NickPick Asteroid Strikes Mooland
Little Pick's Big Adventure β
UPDATED: 2025-04-01 3996 WORDS
"We'll get you sorted Pick. Good digs all over the realms. Just keep it straight and real."
There Was a Racket in the Heavens! ΒΆ
Time is such a wobbly thing and dimensions are often fluid. In the Inner Cookie Universe, that's what makes stuff so interesting at times. Every sort of wonderful thing may happen. Even in this present epoch, the planets already settled into their stable orbits, with life-forms of every assortment populating the known universe. There are times when even the high wizards in the final space find themselves wondering and pondering, for the workings of the universe never fail to land you with a mind-boggling surprise.
Today was just such a time. Causes and conditions had collided into a peculiar causal matrix with a sweet spot emerging. This sweet spot, some call it the Heart of MΕ« for lack of a better word, had ruptured into yet another vortex in the fabric of space-time. From that vortex, a twin asteroid swooshed into the known continuum of existence, wandering through the galactic clusters and leaving a mesmerizing liquid crystal trail in its wake. Whoever would have quessed that it was on a collision course with Mooland!
BANG! Fast-forward it rushed down the epic storyline! Keep your seatbelt fastened β we're moving fast here. Our asteroid, initially liquid in its core and made of the special stuff of high heavens, woven with the quantum threads that turned into suns and moons and polar opposites of many descriptions, began to crystallize as it crossed the layers of the magical atmosphere of Mooland. There are rumors and reports about a second collision somewhere on the outskirts of the Highlands, but the asteroid we know of today landed smack middle in the backyard bog of a certain mysterious character dwelling deep in the Strangelands.
"What the hell was that!?" It was rare to see Boohaush, the old shaman boofalo living in the depths of the Boggy Hinterlands, get jolted by anything at all. He made haste from his solitary cabin in the marshlands to inspect the source of this racket not too far from his dwelling. There was an other-worldly echo to the sound, that he knew, for he was no stranger to the dimensions that expand and contract beyond the sight and sense of regular Moolanders. All of the surrounding area was coated in the muck and mud and slime that had splashed in all directions from the crash. Even the southern wall of his cabin had turned into a piece of abstract art.
A strange creature crawled out of the bog, wiping its face and snorting the mud out of its nostrils. "Just what the hell are you supposed to be?". That is how Boohaush found it appropriate to start this alien encounter. The creature was a bit rattled by the impact from the crash, but the deep bog had softened the harder brunt of the impact and he seemed to be undamaged.
"What. Was. That. And what the hell are you too! Pleased to meet you! Am I actually having a conversation with a buffalo or a bison or whatever it is that you are?" β "I am obviously a boofalo. I repeat my question: What the hell are you supposed to be? There are no such creatures in the realms here, nor even on the more occult moons I've expored during my long days here." So he was a novelty in this corner of the cosmos. Our alien was quick in orienting to new dimensions of existence and made the proper introductions.
"I am a human actually. Or I think that I am a human. Or others may think that I'm a human. It's all a bit fluid somewhere in there. I know that I am awareness and I am here and I have a body like this. I think my name is Pick. Sounds about right."
"Well hello then Pick. Why'd you pick this corner of the universe to crash into? At some point not too long from now, it'd be real buck'n fantastic if you could scrub clean the south-side of my cabin, you just splashed a schmut-ton of murky goo all over it."
"I have this vision. A twin asteroid swooshing through the galaxies. We was the NickPick intertwining, and the life I seem to remember was not like this one here. I've never been in a form like this, I don't think so. But somewhere at the back of my head, there's a label that fits this form. It says 'human'. I am learning to be a human I think. I was something else before."
"Well that's there. That's a serious trip you've got going on there Pick. Why don't you pick yourself up from the edge of that bog, it's still pretty swampy there and you might slip back in again. I'll give you a blanket or whatever, probably got some trauma going on there after that proper impact, even if you seem to be standing straight and rolling okay for the moment."
"Thank you sir buffalo. What was your name again? My short-term memory is still a bit shot."
"Boohaush." He pointed Pick toward his cabin next to the bog and tossed a very basic bench on the floor for him to sit on. Boohaush wasn't particularly gentle or sophisticated in his manners. He was a proper deep Strangelander. In his younger years, he used to work the mining rigs and excavate precious and mysterious substances from the mantle and even core of Mooland. As time went by, and possibly the fumes in the underground caverns had also altered his sense of what made sense, he retired into the Hinterlands to mine his own consciousness for precious essences. Some of the stuff he had uncovered boggled the minds of even the Deeplands Essence Harvesters who sometimes ventured to the more remote corners of the Strangelands in search for new additions to their archives.
"Sit down there for a moment and level out a notch. I'll fix you up with something to eat."
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Boohaush brought out some rye crackers and whaever-berry jam that he had slapped on top of them. "That's what I usually eat here. Hope you like it. If you don't, then just buck'n deal with it okay. That's what I got here."
Pick was quite okay with the crunchy crachers and the weird-tasting berries. Not that he had any other points of reference in tems of solid food. Not that he had many solid points of reference at all. "So I have this sense that there was a split when we was swooshing through the atmosphere. If I am Pick, then there should be Nick somewhere, right? Have you got any clues about this sort of stuff?"
It wasn't the first time Boohaush had come across stuff from the outer space. There were occasional meteors crashing into the Hinterlands. There was a magnetic pull here that attracted them, especially meteors with lots of iron ore in their core. There were even some that swoosed in from the underside of the cookie. You could see them ripping inbound through the Heatlands with sparks on their tail. But he had not seen an extraterrestial object convert and solidify into a life-form ever before. This was a first even for him.
"Look dude. I haven't seen this sort of schmut go down before. I've seen a lot of weird things over my decades at the deeper Strangelands and beyond, and I'd say some of it is pretty much on par with what you've got going on here. But no, I haven't seen a space object convert into a hooman life-form before. We should browse that bog later today when the leeches take off, there might be interesting stuff in there. Fragments of your asteroid and probably concentrated bog formations from the heat of your impact."
"Okay, I can dig that. I have no idea what I should be doing here. Or why I'm here to begin with. I'll help you with the bog search. Maybe there are some clues there that give me some bearings. Wait, did you say leeches?" There were quite a few of them latched into Pick's legs and buttocks and beyond and between β and there was even one ugly suckler in his upper neck not too far from the brainstem. "Let me get some sulphur for you. That drops them off. We have lots of sulphur in the mines around the Rough Patches. Whenever one of the miners drops by, some old mates of mine are still digging there, they usually bring me a stash. They know I have uses for it. Now put your mouth into use and eat those crackers dude. I'll go take a dump and get back to you whenever I'm done."
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He must have been significantly constipated from all those rye crackers for a staple diet. In half-an-hour or so, Boohaush emerged from his duty in the dump hut and got back to Pick with some deeper contemplations. "So I had a good think back there. A bit constipated again, sorry about that. But I like them crackers. Helps me concentrate stuff. Something you should be aware of. Concentration. If you want to get to a point, you have to concentrate. Power of will is the dynamite that helps you break through.
"So that's basic. But there's something else I was crunching on back there. You ever hear of the positive and negative spirits of the universe, Pick? I'm assuming you have no idea. These are the powers aroused in the cosmic void. There was an existential tension between the void and the necessary anti-void that become the absolute fullness. Then all the stuff with the primordial MΕ« happened, the bipolar magnetic axis churned the potentive fullness and this cosmic cow turned up. Not really a cow but the Moocows like the idea. Those primordial spirits left their presence in everything and turned into the dynamics of everything. Including your asteroid."
"Wow man. Boohaush right. That's seriously deep there. Can we go deeper?"
"Why don't you make yourself useful and go deeper into that bog you were splashing in. See what you find there. I'll get you some gear and set you up with a gem-torch so you can actually see through the layers of all that murky stuff there. We'll look into the rest of it in the evening. Night is a good time for those sorts of convos. In the dark of the night, the rest of everything shuts off. Finally buck'n peaceful and quiet and you can actually get to the bottom of things. We'll get you sorted Pick. There are places you can go here. Good digs all over the realms of Mooland if you know the right spots. Just keep it straight and real."
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Into the bog he went. And he kept wading and poking and plunging around in the muck of the bog for most of the afternoon. The gem-torch was quite an interesting accessory. It worked like a multi-spectrum ex-raydiator and made most of the ordinary bog-stuff almost invisible. All the stuff he kept on discovering made both him and Boohaush quite excited. At some point, it appeared to him that a sufficient stash of potentially meaningful material had been excavated. Also there wasn't much more left in there. Boohaush seemed quite impressed. This hooman turned out to be a die-hard excavator. It was definitely a heroic plunge for a first-timer.
"Take a shower dude. You'll reek of boonions and vinegar after all that time in the bog. Rub a proper load of sulphur over your hide and then go take a shower. You're not coming into my cabin hauling in all that schmut with you. There's a bore behind the shed that gives you clean fresh water. After that you can clean up all the stuff you found and we'll see what you scored. Get it sorted."
There were a dozen or so highly relevant objects there. There were also a good couple of lumps of solidified bog-beaver excrement and other stuff that Boohaush chucked straight back into the bog. "Let me see what you got there junior." He spent a good while mulling over the discoveries and arranging them into different shapes. "These ain't no regular bog fusion fragments. These are from your asteroid. There are familiar substances in all of these. But the underlying structures are alien. These here eight clearly make a set. The other three are weird. Might be primal recomposites. Where the hell did you say your asteroid was from again?"
Pick had absolutely no clues about the origins of his asteroid. He found all of this deep though. "What does it mean Boohaush? Are they symbols? Can we use them for something?" Boohaush lined them up in a row. Then he lined them up into two rows. Then into a circle. And back into a row again. "Look here hooman. This is the simplest arrangement. They're all in a row and I've put them into a coherent sequence. You could sort these in a couple of different ways but this is on the table now. It's a good streak."
"What is the right sequence? How do you know?" Boohaush clearly wasn't just organizing them based on size or some other banal layout like that. "So this is how it works. Every one of these I stuff into my head. Real deep in there, and then I give it an extra shove to make sure that it's whacked and bucked solid in there and makes a proper impact. Then I eliminate myself. I go pitch black dark and disappear. I lay out the terminal. Then I watch the glow against the contrast. Object essence fears the oblivion and begins to spawn out its own world in the void we just packed it in. Little weasel comes out of hiding. That's when you grab it. The meaning."
"Wow dude. That's a totally sick process. How'd you learn how to do that? Can you teach that to me?"
"Okay then. What the hell. You go fast and way past the terminal. You are the obliviator absolute. The terminal is afraid of you. The final black hole in the radical nihilist void at the beginning and end of all things. You pass through there. Then take four left turns and dump it all out of your ass and see what you got. That's how you learn it. The terminal complies with you existentially."
Pick was fascinated but it was also absolutely intimidating. It was, maybe, just a bit out of his league for the moment. "Can we maybe focus on the meaning of those objects, Boohaush? What do they mean to me?"
"Schmut if I know dude. Even if I knew I wouldn't tell you. Why don't you see for yourself. It's not just bog schmut in there. Make some sense of it. Go basic. Make your head raw and sparse. Stop hovering. It will come out. I plugged them into an order already. Look Pick you take your time. I need to go underground. The seventh Moon is dark tonight. Let me call in a friend for you. Not sure if you can handle the dark by yourself. Might schmut your pants. There's stuff hovering here. Mr. Mongush is an old associate of mine."
Boohaush whistled a weird tune and invoked a large mongoose-looking creature from an uphill cave a couple of cracks north of his basecamp. "Pick, Mongush. Mongush, Pick. How's it been mate? Still boxing the dork rabbits in the caverns?" β "Yeah those buck'n critters keep on coming to nibble whatever precious underground substances they can sink their silver teeth in. I mean that's fine we got plenty, but they make those buck'n holes that people keep falling into. Pick, you ever fallen into a dork rabbit hole?"
"Mate he's a hooman who just crashed here riding an asteroid that was shooting liquid crystals out of its arse. I think that compares. There's still bog schmut all over the place from the impact. He's cleaning that up first thing tomorrow. Then you take him for a ride to the realms in the order that the objects spell out. See that stash there, he was fishin'em out the bog earlier. Basically as soon as he figures out what they mean, then just hit the road okay. He's got a bunch of stuff to figure out in the realms. So Pick, you take care and watch out for the Wherewyrmies. They like to crawl into your ears and eat up your eyeballs from the inside. Wrap your face if you sleep on the porch. I'm out and under. See you when the seventh Moon sets."
Boohaush headed toward the cave where Mr. Mungush was nesting. He alone knew what he was up to. Pick had an interesting night ahead with the bright orange Mr. Mungush who also seemed to glow in the dark. They were both staring at the asteroid bog fusion fragments. For a long time. Neither had the first idea of what should be said next. They were just silent. It was a good terminal silence they shared. Helps you grasp the meaning. Helps you go deep. Pick was going significantly deep here. Beyond ordinary depth.
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Boohaush emerged from his night session at the caverns just ahead of dawn. "Productive night, huh? It was a riot down there. Pitch black, sick echo, good sets. Dude, you look stressed. Did you get a baby wyrmie in your ear? So they don't usually do brain damage. It just tickles weird. Not sure they even care for hooman brains."
Our hooman had his nerves on the jittery side. It wasn't just for the lack of sleep. It wasn't a baby wyrmie either. "Look Mr. Boohaush, it was really dark last night and I tripped, and all those asteroid bits got scattered on the floor. I'm really sorry, I know you took your time putting them in proper order. I couldn't remember how you had them, and me and Mr. Mungush really have no idea about how to lay out the terminal and hassle out meanings, so I just did the best I could. Look I'm sorry okay."
Boohaush looked at the fragment row Pick had laid out. "Lemmesee. Yeah you shuffled 'em good you did, but wait... Just a moment yes." He took more than a moment staring at them β about as long as his regular visit to the dump hut β and was going places past his inner terminal, much deeper than his dump hut. Pick had laid out some proper crackers there. "So that actually is a very valid order there. Different from what I set you up with, but it's valid alright. I set you up easy. How'd you come up with this?"
Pick was visibly relieved. Anxiety turned into excitement. "So I took each one of them, and tried putting them into my head like you said. Most of them just didn't sit right. So I tested them at different places. I tried putting them on my chest, and on my belly. I even tried to sit on them. Some of them felt like they belong. Still, I sampled every one of them all over every place. This is what felt alright in the end. The first one sat well under my bum, the second around my navel, the third in my belly. The fourth one felt home around my heart, the fifth over my throat. The sixth and seventh pieces matched okay with my head, and the last one I was just holding over my head. It was a weird one. Does that make any sense, Mr. Boohaush? Made sense to me last night, and I think it still does."
Not only did it make sense. Boohaush was impressed. The hooman wasn't just a natural in falling into bogs. "Look dude, that's straight fire there. Like literally β that's the ancient Path of Fire you just laid out there. You don't hear much of it at Mooland these days. Mostly it's all about the cute gradual path the oracles teach. Mantisians are pretty much the same. Soft elements. Step by step building up the harmonics. But this here path, it bangs up straight from the underground. Same elements, but it's a radical drive. Must be you hoomans are wired different. Or maybe it's just you. Haven't seen others of your kind obviously. Look, forget about scrubbing the bog schmut on the south wall. It'll dry and drop off on its own one of these days. You need to hit the road real soon now."
"Wow." It was still all very confusing for Pick β but at least there was a path gaining shape. "But Mr. Boohaush, I still have no idea what any of that means. I just know where they feel right. And how do I hit the road? And road to where?"
"You'll figure out what it means when you get there. Borrow my ride for the road." β "Your ride?" β "Oh he didn't tell you. Mr. Mungush here. He flexes size to match. Can easily carry three grown-up boofalos. Races like a thunderbolt. Gets you wherever in no time. Most radical ride in all of the southern realms. Used to race caverns with north-western Mantiwyrms when he was younger."
"Can I just say something, Mr. Boohaush?" Pick had no idea where his upcoming words stemmed from, but he said them anyway. "You're totally badass. You're like a veteran biker riding alone through desolate canyons in the night." β "So you have visions from the hooman homeworld seeping in huh. Just as well, the portals are still open from last night. If you ever figure out how to get back there, we'll race with Mr. Mungush through a couple of those desolate canyons of yours. Sounds about radically right."
Pick didn't even know if such a thing as a hooman homeworld exists. It'd be cool if one existed. Sounded like an interesting place. "Definitely need to figure it all out. For right now, I have no idea which way to even hit the immediate road ahead. Can you please share any more information β or should we just pick a direction at random and hit the road that way?"
"Right you haven't seen the realms yet. How would you know. We have eight realms here at Mooland. They each have an elemental backbone. Your asteroid fragments took on the same layout when you came thrashing in through the atmosphere. It's integral to the cookie. So we're here at the Strangelands. That's your second piece, right there in your belly button. First piece belongs to the Grasslands, that's under your bum. Start there. Third one is Heatlands, south from here. Fourth is the Riverlands. Your belly and chest pieces. The fifth one matches the Highlands. The two pieces you managed to get into your head are for the Peaklands and the Deeplands. The last one is hovering at the Rainbow Spire. Mr. Mungush, you got that?" β "Yessir check, I have the map."
Boohaush bagged the asteroid fragments into an old miner rucksack and handed it over to Pick. "So here's your path in a bag. Keep these with you. Take out one at each of the realms. See what comes. Go ride the dragon. Don't fall off the wagon. Swing back here when you're through. The eighth Moon will be up by then. We'll hit the caverns again. This time you come along."
... TO BE CONTINUED ...