Author Note
This story will be centred around the Jumper's exploration of the Halloween Universe that was created by Spaceman and will involve far less time on the Buffy world. The Halloween Universe can contain anyone or anything that ever existed in the human imagination so there will be a lot to explore and do, as such this story will be larger than the other BTVS Jumps and will not be posted all in one go.
Jump Chain Gothic 12 - BTVS 4
Part 1
The Phoenix. Halloween Universe.
While in the future an organisation called The New United Earth Colonies (NUEC), a union made up of the Earth colonies from different science fiction settings, would work to keep the peace, and while groups such as the United Federation of Planets, the Galaxy Police, and the Jurain Council would impose some sort of order in this messed-up universe, that was an ongoing process that could take many more years.
At this point in time, there were settlements of many kinds that acted as lights in the darkness and chaos of this universe. These bastions of civilization weren't unified yet, but they were trading and communicating with each other more than they used to, and that was a good start. I'd even helped out with that by transporting people and cargo with my very fast and well-defended vessel from one colony to another.
You'd think that with humanity in such disarray and with the many alien empires out there, such as the Borg, the Dominion, the Klingon Empire, the Cardassian Union, the Romulan Star Empire, the Covenant, the Narn Regime, the Cybermen, the Espheni, the Batarian Hegemony, the Strogg, the Krill, the Cylons, the Psychlos and many others, that the human colonies would have long been overrun, but the aliens had problems of their own, and they didn't ally with each other.
Aside from raiders, such as the Reavers from the Firefly verse, space horrors like the Tyranid splinter fleets, and more minor problems like Nausicaan pirates, and Orion slavers, the major alien powers in this galaxy had more than enough things to deal with as such they'd not been able to conquer the Earth colonies. Some of the major alien powers were even at war with each other.
An example of the problems the alien races had was when the Klingons had tried to conquer a minor world that once belonged to the Imperium of Man, which was factored empire without the guiding light of the Astronomican and the protection of the God-Emperor, and the conquest should have been simple as the minor world had no real planetary defences or standing armies.
The only thing that stopped the Klingons from totally overrunning the planet was a Sisters of Battle monastery-fortress which held out against the invading aliens. The Klingons could have wiped the monastery-fortress off the map via orbital bombardment, but due to their warrior ways, the commanders of the invasion force kept sending troops to assault the monastery-fortress and they all died. They couldn't even beam soldiers into the monastery-fortress due to some sort of inference.
Of course, when a new commander was sent to finish the occupation of the planet the monastery-fortress was simply bombarded from orbit, but not before thousands of Klingon warriors met their end in the mud outside of the monastery-fortress.
Other than those colonies and alien empires there were the kinds of places out there that didn't seem to belong out here. These were worlds dominated by magic rather than science, although there were places that embraced both, the world we were currently orbiting was made up of pre-industrial societies mostly populated by humans, and while this planet wasn't exactly anything special, it looked like many other M-class planets, I could sense some sort of darkness that concerned me.
Ahsoka could feel it as well. There was a sickness on that planet that the Force was ringing alarm bells about.
"The probes are starting to send us some images," one of the crew told me over the comm.
For once I wasn't on the bridge I'd come to a nearby room which contained a version of the Galaxy Map as seen on the Normandy, there was plenty of space within the ship thanks to expansion charms so I'd decided to install a Galaxy Map as a way of better going over all the data we'd acquired while exploring this universe. Most of it came from star charts that we'd either traded for or purchased and over time the exploration efforts of this ship, and its sister ship the Athena, we were slowly adding to our knowledge.
"Do you know this world?" Jane asked me.
I looked over at my daughter and noticed that she'd cut her hair before using magic to regrow to the point that she would soon need to start putting it in ponytails again. She'd done that because her hair had started growing in a darker colour than before. Her hair was darker now as when I'd genetically altered her I'd added some of my own DNA to hers while making minor improvements. I'd done the same with Amy, to make her more my daughter, but not Faith as the retro-viruses used to alter DNA didn't work on Slayers. Something to do with their regenerative abilities.
Jane had taken to wearing those tight bodysuits that my more science like types wore when serving on a ship. The choice in fashion helped to remind me that she had the body of a woman now, yet I still couldn't help seeing her as a little girl at times, thankfully not all the time.
"That must be Thedas" I said as I turned the holographic image of the world and zoomed in on one part "Its the setting for the Dragon Age games".
Thedas was a continent in the southern hemisphere and the only known continent of the Dragon Age verse.
"It's been a long time since I played the game," I said to Jane "However I do remember a bit about a kingdom called Ferelden".
According to my files, Ferelden was a relatively young kingdom located in southeastern Thedas. It was formed by King Calenhad nearly four hundred years before the start of the Fifth Blight. I figured that the darkness Ahsoka and I were sensing was the Blight, or at least the evil that was behind the Blight.
The probes didn't show any large swarms of Darkspawn roaming about, but the Halloween Spell had been cast well over a year and a half ago so likely the Blight was over by now.
"This world has no advanced technology," I said to Jane "but I would like to take a look at its magic".
Due to the dangers to magic users down there, I would be the only spell-caster in my group to set foot on the planet, and I would limit my time on that world as they were having an apocalypse due to Darkspawn even if the Blight had been ended. I knew this due to my Judgement Day Perk it was just that it was hard to sort out the details of every world in danger as there were so many and the conditions of their apocalypses changed over time. It was too much of a mess to deal with.
"So are we going down there?" I was asked.
Well, I would be.
"I'll need you to go into stasis for this mission," I told Jane "Given that this world has elves living on it and lots of wilderness to navigate I'll need Forestwind".
My baby girl didn't argue this as she understood that she couldn't come on every away mission with me due to my limits on companions.
"Bring me back something nice," she said before heading out of the room.
No doubt she was heading off to her room to make sure that her absence wouldn't cause any issues later on. She was a smart girl and might have some project going on that needed attention. Thinking on it there were a few things I also needed to deal with before any of one of us set foot on the surface of the world we currently orbited high above.
(Line Break)
Sigil. Halloween Universe.
The Halloween Spell hadn't just radically altered the material universe it altered many layers of reality, including subspace, the dimension used by ships with different forms of FTL to get around the whole lightspeed limit. Subspace did not exist naturally in the Buffy Verse, yet it did here as did many other dimensions that now existed alongside the reality I'd been spending so much time in these days.
One of these dimensions was called the Outlands. At the very centre of the Outlands, was an infinitely tall Spire that shoots up into the sky, around the top of which could be found the city of Sigil, the place I was walking in right now, along with a few of my companions.
While the centre of this plane of existence was true neutral, in terms of moral alignment, it isn't so towards its edges. At the border between the Outlands and other planes, gate-towns exist, so named for the portal to the nearby plane they are built around.
These gate-towns take on many of the characteristics and morality of the plane they have a gate to, and when the balance shifts and they become enough like that plane, they slip into it. So if a gate-town near one of the hells became too corrupt it would be dragged into that hell. This made some sense when you understood how important moral alignment was here.
This was why Sigil remained neutral as doing so keeps it stable in a place where the laws that govern other places simply didn't apply, and since I didn't fully understand those rules, I'd decided that our visit to this city would be short. I didn't want to mess with the balance of power here or be noticed by the cities ruler.
The sole ruler of Sigil was the mysterious Lady of Pain. She rarely if ever communicates with her citizens and punishes any who cross her path or attempt to worship her with flaying to death or mazing, making the denizens of her city very wary of drawing her attention.
Leaving every day running of the city up to her citizens, the Lady only interfered when the stability of Sigil is in jeopardy. She keeps the powers (deities and such) who would take advantage of the city's unique location and its many portals, and endanger its neutrality, out of the city, destroying any who wander in.
I didn't think that this city was the actual Sigil from the Planescape series, rather it was a creation of the Halloween Spell, I knew this because I'd been able to reach this version of Sigil despite the limits placed on me by Jump Chain when it came to travelling to other realities.
Recreation or not I'd been able to find my way here while looking for a way into the Forgotten Realms, one that didn't involve getting past the Crystal Sphere, as they were somewhat connected, and it wasn't that hard to get to Sigil as it turned out. Unsurprising when you consider that one of its names is the City of Doors.
Sigil had portals to many different locations, including Baator, Carceri, and the Outlands, just to name a few. These portals can be anywhere: a doorway, the gap between a chair and a wall, a window, in the middle of a street, and are hard to detect unless one knows what to look for. Portals need keys to activate and open them, which can be anything from a physical object, which could be a piece of random junk or a priceless treasure, to immaterial things like a hummed tune, a specific thought or a well-timed gesture.
I'd gotten the information for the portal my group had just used from a man called Candrian Illborne a Planeswalker who gave his address as the Smoldering Corpse Bar. He had travelled widely throughout the planes and is thus a great source of information on many things. He knows much about the portals around Sigil since they were his primary means of transportation.
He needed these portals due to an ill-fated trip to the Negative Material Plane, a place that somehow damaged his Spark, the source of a Planeswalker's ability to traverse dimensions. There was no way of fixing that so Illborne spent his time trying to understand portals so he could use them instead.
The Planeswalker been the one to tell me all about a place known as Fell's Tattoo Parlor, which as the name suggested gave people tattoos, however, these were not normal tattoos, they were magical and based upon the design the tattoos had different effects, such as granting a degree of protection and making a warrior more lethal in battle.
Candrian Illborne, who I found at the Smoldering Corpse Bar, and the bar wasn't as bad of a place as it might sound, agreed to escort me to the Tattoo Parlor and to introduce me to Fell. He turned out to be some sort of alien who used to work for Lady Pain, with a name like hers I couldn't imagine her being a great boss.
The circular area near the entrance served as the principal area of business, with numerous tattoo designs adorning its walls. At the back of the parlour was a gallery of human skins stretched on wooden canvases. I didn't want to wonder how Fel had gotten access to so much human skin.
"Maybe we can get the tats somewhere else" Faith suggested.
Her words were overheard by Candrian Illborne.
"There is nowhere else" he explained, "Fell is the only person I've ever met who can make these special tattoos, and he can do them very quickly".
Since the alien creature had a monopoly he wasn't going to share the knowledge of his craft with me so I would have to make good use of the creature's skills while I was in this part of the multiverse, and perhaps try to figure out his craft for myself.
"For now I want something to ward of demonic possession," I told the owner of this business.
Anti-possession symbols were a method to ward off demonic possession. The design I knew about featured a pentagram, or endless knot, which is the reason why it protects those who wear this symbol. The only people known to me to have this symbol tattooed on their bodies are Sam and Dean Winchester.
Fell showed me a symbol that warded against possessions of all sorts and while it didn't look like the tattoo from Supernatural that didn't mean the ward wouldn't work.
"I want one of those for three of us," I said while gesturing at Faith and Anell Forestwind, the two people I'd be taking to the Dragon Age world with me, not counting Cameron who wouldn't benefit from the markings "and I'll be bringing more people to get that ward in the future".
From what I'd been told by the Planeswalker a healthy human could have three such tattoos at a time, some of them were used up as if they were kinds of spells, and while I would return here to do more business in the future, for today we'd just be getting the Anti-possession symbol. Later I and others would return to get more tattoos if we so wished.
"No group discounts" I heard Fell say.
Lucky for me I wasn't lacking in funds for this trip.
(Line Break)
Abandoned Temple. The Wending Woods.
After changing into suitable clothing, this meant armour, and equipping ourselves with weapons that would allow us to blend in with the locals, Faith, Anell and I came out of a portal and appeared in some sort of underground structure. I would have beamed down the planet's surface from the ship I had in orbit, but I'd sent the ship to Deep Space Nine for another trade.
I'd considered keeping the ship in orbit while sending down armies of bots to clear the Darkspawn out of the Deep Roads, but I didn't wish to spend weeks sitting in orbit while my bots went to war. I'd spent quite a lot of time in different Jumps trying to solve the problems of civilizations on both and small scales, and frankly, I'd had enough of doing that when it didn't profit me.
That didn't mean that I wouldn't slaughter some Darkspawn while here or ignore someone who I could easily help, I wasn't a heartless monster, I would just try to remain focused on our mission here. That mission involved gathering information on the ways that people used magic in this world and the buying of enchanted items that I or another magic user in my group could disenchant later so as to learn to make more.
For this away mission I'd donned my Knight of Camelot armour, the set made from titanium-trinium alloy, a mixture of metals similar to what made up the Iris that covers the Tauri Stargate. It offered an amazing amount of protection without weighing me down.
Faith wore a similar set of armour, and while a female knight wasn't a common sight in some parts of the multiverse the humans of this world didn't place so much importance in having well-defined gender roles as my ancestors had.
To make her appearance more fitting I'd even knighted her. As a knight myself I had the right to do that, and Faith had helped save an entire world when fighting the Sisterhood of Jhe, as well as slain a demon that had been preying on children, and people had been knighted for doing much less.
Cameron had disguised herself as a maid, a role she used to ensure that people underestimated her, and while she was a formidable foe on her own she also had weapons and defences that couldn't be seen. I didn't need her as a bodyguard much these days, but she would do her best to fill the role.
Forestwind brought up the rear and she wore the Nightengale armour I'd gotten for her during the Skyrim Jump. The cute little elf didn't get out much and I could sense how gleeful she felt about getting out for a bit of an adventure. Time in stasis didn't pass for her, but she must sometimes feel left out.
As we got moving I took the led, heading through the doorway out into a long hallway. The hall was dusty as and filled with webs, both ancient and new, covering nearly everything. When we came across webs that blocked the entire corridor, and I set them on the fire with my magic, risking using magic, while forgetting for a moment that spider webs aren't actually flammable. Spider silk does shrivel quite rapidly when exposed to intense heat, but it doesn't actually burn. Only this time the webs did burn and they lit up, burning away very quickly. Which meant that these were not normal webs. They had not been spun by normal spiders.
This indeed proved to be the case as a few moments later a giant spider dropped from the ceiling above, no doubt upset about the fire. The monster was thankfully not bulletproof in any way and as freakish as it might be, giant magical spiders were as mortal as any other animal. I just used the special gun I'd that enchanted to duplicate its ammo to shoot the spider. I kept the gun hidden on my person as I wanted to blend in as much as possible.
"Why didn't you warn us about the big spiders," Forestwind asked.
I also could have warned her, but I'd been concerned about the darkspawn, and hadn't considered spiders as a threat.
"Sorry I forgot that in places were the real world and the Fade meet that it can mutate the wildlife," I said, "The Veil must be weak hear".
Faith looked puzzled.
"The what?" she asked.
I did my best to explain that the Veil was a metaphysical barrier that existed between the physical universe and the Fade. Neither spirits nor mortal beings can easily pass physically through the Veil, but the consciousnesses of most mortal dreamers and all mages are a different matter, and demons can possess people in such a way that while their forms are still in the Fade they can still experience the physical world through the senses of those they've taken over. The Veil is not an object, it cannot be touched or seen. It is not a physical barrier, but it could be weakened in places and that allowed spirits to enter the world, and when that happened nature could be perverted like with that spider.
As we moved on I noted that there weren't as many webs in the next hallway, and most of them seemed old and normal-sized, so hopefully, there should be no more huge arachnids. Still, I walked carefully, stepping over piles of crumbling stonework. The air was musty and stale, and I figured that no people had set foot in here in a very long time.
By now we'd entered a part of the temple that had old torches we could light, and this allowed us to look around without needing to use our magical items or spells, so I took a moment to examine the statues that lined this hall. I even used my Omni-tool to record what I saw for our archives. I doubted the images would ever be useful, but I did have an artist perk so perhaps I would recreate the design during the planned Santa Jump when I had plenty of free time.
Before long we moved on once again and entered a part of the temple that had seen some people recently or something that looked vaguely like people. There were four of the things, and when I reached out with the Force I felt repelled by their wrongness. These had to be members of the Darkspawn horde.
They were smaller than I'd expected, only about chest high, so I figured that these must be Genlocks, which were darkspawn born from a Broodmother which had once between a female dwarf. I noted that they were carrying weapons, mostly clubs and crude short blades of some kind. The one in the back even had a bow.
"Stay back we need to avoid their blood" I reminded the girls.
After gunning down four of them in short order with my special gun it turned out that were more of the creatures nearby and they had been drawn to us because of the fighting, and they got in too near for guns, it was time for close-quarters fighting.
Faith made the first move, ducking to her right as one of them took a stab at her. The young Slayer cut into the monster's arm with her sword. It was one of the enchanted blades she'd taken as a trophy after the two of us had defended the demon Baltazhar and his vampire minions. The thing she cut howled in pain, but not for long as she soon sliced the monster's neck open.
After I cut down a foe I stepped to the side as an arrow narrowly missed my head, the Force having guided my actions despite the fact that my kinetic barrier would have protected me.
Knowing that we'd be in real trouble if we stayed here in a confined space I called upon the Force as much as I could and ran at the nearest group of enemy intending to take them apart and find us a way out of this creepy place. Given how strong I'd become slaying the remaining monsters took a matter of seconds.
Since I knew that their blood was toxic in some sense I used a spell to quickly clean up any of the fluid that got on us and once that was done we moved to a new area.
(Line Break)
Wending Wood. Thedas.
The forest we were in now could have been a forest on Earth, but given that they were actually on an alien planet in a crazy messed up dimension, I knew that it was best to keep an eye peeled as there could be any number of monsters hidden by the foliage.
A wolf howled in the distance, and I could tell from the faintness of the sound that it was pretty far away, nothing to worry about just yet. But there could be a hungry wolf pack heading our way in the near future. Not that they'd be a big threat. Still, I'd rather avoid the needless slaughter of the wildlife if possible.
Knowing this I watched the treeline and before long I saw a flash of brown fur, moving between some trees. A bear, maybe? But it too was a good distance away to be sure, and I was that it was moving away from us. I figured that the local wildlife knew better than to attack a well-armed group of humanoids, even if it was a small group, and if they did get closer I'd used my Force power of Beast Control to drive them away.
Before long we reached a bridge that crossed a small river. It was made of wood and looked pretty sturdy, but there was a good drop to the water below. Thankfully this bridge was well maintained, something I took to mean that there would be civilisation around here.
"Hold up," I said to the others before I went to check something that was on the path "I see some footprints".
Not human by the looks of things, very narrow and light, could be some elves. There were some other prints as well, big heavy prints.
"Sounds like someone's fighting," Faith commented.
Now that she'd mentioned it I could hear what sounded like a struggle.
"Let's go see if they need any help," I said to the group "I can sense more Darkspawn close by, they feel like demons only worse".
When we found the fight I wasn't surprised to see a few dead Darkspawn scattered about on the ground. They weren't that hard to kill the real danger from them was their numbers and the corruption they spread. It was a darkness I could sense.
The Darkspawn were brandishing a variety of makeshift weapons, small knives, axes and maces. A few of the man-shaped things were even using tree branches as crude clubs. I didn't need to worry about how they were armed as the fight didn't last very long. The Wardens, I knew they were Wardens as I could feel the corruption in them as well just a lesser degree, were rather powerful warriors when compared to their foes, the darkness within them giving them the ability to fight beyond what most people were capable of, much like Vampire Slayers. Faith had a dark power within her as well they made her ideal for fighting evil creatures. This was proven again by how she handled the Darkspawn.
Once the fighting was over and done with I got a good look at the two natives, who were both females, and I noted right away that neither of them were human. One was a dwarf, and the other was an elf.
"Who are you?" the elf demand to know.
Her tone of voice had been very unfriendly, but I remained civil.
"My name is Ser Gothic," I said, using the native's way of titling a Knight "This is Ser Faith and our guide Forestwind, and our maidservant. We're looking for somewhere civilized to stay. We're a bit lost".
As the two Wardens exchanged looks. I reflected that it would have been wiser to take one of the M-Ships to this planet and land near a major settlement while keeping the ship cloaked, but it wasn't as if the monsters here were a proper threat to us, and so far I'd not heard any seductive voices in my ear so I figured that mystical defences were doing their job.
"We're headed back to Vigil's Keep," the dwarf said after some discussion with her comrade "You're welcome to join us".
That sounded good to me.
(Line Break)
Vigils Keep. Thedas.
We travelled for a while and arrived at the gates of a massive fortress before dark. It appeared sturdy enough at first but showed signs of needing repair after what must have a recent battle. Workers were doing just that, they were laying new stonework and reinforcing its defences. The interior of the keep was more massive than in the game as real-life was often bigger in scale.
From what I was told by Sigrun, the female dwarf warden, the fortress was built by a group called the Alamarri Avvars to stop the Tevinter advancing from the north during some past conflict. In their time it was known as the Fort of a Thousand Vigils. It was built over caves leading to the Deep Roads and was believed to have been carved as a gift from Korth, an Avvarian god of mountains to the Avvars.
The Avvars residing in the fortress lived peacefully with the dwarves who owned the Deep Roads back then, which was unusual as at the time the dwarves were allied with their enemy, the Tevinters. In fact, the alliance of Avvars and dwarves predated the building the fortress, or so we were told.
As the Avvar culture declined, the ownership of the keep changed hands, eventually becoming the property of the Fereldan noble Howe family from where they governed the entire Arling of Amaranthine. That family's fortunes had declined in recent months.
I also learned that Vigil's Keep was the first fortress to fall during the Orlesian invasion in Ferelden and the last to be liberated during the Fereldan Rebellion.
"Who's the chick?" Faith asked Sigrun, who she walking next to "She must be important".
My Slayer gestured at the large statue which was in the centre of the courtyard. I knew who this person was, I just didn't know much about her.
"Okay, now I know you're joking," she said, "I'm a dwarf, and even I know who that is".
"I told you, we're from really far away," I reminded the native.
We'd not told them how far away we were from as that would only confuse the locals. I'd left them with the impression that we from a far off land and that we'd gotten lost.
"That's Andraste, the Maker's Holy Bride" Sigrun informed Faith "We dwarves worship the Stone, sort of, so I wouldn't be the best person to ask for a lot of details about the Chantry, but it's probably the biggest religion in all Thedas".
Faith just stared at the statue for a few moments before speaking again.
"Big with the girl power here" she then said, "They have a woman Jesus".
From what I knew of Andraste she was more like the Virgin Mary than Jesus since Andraste had been a mortal woman who came to the attention of the divine rather than the child of a deity, but I had no desire to discuss this, and I could be wrong.
Once we'd separated from the locals I sought out a trader called Yuriah, a human man who had some interesting things to sell. First I brought a ring known as the Golden Cog, which could be useful to any spellcasters in my group once the enchantment was learned. I also paid for a staff called Charlatan's Walking Stick. I had plenty of gold, but he didn't have much else worth buying.
This was when the Warden-Commander returned, and she turned out to be a female mage, she'd been off on an important mission, yet she still took a few moments of her time to great us as visitors, and to offer us shelter for the night. Which was nice of her.
I sought out the enchanter and tried to find out about how that type of magic worked in this world, and I quickly dismissed it as enchanting in this world took lyruim, which was dangerous, and it had to be performed by either a dwarf or a mage who had been made Tranquil. It seemed best to stick with the other types of enchanting that I knew about and just to disenchant any magical items of value to the group.
"We'll stay here for the night and head out for Denerim in the morning," I told my two companions.
It was getting dark and while the monsters of this land could be defeated by me there was no sense taking chances by travelling at night.