Temple in the Stars – Part 7
This weekend has been an incredible collection of me playing way too much World of Warcraft, spending time with my best friend laying down a very solid foundation for our D&D campaign. Ravenloft, 3.5 if you care to follow along. Trust me, this will not be last time I talk about that campaign. I’ve also spent quite a lot of time writing over the weekend as well. It’s been a weekend that makes me love everything about where my life is going and what my passions have become.
I managed to write nearly 600 words in a single 20 minute writing session. I’m not at the stage of my career as a writer where I can state without equivocation that they were amazing words, but they felt very on target and suspenseful. It’s been absolutely amazing to see where I’ve progressed to. When I first started in June (realistically late July) I wrote close to 250 words a day. It was torture to reach that total. Now? I can bat that out without breaking a sweat. It just goes to show that if you are willing to be forgiving to yourself, there isn’t a limit to what you can accomplish with writing. The only ceiling for your ability are the limits you tell yourself there’s no way you could break. I want to spend my life studying writing. I want it to become a passion which consumes me, because I owe it to my readers to become a writer worth reading. As I’m not a very talented writer, study and repetition are the methods left to me. Bring it on.
Without further ado…
Temple in the Stars – Part 7
Now, Ashley started to panic. Sweat plastered her hair to her flushed golden skin as she looked about frantically in her heads up display for another option. She and Everett had built this rig out of spare parts and desire, so her options were very few. She kicked off hard against the wall she had been flung into, aiming towards the manual crank. If she could still get a handhold on what was left of the crankshafts, she could still get out of this mess. When she arrived however, she could see that the levers had sheared all the way down towards the base. Whether it was improper welding or just incorrect tensile material for the job at hand, she would never know. All that she did know is that she was stuck. Because of the lack of necessary computer parts, there wasn’t a redundant control panel on this side of the iris. Frantically, she tried to dig her fingers into the shut door. Maybe if she could get enough leverage…
Her scrabbling proved useless. The engineering bench in the hanger had done a fabulous job of creating a door which closed perfectly. The cutting hadn’t even left roughened welds for her to latch onto. Her oxygen counter ticked silently down to four percent, and Everett had gone deathly quiet. Inspiration hit her in a flash. The Laser! Frantically, she pulled herself down the melted rock hole towards the laser gun she had left on a peg driven into the rock. Grabbing the laser, she noticed that it had thirty percent power. Perfect. Even with the thick metal of the doors, Ashley knew it would give her enough time to take care f business. Reversing herself in the lack of gravity, she managed to make it back where she had come in record time. She brought the cutting tool to bear, and fired it up once more. It coughed, whined, and shook violently as it had done all day, and then with a tremendous roar of sparks and fried circuitry, the control panel blew. It blew clean off, sailing away lazily as the whining, whirring, and shaking came to an abrupt halt. Ashley stared down at the fried wiring and connections with horror.
Time stopped, her heart stopped, all thought stopped. She had just witnessed her own death. With no way out of the hole, and her oxygen counter blazing in bright neon red that it w Everas now at three percent, she was dead. Oh god, dad is going to be so furious with me! Ashley thought in the numbed silence of her panic. She floated there for a precious collection of minutes, mind racing as each feeble option chased another even worse than the last. Two percent, her helmet display reminded her, as if she wasn’t in enough of a panic. Everett piped up then, voicing the option she had been dreading would be her only hope since the laser controls had decided to go on a vacation. “You’re going to have to try and enter the anomaly at the end of the tunnel.” Feeling as though her neck would break from the strain, Ashley nodded in agreement. “You’re right Everett. My choices now are certain death if I stay here, and a high chance of dying if I try to enter that area.” Not good options Ash, nice going!
Ashley floated towards the translucent barrier which surrounded the anomalous idyllic scenery below. It shimmered faintly as she approached, but did not show her reflection. Tense seconds ticked by as she decided what to do. Her air display showed she was down to her last percentage of oxygen. Once that ran out, she would be on her emergency reserve. She had seven minutes of air to her name, and then it was a slow and excruciating death by asphyxiation. Ashley grabbed a loose rock and flung it at the barrier. With a hollow pang, the rock bounced off the surface of the barrier as if it was made of stone itself. Not a good sign. Ashley thought ironically.
