Chapter 12: A little trip

When they reached the surface and walked outside the cave Alise ran over to them,"Man you two took forever lets get this show on the road." Sarah looked at her,"What do you mean, what exactly is goin on?", before Alise could say any more Dalvin jumped in,"We are going to visit a special place. It will only take a few minutes, so please be patient." With that he removed the Eye from the pack slung across his shoulder. He double-checked the bands of metal wrapped across its surface to make sure the runes were undamaged. Sarah gasped,"whoa, that's a huge one of those stones. I haven't seen anything near that size in the cave." Dalvin ignored the comment as he was already deep in concentration, a dome of air seemed to come to life around them then it began spinning slowly. Sarah looked around bewildered,"What's he doing?", Alise who was studying his actions answered,"It looks like he is altering magnetic fields, similar to what you do to float or fly." Sarah's eyes widened,"Fly, are we going to fly?" As if to answer her the sphere was completed as it finished severing the ground below their feet, and they shot upward with the chunk of ground they were standing on. The pace was fast and steady but not so fast as to make anyone sick. Dalvin removed the other object from his bag and set it on the ground, it looked like a small brass lantern and soon would be very useful. Sarah looked more and more concerned as the ground below slowly became smaller and smaller,"Ummm, what is that and exactly how high are we going?" Dalvin bent down to activate the lantern,"This little fellow will keep the air nice and breathable which is handy in space." Sarah trembled,"We are going to outer space!" Dalvin looked at her puzzled,"What's wrong, from Alise's phone device I know your people have gone to space and have built stations there. Is it that you don't like it." Sarah looked at him and her eyes got wider,"Only a few people have ever been to space and its usually not on a floating rock!", he understood her concern now,"Do not worry the surrounding field far surpasses anything that you could build on your world." just as he said that they passed through the earths atmosphere and flames swirled on the outside of the sphere, they neatly slid off of it and the heat was dispersed and not allowed to enter their vicinity. The sight overwhelmed Sarah, and she fell to her knees, Alise however was so excited she was quietly clapping her hands together and hopping up and down. In a few minutes they passed through and entered the vast reaches of space. Dalvin brought the sphere to a halt and it loomed between the earth and moon Sarah's fear seemed to be fading and her and Alise began to point at different things and talk. Dalvin paid them little attention, he had to prepare for the second part of the trip. Configuring a magnetic field that allowed you to pull reality past you instead of traveling through it took a vast amount of concentration. After he had triple checked the field and made sure it was stable he interrupted the two stargazers," Next we are going to an asteroid belt on the outside perimeter of this solar system." they both turned to look at him, and he activated the Eye. At first everything seemed to stretch and smear but then everything just faded to black. Sarah and Alise looked around but there was nothing to see. Sarah then addressed him,"What is this light speed travel or something?" Dalvin chuckled,"No, that's way to dangerous. We are not moving at all, everything around us is moving. On my world we call this 'star sliding' or just 'sliding' for short." Sarah nodded,"I read about something like that once, but doesn't require more energy than the sun has ever created in its lifetime, or something like that?" Dalvin was surprised that she knew about it,"Yes, without the source energy is often a limitation that cant be overcome. That is one of the three primary uses of source stones, unlimited energy." Suddenly space snapped back into view in the same blurring motion it had left in revealing a large string of asteroids that stretched out of view to either side of them."And now for what I intended to show you. You see people from other worlds would never come for just any source stone, for it to be worth the effort it would have to be something special. That is precisely what this stone is, it is called the Eye of God, can you guess why?" Sarah stared at the stone,"Because it gives you the power of a God", "Yes, that is just the beginning of what it can do. Let me tell you a story, a long time ago another Eye was found by a man named Odithian. The first thing he did was subjugate his home world in the name of brining peace and order and at first he made true on his promises. Over time however his suspicion grew out of control, afraid his own people would take the Eye he robbed them all of free will and made them mindless drones under his control. This of course terrified the other worlds, and so they began making a coalition. In the end one hundred thirty worlds sent their armies against him, this is known in history as the 'First Heavens War'. Ninety eight billion people lost their lives in thirty-six hours, and Odithian had been defeated but fled. One year later he returned on a planet fortress called Yggdrasil, he controlled it with the Eye from the Tower of Valhalla that he built on its surface. This time he was better prepared and all five hundred and thirteen worlds were dragged into the conflict. One third of those worlds were destroyed and six hundred billion people died, this was the 'Second Heavens War', so many died that till this day there is a saying among the worlds 'The souls of warriors rest at Valhalla'. His last act before being slain was to transport the Eye to a unknown location and it was lost from existence. Now I have found another, or even perhaps the same one. So what should we do, toss it into the void right here right now or do we keep it and in turn protect it. If we toss it, who finds it another Odithian perhaps, if we keep it can we prevent something like that. I can assure you I don't intend to take life, and I don't want to, but I also can't toss this power to the whims of chance. We could never hide it forever so choices were made. And now ill ask you to make a choice, I don't want you to kill anyone and I would never ask you to, just protect Alise the best you can. What do you say?" He held the Eye out to her, and she recoiled from it,"No I don't even want to touch it, that thing is beyond anything I can imagine.....I think I understand your position, to be honest after hearing all that and seeing all this,"she motioned to the reaches of space around them,"I don't know what I would do if I was in your position." She hung her head and was silent for a while, then she looked back up at him,"I will protect Alise but if it comes down to it I would rather lose my life than take another." He could see the steel determination in her eyes, he couldn't ask for more.