PRL Crossover Event:
DEUS EX MACHINA
Chapter 1 – Inktomi
Inktomi was not a direct child of the First Wave, but he was the son of the legendary Ikto’mi who did battle with the Ascendant alongside the army of Nareau’s creation that would eventually be compressed into Anansi. Nareau laid the egg that would hatch Ikto’mi while the army kept the Ascendant busy, and when he hatched, he was a full grown man with black hair down to his shoulders and a round beer belly that was a slightly lighter shade of brown than the rest of his body. He was a formidable warrior and when he emerged on the battlefield, he killed many of the Ascendant foe, but his real strength, as would become known, was his ability to convince his opponent of anything he wanted them to believe. He could make his enemy see him as small and easy to manage, while he towered over them and then ate them whole; when Ikto’mi ate something, the being consumed would be transported to the pocket dimension inside of his stomach where they would be put through difficult trials based on their own psychic struggles that would siphon the knowledge and cunning of the victim of Ikto’mi. He wasn’t always the man with the beer belly, he could also change into a giant spider and after the first ceasefire with the Ascendant, after countless millennia, he went and settled on a world of giant A-space beings and he mettled in their affairs for fun and attention.
Inktomi was a complete oversight to his father, who grew pregnant with an egg during a particularly fierce battle with the Ascendant, and the egg was released from his body when he was stabbed. The egg fell unnoticed through the Quinspace, until Inktomi hatched, the spitting image of his father, but with a smaller belly. He found his way to Quinspace Earth and he spent time with the A-space beings there, he even became well acquainted with Anansi who is technically his uncle.
When Anansi asked for a small pennance of himself to help a needy spider down on her luck, Inktomi gave him the backwards speak, a powerful form of thought manipulation that would leave the intended prey without any defenses.
“It’s why I’m so fat these days,” Inktomi said, slapping his belly that was almost as big as his father’s. “But you give it to the spider to give to a stiff man?” Inktomi said incredulously. “Why not just give it to her?”
“She has to earn it!” Anansi said emphatically and then he chuckled. “You want to know why I even care? She tricked me nephew. Me! A son of Nareau! That is not such an easy task. And our parthenon is much older than the other four families of the First Wave. No one has seen your father in ages, thank Nareau you have filled his shoes nicely. Our sisters are always bickering at me about the Ascendant war, like anyone cares anymore, and they are both practically hidden away like they will be killed any minute. They’re both stronger than me if you can imagine it, but they have goals of their own. We are slipping in the eyes of our First Wave relatives. We need new representation and we need to do something big. This girl could be just what we need. But she has done something foolish and she must prove herself if she will be restored.”
“I didn’t realize you were so vain,” Inktomi said jokingly. “I have good relations with other beings of the Quinspace who are not spider derivative. We are seen as very untrustworthy, but then again we have worked hard to cultivate that impression, haven’t we? It’s beneficial and adds another useful element in the art of manipulation. We are not popular, but we are seen as vital and our relatives appreciate our contribution. Anyhow, the backwards speak should be useful. I hope that it is not squandered.”
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This week:
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The boys are in a bad way and it seems that the bad guys are ascendant as Jamar displays an uncharacteristic cunning. He has his hands all over the city and it seems that he is determined to turn the people against Ivan and Clay.
Complex Repulsion (Diode Bk. 3): “Ivan stares at the local newspaper with tears in his eyes. They don’t roll down his cheeks, but they well up and make his eyes look glassy. Clay snatches the paper. He crumples it and tosses it at the trashcan in the dining room. It circles the rim and hits the ground. Ivan watches it come to a stop.”
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Alia is in the IBF basement, but it feels like a different place. Eakran is a different man, and so is Dr. Frederick Cousins. He seems to be a big fan of the Eakran, but Alia can see through artifice. Plus, an old friend makes an appearance and she is not acting like herself.
Alia (Amazing Alia, the Alia Bk. °): “It’s this. What we’re doing. Eakran had a lot of lost cause patients that he was basically keeping on life support just to spectate, for observation. Some he cured, miraculously of course, and we’re debating the ethics of letting the greater population in on the medical breakthroughs at his disposal. The man could single handedly revolutionize human medicine, and he wants to. He wants to help. He needs people like me to make sure it goes well.”
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Detective Young is back to work. After a well deserved break, he’s more resolved than ever to find the source of the strangeness behind the gruesome corpses he’s been investigating lately.
Young Man (Old Man Young and the Con Man’s Daughter Limited Series): “Young is at the Knoxville Police Department. He stands at his desk looking at everything on top and it makes him sigh. He has a lot of typing to do, but he had pulled relevant cases that he wants to review and incorporate into the work he was doing. Young is hoping to create a special task force dedicated to the scary corpses he’d come across, but that required careful review of the files that were still available, the ones that hadn’t been taken by the CDC.”
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Dr. Worthington is the favorite of his superiors. He has received gifts, and now it is time for his promotion. Dr. Lynette Jones comes face to face with Dr. Thomas Eakran, and it is Dr. Roy Worthington who will come away changed forever.
Consortium Zone: South (Made in America Series 2 Limited Series): “Worthington and Jones make quick work of the trip from upstate North Carolina to Georgia. They have rousing conversation and she congratulates him on the successes he’s managed at the Southeast Branch.”
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Alia is up this week as VIV continues her deep dive into PRL history, and she reviews the connection between the Alia, and Ivan and Clay.
Strange Encounters (PRL 2 in 1): “All of that sounds like a fairy tale, anthropological fiction, or anthro fiction for the hashtag, but then there is the story of Fomorn and Mog, the Notable Beings of Universal Antiquity that the Encyclopedia posits existed at the dawn of humanity. Mog was a giant, as all First People were, and Fomorn was the son of a giant and a human mother, who is said to have been the first Alia”
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On Druont, the elder social Druinte known as Daecoo has something in common with a few of the heroes on Earth; the ability to converse with beings of the Quinspace. He has a friend of the Quinspace and they have very thoughtful conversation.
Universal Family Tree: “A society built on war will always venerate it; war as a symbol of freedom or revolution makes war a noble gesture and it cannot be for a stable society. Even the mainstreamers know this and it is why there is no Druinte army, not an official one anyway.”
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It’s the PRL Serials Volume V! The V is for very good.
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PRL Serials 