The Fall of Hydrophobia

Xantabraxes of the Eighth Tower wandered the streets of the dome-city Hydrophobia, gawping at everything like some petty burgher traveling beyond their home plane for the first time. To be sure, this hylic city was filled with all the wonders typical of their mastery of the material- from the league-wide crystal dome shielding the city from the torrential acid rain to the streets themselves, kept spotlessly clean by legions of robotic mites. Even the people on the streets were marvels- mostly awakened animals, ‘uplifts’ in the local parlance, each the creation of deliberate artifice. But he was not here to sightsee.

 

After all, soon enough all these wonders would be his.

 

His seemingly aimless wanderings soon bought him to the Pale Gate, the boundary between the guest quarter and the parts of the city reserved for citizenry. No sign that his ruse had been discovered. Last chance to back out. The thought barely even crossed his mind.

 

From within a bottomless pocket he withdrew a talisman, took a deep breath, then snapped it in half to unleash the spell within. Intangibility. The world blurred into ghostly fog as he stepped slightly out of phase with material reality, and he flew. Through air, through walls, through ground, as straight and unerring as a sniper’s bullet. As he flew he shed his disguise, shapeshifting back into her default form.

 

She burst into the central control chamber in all her half-demonic glory, obsidian-armored, shadow-winged, flame-haloed. Within milliseconds the laser turrets were firing, wards straining against the killing rays. She ignored it; they’d hold long enough. Ignored technicians of a dozen species scrambling backwards in shock. Ignored the blaring alarms and flashing red lights. Ignored everything but the Master Computer whose diagnostic interface dominated the chamber. The city-mind, the supreme controller, the heart of the world.

 

She grabbed a second talisman and broke it. Dominate. She could feel traces of resistance as she pressed the spell home, firewalls and partitions trying to keep her out, drives trying to wipe themselves before they could be subverted. But it was the weight of her soul, pitted against something with less mystic presence than the average rock of her homeland. Within seconds she crushed the machine’s volition beneath her own will.

 

The lasers stopped firing. The alarms shut down. The machine spoke:

 

“What is your bidding, my master?”

 

Her reply was delayed when an especially bold technician swung at her with some kind of heavy tool. She rewarded his initiative by decapitating him with a flick of her razored tail.

 

“Transfer all administrative privileges to me. Lock down the city. And prepare a universal broadcast, every channel and device that can carry it.” She struck a pose, one hand on her hip and the other flung outward, black wings flared and red eyes glowing faintly. She grinned, a manic predator’s smile filled with too many sharp bronze teeth.

 

Weeks, months, of scrying and analyzing and planning. And now she had conquered a world in five minutes.

 

“BEHOLD, MORTALS! YOUR NEW LORD AND MASTER!”