Previous Post Saving the Future – Part 13: Exploring the Forbidden Valley, or Samantha Featherstone and the Crystal Goddess Previously:    As the next chapter of Saving the Future came together it became clear that some stories weren’t easily going to fit into just one episode. Quel surprise! Moreover, I became more and more concerned that just writing a series of parallel tales and intercutting the scenes was getting a bit old – and maybe confusing. So I hope folks won’t mind that I’ve separated out this storylines and just treated it on its own. On the downside, only a few posters have the fun of seeing their own characters in this section. On the upside there’s a chance people can follow a complete and structured narrative. I’m considering posting two or three of these “interim” plot development tales fairly quickly and then see where we’re at in terms of bringing the Land That Common Sense Forgot arc to a conclusion. Previous Chapters The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse ***     The steam-powered tank crashed through the jungle leaving a trail of carnage behind it. The huge hissing vehicle had a turret with a swastika painted on the rim, and half a dozen velociraptors in SS uniforms clung to the sides.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This isn’t good,” worried Samantha Featherstone, teenaged grand-daughter of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, to the human manifestation of the Manga Shoggoth. “Can you run a bit faster?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m trying to bend time,” answered the huffing former elder beast, “but it refuses to bend where it should. I’m thinking of complaining.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Try doing it the human way, by pumping your legs faster.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think this cardiovascular system is defective. It seems unable to provide me with the appropriate biochemical reactions to move these muscle clusters in an effective manner. Also I appear to be suffering from respiratory malfunctions.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re out of breath and your muscles ache,” Sam translated. “Me too. But that’s better than being full of bullet holes. Believe me. I’m an expert on being human.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was thinking that perhaps I would just absorb the projectiles.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Think again, and keep running.”     There was a burst of machine-gun fire behind them. One of the scouts had spotted the fugitives.     Samantha said a rude word her grandfather wasn’t aware that she’d overheard and dragged the Shoggoth off the trail and down a shallow slop to a streambed. “Keep your head down,” she advised him. “That’s the top bit of you, counting up as furthest away from the planet’s centre of gravity.” She was rapidly learning the precision required in instructing her companion.     The hiss of instructions from one of the raptor officers was altogether too close.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re trying to bracket us,” Sam realised.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We should go this way, then,” the Shoggoth advised her, pointing to a dense section of jungle. “In just the four dimensions.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That way? We’ll get caught in the undergrowth and they’ll catch us up.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But this is the right way,” the Shoggoth insisted. “Look at the runes.”     Samantha realised that the Shoggoth had spotted an ancient and worn stump of stone with some kind of eroded engraving on it. “You can read those?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Of course. It says ‘Forbidden Valley. Death is the penalty for entering.’”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you think it’s a good idea for us to go in there, do you?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, I usually quite enjoy forbidden places,” the Shoggoth admitted. “And if it’s nice and quiet I could take a moment to work out why I seem to be caught in this absurd meat form.”     There was a thrashing in the jungle on the other side of the path. The Nazi raptors were very close now.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Come on then,” Sam decided, dragging the Shoggoth past the warning marker. “But if we get eaten I’m holding you responsible.”     The velociraptors burst out of the undergrowth in time to see them vanish down the tangled trail. They fired a few dozen rounds after them but didn’t follow.     They knew better than to enter the Forbidden Valley. ***     There were more markers, and some of them had flowers and fruit piled in front of them. The Shoggoth was able to supply more information.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is the Valley of the Crystal Goddess,” he explained to Samantha. “It is a sacred place.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And what do they do to trespassers?” worried the girl.     The Shoggoth shrugged. “Usually I either drive them insane with my singing, feed them to my giant penguins, or fold them in a recursive tangle until they die of conundrums.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s a great comfort. Thank you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t mention it. Anyhow, I will object if anyone attempts to tear your head off or attach you to a sacrificial altar.”     Sam patted him on the shoulder. “You can stop talking now.”     They moved steadily downhill, towards the basin of the valley. They could hear running water, the crash of a waterfall. The sun shone on cultivated fruit trees and brightly-coloured flowering vines.     A bronzed young woman appeared from the lake, shaking the droplets off her sleek form. She wore a garland of the vine-flowers around her head, and that was all. She spotted Samantha and the Shoggoth and scampered over towards them, waving greeting.     She spoke to the Shoggoth earnestly, laying a soft hand on his shirt front.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The young lady wishes to know if I will participate in procreative exercises with her,” the elder beast told Samantha. “Shall I?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You can understand her?” Sam asked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why shouldn’t I? Human languages are very simple. Should I exchange genetic materials with her as she desires?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, probably not. You’re married, aren’t you?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She was not suggesting quad-dimensional fractal bonding,” the Shoggoth assured Sam earnestly.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Probably best to say no, anyhow,” Samantha advised. She was a little out of her depth here.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do I wish to interface my body parts with any of the other young women here in the garden of the nymphs?” the Shoggoth checked.     Now Sam could glimpse more girls splashing in the water where the falls dropped into a natural pool. Beyond that there was something large glistening in the sunlight. “Best not,” Sam advised. “But you could possibly ask them a little bit more about this garden. And why the valley is forbidden.”     The brown-skinned nymph spoke to Samantha then, her head cocked curiously on one side.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She wishes to know if you would care to divest your outer skin,” the Shoggoth translated. “But she is also questioning whether you are old enough to serve your time at the shrine of the Crystal Goddess.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m very happy staying in my other skin, thank you,” Sam replied. “And I’m not expecting to exchange any genetic materials either. I just want to know what this place is and where the nearest phone box is.”     The conversation between the Shoggoth and the brown girl continued as they moved upstream towards the pool. A collection of grass huts and lean-tos ringed the basin pool, woven with vineflowers and bright threads. Thirty of so girls frolicked in the water. Sam blushed and looked away as she realised a half-dozen men were frolicking with them.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nimi says that this place is where the girls of their tribes come when they are ready to be women,” the Shoggoth explained. “They stay here serving the Crystal Goddess and being visited by the boys of the tribes who are ready to become men. When they discover how to commingle biogenetic material and hive off a portion of their biomass into an internal gestatory sac their service here is complete and they return to be adults of their tribe.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah. I’m not here for that,” Sam answered determinedly, glaring warningly at a couple of muscular young warriors who were glancing in her direction. “Anybody staring at me again gets their names given to Harlagaz.”     The Shoggoth pointed. “That must be the Crystal of the Goddess,” he remarked.     Now Sam could clearly see the vast translucent gem, some forty feet across, lodged in the rock on the little island at the centre of the pool. Its milky white surfaces shimmered in the reflected light of the lake, and there were two darker smudges in its centre, like giant flies in amber.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That is the Crystal Goddess who makes the people fertile,” supplied the Shoggoth. “The people here believe that their conjoinings channel her spirit as she couples with her consort.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m probably too young to hear this,” Sam noted. She turned away, bright red. “I’m definitely too young to see that.” She glanced back, curiously.     Nimi spoke to the Shoggoth again urgently. “Nimi says that if you prefer to interface with a man of similar hue to your own you could go over to the stranger’s hut. He is always happy to help out.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A stranger? With white skin?” Sam checked. “How long has he been here?”     The Shoggoth relayed the query. “He has been serving the goddess for several moons, apparently. They believe he is a very potent avatar of the goddess’ consort, whose name roughly translates as He Who Brings the Goods.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Subtle,” said Samantha. “Well, we’d better see who this stranger is. It might be someone else from the Lair Mansion. With any luck they’ll have a clue what’s going on.” She strode round the edge of the lake, made her way to the largest of the grass huts, and rapped on the wooden lintel.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, come on in babes,” came back a voice in English. “I’m revved up an’ raring to go.”     Samantha swept back the grass curtain over the door and peered inside. “Oh!” she yelped, backing out hurriedly.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Akkk!” gasped the man inside, reaching for a sleeping fur.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hello, Killer Shrike,” said the Manga Shoggoth. “It is good to see you.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The fugitives escaped into the Forbidden Valley, sir,” Sturmscharführer Sitthhh reported to his commanding officer. “We could not follow them there.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why not?” demanded Hauptsturmführer Ksssttthh. “These mammals may be related to the ones who brought down the great airship! The Oberstgruppenführer will expect to see them for questioning. No excuse will be tolerated for not providing them to the interrogators.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But sir, the Forbidden Valley is a protected place. There are old powers there. No patrol we send has ever returned.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bah. For too long we have allowed the mammals’ superstitions to hold us back. They cower in that valley from their rightful masters and expect to keep us at bay with stories of ancient gods. We shall follow these humans, Sturmscharführer, and we shall bring death and destruction to any others we find there. Take the tank. Take flame throwers. Take three platoons, two hundred men. Level that valley to burning stubble but find me those mammals!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes sir! Heil!”     The tank rolled forward, shattering the warning stone and heading for the valley. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh no!” Killer Shrike told Samantha. “You are not here. Go away. This isn’t your heaven, it’s mine.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Heaven?” The Shoggoth looked around a little. “This does not seem to have the proper theological albido for one of the upper planes.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mr Shrike,” Sam appealed, “we have no idea how we got here, but we need to pool information to escape.”     Shrike shook his head. “No way. I know how I got here, toots. I died. Again. Stands to reason. There we there when the Lair Mansion got blown up. Then we got grabbed by that cosmic force, judged, and sent to our final destinations. And I ended up here.”     Sam looked puzzled. “Here?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Believe me, it’s a real improvement on the last time,” Simon Maddicks confided. “Way I figure it, I been doing some good deeds lately, against my better judgement. So this time I get the valley of the endless bimbos, all hot for a bit of the Shrike machine. I just wish I’d been that little bit better so I could have had the wet bar and the Sports Channel subscription too, but hey, I’m not complaining. Okay, I’m exhausted, but it’s a good exhaustion.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You appear to be functioning within standard human biological parameters,” the Shoggoth told him. “Although you might perhaps be a little dehydrated.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Back off, creepy!” Killer Shrike warned the Shoggoth. “Who the hell are you anyway?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a long story,” Sam answered. “The important thing is that we found you. Now we can head on and see if any more people from the Mansion have been scattered about.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, good luck with that,” Maddicks told her. “If you happen to find ‘em, ask them to forward me a case of Coors and an icebox, okay? And tell Nimi that I’m good to go again as soon as the peanut gallery gets the hell outta here.”     Samantha folded her arms. “Mr Shrike, I don’t know where we are, but I can categorically assure you this isn’t my idea of heaven. So we need to work out what’s going on and formulate a plan to get away.”     Maddicks laid back on the bad of leaves and skins. “Knock yourself out, Nancy Drew,” he told her. “Me, I don’t look a gift babe in the mouth. Well, okay, I do, but only… nah, I’m not explaining this stuff to a minor.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is a very strange place with unusual customs,” noted the Manga Shoggoth. “For example, why are all the nymphs screaming and running this way?”     The raptor tank broke through the trees and opened fire. ***     The Nazi dinosaurs broke through the trees, machine guns blazing, sending the nymphs and their suitors spinning back into the waters spurting blood. Hauptsturmführer Ksssttthh urged them on to more slaughter. “Mammalian scum! Eradicate their infestation from the thirty-two worlds!”     Killer Shrike’s first flint dagger took the commandant in the throat, spinning him back out of his command vehicle to fall under the tracks of his own steam tank. As the armoured transport screeched to a horrified halt the butcher bird dropped from the trees onto the turret and gutted the first raptor out.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is my place!” Simon Maddicks screamed, livid with rage. “My retirement! You don’t come here!” A second and third Nazi lizard joined the first in death.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have to help him,” Sam called to the Shoggoth. “He’s going to get killed.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If this is his heaven would that be theologically possible?” mused the elder beast.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Let’s not find out. Come on. Think!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Very well,” agreed the Shoggoth. “I suppose we should make use of the causal patterns available in this timespace juncture.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Think in English.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We will require a bazooka,” stated the Shoggoth.     More troops were closing in on the angry Killer Shrike, some of them with automatic weapons that he couldn’t dodge. He swung the turret-mounted machine gun and swept a great swathe through the incoming troops. He was screaming in fury. “Every time! Every time I think I’m set some bastard comes along and does this to me!”     A stick grenade dropped at his feet. He only had time to leap from the tank before the explosive detonated. That took out the steam boiler and the ammunition rack. A huge fireball rose up from the lakeside.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now!” shouted Hauptsturmführer Ksssttthh. “Beat him to death!”     The soldiers surrounded the stunned Shrike with their rifle-butts ready. A few reacted as Samantha Featherstone broke cover from the undergrowth. “Don’t kill me!” she shrieked. “I’m only a helpless girl!”     She took down the first raptor then disabled the one behind him that was carrying the bazooka. “Do you know how to use this?” she demanded tossing it to the Shoggoth.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It is a simple application of physics and chemical reactions,” the Shoggoth assured her, hefting it on his shoulder. “Like this.”     The backblast hurled him thirty feet into the bushes.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No!” screeched the bleeding weeping Nimi, clutching a dying girl to her breast and watching the combat. The shell overshot the combat zone and smashed into the sacred crystal of the goddess, shattering it.     A power stirred in the Forbidden Valley.     The raptors clubbing Shrike were slapped away hard enough to shatter their bones. The remaining vehicles were crumpled like coke cans in a student’s fist. Every single lizard-man was hammered to the ground. Their weapons snaked into useless knots.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What did you do?” Sam demanded, hurrying to where the Shoggoth lay half-stunned.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I hope they’ll forgive me,” the dazed elder beast muttered. “I’m told that people can get very irritable if their procreation activities are interrupted.”     A battered and scorched Shrike looked around in amazement as the military machine around him was flattened by an invisible force.     And then the wounded and the dying amongst the nymphs and their suitors got better. Bullet wounds closed, shrapnel damage repaired itself.     There were screams from the Nazi raptors as the damage transferred to them.     Nimi looked over at the island where the shattered crystal wreckage still stood and saw the goddess and her lover looking about them in some confusion.     A silence fell upon the forbidden valley. The last of the invaders was destroyed. No injury remained on any other person. The machinery and weapons of the intruders balled into one massive sphere of scrap then vanished in a high thirty-mile parabola.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What did you do?” Sam demanded again of the Shoggoth.     Killer Shrike looked around him, baffled. He saw the figures on the island. “Hey, I know them!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I had to release them from their ending,” the Shoggoth explained. “It was the only way to ensure an appropriate outcome.”     Samantha stepped forward. “Hello?” she called.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hi!” replied the woman from the crystal. “Is everybody okay now? Only the magnification effect of this prism is passing, so speak up if you still need making better.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey!” objected the man who stood beside her. “What happened to my pants?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well met and welcome back, Nats and Uhunalura,” the Shoggoth greeted them. ***     Night fell upon the forbidden valley. Nimi and the other nymphs reverently built a campfire, far away from where Nats had hurled the dead raptors. The native boys and girls sat silently watching the crystal goddess and her consort and the angels who had conjured them with deepest respect.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you were running hell, and you were dying in the Lair Mansion,” Killer Shrike summarised, pointing at Nats and Uhuna. “And then there was that Parody War, and you guys managed to get locked away into an eternal sex crystal.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s kind of the short form version,” Bill Reed admitted. “But yeah.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was not a terrible torment,” Uhuna admitted, giggling. “Although it was quite hard.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And somehow you ended up wherever-we-are-now,” Samantha continued, ignoring the innuendo she wasn’t supposed to understand, “and for thousands of years you’ve been… occupied in that little fragment of time, while whole cultures have based their fertility rituals around you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re saying… when I was shtupping the local bimbos they were thinking of him?” shuddered Killer Shrike. “Yeuch!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Parody Master!” Uhuna remembered urgently. “Did he…?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Old business,” answered Samantha. “The Legion took him down, of course.” She summarised the events. It took quite a while.     The Shoggoth seemed preoccupied. “It is telling that Nats and Uhuna ended up here,” he frowned. “It is another clue, just as my mortal incarnation is. There is more to this than meets the limited mortal optical receptor.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And we need to find out what,” Nats decided. “We need to see if the rest of the LL really are scattered about round here. We need to find out what’s really going on. And I need to find some pants that aren’t made of grass.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Will you be coming with us, Mr Shrike?” Sam asked Simon Maddicks. “I know you were very… occupied here.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, that was before I knew whose damn shrine it was. Staying here now and helping out the local chippies… that’d be kind of weird.” He glared at Bill Reed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll set out in the morning,” suggested Princess Uhuna. “These people will be just fine without us. It’s not as if we were doing anything they can’t figure out for themselves.” Her hand twined around Nats’. “Besides, Bill and I still have a little bit of stuff to work out in private.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Still?” objected Killer Shrike. “Damn, woman, you’re…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Minors present,” Sam cut in quickly.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Affectionate.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah,” agreed Bill as Uhuna led him off. “Thank God for telekinetics.” *** Coming Next (possibly): The Laboratory of Dr Morbidius *** Previous Chapters: #1: “And just when did Danny find time to take over the Parodyverse?” by Dancer #2: "Sometime you have to turn flammable again!" by Visionary #3: That’s the Way the Story Goes by the Hooded Hood #4: See No Evil by the Hooded Hood #5: Whodunnit by the Hooded Hood, Visionary, Killer Shrike, and Jason #6: Suspicious Behaviour by the Hooded Hood, Jason, Hatman, and CrazySugarFreakBoy! #7: Accusation and Denial by the Hooded Hood, JJJ, Jason and L! #8: The Final Solution by the Hooded Hood and Dancer #9: The Land That Common Sense Forgot by the Hooded Hood #9.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #9.2: Chad and Ronnie by L! #9.3: “In addition to cappuccino and personal hygiene these tribespeople have not yet invented underwear.” by Dancer #9.4: Lone Lost Boy & Heroines Hanging Together by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #9.5: From Dross into Gold by Killer Shrike #9.6: Old Friends and New Allies by Visionary #9.7: Taking a Swim by L! #9.8: A Post-Swim Chat by L! #9.9: Champagne and the Land That Common Sense Forgot by Champagne #10: The Age of Villains by the Hooded Hood #10.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #10.2: The Baroness #55 by JJJ #10.3: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #10.4: Ewe Gotta Have Hart 1 by Killer Shrike #10.5: Ewe Gotta Have Hart 2 by Killer Shrike #11: An Age Undreamed Of by the Hooded Hood #12: The New Lair Legions (And Other Heroes) by the Hooded Hood #12.1: I Hate You by Visionary #12.2: Champagne and the Tower of Laments by Champagne #12.3: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #12.4: The Hearing by Visionary #12.5: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

I can safely say that I didn't anticipate any of that!

Enjoyable, and with a distinct vibe from one of the Excalibur stories (The lizards, not the spring...)