The Harvest
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental. Copyright © 2024 by Jawann Fleet All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a review. First cover edition March 2024
The soul has a hidden abyss untouched by time and space.
- Johannes Tauler
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Jagow Haxein, initiate-leader of the *alias* sect
Xamara Weaving, initiate leader of the *esper* sect
Ioana Vasile (and) Analeigh Tipton, *alias* sect seconds in command
Xia De Coupla (and) Zimmer Kosmo, *esper* sect seconds in command
CAMEOS
(Sylvester Zolar) , (Zoltar Melex) and (Jax Xylvens), high-level operators using the scenic outpost as a resort/training facility
Anna Faried (and) Zaret Godamine, outside cartographic/geodetic consultants
THE HARVEST
THE BLUE FLAME TETRALOGY: PART ONE
the isle is an open-space apart from the crop cultivation business outpost .. you simply zip past the canal and you're right there ..'
Dusk settles upon the isle .. on the outskirts the initiates had set up the manufacturing huts .. the Stars post-gleam on the tipi-like structures had turned them a golden-wheat hue.
- and for the time being the initiates are 'restricted' to the isle .. this with the overseers having issued 'stark' warnings to them to not dare attempt to traverse [the canal] en route back to the [core] .. an expedition that would have been a folly for most of the initiates anyway.
the 1st-sphere: [the core] was the conclaved urbana (atop scrapers where the brave spectators viewed the 'pyrotechnic' show of will by the sects) backed by close to hundreds of generators (some nested within power plants - some independent power sources - some completely off the grid even)
the 2nd-sphere: previously the 'city of floating entities' other than fierce commerce (housing the distortion canal which the specters and couriers treacherously wade through) mostly dormant in the upper hemisphere except for an open field (purportedly for firework displays, shows exhibitions) and in the lower hemisphere simply {a crypt} ..
the 3rd-sphere: the third-sphere housed specter isle .. seemingly off-ridge .. 'the outskirts' .. the new manufacturing hubs of the synthetic algave-algae compound and weird metal parts and scraps .. industry hub in an otherwise scenic outpost
the 4th-sphere: 'oh hey now the fourth-sphere' .. key pathway to [obsidia] that 'lost atlantis' through which the sects with water-based elements and configurations (silver dolphins and the basineers for instance) have fortified and now contest over for conquest and harvesting of its (natural) resources, scape, terrain and assets
.. it had been a few incarnates now and they still hadn't touched let alone seen the scepters .. this was beginning to swirl up temporary feelings of angst amongst the initiates though some remained calm, continually nibbling and pecking away at the strands .. with some of the mates even now starting to become slightly inebriated.
As the initiates began to emerge from their huts and converse on matters around the station a variety of rumors started to circulate.
A constantly pervading thought for instance was that the upper hemisphere of the second sphere (along the canal/en route to the core) was an ‘Area-51 of sorts’ for the sects.
For Jagow sometimes when allowed a brief period of rumination he would get nostalgic about the beachside duels (for the initiates who were any good it was a nice way to earn a pretty penny) (such duels couldn’t be accommodated at the isle though cause one. they didn’t have any scepters and two. they couldn’t process orb-transfigurations cause their weren’t any generators present within electrochemical or otherwise) ..
Even though it was the outskirts occasionally you could catch whiffs of a high level operator or specter floating past the isle if you were keen enough.
ZOLTAR, MELEX
- Oh yeah the reason why such luminaries can be spotted on the isle is because they use the scenic backdrop as an outpost of sorts sometimes .. [this they noted after briefly viewing Sylvester Zolar and Zoltar Melex idly conversing on the front]
they also had the overseers .. (called 'chancellors' from before) overlooking things even though their seeming indifference towards matters at the huts and isle were also sort of off putting to the initiates.
And so thus Jagow like many of the others spent most of the day ‘pondering’ in a trance seemingly .. lolly-gagging.
GLASS-SPLITTING
- they had a trial today .. simply put where they had the initiates heave a shard into the grounds .. then the chancellors came and analyzed the broken-splits for ‘amongst other things’ the ‘signs of tessellation’ ..
PHANTOMS
And though of course none of the initiates could verify this (no not even Jagow or Xamara Weaving) they could still murmur amongst themselves to purportedly surmise the presence of hundreds of different shivas, pyros and mecha .. all with differing attributions with some even reportedly not even in existence ..
SECOND-SYNTHESIS
IOANA VASILE: Well in theory it makes sense .. courier commerce is the lifeblood of [the core] and plus we’re currently in 'the second-synthesis' age of civility which means that all types of proto trinkets, mechas and orb-outfits can be assembled from the shards and ores.
FACTIONS
- the rift had occurred between Jagow Haxein and Xamara Weaving initially on the plantations and with noted initiates now beginning to pick sides, splintering off as the situation progressed into various semi-serious forms of sectarianism.
And one time in a semi-stupor Jagow had been given to a mosaic .. vision consisting of a illusion where he'd surmised that some ancillary force was trying to get the generators to reroute from the core to the second-sphere namely the 'city of floating entities' .. but that they were failing drastically in their attempts at such a feat .. even the top-operators.
MESCALINE
And sometimes even on the plains, after nibbling at bits and specks of the canes and strands laced with the ethno of course do the lads and lass find themselves thrust into a hallucinatory daze .. mosaics consisting of ‘imaginary pyros, shivas and specters unknown to their kind’ ….
CONCAVE
And what this means is that due to the chancellor’s essentially cutting off outward exploration of the realm(s) .. that the initiates had come to rely on inward expansion of their huts.
AND ON THE MATTER OF TRANSFIGURATION (,OR LACK THEREOF)
JAGOW: That it would have felt odd anyway being out there floating without any augment .. ‘for a specter without his scepter is essentially naked’ in the field
LUNAR TANGENT
- .. In which Varcy Yuvein came in for a demonstration .. bearing the ghost-owl guise, he pointed his scepter upwards towards their Moon to show how with concentrated angling one could manipulate the surface and thus influence the tide(s) .. ..
See and what they had to understand though is that even if the strands they were harvesting had trace dosages of the synthesis (.. and some did) it still didn’t have the (now meta)entheogen present and thus didn’t convert the initiates to the virtual realm/‘interface’ .. it was more of a waiting period to see how they fared off of preliminary contact
: an example for instance being that when induced, the orb transfigures to possess gill/gulp/fin-like apparatuses which would become viable when immersed in the ‘depths of obsidia’ for instance.
FREIGHT
For sects at both levels (initiate and professional) commerce is the lifeblood .. the name of the game is one. who can synthesize the most valuable items in the offlands (and the huts) and two. who can get them to desired ‘hotspots’ (the core, the reactors etc.) without it getting poached by bandits, pirates or vultures.
FLAMETHROWERS
They tinkered with it .. rewiring .. methodically affixing firecracker circuitry to their rods and scepters.
For what it showed was how the alias/esper rift/splinters had been cultivated in the fields forming initially as the end result of little disputes between the rural sects.
TIP OF THE ICEBERG
but alias and esper were simply the overarching high commands who used the subsects and initiates to do their bidding essentially.
FORESTRY
- space-blue and teal orbs traverse the wooded plains.
IMPROVISED SCEPTERS
- Don’t know if this was the overseers intentions but they (the initiates) had found rods off in the wooded backside and converted them to scepters .. little skirmishes had begin to ensue .. unknown if the overseers would put a halt to it eventually for now though they let it slide.
MYSTICAL HARNESS (1)
That the chief foundation underlying each vessel is a Soul ..
'allegedly' the core has the necessary infrastructure needed for remanufacturing the shards and ores brought in from the isle into advanced pyro systems due to high energy output as way of the reactors and various elemental generators present.
the overseers had issued an ordinance eventually mandating that the off-field skirmishes could proceed as long as external properties (crops, canes and huts) were not affected.
STANDSTILL
' .. certain facets of the interchange had shifted you had them now like stanchions almost posited along 'the grid' plugged in to any number of numerous generators waiting to activate, of them specters pyros shivas and orbsters all among the ranks ..'
ORIGINS
it shows how the alias and esper (rivaling) entities had originally sprouted forth as means to take control over the budding 'cane/alage-agave extract commerce industry across the (sometimes perilous) canal strait into [the core]
* and only later did the shard and ore (and pyro) (re)manufacturing industries spring up there
Apparently some mysterious 'other' entity had granted the esper consortium an undisclosed (but presumably ‘substantial’) amount of assets for some infrastructural project of sorts within that second-sphere.
Revelations which didn’t cause Jagow (or alias) any alarm but did rather light a slight fire under them .. letting them know that they would have to severely ramp up efforts somewhat to stay afloat.
- the logistical demands .. complexity of route .. and quality of freight increase tenfold at the upper-levels .. -
A basic setup (at its most preliminary) of a hub outpost in the isle had to include monitors .. geospace .. telecom-links and inputs (even sonar implements now for obsidia?) to communicate constantly with avian couriers and specters spread all across the board.
He came to ponder about things .. the secrets of this (under)world .. things he couldn’t fathom .. things he didn’t even know to fathom in the first place .. ..
(Was obsidia gated off?)
(* He had just wondered this cause in a previous mosaic/incarnate he had saw what he thought to be two silver lancers guarding the front-gates*)
Oh yeah and let’s talk about the energy fields ..
‘Oh well they’re not really technically ‘energy fields’ it’s just that each vessel possesses an ‘aura’ apparently, apparently *the legion* has an encrypted dataset on each of the pods which it has to oversee in its territories of jurisdiction .. it’s a massive massive enterprise/undertaking for the alias conglomeration.’
- the avians had had a simulation in the interface today .. quest for the strykers was to latch onto designated targets through the infrared and not lose track of them.
BOYSENBERRY
was nightfall under a waning gibbous .. when our dear fellow jagow in the avian-guise during one of his independent treks/surveys does inadvertently encounter an esper hut/foothold which he veers into only to see nothing out of ordinary at first just a few subjects nibbling on strands of the sugarcane and algave-nectars til he notices an oddity .. incongruency being the algave-strands now bearing a boysenberry-hue, a kink which leads him to suggest that the esper agents have been smuggling the (meta?)entheogen into the isle past the overseers .. such an indication he wishes to reportedly relay back to the alias command but not before one of the esper specters noticed the perpetration and the clan of four proceed then to stryke/peck at the overzealous fellow for his (excessive?) probing leading to a few cuts, bruises and scrapes for the lad.
MYSTICAL HARNESS (2)
.. In that in addition to a soul each vessel also possesses an ‘aura’ ..
.. alias affiliates had tried to appeal to the chancellor’s but nothing happened which led them to believe that the infighting would continue into [the core] even ..
HOMING
And now in the interface They'd had like these steel-blue eagles .. angular, and veering about the widened scape.
INFIELD
*and now note how skirmishes could lead to mayhem as alias specters attempted to wean off their esper combatants*
alias objectives in the strait were twofold by this point being
(1) to safeguard 'the harvest' (the 'cane strands and the algave-algae compounds/synthesis)
(2) to combat espers fortifications
‘specters huh?'
'.. more like phantoms.'
'the walth-clan/vampire sect favors orbsters who show an affinity or a potentiality at least for/at metamorphosis.'
(Stroking his chin) 'Oh really?'
'Yeah .. really that's how they are able to break the space/time continuum/vacuum .. an essential feat when you're chief deceit is a drainage force elemental sucking the life force out of all vessels on board periodically .. that will really teach ya to ramp things up alittle won't it ha?'
JAGOW: See and that’s what I’m talking about.
*An observation the coin-black operator made while veering around the isles wooded fringes .. a particular section was cut off where a noted specter (jax xylvens?) was attempting to test/augment an (hyperloop?) apparatus*
IOANA: And of Xoorna?
ANALEIGH: The Turks.
IOANA: Oh he descended?
ANALEIGH: Yeah subsect picked him up .. integrated him .. on surface not that surprising, by nature the iron-grey specter is pretty basic .. almost simplistic but the Turks have advanced spatial mechanisms at their disposal that they can plug ‘em into for quality utilization.
Xaniel’s defection to the esper ranks were considered but still slightly surprising to some.
*their had been reports of two barnfires at strategic outpost on the fringes .. nobody knew for sure who was the culprit though reports of a prussian-blue flamethrower being behind the disruption seemed to be floating around*
the isle only has one 'ingress' (an iron-grey lake to the left) but [the core] [city of floating entities - when functional] and the interface are full of such scapic oddities/spatial nodes also called ‘gateways' where their utilization becomes largely more crucial/critical
alot of chancellors on both sides watched zalar pulcer closely .. as he had methodically (in his hut using ores) constructed and subsequently patented a raven-black hourglass/metronome device which when implemented on the interface could be utilized as a sort of temporal feed for 'strykers' using revolution-rates to measure the distance.
ANALEIGH: Cause see at the top/tier-one levels all the specters move in 'revolutions/whirls' .. even when the movement seems stochastic .. they all practice spatial synergistics religiously.
MYSTICAL HARNESS (3)
.. utilizing these findings the alias 'souls' subsect conglomerate was able to devise the early progenitor of a karmic bank within the interface infrastructure and also had established a sentry they called 'guardian angels' to safeguard the hut containing the mechanism. (*and though that sentry unit would end up defecting to the esper ranks eventually the mechanism stayed within the alias stronghold however*)
haystacks had been reduced to charcoal ; strands and strands of charred 'cane laid strewn across the field (an obvious attempt of force to halt the alias sects ingestion of the (meta)ethnogeum/synthesis .. the kinetic result was achieved by jarwins improvised usage of self-exploding nanobots (on the alterplane) a reflection of devastating synchronicity between the interface and physical world/realms ..
the nexus program is purportedly a kaleidoscopic array of customized glass refractory from which ‘the Stars’ energy is utilized photosynthetically to almost ‘instantaneously’ harvest a vast number/variety of resources, crop and yield
IOANA: It’s essentially an electronic harvest thousands and thousands of scrap wires and cables recoiled almost infinitively over .. the interface even allows for unique tele-inputs signaling and all its applications.
ANALEIGH: Yeah do you not notice the antennas protruding from their cerebrums .. ‘beacons’ which the operators have affixed?
TRIALS OF THE PENDULUM
ANALEIGH: They had the trials of the pendulum today.
IOANA: (affirms) Yeah.
ANALEIGH: It's a timing contest essentially .. so basically as the pendulum sways your idle but when it hits mid-point your suppose to veer forth.
IOANA: (affirms) Understood.
ANALEIGH: It would perhaps be more apt to have Jagow and Xanda demonstrate it .. Ziroyki Xanda is particularly adept since he has an internal configuration/wiring when in the avian/specter guise which measures revolutions and rates in a similar fashion which he uses when charting around the board.
In addition to all the subsects under their province the two major ‘domains’ were [The Generals] and [The Command] for Esper rivaled only by [The Council] and [The Legion] on Alias behalf.
*However detractors, protesters and opposition generally denounced The Legion as a ‘quasi-mystical state’ simply utilizing the trove of intangible data which it garners from its ‘karmic bank/aural/secretion’ program/process to further its own bidding and interests.*
‘ .. this with the scorching of foliage seen as a esperian plot to disrupt the ecosystem and cause a forced migration of the neighboring fauns, werewolves and unicorns off the isle though this displacement would almost certainly lead to the unicorns extinction (though the agents probably knew this) ..’
- feeling that the situation was potentially getting out of hand the alias upper-command called in two outside consultants (anna faried and zaret godamine) to ‘string’ out the endangered livestock away from the esperian flamethrowers (faried and godamine non-allegiance to any units at this point made them optimal selections for the mission as it’s still prohibited for top-tier operators to directly intervene in initiates quarrels) faried and godamine despite being away from the field for a rather prolonged period by this point in time still had access to the resources of a small cartographic (now geodetic) firm and as such were able to infuse the livestock with internal compass-like reconfigurations on the (alter)virtual-plane allowing them to successfully reverse transmigrate westward through shrouded plains away from the belligerents.
Zimmer Kosmo had consulted with the *silver dolphins* commandant X.J. Kolanzoo about the hydraulics of removing that lake ingress by siphoning the water supply to neighboring obsidia via underwater tubulars .. the operation was given the green light .. (partly because Kolanzoo wanted to see if the ambitious lad even had the means to pull off such a feat, or come close at least) .. Kosmo constructed the hydrologic artifice on the alterplane while converted temporarily to a fin-like avian, even complete with temporary gill-like apparatuses .. the tunnel was a rather unconvoluted coil which ran from the lake underground to a obsidia pipeway stretching some 3.98-km and succeeded in reducing the volume density of the lake ingression by sixty-three percent .. so not the whole supply was receded but the construct still had good utility.
if each vessel is fundamentally a soul all bound together by 'the strands' (the metaentheogen-laced sugarcane) then it's possible to think of the aural program as a compiler simply .. the digitized ledger of each pods intangible assets
PARADISE/OBLIVION
'Purportedly it also has a sorting array which predicts the fate of each soul or vessels next level of consciousness based on dealings on the virtual/physical planes and alterrealm.'
ANALEIGH: The Isle isn't even heavily populated usually so the lake drainage fiasco (to obsidian basin) isn't even that much of a complicating factor really.
JAGOW: But damn what a way to mess up the ecosystem..
see so now you had obsidian buccaneers and lancers running rampant .. .. and reportedly infighting in the esperian ranks as a sort of mini power struggle ensued between xamara and similarly formidable xia di coupla due to misgivings about the trajectories in which the growing entity should proceed in.
JAGOW: Well actually they’d stated that over time the ingress would naturally reirrigate itself .. a slow process/rekindling but a reconciliation nonetheless.
jogiæ
ZEFRON HISENBERGER: Ahhh yes when we talk about multi-potentiality we’re talking about Xavan Jogia you see the isle only had one such ingress and it lead virtually nowhere (*to the gates of obsidia essentially as demonstrated by Zimmer’s recent exploits*) however the core/reactor is full of such spatial nodes scattered all over the grid which could potentially be subject to such ‘portalization’ ..
Isaiah 33:4 (NLT)
4 Just as caterpillars and locusts strip the fields and vines, so the fallen army of Assyria will be stripped!
ZAMAR LORENSTEIN: (was scouting the field with specific emphasis on Xamara and her subsect) .. in which you had when you picture them .. like a slew of locusts hue’d redwood and burnt-orange swarming down upon the front .. scattershot .. scathing .. destructive but cognizant, autonomous .. even potentially cyberkinetic when properly souped up off the entheogen/and if plugged into the interface (not here of course but that could be a possibility in the core/reactor or the city of floating entities for instance)
PODS
- to counter the ensuing swarms Jagow Haxein and the crew tinkered with the alterplane .. they called the new guise 'myrhopods' or nanopods .. and under the new guise the winged though plutonian critters came equipped with various interfaces and sensors, algorithmic sequences and antennas.
BANISHMENT
… oh that was just the breaking point when noted specter Ixel Clandestine had seen enough.
IXEL: (exclaiming) Alright lads and lass we’ve seen enough and you guys have until sunset to clean out your huts and prepare for departure .. due to your inadequacies you will all be deported back to [the core] where you can continue to carry out your debaucherous and self-destructive ways I bid you adieu and wish you good luck.
NEZON AXBERY: (steps in with an even more commanding tone indicating impatience with the initiates) Alright guys you heard him and it’s time to go .. y’all ain’t got to go home but ya gotta get the hell off of specter isle.
(The initiates now all stare at each other utterly confused on how to proceed forth)
EPILOGUE
THE RADIO TOWER
'Oh hey check this out' one of the critters says to the other as they scurry vertically to pole-top .. which whereupon reaching he points up diagonally westward at a darkened expanse now illuminated to an almost neon-orange suite by the presence of a torpedoish-asteroid sort of sediment floating through the horizon over yonder
Both of their eyes aflame stare enthralled .. with wonder at the slight proceedings ..
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jawann Lyndell Fleet is a digital author and writer. The Harvest is part one of The Blue Flame Tetralogy leave a rating/review if you’d like.
Website: (where you can check out links, excerpts, and news on previous and current works as well as updates on forthcoming ones) www.jawannfleet.com
