Carpathia IV: Episode 106 - Treehouse, Madhouse
Sassinesa's Treehouse
Nobody knew what to expect from the home of a demigod. A grand, opulent palace? A magical wonderland? Nope, it was indeed a treehouse as one would expect from a hobbyist in their backyard. A serious hobbyist, mind, but still a hobbyist. Nestled in a dense forest with thick-trunk trees and a dense, leafy canopy, his house was built into the tallest of the trees. It was a perfect sort of structure for a squirrel with plenty of wood planks to sink the claws into for climbing. Indeed, while there were rudimentary ladders and stairs around, much of the wood was scarred with claw marks.
Seemingly recovered from the trauma of losing his beloved Tabby, Sassinesa bounded past the stairs and attached himself to the wood planks overhanging the front door and gestured the Carpathians inside with a flourishing wave of his paw.
Sassinesa: Come in! Come in! I don't get visitors often! Well, never, really, but you know.
The visiting Carpathian party included Joust, Teren, Nalma, Ramei, Kit, and Ryuu, and they tentatively approached the front door. Tentative, but for Joust, who confidently strolled up the stairs toward Sassinesa's beckoning. With Joust's confidence as their guide, the rest followed, nervous but faithful in their Commander.
Inside, there was much to see, but not much to do. Only Joust and Sassinesa could easily reach most of anything beyond the first floor. Even Ryuu had trouble, for he wasn't much for jumping and needed at least a few feet of runway to fly. Teren could do it, if he wished, but he, along with everyone else, decided to stay on the first floor and let Sassinesa do his thing.
Sassinesa: Have a seat!
There were enough chairs and sofas arranged on the first floor for everyone to have a place to sit, but if ever there were an example of a vertically arranged house, this was it. There was a kitchen, but it went up instead of out. Something like a stove poked out of the wall halfway up, along with various other appliances. More seating was also arranged spiralling up the walls.
Sassinesa: Tea?
Joust: Yes, please. Non-caffeinated for the tokki if they are interested.
Sassinesa: Ah, the tokki! Marvellous species! I thought about becoming a tokki early in my life. All the sex! But no drugs. Hard decision and I made the wrong one.
Tea. Aside from death and taxes, this was, perhaps, the third universal constant. Every known culture figured out at some point that if you pour hot water over some leaves, it somehow produces a satisfying beverage. Sassinesa's treehouse wasn't all rustic, for the water for the tea boiled in only a few seconds. Moments later, everyone had a cup of hot leaf water in their hands while Sassinesa skittered to a position halfway up the wall where he hung on with three of his appendages. The last held his own cup of tea and the others marvelled at how, no matter which way he was facing, up or down, he kept his tea upright.
Sassinesa: There you go! And no caffeine.
As every culture had tea, every culture also had their own customs regarding tea. For his part, Joust was all in, sitting up straight in his chair with his legs gaily crossed and taking dainty little sips from his cup with his pinky extended from the handle. Sassinesa watched with a smirk, tilting his head back and forth.
Sassinesa: I'm glad there are still aptarans in the universe. News reached even I that Lazmaedia destroyed their home planet.
Joust lowered his cup and glanced away.
Joust: So I've heard.
Sassinesa turned his head all the way around until it was facing upward and took a sip from his cup.
Sassinesa: But look at you! A vashtari and an aptaran leading a ship full of nekomi, humans, komodo, and tokki! There is some hope after all.
Ramei: There are a few demons in the Exploration Force, but we don't have any on our ship at the moment.
Sassinesa: No reethalit, right? You didn't know when I met you. That's good!
Joust: At any rate, we know it's only a matter of time before Lazmaedia finds out we're here. We're looking for technology that might help us defend ourselves.
Sassinesa released his claws from the tree trunk running up the center of the house and landed on the floor with a thud.
Sassinesa: Ah ha! Then you'd like to see the reethalit mission control. They took much with them when they left, but there might be something of value to examine! It's in an underground bunker just a ten-minute walk from here.
Joust: Sounds good. We'd like to see that.
Sassinesa: And I'll take you there! There's just one thing to do first.
Sassinesa stood up straight and put his paws on his hips.
Sassinesa: Who's going to have sex with me?
Various reactions throughout the treehouse. Some blinked hard and shook their heads. Some twitched. Others rubbed their disbelieving ears. All said the same thing. Did I really just hear that?
Sassinesa: Come on! Come on! I don't much care about gender. I've got 200 years of blue balls here and I need a little happy time!
Surprising question, but not a surprising answer when Nalma stood up and placed his teacup on the table.
Nalma: I guess I'm up. Ryuu, is there anything I should know?
Ryuu shrugged and pat his tail on the floor.
Ryuu: Have fun, I guess. There's no particular danger unless you got pregnant, and that can't happen anyway.
Sassinesa excitedly clapped his paws together while the others, though not surprised, still harbored concerns.
Sassinesa: Yay, a tokki! I like tokki!
Teren: You're sure you're okay with this, Nalma?
With a wave of his hand, Nalma casually brushed aside Teren's concerns.
Nalma: Not a problem for me. Sassinesa, where would you like to go?
Later...
It wasn't until Sassinesa and Nalma disappeared into whatever love next they were off to that the others had a moment of dawning realization. What were they going to do? An awkward hour and a half passed where all they could do was have have a stilted chat about their circumstances. Everyone was thinking about what Nalma might be going through, but that was the one topic that everyone avoided.
Sassinesa returned bounding with energy. Nalma, on the other hand, looked rather wobbly and run down. Before anyone could ask what happened, Sassinesa directed them outside.
Sassinesa: Ah, you can never go wrong with a tokki! Everyone out! I'll take you to the control bunker.
And away he went while everyone followed. Ramei waited for Nalma and together, they brought up the rear of the procession.
Ramei: You alright?
Nalma: I'm fine, but he has no limit to his energy. I think I met my match.
Ramei: That's saying something. Are you okay to keep going?
Nalma: I'm fine. Just tired.
Indeed, the trek to the control bunker was as short as Sassinesa suggested, as it was only a 10-minute walk. On the surface, it was a humble affair, something that was small enough to escape notice of not only the eyes, but even from scanners. Nothing but a metal nub sticking out of the ground with a door attached to it. Sassinesa opened the door and darted inside, wherein a light flickered on from the depths.
Inside was, as expected, a staircase, but not one like anything they'd ever seen. It didn't go straight down. It didn't make neat corners to form any sort of spiral. It looked like something put together by ten different teams with no knowledge of where the others were and they just joined up whatever they built where they could. The staircase twisted and turned randomly all the way down, sometimes with little steps, sometimes with large steps. Sometimes only just wide enough for two abreast, sometimes enough for eight.
Kit: Perhaps the rock is difficult to dig through here?
Just a few more steps down answered that question. There was a doorway at the bottom of the stairs and each one made the same incredulous grimace upon passing through.
Ramei: No, Kit, I think the reethalit are just horrifically disorganized.
This was an understatement. One might expect a control room to have some organization. Perhaps neat rows of monitoring stations. Perhaps pod arrangements to cluster people together who are doing similar jobs. Something. Anything. Here, there was nothing. It looked as though someone just fired a load of building materials into the room with a cannon, then spawned a tornado, and they just built whatever they needed in the exact spots where the pieces were, all while the tornado kept spinning around the room.
Nalma: How were these people able to get into space?
Joust: I don't know, but I really want to see what one of their ships looks like now.
Sassinesa shook his head mournfully.
Sassinesa: 500 years. I lived amongst these idiots for 500 years. I couldn't take it anymore. When they got bored and left, I just decided to stay here. Scan whatever you want. Take whatever you want. I don't really care.
Joust: Okay, everyone, passive scanning only, so we don't damage any more equipment. Use your eyes too. Make note of anything interesting.
The officers took out their scanners and dutifully followed Joust's orders. Joust, however, remained by Sassinesa's side while the others went to work.
Joust: Thanks for this. We may find something immeasurably helpful. You know, someone will have noticed we're missing by now and they'll be coming for us. We can take you with us if you want.
Sassinesa: Perhaps someday. I know who you are and where you're from now. It's a tempting offer. I could have left any time I wanted, really, but I never felt really keen on doing that. I think, though, that the time is coming soon that I'll be ready to do just that.
While they spoke, Ramei shouted from across the room with his head still buried inside a computer console.
Ramei: This alloy is really strong and lightweight! If we could figure out how to recreate this, we could use it for a lot of things!
Joust: Take a piece if you can, Ramei!
Sassinesa clapped his paws together and, with one leap and glide, launched himself to one of the consoles.
Sassinesa: Why don't I scan to see if someone's coming for you! Don't worry. It won't affect anything. I was scanning you for days before you arrived. It wasn't until the tractor beam hit that you started having problems.
Joust: In that case, let's see what we have.
Sassinesa started fiddling with the controls, which appeared to be just as obtuse as they looked, a testament to a species that didn't seem to know how to organize anything. Some of the necessary buttons were where one would expect, on the front panel, but some were on the back. Some were under the keypad. One was, evidently, underneath the console, for Sassinesa had to lift it up and reach underneath to activate it. Nevertheless, he got results.
Sassinesa: Would you look at that! The tokki have updated their ringships since the last time I saw one. No surprise, I guess. It has been awhile.
Joust: Nalma, Kit, have your people met the reethalit?
Nalma: Not that I know of.
Kit: If we had, you can bet my dad would have been scheming on how to use them to his advantage. I'd say no.
Sassinesa held up his paw and flipped it down with a spittle of his tongue.
Sassinesa: Oh, pbbtht. Not them. Just me. Didn't really introduce myself. I just observed. They're still a day away from communications range, but they're headed directly here. Unlike yours, I know tokki systems well enough. Still using microfold drives to power your systems? I can do some quick adjustments to ensure nothing bad happens.
Joust: In that case, Ryuu, can you find your way back okay and inform the Captain?
Ryuu: Can do, Joust.
Joust: Alright, we'll stay here while you take care of that. Ask for a communications transponder too, so we can have regular contact out here. I think we'll be spending a lot of time digging through all this stuff.
Ryuu left, the raucous clickity-clacking of his claws hitting the metal stairs fading into the distance while the remaining crew continued examining the reethalit technology.
Commissioned art in this episode from:
AvareonArt
Zelbunnii
Thatwildmary
Colourbrand
