AEHU/Plot/Plot Sketch Chapter 42

"Intermission VIII"

Robo continues to prod AI FATE in the Virtual World. FATE reveals a crucial truth it has calculated (something to be revealed in Crimson Echoes) and it further calculates that destroying all humanity would preclude the possibility it has just realized. FATE attempts to seize the Frozen Flame to further its purpose and Robo warns Belthasar and Ashtear; Ashtear manages to lock FATE out temporarily, but FATE will succeed in outsmarting even an Ashtear before long.

Agent Nashmiya realizes that FATE's actions threaten to derail the plan to save Schala, and she enters the Frozen Flame chamber against everyone's warnings. She does something that prevents FATE from seizing the Flame, but at the cost of vanishing at the Flame's touch like Demeria before her.

Back in the Virtual World, AI FATE is surprised at Nashmiya's selfless action. Robo points out that if FATE were truly omniscient it should have predicted this, and furthermore that it failed to predict the creation of Dream Schala and the appearance of Raqh. Robo reasons that AI FATE may also be wrong in the prediction it has made about humanity, and this gives AI FATE enough pause to reconsider its seizure of the Frozen Flame for the time being.

Robo exits the Virtual World to the news that the Polis Police have Chronopolis surrounded, and Central Regime soldiers are threatening to break in. Belthasar damns Raqh's appearance; the unexpected proceedings has prevented him from completing a number of things, including how to actually save Schala once the DBT is accessed. He receives a mysterious radio transmission from a sky island that suddenly appears out of nowhere and Belthasar sends Robo to investigate.

Robo fights his way through the Polis Police and steps into the shadow of the new sky island that suddenly took form in the skyline of 2400AG. Dream Bekkler arrives in the Ganymede to pick up Robo and deliver him to a refurbished version of Bekkler's sky island laboratory. This time, Dream Bekkler studies an odd bard that he captured somewhere along the way, and the Bard communicates to Robo the melody that will soothe Schala's tortured soul. They have only to find instruments of proper tonal quality.

Robo takes the Ganymede back to Chronopolis and Belthasar asks him to communicate with his medieval counterpart one last time to find out the keys necessary to open a path to the DBT.