-foreign universe.

“More common thieves,” she snorts in disgust when unexpectedly, she feels in her heart that Drideon is somehow near. Sensing his presence, she exhales and slows down enough to see a group of marauders capture a rogue Star Dragon.

Oblivious to what is happening before her, her eyes briefly connect with the hostile criminal in their clutches, yet she keeps her eyes on the Majorus and moves onward.

“A pirate sympathizer,” she declares, regaining her speed.

Upon seeing her, the offender violently tries to pull away from his captors, yet their grip on him holds fast, and he struggles as if to reach her.

“To the pocket,” she declares, ignoring his cries of insanity. Kelphus flinches at the sight of the aggressive Dragon under arrest.

“He’s close, just ahead,” she decides, as she nears the next jump. Continuing toward the gate, she keeps the Majorus in front of her. As she watches the purple frequency, it inexplicably passes through an unfamiliar door next to the gate. It bypasses The Pitch, coming to rest somewhere on the other side.

Once the Majorus passes through the door, Kelphus is stunned to discover that it blurs, preventing her from grasping its location.

Orotaro Pitch Lines cover every wormhole gate as they weave through many of the same areas of space. They are atomically thin, super-heated membranes, shaped like the lens of an eye. They act as safety features and pressure containments, lowering or raising to prevent unauthorized access and to camouflage the wormholes. Wormholes are not straight, and passing through The Pitch between them is very difficult.

Star Dragons can pass freely between wormhole gates, as long as they change their own frequency to mimic the Pitch of each different gate. The most important part of the Orotaro is one that every Star Dragon learns to respect: Without changing frequencies, an unlucky soul who manages to pass through without dying from the horrific scoring, will have but a desperate wish for Death to finish them off.

“I’ll know it when I see it,” Kelphus's heart skips a beat. She brushes off the notion, hyper-focused on the frequency’s vaporous location, yet she can see the next gate, yet everything else clear as starlight!

Calling to an ancient deity, “O, Celloyn, By my sight!” Kelphus’s diminished vision searches for the lamp somewhere inside, yet cannot decipher a clear presence. Astonished at the Majorus, she slows her approach to the end of the tunnel and to her surprise, beholds the next gate. Kelphus recognizes it as the same one leading to Ripperion. She recalls Drideon’s description and the rally point just beyond, as being in a different tunnel than what is before her! As the Majorus becomes undetectable, Kelphus questions this new disconnect. She wonders about the heavily dispersed frequency and why it arrived here.

“Drideon would find it,” she says as she loses sight of the frequency’s foggy location. Then without warning, it simply just shuts off.

“Something’s in the way!" She tells herself, arriving at this new gate. Studying its contours, she looks briefly behind her into the sub currents of the blistering tempest for any signs of Nerezza’s jackals, the Dark Slashers. No one is there. Turning back to the door, flustered and with a sinking heart, she is shocked to discover fresh Star Dragon blood coagulating at the entrance latches. She peers into its hypnotic shimmer, remembering where she was on the day the Nerrezene shattered her world.

Examining the gate more closely, she makes out scratch marks on the Pitch’s Optical Generator. Kelphus continues to discover signs of many forced entries and hasty evacuations. Feeling her heart beating in her chest, her pupils dilate as she reflects on the many Star Dragon younglings and their hope-filled parents, senselessly killed during The Phase. She vaguely senses the Lamp’s purple glow, somewhere inside the door, at the place Drideon promised they would soon unite. She inhales, still feeling his presence.

“Unbroken,” she says again.

Decisively, she opens the Orotaro, bursting into the Ripperion Star Belt to her rendezvous, yet once inside, she stops short, completely unprepared for what she sees.

High above the center, Kelphus is stunned to see a Dark Slasher high above Rippyria, the only planet orbiting in the Belt. Kelphus surreptitiously approaches the slasher’s backside as she leaves the wormhole. Halting and silent, thankful not to be noticed by the Pirate’s pawn facing upside down toward the planet below, she becomes aware of an ominous device, raised above his head.

“To the clefft!” Kelphus leans into a sharp dive, remembering an evasive maneuver she learned as a post-nested youngling. While pulling the same move to seek cover, the slasher’s device detonates a downward charge onto Rippyria’s pole. It rips through the planet, creating trajectory eruptions of massive, exploded chunks into a multi-directional catapult of certain destruction. Vaguely aware of the Majorus, the frantic Star Dragon scours her surroundings for shelter.

“Where is it!” She curses, triggering memories of the burning caves of her clan and how she tried to save them in spite of the intense flames consuming them. Her already scarred skin will tear if she doesn’t find a safe place. She measures her breath, hoping to see more clearly. Breathing fiercely, Kelphus scours her surroundings once again, as the familiar moon catches her eye.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” reverberates another of Drideon’s far-away whispers. Kelphus makes a speed-of-light turn and sprints forward. Still unable to see the Majorus, she senses it surrounding her.

“Sanctuary!” she chooses the familiar object because if she fails to reach it, the Beam will be lost, her people will die, and the Crystal War will rage indefinitely. As she races, she is confident the moon will protect her from the approaching blast. Fleeing for her life once again and if she can get to the shelter, she'll lift the latch, open the door, and rush inside. Closing the distance between herself and the structure, she is positive that Drideon is already inside.

Her keen eyes scan the terrain ahead of her.

"I’ll know it when I see it," she thinks to herself. Upon reaching the opposite side of the moon, she fumbles upon the surface. Reaching out to a small structure and ramming a hidden panel with her claws, the action spurs a mechanical door to open. At this precise moment, Kelphus searches for the Forcospheric Barrier, the mechanical moon’s containment membrane, something else catches her eye: the doorway to the end of the light portal is now visible! The door terminates inside the Ripperion Belt. In front of its door, is the frequency she came all this way to claim: The Lamp Majorus! Spinning in place, it is visible again.

Her pupils narrowing, Kelphus makes the most foolish heroic choice of her life. Securely wrapping her tail onto the door-latch, she leaps with all her strength toward the filament’s brilliance, stretching herself lengthwise to retrieve it.

Planetary wreckage rapidly draws nearer as she closes in. She is increasingly aware of the blasting heat, lapping ever deeper into her elongated and already scarred skin. Razoring her attention onto the purple glow ahead, she shockingly observes a separate blue and red glow. To her astonishment, Kelphus is shocked to find that the Majorus is actually two light frequencies close to each other, each one combining to make the most powerful filament in the Nerrezene. Dumbfounded at both frequencies’ unlikely hosts, Kelphus quickly identifies a red, pre-adolescent child with homemade, belchorian armor, and a blue toddler, wearing a helmet, regular clothes, and a tattered blanket for a cape. When close enough together, they make up the purple hue of the essential filament. The companion appears to be flailing in space, perhaps even suffocating, while the toddler floats stiffly, and is possibly dead. Because she can only jump in a straight line while her tail holds the moon’s door latch, Kelphus fears that one of the frequencies will be left behind.

“None will settle without it!” she repeats Drideon’s message, as she reaches for the older companion in her direct path.

At this moment, Kelphus chooses the second, most foolish, and heroic choice of her life. Normally, she would never stretch herself to such limits, yet as the planetary chunks tumble closer, she has no other option. She must keep intact what her mission has mandated. Committing to a movement that will successfully retrieve both frequencies or kill her in the process, she outstretches one of her wings. Creating a wider net, Kelphus hopes to catch the toddler along with his companion, as the convective winds continue to scorch her body. Tormented by her pain, a flashback of Drideon calms her; they are searching the bottom of an icy-blue lake for an underwater door. Intently focused on her targets ahead, she longs for those waters.

Suddenly, the skin on her wing is punctured open by a small stone from the exploded planet. Screeching in pain, she pulls from deep within her heart, the will to survive: to see her Drideon again.

“This will not perish me!” her cry is unheard by the oncoming rumble. Choosing what she must, the disheartened Star Dragon prepares herself to return to the hollow moon.

Tuning in to the companion’s frequency, she grasps him while desperately seeking the blue-lit toddler. Before whipping backward, suspended in her indecision, Kelphus feels intense personal sorrow and judgment at abandoning an innocent child!

"The Lamp has always been yours to carry," Drideon’s calming voice interrupts her anguish, as the rigid toddler, thought to be dead, awakens, and forcefully takes hold of his older companion's hand, drawing them both close together. The boy's desperate reach for his friend further damages Kelphus’s wounded wing, tearing it open as she tries to protect them. In a single movement, she pulls her damaged wing toward her, gathering the two boys to her breast, while folding her other wing around them in a loving cocoon. Briefly forgetting her pain, Kelphus is amazed at how both frequencies have landed within her reach.

She has the Lamp Majorus!

As she holds it close, the very real possibility of losing everything in an instant swells up inside her pounding heart. She prays again...

“By the Light, let the Lamp carry me,” She calls, holding on dearly. Before closing her eyes, she notes her entire eyesight is now becoming a fuzzy blur. Though she cannot see, a well of relief rises within her as she receives what is next.

In reaction to severe heat, all Star Dragons in space secrete an armor layer that insulates them with temperature resilience. Bracing for the return, her dreams of going home, pools into a third tear. It reservoirs at the tips of her eyelashes and releases into a single arc line of celestial water.

Kelphus whispers Drideon’s words as her snap-back occurs.

“Into the pocket,” she says, safeguarding her wings around the Majorus. As the rocks roll closer, her newly armored skin finally gets reprieve from the heat as her vision blurs.

Holding her breath, she crashes into the moon, rolling toward the door latch where her tail is still wrapped.

Kelphus has no time to express pain. She quickly untangles from the two frequencies, securing them in her star metal pouch.

“Let this time be mine,” she reaches the gaping mechanical door through her blurred vision, keeping her tail firmly on the latch. Temperatures rise and blood continues to ooze from her torn wing. The Forcospheric Barrier still needs to be released! In her frantic search, she is unable to locate the control panel. She knows what she is looking for, though she can’t see it.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” she hears Drideon’s voice as she perceives the massive door creaking to a close, threatening to strand them all. Even with her natural armor, the blasting winds become unbearable. Her body feels the first soundless thud of the first wave of boulders hitting the other side of the moon. Heaving herself to the latch, she takes another look for the barrier panel, this time with both of her free hands, raking over the surface for the panel.

“Where are you, Drideon!?” she shrieks, as a claw catches the second panel. Aggressively slamming her claw downward, the barrier quickly deactivates, and not a moment later, all three are inside. As if acknowledging a Star Dragon entry, the barrier reactivates, safely enclosing both dragon and foundlings in the dim glow of the cavern, while fiery fury of boulders can be seen blazing past the shutting door. Injured and exhausted, Kelphus listens despairingly as the projectiles hammer the outside of the moon.

“This must be the rally,” she thinks to herself, aching for the sweet, evening air of Mirs Uhndersand, broken by the Beam and the cruel greed of the Pirate King.

Her eyes squeeze shut as she attempts to block out the sounds and images of planetary fallout, wrapping against the Star Dragon harbor. It’s just her and the two boys inside the hollow moon, weathering a night of shelling so far away from home. Bandaging her torn wing, she stops the blood and comes to the reality that Drideon did not make it, and is still out in the open sea of space alone.

“He’ll be along soon,” she tells herself. Feeling her scalded skin relieved by the cool cavernous air, she sighs in gratefulness for the brief respite. She presses herself as low as possible, flattening her injured wing into the cool, metallic floor. While the cacophony continues, her remaining energy marvels at the astounding discovery of the double Majorus. The Nerrezene will someday re-open because of it. Kelphus is eager to tell Drideon of her new-found knowledge, as the breakage continues to rap upon the protective orb.

Like all Star Dragons, in the absence of incendiary heat, Kelphus's natural armor reabsorbs, and her eyesight slowly returns.

Perceiving a quickening from within her pouch, she sits up, unfastens the clasp and gently opens the flap. She peers in meeting the gaze of a curious, yet terrified adolescent, the one she reached, first, who had climbed to the pouch’s ridge to look up. Kelphus leans forward to comfort him, but upon seeing her imposing presence, he fearfully tumbles back to the bottom. Peering closer toward the bottom of her pouch, she can faintly make out the wary companion hovering over the longer body of the stiffened child.

“Two steps, afraid of me,” Kelphus realizes, backing away from the opening.

Watching a few moments more, she determines the best way to maintain the purple light she needs to repair the Beam, is to gain the boys’ trust so that they will trust her, and stay with her. She listens for another chance to connect, yet no activity is detected.

“Keep them together,” she closes the flap for their safety, lying back against the cool floor. She will sort the rest out as soon as the violence of Rippyria’s armageddon ends.

As Kelphus rests in safety for the first time today, her mind is heavy with unanswered questions about how everything went wrong, and why she and Drideon couldn’t figure it out in time.

“When it’s over, our safety will last,” Drideon’s final admonition echoes in her memory. Kelphus makes a promise to the stiffly sleeping child and his wary friend, somewhere inside her pouch.

“If you are to bring the others, I will help you find them.”

She drifts away into a restless sleep, her one hope being, that her double-filament Treasure will, indeed, fulfill Drideon's hopes.

“Bring them together!” she sends her heartfelt prayer, bracing herself and her vulnerable castaways for a long journey into the dark night.

STAR DRAGONS

About:

When six space delegates who have lost their worlds are pulled into an ancient Star Dragon war, they must use their extra-sensory abilities to join the fight, reverse a prophecy and return home.

TARGET AUDIENCE: Fans of Dragon Con and the Mandalorian

COMPS: Star Trek: Discovery meets Uncharted, with Dragons!

CREATED & WRITTEN BY: Eric Brooks, https://www.puppeteeric.com