neto, ikon and guardian have been exploring the gorgeous planet of nympha utilizing the shard that their elf friends have given them. for one whole t-week, the 3 have been beaming in and out in temporally infolded excursions to the planet's surface.

the nymphonikon, or the populace of nympha, has been descibed, by those who are cynical, as "naive" and highly influenceable. this is not an unreasonable assessment , if one focusses on the obsessions that most people bring to nympha, for indeed, nympha is an extraordinary place of wild fantasies. on a deeper level, nympha represents the deepest desires of the traveller. archetypical fullfillment. it appears differently for each one. the nymphonik song is an irresistable arrow shot into your heart. they say what you want to hear, they touch you and you dissolve under their fingertips. irresistable elvish sisters.

now, ikon and neto have a reasonable amount of experience in what are considered "first contact" experiences. because no humans have extended this far into space before, most new planetary races that they encounter have never met humans(unless they are spacefaring with warp capabilities. in which case, maybe neto and ikon have met them in space). this allows for a certain level of diplomatik immunity and strategy depending on how well you can act and how charming you are. at the best, it can be said that neto and ikon have always represented humanity as a loving and intelligent race. for some reason, this time, the nymphs have decided to see them as deities, most likely because they dematerialized right in the middle of the main city auditorium and proceeded to throw a rave. this in addition to the fact that guardian showed off his invisibility cloak to any nymph who would watch, which naturally made him mysterious and magikal..

neto could have dispelled any rumours or ideas that they were divine beings. ikon spent much time reminding neto of the elvish protocols, which, because there are no human protocols for these kind of temporal spatial transport shards, must serve as the only code by which such travel can be conducted. ikon noted that the influence of evolutionary ideas on a race can have wide ranging temporal consequences. neto knew this. he could have stopped the god myth at any time. it was clear that guardian liked it a bit too much, but it was his first shard trip so he was forgiven. but neto and ikon had seen dozens of first contacts. for some reason he was challenged here. he felt the need to allow himself to be deified, if not only to reveal that deification as being equally returned in kind to the nymphs who were, admittedly, far more angelik than he would ever be. this means that neto intended to reveal everything as divine. this is where a god shows you that you are also a god. this is where the divine becomes attainable.

he went too far. they stayed too long. but you have to forgive neto. he may be one of the most stressed characters in the galaxy. if he is, its only because he has a sense of duty which pushes him to have integrity with every single endeavour. yes he worries, yes the elves take advantage of his tenacity to complete missions and to do it "for the galaxy". neto wants to be the human that fully becomes an elf. its not uncommon for humans to be elf wannabes. neto needed some fun. neto needed to be told that he was divine, because he was so busy feeling sorry for himself and the fate he was being dealt, he forgot to remember that we are all divine, and all the galaxy is the fields of play. the nymphs saw this in him. they offered him everything: sex, food, drugs, and all he wanted was to be divine. at least divinely sanctioned. he didnt really want to be called a god. just acknowledged, once, by msytical beings like these nymph creatures. magik beings, all sparkly and elvish and beautiful. they felt he was an angel a sacred and worthy being. god knows the elves never gave such praises

so. neto and ikon and guardian let the myths go. yes. they were gods from the stars. for a few days they were treated as tho they were heroes from beyond the beyond. in a way they were, no? but on the last visit things were changed. the demeanour of the nymphs had been drastically altered and the friendly ingestaibles offered for consumption had far different effcts from before:

"damn..." moans neto "they are acting exactly like the mer. i mean think about it. all that swearing and talking back, all the talk of sparkly things and booty, and worst of all those new potions. fuck. look at guardian"

guardian is looking green and quite ill as he slumps down on to a console chair that springs up from the floor. "ku...please make me a glass of tea"

"will that be mushroom tea or opium tea" replies the kunab hu mainframe

"chamomile tea please" groans guardian "with some sort of stomach relaxant herbs"

neto paces back and forth on the kunab hu bridge. "in fact...i am certain that the mer has been there. all that pirate talk and the 'we're galactik ass kickers now' talk"

ikon turns the shard over in his hands as if trying to ascertain if they didnt accidentally teleport into some tangential nympha. "i'm certain i made all the correct code connections and did all the calculations. at the very least, i know i wiped the memory bank on it so wyk and solarion will never know how many times we went there. kinda sad tho. i'll miss that place"

"if i never go back it will be to soon" moans guardian. "i have never been so sick in my whole life. last time we were there it was strawberry wine and hashish. this time it was like vomit juice and insanity weed. what the hell was that smoke anyways."

"terrifying" says ikon, slightly shivering..

neto rubs his chin and looks suddenly surprised. " hey..what happened to my goatee?"

"must be another one of those spatial anomalies" answers ikon." remember how my head was shaved the first time?"

"well that's actually not so bad anyways. renzo was calling me a hippy the other day. imagine that. elf wouldnt be able to handle some of those 'green ships' on the great pilgrimage. o ya, remind me to tell you what renzo said about tones when i last contacted him. he was giving me this wicked download on how certain tones create a specific resonant frequency that can be focussed into a warp drive. he's got this ship now that's basically like a warp 10 bassbin. except he says 'it goes to 11'.

"interesting" says ikon looking up from the shard "renzo has some of the cleanest electro ever made. i wonder what kind of music he runs his ship on. i heard he was into dubby techno so minimal its like zentech"

"urgggh". guardian looks rough. "i .urrrgh...want to meet renzo"

"wo there" responds neto " you're in no shape to meet anyone. you are lucky that you can't be detected very easily. our ships cloak isnt quite as good as yours. when we put this shard online, wyk can practically see the cells in our blood."

"i am the..urghh. best". guardian slumps over the console and passes out.

neto materializes a starchart of galactik central and traces the ku's trajectory in relation nympha. he then pulls up an ASTGM of beta's trajectory from NOVA. he then charts the whole thing back to the elentari." there are some puzzling things about the courses that have been set. it is almost as if the whole experience had been engineered. everything seems too clean. some stuff just doesnt make sense. i know as well as you that planet has been mer'd. not only was she there but in her characteristically endearing way decided that we are somehow denied any level of fun. i tell you i could just about ditch this whole galactik ratrace. wut tha fuck."

"well" replies ikon " you were setting yourself up as a god there. you knew it had to end sometime"

"hmf. you are right, but the nymphs of nympha were more than just naive little pleasure droids. there were perfectly sentient lovers and resonant reflectors of your deepest desires. now they are back talking little brats who act like adolescents. just like mer. and no i'm not angry, and yes it was kind of arrogant to let the nymphs keep calling me a god, but we both know that we never set that up. i would have never have thougt to tell them that. they seemed to sense i wanted to hear it. weird tho, its not a conscious fanatsy at all. well not as conscious as the school girl uniforms, or your wyk / kysa look and actalikes.

as tempting as it is to fuck with people who seem naive, there are huge repercussions to interference in the development of sentient species. those nymphs seemed to be able to say exactly what you wanted to hear and touch you exactly the way you wanted to be touched. thats not something to phase out of a race, thats something to be nurtured and celebrated. damn..i wish more humans could be that sensually, empathically, compassionately lovely. but o well. now they are pirates and i'm sure that somehow it will be in their best interest to steal whatever they can from visitors. maybe nympha had too much of a galactik rep for being soft anyways."

"hmm." replies ikon "looking at the shard again. "well i feel that the mer is definitely an intelligent and well meaning...er...self serving..err...you know the mer. she's a brat. she's proud of that. i bet she was jealous"

"ya..probably, and that is endearing, but still. i bet she went looking for us and heard them call us gods. i'd love to see the look on her face when they said "ahh yes lord neto his divine impressiveness'. it was actually my plan, on this visit, to use the godlike status i had achieved to ultimately encourage them all to also be divine. i wanted them to think we were amazing and then reflect back to them how incredible they were. shit ikon, we let it go on too long. but we hardly ever goof off anymore. besides, who could resist a planet full of the ultimate fantasy fullfillers?

"thats some crazy ass shit in your head neto." ikon manifests an audion console and selects a playlist from guardian's database. he then downloads it into a shard and puts the shard in his pocket.

"what was that?!" laughs neto "since when did you steal from guardian"

"its not stealing, its equalized data replacement. i left him a whole spindle" ikon looks slightly defensive "but hey, you'd think he'd give us a bit of that music in return for most of that week we spent on nympha. he had the most fun for sure...but it seems as though he is paying the price"

guardian mumbles in his almost coma "i'm sorry , i'll..get...." his eyelids flutter and he slumps back down.

"well" neto pipes up "i guess we had better transport back to NOVA. she's been sitting in space for almost a terran week. (T-week).

"i bet nova has been keeping a close eye on beta anyways" says ikon "we'll know if it was the mer or not when we get back on board"

"i thought for sure she'd end up for way longer on cellion". neto picks up his backpack and the lcd screen that guardian communicates to them with. "i set beta's co-rdinates to cellion as a one way trip. beta should still be grounded at the arda base, provided the mer made it there. i wonder how she got off. most of the vehicles at the arda base are out of commission. you know vehicles on arda. based, we call it"

"she probably stole one" replies ikon. he sets a few co-ordinates into the ku's main concole and steps onto the circular pad "..ready to transport?"

"indeed" says neto.