Rood Der: 16: Rock Lobster

By Douglas Christian Larsen

Rood Der: 16: Rock Lobster. Rooster and Frances finally face off with the pursuing parasite, just outside the crystal cathedral of Hot Springs, and Frederic finally decides whether to stay or go.

How deep are we, immersed in this world we call reality? How many turtles down do we go, in this discombobulated, mixed-metaphor, rabbit-hole world?

Their world might be based on Ayn Rand, her writings, philosophies, and her U.S. Presidency, but how dense are their numbers compressed, and for how long will their simulation even run? This little group has been provided an exit, but would anyone be rude enough to dare and leave their very own reality?

Take the Rude Dare, and Cross over, where data is data, through the Red Door. From the author of Vestigial Surreality comes the new serial novel, Rood Der.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365913457

Book preview

Rood Der: 16: Rock Lobster

Rood Der: 16

Rock Lobster

The Sunday SciFi-Fantasy Serial

by Douglas Christian Larsen

ISBN: 978-1-365-91345-7

© Douglas Christian Larsen 2017

Daylight reflected off the towering salt pillars in rainbow halos, creating shimmering mirages about the steaming pools. The very air seemed to scintillate and percolate as the sparkling warm waters constantly pumped moist air up into the domes of the crystal caves. Light ricocheted so viscerally that people generally stayed away from the Hot Springs, glimpsing what appeared to be spirits whooshing through the vapors—plus there were legends of the liquid in the pools suddenly heating, enraged by deep volcanic combustion, cooking people in the clear, churning and roiling waters. Even from a distance, the entire surroundings seemed entirely unnatural, as well as utterly...magical.

All about the rocky clearing at the mouth of the caves, everything was pristine. Animals did not come here for the waters. People did not come here for these waters unless they were hoping for a miracle. Supposedly, this was the bathing retreat of angels, as many witnesses had observed both the descent and ascent of the ephemeral creatures, translucent and flashing.

High above, a rocky tower pierced the sky, coated in crystalline ice and snow, spewing forth a magnificent torrent of fresh waters that crashed and sprayed down in a wide sheet of falls, feeding fresh, purest waters into the cave system below. Seen from below, looking up, the tower seemed to have been sculpted in the shape of a great white eagle, with the waters pluming from the naturally formed statue’s gaping beak.

The mouth of the cave and springs network was situated in a wide and deep stone bowl of massive boulders and solid rock walls crafted and sculpted through eons of washing waters, heavy snows, whipping winds, and minor volcanic eruptions. The stone possessed an extremely odd dappling of white and black patterns, and very little soil had accumulated through the years, but there were minor patches of loamy grasses, and hillocks of knotty mushrooms that looked more like stone than anything living; however, all about the stone bowl the ivy gathered and bunched, with cold-weather wisteria forming impenetrable tangles, and albino honeysuckle offering up a year-round scent that drew bees from miles away.

There was one narrow cleft cut in the bowl, which provided a narrow entrance in the stone, about four feet wide and twenty feet in height, whereas the stone bowl that cupped the cave network and Hot Springs climbed fifty or more feet in height,