Well, I guess in order to determine if you really want to read about Mr. Mason, you first need to know who and what Mr. Mason is and probably just as important, Where Mr. Mason is and what he is doing there.
Well, I guess in order to determine if you really want to read about Mr. Mason, you first need to know who and what Mr. Mason is and probably just as important, Where Mr. Mason is and what he is doing there. The answers to those questions are extremely dependent upon when, in Mr. Mason’s life, we are speaking. Early on in age, Mr. Mason like most folk whose lineage tracks back to the Quar received his induction orders upon turning 17 years of age. Thus began Mr. Mason’s first round of life adventures as an inductee in the Grand, Taosan Galactic Empire’s, Space fleet.
A quick note, Grand Taosan Galactic Empire, is a long name and ads a lot of words to a story, so from now on, mostly, we will refer to the Grand Taosan Galactic Empire as, GTGE.
Later in life, after his retirement from Fleet, Mr. Mason’s purpose, was to adventure, he started out on Sept-99. No, Not a date, a planet. A fabulous world, widely populated with an iron aged society, with spectacularly diverse beasts and even more amazing monsters, A segment of the population, even embraces the mystical arts. Yes, those mystical arts that still exist on Taosa, but were widely abandoned Eons ago, as technology became so advanced that the ability of the mystic arts, compared, seemed as simple entertainment. After many adventures on a dozen of the Other Ten Thousand, habitable worlds with-in the GTGE, Mr. Mason’s Purpose in life became Adventure-Travel Guide. He specialized in providing immersive training and semi-guided excursions, to those wishing to Adventure on Sept-99; Zercats, a pre-space flight, post-nuclear, nationalistic world, and Mironin, a world with a mid-sized population, with loose national borders, widely dispersed population, with large cities on coastlines and less populated territories in the interiors. Mironin’s interior populations are highlighted by a loose collaboration of legal rules that are mostly enforced by elected town folks and frontier-style justice, law, and order. Most folks are armed and fending for themselves before others are the order of things.
So, you see the stories to be told from Mr. Mason’s life are as numerous as the years he has lived. Choosing which to tell here is a struggle, for all of them, are fabulous, exciting, and or intuitive of life itself. As this introduction is the beginning of a weekly excursion into Mr. Mason’s Grand Adventures in the GTGE, I think a short introduction to the Plebian God of the Sea might be in order.
Pleb, being one of the Ten Thousand Other, inhabitable planets in the empire; located in the outer fringes of the eighteenth spiral arm as numbered by the great explore Freder Grosez, in the Thirteen Hundredth Millenia of Recorded Taosan History.
In this adventure, we find our fine chap, Mr. Mason, leading an aquatic expedition on Pleb from the planet Kransese, one the Included 14 worlds of the GTGE. Kransese is a Water World with only about 12 percent of its surface consisting of inhabitable land. The Kransesens are a bipedal amphibious, advanced race. They became interested in Pleb when it was discovered that a Sea creature there was a genetically, related species to a prevalent sea creature on Kransese. It being impossible for the creature of one world to be a genetic descendant of a creature of another world unless some uncommonly magnificent astronomical events had taken place in the distant past of both worlds; the scientists of Kransese decided to investigate. The governing council on, Other World Affairs, determined that it must be a non-intrusive investigation. So, Mr. Mason’s tourism agency was hired as Mr. Mason had spent three years purposefully immersed on Pleb.
From the Journal of Mr. Mason
On the occasion during an expedition of Pleb’s brilliant turquoise ocean, I led the Kransese, scientific team of Dr. Orbious Quintos, to study the Pleb ocean creature that as of that date, we could find no evidence of discovery by the Plebian culture. This being the fact we named the creature, Pleb-Quintos Trocos, which is the Kransese’s name given the hypothesized, genetic cousin that exists upon Kransese, the planet of origin and the name of the lead scientist, being added as the delineation of course.
It was during this grand scientific adventure that Jerones a Kransesen laborer, and quite a large physical specimen of the Kransesen race, became Ocsteras, Plebian God of the Seas in the flesh, to the citizens of the coastal village of Nhim anyway and the thousands of visitors who each year at this time on Pleb embark upon a pilgrimage to Nhim. It just so happened that the Spring Tide, which on Pleb is a Holy Day of Ocsteras, for, during the extreme low tides of the Spring Tide, walls, buildings, and towers of an ancient submerged city can be seen off the coast of Nhim. The City, of course, provides the backdrop of many Plebian tales about their God of the Seas, Ocsteras.
It was on the occasion of the forty-fifth day of the study that the supply stug Jerones was operating, in the estuary of the plebian River, Hear, gathering freshwater for the drinking supply of the non-Kransesen members of the expedition, broke down. A lightning storm sprung to life above the estuary and a lucky strike damaged the mechanisms. Jerones and the stug drifted in the currents of the river, washed out to sea, drifted a bit more and came to rest upon the shores of Nhim as the tides recede, stranding the stug and Jerones between the village, its thousands of pilgrims, and the City of the God, Ocsteras.
So it was when I arrived in the expedition’s recovery vessel in the pre-dawn hours, oh I guess I should clarify, the recovery vessel, Brodin a hybrid space and sea vessel, which on this occasion I happened to be flying Landed next to the Stug. I deployed five drones, the hovered over the disabled Stug, spotlights shining down as I, Jerones, and my expedition service tech, set about preparing the stug for towing. With all the activity it was not until Dawn that we noticed the cacophony of Plebians slowly, cautiously approaching our group.
So, to minimize our contact with the Plebians, I told Jerones to act as though he were directing me to go to the people. I then went to the crowd and spoke, “Oh people of Pleb, the great God Ocsteras has decided to show himself to the pilgrims of the Spring tide. You are truly blessed. On the day after the spring tide, and the seas return cast your nets and a great harvest shall be the result. Look to the sea and Ocsteras shall be there. Do not approach any further, Ocsteras commands it.”
I then returned to the ship as we had accomplished all towing preparations and we left. The following morning the Kransesen members of the expedition herded large quantities of fish toward the waiting nets to the Plebians. Jerones made several passes catapulting himself out of the water. It was a show the Plebians would remember for ages.
Copyright: T. Mark Mangum, 2020. All rights reserved. No part of my story may be copied, reprinted, or published without my written consent.
T. Mark Mangum, is the product of the 60s and 70s, his imagination, wonder, thoughts, and ponderings, emboldened by Star Trek, Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian, and The Hobbit. He loves a good story and hopes you will love reading his stories. Veteran, Father, TTRPG, and board Game Junkie. He spent 20 years in the United States Army, another 10 working for the government, before realizing he should write.