"Doran, stop it. Now."
The exile turned around. In front of her was Hyd Lucent, shining with a brilliant monochrome aura in astral form. Doran herself was a wild blue, like the Dezolis moon. They stood on Rykros, planet of Le Roof, the informational entity that taught the people of Phantasy Star and drove forward Algol's fate. Every spot of the green rock-dust and the pink crystals conducted a byte of information.
"What? He'll easily go up 97 levels."
"We mustn't hurt our friends." said Hyd sternly.
"He's not my friend. He hurt me."
"He's still a member of the community. We have a responsibility as the highest administrative ranking people in the community."
"Speak for yourself, I don't think you people have fully let me into the community yet." said Doran, leaning on a rock, "And you certainly don't give me any authority. I know all the things you hid from me. Like the existence of a portal between Earth and Algol."
"I'm sorry..."
"Is that why I suddenly lost contact with you all? Because you knew I was growing powerful enough to open the portal and didn't want me near it?"
"That's not it at all! I couldn't get it to work any more." she insisted, "I had it years before you were exiled here. That was before Earth lost contact with other worlds! All the portals suddenly broke until you made that rift."
"I didn't see anyone trying."
"Doran, if this is about petty vengeance..." she said crossly. Doran waved her away.
"I'm not doing this for my own sake. Le Roof told me to." she yawned, "But I'd rather tell you all about that at once. Dev is about to find out where my physical body is and I'm trying to get Che down there as well. Don't you want to go and talk to your friends?"
"They better be okay." she warned, "Don't forget that I'm still more powerful than you. I was on Earth's creation team."
Doran yawned and turned her back on Hyd, walking towards the Silence Temple. She opened the door, walked in and slammed it shut. Hyd slipped back into the physical world. Gice was watching over her, looking rather concerned.
"We follow Dev and Che." she told him.
Dev smelled like a dustbin.
He couldn't believe some of the things he saw rusting, discarded in piles along the trails as he crept through the Wastebasket. Alongside boxes of floppy disks and printer paper were bags of rappy feathers, strange flashing floor tiles that whirled round and round and parts for a mecha. The Motavians foraged the rubbish for everything they needed - they ate the more well-preserved food, they repaired the computers and used them, they even overhauled the vehicles and used the weapon parts to create new weapons. There were working teleport stations and, the Motavians' pride and joy, a spaceship. All time periods became one in this strange montage of civilisation - the Motavians saw time as a cycle, a constant circular continuity of which all parts had to be maintained. They still had posters on the walls for things that happened three thousand years ago.
Dev knew that this was a place for Motavians only. If he hadn't have been escorted by Saint Kevorkian's tribe, who were feared everywhere for being deadly assassins, a fuyodol riy like him would be dead.
The mess cleared as he descended and the bin bags thinned out. He saw massive electrical cables running along the ground like a giant leaf skeleton. He knew he was in the presence of some kind of giant machine, its low hum like a sleeping beast, its heat that of the desert. It beeped and all the machines in the Wastebasket answered.
A cultist pointed up. Above Dev, suspended by thousands of thick black cables and an antigravity field, was an enormous cube-shaped metal building. A stairway led up to it. Orange-robed figures holding computer equipment went up and down the stairs.
"The Lodge of the Holy Peripherated Brethren." whispered the leader, "They're a cybernetic machine-cult. They'll try and convert you if they see you, perhaps by force."
Dev gulped and hid. Was Motavia full of stupid cults? He heard a noise like a Mac starting up and the cultists all hurried into the building and began praying, a mass monotonous chanting. Dev and his escorts walked away from the building when the leader stopped them again, placing a hand upon Dev's shoulder.
"Something's wrong. I have one of those machines and they're not supposed to make that noise."
He signalled to the others and they ran, dragging Dev with them, through the corridor and away from the Church. The noise receded. Then, suddenly, it became louder. A cultist yelled. There was a whirring sound and something dropped on him. The cultist screamed as a robot crushed his skull with two metal fists. It beeped and its red searchlight scanned the other four and Dev. They had their partisans out now, their eyes also red. They hooted in warning. Undeterred, the machine took a few shots at them with its lasers. It missed. Two cultists ran towards it and swiped at it with their scythes. The blows made a serious rend in the robot's frame but did not put it out of action. It threw one of the cultists against the wall, knocking him unconscious, and jumped at Dev. He yelled and ran. The cultists ran after them both, raining scythe blows on the monster robot and trying to cut its power supply, pull the plug on it, whatever worked. It was unnaturally strong, even for an android, and absolutely furious. Dev tripped over something and landed on the floor. In desperation, he threw his knife at the thing. The blade hit its searchlight, embedding itself. The robot, suddenly unable to see, made an angry, faulty noise and fired randomly around the room, burning Dev as he failed to dodge an arm shot. It stung like hell. He wondered if he could still move the arm that hung limply at his side. The cultists jumped on the thing and physically ripped its power supply out. Finally it was silent.
"The machine doesn't usually fight back." said the leader, wiping the sweat off his brow.
"Where did it come from?" asked Dev, looking at the android. It was once a security android, shaped like a very tall man with long brown hair dressed in battle armour. It was twisted, rusted inside.
"Dunno. Probably an experiment gone wrong. Or a virus."
"I hope it was the last one." he looked sadly at the body of the fallen cultist. The leader muttered a prayer to Phantasy Star over him, cast an instant death spell to make sure he was dead and led them onwards.
At the end of the corridor, they found themselves in a pitched battle.