CHAPTER 27: "STAR CASTLE" "VIKINGS WAR IN VALHALLA"

BY WILLIAM WARNER

CHAPTER 27: "STAR CASTLE" "VIKINGS WAR IN VALHALLA"

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The atmosphere of the underground metropolis was thick with age — the scent of rusted metal, alien residue, and faint ozone still hanging from millennia of dormant machinery. Blue and red ambient light shimmered from the fractured crystal conduits embedded along the stone walls, giving the entire chamber a ghostly, half-living glow. Towering spires of black alloy rose around us like petrified trees, their roots merged with the rock floor, their tips vanishing into the darkness above where artificial rain still fell in a gentle mist. The alien structures hummed faintly — as though the city itself was listening to us.

Emily and I were at the front of the group as the others emerged from the adjoining tunnels — Sigvard and his two troll guards, their heavy steps echoing off the iron floors; Anisia, Jimmy, Pete, Mathew, Elizabeth, Rick, Cole, Hanna, and Droid L-84, their armors reactivated, glowing faintly under the alien haze. Then came Alexandria, Samuel, and two newcomers — Khamzat, still bandaged and limping from his last encounter on Goat Heim, and Niko, an Asian woman whose sharp features and calm posture made her seem both serene and lethal. Her armor gleamed white under the alien light, contrasting the decay around her.

Alexandria’s voice broke the uneasy silence. “All right, everyone — gather here.” Her words echoed off the smooth, ancient surfaces, bouncing endlessly through the hollow tunnels of the lost metropolis.

We stood in a wide chamber that had once served as a control nexus — its consoles and pedestals long dead, though faint holographic scripts still flickered in forgotten languages. From the ceiling, long black tendrils of unknown organic wiring hung like vines, dripping faint luminescent fluid onto the floor.

I looked around, my voice carrying through the damp air. “So what are we doing here again?”

Alexandria turned to face me, her pale eyes catching the distant blue light. “I heard you received intel from your friend in the Wraith?”

I nodded. “We sent Serenity into the Wraith to look for Hailey’s sister. Obviously that didn’t turn out in our favor, and she only stumbled upon a small piece of the demons’ grand plan in Maladrie’s journal… by accident. That was before we became outcasts from the very civilization we tried to unite.”

The sound of dripping water punctuated the silence as Samuel stepped forward, his breath visible in the cold air. “Well,” he said, “you ended up in the right place to seek help.”

Alexandria folded her arms, her armor faintly whirring as she turned to me again. “Do you still communicate with Serenity?”

I shook my head. “No. Emily and I fear the worst for her. Although…” I glanced around the shadowy room, lowering my tone, “I do know Maladrie is planning to build a simulation — one that powers a machine capable of creating demons at a faster rate, to stage a second civil war and seize the universe itself.”

Alexandria’s expression tightened. “Maladrie is probably already in her simulation phase. Entire worlds of Vikingnar are less active than before.”

She turned toward Khamzat, who stood beside a crumbling alien pillar, his fur damp under the artificial mist. “What’s the status of our forces?”

Khamzat let out a low growl as he adjusted the strap on his armor. “We have plenty of warriors,” he said, his deep voice echoing against the metallic walls, “but not enough weapons.”

He gestured toward a cart he had dragged in — it creaked across the stone floor, carrying what looked like scavenged alien machinery fused with Viking tech. When he removed the tarp, it was one of Deathskull’s energy guns resting on top. Its metal shell was blackened, and the orange core inside it pulsed faintly like a dying heart.

The weapon resembled a plasma rifle, bulky and brutal — its power conduit trailed into a metallic backpack lined with cracked insulation tubes.

I stepped closer, brushing the dust from its barrel. “So,” I said, “Deathskull — the bitch machine — made a clunky piece of trash. What’s so special about it?”

Khamzat lifted the rifle and set it on a nearby table made of alien alloy. “The weapon fires condensed plasma charges — orange lightning balls. It’s heavy, yes, but it cuts through graphene armor like butter. My shield held for a few minutes, but it still burned through.”

He tapped his chest plate, revealing a faint scorch mark across his armor. “That was after only one direct hit. The only thing that held the line were our red plasma shields.”

Emily stepped beside me, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. The orange mist from above shimmered faintly across her visor. I looked back to Khamzat. “Then we should get guns of our own. Find one of their weapons research labs, steal the blueprints, build more effective versions of the energy guns — maybe upgrade our armor in the process.”

The words hung in the chamber, resonating through the dead air like a vow.

Samuel crossed his arms, looking from me to Alexandria. “He’s right,” he said finally. “If the demons are adapting, we can’t rely on old steel and plasma swords anymore. We’ll need to match them.”

The group began to murmur among themselves, the sound of voices echoing up the hollow walls, blending with the faint hum of alien power still pulsing through the underground structures. The place felt alive again — as if it approved of our plans.

Khamzat gave a toothy grin, his amber eyes glowing under the dim light. “Then it’s settled,” he said. “We strike a weapons lab. We learn their secrets. And if Deathskull wants a war…”

I finished his sentence, gripping my chainsword Revenge so hard that the faint red energy along its edge shimmered to life.

“…then we’ll give him one.”

Everyone — Alexandria, Samuel, Emily, Niko, Khamzat, and the others — stood silent for a moment, the weight of the plan hanging heavy in the alien air.

Somewhere deep in the forgotten veins of the underground metropolis, something stirred — a distant vibration, low and hollow, rolling through the ancient walls. Whether it was the pulse of old machinery or something far more sentient, no one knew.

But as the echoes died away, one thing was clear — the war for the universe was no longer confined to the stars or the Wraith. It had reached the heart of the forgotten cities that mankind had built, then abandoned — and we were about to awaken whatever was still sleeping within.

Back on the surface, we stood on a narrow metallic bridge that arced like a rib across the Rus Viking spaceport. Below us, the dockyard thrummed with activity—hulking Drakkar hulls groaning as cranes loaded crates, men and women in pale green armor stacking melee weapons with practiced, silent motions. The air smelled of ozone and hot oil, and the distant whoop of engines made the rail beneath my boots vibrate.

Emily leaned against the railing, one boot hooked over the other, her visor up so I could see the cool set of her face. Khamzat rested his weight on a nearby support column, breathing slightly heavy; he looked at the wound on his shoulder still showing through the leather portion of his armor. Samuel and Niko watched the loading with the calm attention of people who’d long since learned to read the rhythms of a civilization.

“So you guys have the ships, and gave yourself a funny name, ‘Rus Vikings?’”

Khamzat tipped his head, then managed a crooked grin that didn’t reach his eyes. The platform seemed to sway for a moment as a carrier released its hold and moved out into the dark.

“I'll let you change our clan name if you can get us to use those blueprints.”

I kept my gaze on the lines of crates—some stamped with insignia I recognized from Deathskull’s workshops—and tried to imagine where the lab might hide its secrets.

“You look nervous Khamzat?”

He gave a short, humorless laugh that turned into a low warning. “You don't get it do you? I've never seen beautiful people be so dangerous. You guys took out a demonette with ease. I should keep my distance from you & your woman with funny ears.”

Niko’s voice cut in, level and practical. “Just ignore him. Are you positive anything valuable will be on the planet Vulddar?”

I watched a pair of Rus mechanics sling a crate that bore the faint outline of energy conduits. Machines left traces, patterns — a signature you learned to read. I met Niko’s eyes and shrugged once.

“Niko, I assure you that I've been around Deathskull long enough to know his patterns. Machines are predictable.”

Around us the port kept moving, obedient and huge, and for a heartbeat the future felt like a line we could step onto and follow. Then a Drakkar’s engines flared and the bridge thrummed underfoot, and we turned to the task ahead.

The boarding ramp of the Rus Viking Drakkar spacecraft groaned open, its metal plates unfolding like the jaws of some ancient machine-beast. The ship’s name—GEMINI—glowed along the hull in runic white letters, flickering with the faint shimmer of its stealth plating. Two parallel antenna fins ran the length of its back like twin spines, humming with a quiet teleportation field.

One by one, our mismatched alliance walked up the ramp: Alexandria with her commanding stride, Samuel studying every shadow, Niko moving with the precision of a covert scout, Khamzat steady but favoring his injured side, Anisia scowling as always, Jimmy, Pete, Mathew, Elizabeth, Rick, Cole, and Hanna marching in formation, Sigvard and his two troll guards towering like mountains behind them, Droid L-84 with his silent, calculated steps, and finally Emily and I, bringing up the rear.

Inside, Gemini breathed like a cathedral forged out of starship alloys.

Tall arching bulkheads curved overhead like the ribcage of a mechanical titan. Gothic engravings—ancient, angular, and clearly not Rus in origin—ran along the walls, illuminated by crimson and white ambient strips that pulsed like veins. The air had a sterile metallic taste mixed with something older, like dust from a civilization that predated humanity.

Red mist drifted like incense around the ventilation grilles.

The bridge opened before us in a long spearhead shape, full of glowing runes and holo-panels. As we stepped in, the viewport’s massive black glass came alive.

Outside, the Rus Viking fleet ascended from Skogheim’s snowy mountaintops—rows of Drakkars, long narrow ships with curved prows shaped like roaring beasts, propelling themselves upward in synchronized formation. Firelight from their boosters lit the clouds orange.

Then the fleet breached the atmosphere in a burst of white light.

Moments later we were in space, gliding silently past veils of blue nebulas whose light seeped into the cabin like the glow of stained glass. Far off, entire star systems drifted by, suns of all colors burning against the void.

And Gemini, true to its name, slipped through the dark like a ghost—its teleportation core humming with a pulse that seemed to bend time around us.

Our quarters were modest by Rus standards—high-ceilinged and narrow with a tall arched window that showed spiraling cosmic dust drifting past. The room had black metallic walls trimmed in white, and a bed mounted directly into the hull like a sculpted alcove.

Emily sat beside me as I stared at the floor in thought.

I asked quietly, “How come nobody seems to remember the black Shark Venom?”

Emily ran a hand through her natural dark hair, the red lights reflecting against her green eyes.

“I have no idea, and it’s made me bamboozled, too.”

I swallowed, trying to string together memories that felt like a dream dissolving.

“It’s like how nobody remembers Wilson inhabiting this body I own now.”

Emily turned to me with a puzzled look, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t know who Wilson is either?”

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.

“I thought Subi told you before he mutated into a shark humanoid?”

Emily gently shook her head.

“He either told me & I forgot, or didn’t tell me at all.”

A cold rush of anxiety tightened in my chest. The pressure of time—the rules of time—felt like they were pressing in on me all at once. I pressed my palm to my forehead.

“I hope my presence here didn’t destabilize the timeline. I originated from the past, after all.”

Emily moved closer, the bed dipping slightly under her weight. She wrapped her arms around me, her voice soft but grounding.

“I don’t think it matters, since you’re here now.”

Silence settled over us, warm and steady—broken only by the distant hum of Gemini’s engines drifting through the walls like a lullaby.

Emily held me for a long moment. Then she shifted slightly, tilting her head.

“Am I more than just the girlfriend now?”

I blinked, caught off-guard.

She clarified with blunt seriousness, “I am also your sex girl.”

Despite everything—war, demons, collapsing timelines—I couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, you sure are irreplaceable.”

Emily kissed me deeply.

We lay back onto the bed as she pressed closer, and I reached for the zipper of her black and white leather jumpsuit, pulling it down slowly while she guided my hands. The red ambient lights pulsed brighter, as if reacting to our energy, casting long shadows that danced over the room’s metallic gothic walls.

Outside the window, Gemini cut through the stars—silent, hidden, carrying us toward Vulddar and whatever insanity waited there next.

The bridge of Gemini stretched before us like the nave of a cosmic cathedral—arched metal ribs, glowing red and white conduits pulsing like arteries, and a vast forward viewport displaying the stars in razor-sharp clarity. Every one of us stood gathered there: Alexandria, Samuel, Niko, Khamzat, Anisia, Jimmy, Pete, Mathew, Elizabeth, Rick, Cole, Hanna, Sigvard and his two troll guards, Droid L-84, Emily, and me. Eighteen souls, armored, silent, all watching the planet below.

Beyond the glass, Vulddar hung in the void like a bruised jewel—blue-green forests wrapped around black mountains, and swirling cloud systems casting silver shadows across the landscape.

Our entire fleet sat cloaked, invisible, a silent constellation of hidden Drakkar ships suspended in orbit. Only we knew they were there, drifting like ghosts above a hostile world.

Alexandria stepped forward, arms crossed behind her back.

“We should only send a small group to get what we need, and get out. I'm sending all of you to the surface of Vulddar, and I'm coming with you.”

Her words echoed across the bridge.

I immediately cut in.

“Absolutely not.”

Khamzat gestured sharply with his gauntleted hand.

“The new guy is right, absolutely not.”

Alexandria didn’t flinch.

“I need to make sure you get the blueprints successfully, and not run off on us.”

I stepped closer, looking her directly in the eye.

“You insist on holding our hands when you are a major target for the hell horde?”

Alexandria’s expression softened only slightly—enough to show she understood the risk.

“I appreciate your concern, but if anything goes wrong, back up will show up immediately.”

The weight of the moment settled over us.

I exhaled slowly, lowering my shoulders.

“Ok.”

The decision was made.

We moved out.

The Drakkar Dropship waited for us in Gemini’s secondary docking bay, its matte-black hull lit by rows of white emergency strips. Runes glowed faintly along the wings. The rear ramp lowered with a hiss of compressed atmosphere.

All eighteen of us filed aboard, the metal beneath our boots thudding in rhythmic succession.

We were armored head-to-toe—stealth plating, adaptive cloaks, silent repulsor boots, multi-spectrum visors. Our weapons hummed with subtle echoes of dormant plasma, and Droid L-84 performed last-minute diagnostics, scanning each of us with a thin bar of blue light.

Inside, the dropship’s interior was narrow, almost coffin-like, with two rows of seats facing each other and crimson tactical lights bathing the cabin in a wartime glow. The engines rumbled beneath the floor, vibrating through every seat.

We were ready.

From the bridge window of Gemini, the dropship appeared as a small black dart sliding out from the mothership’s underbelly. Its stealth panels shimmered faintly, then vanished entirely as its cloak activated.

The hangar bay lights dimmed, and the dropship dropped into Vulddar’s gravity well like a silent shadow.

Inside the cabin, the atmosphere thrummed as we descended. Through the small armored windows we watched the world below grow larger—mountainous terrain rising like stone titans, sharp peaks clawing toward the sky. Vast temperate forests spilled over cliffs and valleys, lush and vibrant, with waterfalls glittering in the crevices between emerald ridges.

The air outside shimmered with the heat of our cloaking field.

Then shadows swept across us.

Dragons.

Massive winged silhouettes glided past the dropship, their wings spanning entire clearings, their scales glinting with shades of bronze, obsidian, and blue. They kept their distance, but their presence made the mountains seem even smaller.

Then the landscape shifted—and we saw it.

The Star Castle.

A colossal, upside-down pyramid floating above the Vikingnar base. Its stone was black-gold, covered in glowing glyphs. The structure was so enormous that the Vikingnar outpost beneath it looked microscopic, like an anthill at the foot of a monolith.

It emitted an unnatural radiance—celestial, ancient, impossible.

I stared in disbelief.

“I don't remember, this shit being here? It's beautiful, but I don't remember this at all?”

Alexandria kept her gaze steady on the structure.

“That's exactly why we're here. We can't let this structure get into enemy hands.”

I continued staring, feeling the impossible weight of the thing.

“And how are we going to move a celestial object?”

Alexandria replied without hesitation,

“I know someone on the ground who can help us.”

I nodded, though unease curled in my gut. I turned to Droid L-84, his optical sensors flickering.

I asked him if he knew anything, but before he could respond, Khamzat spoke up instead.

“Don't worry, she changes her mind a lot. It's her trademark.”

I leaned back, settling into my seat beside Emily. She slid her hand into mine and whispered,

“I don't trust her.”

I squeezed her hand.

“I know you don't.”

The cloaked dropship lowered into a secluded valley, hidden between colossal spires of volcanic stone. Dense forest surrounded us—towering alien pines, ferns the size of hover-bikes, glowing blue fungi clustering at the bases of trees. Mist drifted between the trunks in pale coils.

The dropship’s landing struts extended, touching down without a sound.

The rear ramp opened.

Cool mountain air rushed in, carrying the scent of wild sap and distant storms. Birds—feathered and reptilian—screeched somewhere in the canopy above.

All eighteen of us stepped onto the forest floor, the ground soft with moss and dark soil. Our cloaks activated automatically, bending light around our armor, making us wraithlike as we moved.

Above us, dragons soared in the distance.

Ahead of us, the enemy-occupied Vikingnar base pulsed with red perimeter lights several miles away.

And between us and the base, the wild alien wilderness waited—silent, ancient, and undisturbed.

We began our trek.

The alien temperate forest around us breathed like a living cathedral—towering cobalt-barked trees stretched upward in spiraling shapes, their bioluminescent leaves glowing faint blue under the misty canopy. Strange pollen drifted on the air in glittering sheets, and the ground hummed beneath our boots as if the roots carried electricity. All eighteen of us moved in a tight formation, weaving between enormous ferns that towered over our heads like umbrellas of living glass.

The tranquility shattered in an instant.

A deep, rattling growl rolled across the grove, followed by the heavy thud of claws. A Forest Dragon—emerald scales rippling with shifting iridescence—emerged from behind a root archway. Her muscular frame was low to the ground, head angled downward as three small hatchlings scurried around her talons. Her golden eyes locked onto us with unmistakable suspicion.

The moment Alexandria stepped too close, the mother lunged.

Her jaws snapped shut inches from Alexandria’s throat, teeth clashing with a metallic crack that echoed across the entire grove. Alexandria stumbled back, frozen in shock.

Emily reacted first—blurring forward in a streak of black and white. She slammed into Alexandria, knocking her to the ground just as the dragon snapped again. Emily drew her sword mid-motion, its plasma edges humming, and struck across the dragon’s snout. The blade carved a shallow glowing line that hissed with steam.

The dragon roared and swung a massive forelimb, striking Emily square in the chest. She flew backward—but I caught her, skidding in the dirt to keep us both upright.

The Forest Dragon reared for another strike—this time aiming straight for Alexandria.

Before she could lunge—

Samuel stepped forward and unleashed a burst of opaque silver mist from a nozzle on his gauntlet.

The dragon inhaled it, recoiled, and hissed as if smelling something rancid. The hatchlings mimicked her distress, chirping frantically. The mother dragon turned, nudged her young together, and hurried them deeper into the shimmering forest, disappearing into the luminous foliage with surprising speed.

The entire team exhaled as one.

No one was hurt. Alexandria brushed dirt from her armor, still shaken. Emily climbed out of my arms, brushing off her leather jumpsuit with a scowl.

I turned to Samuel.

“I hope you left our energy shield to protect our dropship? And what’s that crap you dispersed?”

Samuel answered casually, wiping the nozzle clean.

“Our ship’s shields are on at all times, and that crap is repellent for all hostile beasts.”

The forest returned to its soft humming, as if nothing had happened—but our nerves stayed sharp.

Leaving the dragon encounter behind us, we made our ascent toward the mountain pass. The trail wound upward between jagged crystalline rocks that glowed faintly from within, lighting our path with pulses of blue-white light. Strange, birdlike creatures circled overhead, leaving glowing trails in the sky like falling comets.

At the top of the ridge, the world opened.

Below us stretched an entire Vikingnar military installation—fortified walls of obsidian-colored alloy, plasma turrets perched like gargoyles, and rows of barracks connected by luminous circuitry running through the ground like veins.

But the true centerpiece floated above.

A colossal structure hovered silently in the clouds—Star Castle.

A massive, upside-down monolith, the size of a small city, suspended in defiance of gravity. Its black stone surface is rippled with ancient runes and white plasma conduits. Occasionally, violet lightning crawled down its edges, grounding itself into midair like branches of a tree.

None of us truly understood why the Rus valued this floating ancient megastructure. But its presence alone told me it mattered—deeply.

Even so, my mind stayed focused: I needed blueprints. Weapons. Anything to stand against Deathskull and the Wraith demons that followed him.

Below, Vikingnar soldiers patrolled the base like ants around a hive.

Khamzat raised two fingers and whispered sharply.

Everyone activated their invisibility cloaks. One by one, we shimmered and vanished into refracted outlines as our stealth fields engaged.

We slipped down the slope like ghosts, bypassing patrol routes and automated sensors. Inside the base walls, the place felt strangely different. Not in architecture—the structures were still hyper-advanced Vikingnar geometry—but in atmosphere. Darker. More militarized. Less noble.

As we passed a group of guards, the differences became obvious.

They were no longer wearing the traditional Viking-style helms or aesthetic motifs. Their armor was still the futuristic graphene alloy—but their helmets had changed into reinforced kettle hats, modified with sensory arrays.

And stamped across their chests was a symbol I instantly recognized:

An upside-down pyramid with a single demonic eye glaring from its center.

Maladrie’s mark.

Seeing Vikingnar warriors displaying it openly sent a cold prickle across my spine. Something had shifted—whether by influence, corruption, or allegiance, I didn’t yet know.

But the base was compromised.

We moved on, slipping between shadows that weren’t truly shadows, invisible yet hyper-aware.

Near the research sector, a lone guard walked past a dim-lit corridor, humming to himself. The timing was perfect.

I lunged from invisibility for a split second—my gauntlets activating with a sharp crackle. Twin red energy blades extended, slicing cleanly across the guard’s throat in a single silent motion. His body collapsed into my arms, and I dragged him into a supply alcove before anyone could notice.

His keycard hung from a chain on his belt.

I unclipped it, stepped back into stealth mode, and motioned for the others to follow.

We reached the reinforced alloy door marked with holographic runes—WEAPONS RESEARCH / ENGINEERING DIVISION—and I pressed the stolen key to the scanner.

The lock clicked.

The door slid open with a deep hydraulic groan, releasing a blast of cold sterile air tinged with ozone, plasma residue, and the faint metallic scent of centuries-old alien technology humming awake.

We stepped inside.

And the lab beyond awaited us—vast, glowing, and full of secrets the Rus never intended us to see.

The interior of the weapons research facility felt like stepping into the still-beating heart of a long-dormant machine. The room stretched far in every direction—catwalks suspended above humming machinery, glass chambers filled with alien alloys, floating worktables lined with half-assembled weapon prototypes. White light glowed from slits in the ceiling, giving everything a cold surgical clarity.

I switched my visor into infrared mode. The world shifted into spectral hues—heat signatures blooming across the room like red flowers against a blue backdrop. I scanned high corners, ventilation shafts, and fixture recesses. There—a faint pink glimmer.

A micro-camera, barely the size of a fingernail.

I raised my wrist and fired a concentrated pinpoint beam from my laser module. The camera flickered, sparked, then went dead with a soft pop. Meanwhile, the others spread through the lab, combing for sensors—behind data terminals, along the underside of rails, near the rotating forge rings. One by one, we heard quiet clicks and crackles as every device was disabled.

When the final indicator light dimmed, we all simultaneously powered down our cloaking fields. Eighteen silhouettes shimmered back into full visibility, helmets retracting, armor gleaming in the pale laboratory glow.

I moved quickly. The facility was enormous, a maze of alien research bays—but I knew exactly what I was looking for. The blueprints had to be stored near a primary fabrication table. After navigating glowing corridors of abandoned tech, I reached a sealed data crate marked with Rus sigils of restricted engineering.

It opened with the stolen key.

Inside—thin crystalline plates etched with runic schematics.

The first plasma gun.

I lifted them and turned to Droid L-84.

“Please scan these, I don't want to be labeled a thief.”

Red lines spread across his visor as he activated his full data intake module. He took the plates from me and held them beneath a glowing projector band on his arm. Light swept slowly over the runic etchings. When the scan completed, his eyes flashed.

A red hologram expanded outward—complex layers of engineering data, heat coils, particle chambers, and rune-etched energy capacitors rotating in midair like ghostly machinery.

Droid L-84 said:

“Once we return to Skogheim, I will make better versions to out class the Hell horde.”

Just as the hologram dissolved into thin air, a muffled voice carried from the opposite wall.

From a storage closet.

“No! not without my help!”

Every weapon in the room turned toward the sound.

Droid L-84 shut off his holographic display instantly. Alexandria, sword drawn, approached the closet with careful steps. She unlatched the handle and pulled the door open.

An older man—grayish, disheveled hair, eyes sunken but mischievous—tumbled out like he hadn’t seen daylight in hours. His clothes were rumpled, his expression equal parts agitation and relief.

Alexandria frowned and helped him up.

“Why did they lock you in the closet Ikeam?”

Ikeam dusted himself off angrily.

“They were punishing me for not coming up with more viable firearm options, I know you've seen them. Those clunky canons with backpacks, and I did that on purpose. They look so foolish!”

He waved his arms dramatically—but Alexandria’s eyes locked onto something in his hand.

A small magazine.

Glossy.

Colorful.

She pointed.

“Oh, they give this to read, a Fair Boy Magazine containing some of the hottest Crimmseed women.”

I blinked. The absurdity of it hit me before I could stop myself, and I said:

“Wow, you're the first closeted straight bloke I ever met.”

Ikeam froze. His pale skin somehow became even paler. He stared straight at me, as if seeing someone long dead.

Then he said:

“I can say the same to you Wilson, since you were able to reel in Madeline Scoggan as your wife.”

A cold weight dropped into my stomach.

Wilson.

The man who used to inhabit this body—before I ever inhabited it.

He remembered.

The others didn’t. But Ikeam did.

Before the silence could deepen, Emily stepped forward and corrected him firmly:

“His name is William, and I'm Emily.”

Ikeam’s eyes darted between us, still confused, still shaken.

Alexandria placed a steadying hand on his shoulder and said:

“We'll worry about salutations later. We need to get you & the Star Castle back to Skogheim.”

Ikeam nodded quickly, gripping his ridiculous magazine like a cherished relic.

“Yes of course.”

Behind him, the holographic equipment hummed, blueprints now secured inside Droid L-84’s core.

The mission had suddenly grown far more complicated—and far more mysterious.

The weapons facility still hummed around us—quiet, cold, and heavy with the sense that every machine in the room had been waiting centuries for someone to disturb it again. Gleaming alloy countertops reflected the harsh white ceiling lights, and the various disassembled firearm prototypes cast long mechanical shadows across the polished floor.

We formed a loose circle among deactivated consoles, the air shimmering faintly from the active invisibility cloaks hanging around our shoulders like half-ghosted armor.

The silence broke when I finally spoke.

“Who's going to pilot the dropship while we pilot the monolith floating outside?”

The question hung in the stale air, drifting up toward the upper gantries like stray vapor. Alexandria turned her head, her pale eyes narrowed as she processed my concern.

“I'm going to send Sigvard.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded—not out of malice, but out of sheer, stunned disbelief.

“You realize they barely know how to pilot their own ship, yet alone, an advanced Rus Viking Drakkar dropship.”

I turned toward Sigvard, who towered over the group like a moving slab of armored stone.

“No shade.”

Sigvard rolled his massive shoulders and nodded, tusks jutting slightly from beneath his lower lip.

“Yeah, us trolls are notoriously bad pilots.”

He said it like it was a universally accepted fun fact and not a catastrophic liability.

Alexandria gave him a look halfway between amusement and exasperation before shaking her head and addressing me again.

“Even if that were true, our ships have a user-friendly auto pilot system. And if you get caught fleeing, Deathskull or Maladrie will confuse you for pirates, stealing our precious cargo.”

The logic hit me a moment later—smooth, sharp, annoyingly sound.

I exhaled slowly, tension leaving my shoulders.

“I guess there's more going on in that head in yours, than I thought.”

Alexandria snorted—a small laugh that she failed to fully suppress.

“rude! We should get a move on.”

I held up my hand.

“Wait, let's get Ikeem his invisibility cloak.”

I reached into the satchel clipped to my armor and pulled out a folded cloak made of shimmering nano-weave, along with a pair of infrared goggles. The fabric rippled like liquid mercury in the facility lights as I handed the items to Ikeem.

He took them reverently.

“Thank you,” he said as he strapped on the goggles and swung the cloak over his shoulders.

All around us, fifteen others activated their cloaking fields. A soft cascading hum filled the air as our bodies flickered, bent light around us, then vanished entirely—leaving only footprints in dust and a faint distortion whenever someone moved.

We split at the door.

Sigvard and his two troll guards lumbered back the way we came, heading toward the path leading down to the forest valley and the dropship. Their invisibility shimmered with every heavy step.

The rest of us—fifteen strong—followed Ikeem deeper into the structure.

He led us down a narrow corridor we hadn't noticed before: metal walls lined with dormant plasma conduits, runes etched along the edges like glowing circuitry carved by ancient hands. The air tasted metallic, laced with the faint scent of old plasma burns and abandoned experiments.

At the corridor’s end was a vertical shaft filled with an endless spiraling staircase that wound toward a distant opening above—an access tunnel running inside the research tower’s spire.

We ascended.

Step after step, the world below shrank into a single metallic throat echoing our muffled armored footfalls. The higher we climbed, the more the air changed—thin, charged, humming with gravitational fluctuations radiating from the floating structure just overhead.

At last, the stairwell opened onto the roof.

Wind whipped across the spire’s broad metallic platform, carrying the scent of alien forests far below. Trees swayed in rhythmic waves miles down the mountainsides. The sky above was a swirling gradient of silver-blue clouds and drifting embers of cosmic dust.

And there it was.

Star Castle.

An upside-down pyramid suspended like an impossible celestial wound in reality—its massive shape defying all reason. Hundreds of meters across, its obsidian surface glimmered with faint teal runes reminiscent of starlight trapped in stone. Gravity bent around it in slow, graceful pulsations, warping the clouds around the structure like a lens.

We all stared upward, miniature shadows under a cosmic giant.

I finally spoke.

“Now how do we get inside?”

Ikeem stepped forward with a little smirk—half pride, half mischief.

“Let me show you a trick.”

He crouched, sprang upward in a fluid, unnatural leap, and soared toward the pyramid’s tip. As he reached it, he twisted his body midair and planted his boots along the slanted face of the monolith as if stepping onto level ground.

Gravity was in alignment with him.

The pyramid’s gravitational field accepted him.

Emily’s hand slipped suddenly into mine—warm, tense, steady.

“wait goober!”

She pulled me with her. Together, we leapt.

The moment we crossed the pyramid’s threshold, everything shifted.

Up became sideways.

Sideways became down.

The gravitational pull wrapped around us like invisible hands repositioning our bodies. Our boots touched the slope of the monolith’s outer surface with a soft metallic tap, and we remained standing—upright, balanced, held firmly by a force older than any civilization we knew.

Below us—far, far below—the forest canopy swayed like an ocean of emerald waves. Our dropship, invisible but present, was hidden somewhere under that sea of trees. The mountain range cut jagged scars through the landscape, and the enemy-held base sat like a black thorn in the valley.

One by one, our companions jumped—fifteen figures appearing briefly in the open air before gently landing on the pyramid’s gravity-bound side.

We were suspended hundreds of meters above the world, standing on the vertical face of a floating celestial relic.

We walked.

The surface was smooth, eerily warm, as if the monolith remembered the heat of ancient cosmic forges. Runes pulsed beneath our feet in slow, breathing rhythms—lighting our invisible silhouettes with faint teal glimmers.

And eventually, after traversing nearly a hundred meters of angled pathway, we reached a massive seam near the pyramid’s core. A doorway opened—silent, seamless, as if sensing Ikeem’s presence.

We stepped inside.

And Star Castle welcomed us with a deep, ancient hum that resonated through our bones—

as if awakening from centuries of sleep.

Far from Star Castle, deep within the forests of Vulddar, Sigvard and his two troll guards lumbered through the underbrush, their invisibility cloaks flickering in and out as their heavy breathing strained the delicate nano-mesh fabric. Their massive feet left crater-like impressions in the soft moss, the earth vibrating beneath every step. No predators approached them this time; even the wild creatures of Vulddar knew to avoid armored trolls on a mission.

They reached the clearing where the Drakkar Dropship waited—still cloaked, still shielded, shimmering faintly in the humid valley air like a mirage held together by red energy filaments.

The moment they stepped through the cloak, the sleek black hull fully revealed itself. The ship recognized their biosignatures and opened. The trolls, clumsy yet determined, filed inside.

Then—miraculously—they managed to depart without a single misstep.

The dropship rose from the valley like a silent ghost, engines whispering rather than roaring. It pierced Vulddar’s clouds, then the stratosphere, then the great dark ocean of space where the constellations stretched in crystalline rivers of silver light.

Sigvard slumped into the pilot seat—already sweating, already uneasy—while his two guards strapped in behind him. For a moment, it looked like everything would be fine.

But Sigvard did not check the star map.

He did not check the beacons.

And most importantly—he did not check for enemy territory markers.

The ship drifted silently across the void, gliding between asteroid belts and nebulas until the onboard computer began blaring red runic warnings. Sigvard grunted, confused, pressing the wrong runes, then the wrong ones again, until—

Too late.

The Drakkar Dropship was violently seized by a massive gravitational net—a demonic localized field trap designed specifically for intercepting stealth craft. The ship jolted, engines whining, alarms shrieking, hull groaning like a dying beast.

Sigvard roared as the force yanked the vessel downward, spiraling it toward a dull gray world scarred with red glowing fissures. The atmosphere sparked with electromagnetic storms. Purple lightning forked across the sky as the dropship tumbled like a crippled bird.

The crash was catastrophic.

Metal screamed against rock. Sparks exploded in sprays of blinding orange. The entire front of the ship plowed into volcanic soil, carving a trench for nearly half a mile before coming to rest against a jagged obsidian cliff.

And then—

Silence.

The dust cleared.

The smell of burnt alloy filled the air.

Sigvard crawled out of the wreck, bloodied but alive. His two troll guards stumbled out behind him.

But there was no relief.

Because surrounding them—closing in from every direction—were hundreds of trolls. Trolls clad in spiked demonic armor. Trolls marked with the flaming sigils of Deathskull, Anubis, and Maladrie. Some mounted massive tusked beasts; others held serrated plasma halberds glowing with orange lightning.

They stared with cold, unforgiving eyes.

The moment Sigvard understood what world he had fallen onto, his face went pale gray.

There was no amusement in the prophecy I had joked about earlier.

Sigvard had indeed crashed into a world ruled by his own kind—only these trolls were loyal not to us, but to the enemy.

Prisoners.

That was all they were now.

Bound in plasma chains, beaten, dragged across the volcanic terrain—vanishing into the demonic world’s metal gates as the sunless sky rumbled overhead.

Meanwhile, back on Vulddar, inside the ancient floating monolith of Star Castle, a different storm was brewing.

The interior of the pyramid shifted and breathed like a sentient machine. Walls of obsidian metal rippled like black water beneath glowing teal circuitry. Gravity twisted gently in slow spirals, creating a strange sensation in the stomach—part weightlessness, part grounding, all alien.

At the heart of the monolith was a great circular chamber: walls lined with rotating rings of runes, a floating platform in the center, and a deep resonant hum throbbing like the pulse of a sleeping titan.

Ikeem—small, frantic, brilliant—ran across the chamber like a man who had spent his entire life studying a device no one else could even describe. His fingers danced over glowing panels, dragging runes, sliding energy nodes, activating gravity jets. Ancient consoles responded eagerly to his touch, as if recognizing a descendant of their original creators.

Emily leaned against a pillar illuminated by flowing teal glyphs. She watched me with thinly veiled suspicion.

Then came her voice.

“Hey, why were you trying to flirt with Alexandria back there? That was gross, bad boy.”

Her eyes narrowed. The teal runes reflected across her cheeks, giving her an eerie glow.

I lifted my hands defensively.

“I was just talking Emily.”

She didn’t buy it. She crossed her arms slowly—quietly—intentionally.

I let out a breath.

“She reminds me of my mother, that's all.”

Emily’s expression shifted instantly. A smirk curled across her lips, mischievous and predatory.

“I see, maybe I should be your mommy as well.”

Heat rose in my face. I shook my head, turning away.

“I don't think this is the time to talk about this.”

I barely took one step before she lunged.

Emily tackled me hard—pinning me to the reflective obsidian floor with surprising strength. A split-second later—

Orange plasma fire exploded through the entrance.

Blasts slammed into the far walls, spraying molten shards. Demonic warriors flooded into the chamber—sleek armored silhouettes glowing with infernal circuitry, weapons crackling with energized lightning.

Emily pressed her forehead to mine, whispering with mock pride:

“You see, I have good mommy instincts. Now come.”

She yanked me to my feet with fierce urgency.

All thirteen of our companions had already formed a defensive barrier around Ikeem. They fired red plasma bursts, unleashed energy blades, redirected demon shots with shield gauntlets. Armor sparked under fire, runes overloaded, and metal rang with the percussion of battle.

Emily and I charged into the fray.

We cut through the demonic warriors together—our movements synchronized, our blades leaving streaks of glowing damage in the air. The demons fell at our feet, collapsing off the floating platforms into spiraling gravity pockets beneath the chamber.

A burning line tore across my shoulder as a stray plasma round hit the seam of my armor. Pain radiated down my right arm, my armor glowing faint orange from the blast. Emily shouted, but kept fighting—until suddenly, brilliantly—

Ikeem sealed the entrance.

The massive triangular doorway slammed shut with a deep, ancient rumble. Runes rotated around its frame, locking into place like a cosmic vault.

Outside, we caught a final glimpse through a dimming energy window:

Enemy ships approaching.

Dozens. Maybe more.

But they were too late.

Star Castle activated.

A vortex opened beneath the monolith—a spiraling wormhole of crushing gravity and radiant starlight. The entire upside-down pyramid sank into the vortex like a stone into water, vanishing into a cosmic tunnel where no enemy vessel could follow.

The universe folded around us. Darkness. Light. Silence. Motion. Then— Steady hum. We were still alive. The Star Castle had escaped.

Emily’s voice broke the soft glow of stress and battle-thrill.

She had pushed the torn armor away from my shoulder and stared at the exposed wound beneath—reddened, burned, raw. Her worry came disguised as playful mockery.

She leaned down, hugged me tightly, and pressed a gentle kiss to the injury.

“Is your booboo better?”

My mind spun—not from pain, but from everything happening around us.

The teleportation. The battle. Sigvard’s unknown fate. The strange hum of wormhole walls sliding past the monolith. Emily’s lips on my skin.

I exhaled slowly.

“I have no idea what's better or not right now.”

Star Castle drifted onward, deeper into the wormhole—

and the chapter prepared to turn toward its next storm.

---

CHAPTER 27: "STAR CASTLE" "VIKINGS WAR IN VALHALLA"