Mod Superhero (Book 6 STUBBING on Oct 27th)

Chapter 7.13 - Another World / Clara 1

From space, the homeworld of the Dunamen resembled a shimmering jewel. Its surface was a patchwork of glowing forests, crystalline seas, and mountain ranges sculpted into impossible spirals and arches—evidence of planetary-scale landscaping. The atmosphere glowed faintly with auroras that rippled across the sky at all hours, shaped by the will of its inhabitants.

There were several major cities on Terradun, but they all shared the same basic structure. From orbit, they looked like mountain ranges. The colossal pyramid-like structures rose miles high and housed millions in self-contained ecosystems. Each megacity hadn't been built so much as grown—an intricate blend of stone and metalwork into natural forms. Some districts branched like tree structures, others resembled coral reefs. And throughout it all, Dunamen flew like colorful birds or fish. Others rode winged creatures of their own creation.

Every building, from spire to market square, hummed with barely contained power. The materials responded to the Dunamen's innate powers. Even if a Dunamen child hadn't possessed the power of flight, the city enabled them to share powers with another.

Those titanic cities weren't the only settled places on the planet, but they were much harder to find. Smaller cities and villages were integrated into the landscape so fully that they were almost invisible from afar.

With each Dunamen's immense power, there were few industries that resembled those of Earth. They had little to no biological needs and material wants were of little concern. Manufacturing, where it existed, was reserved for the creation of intricate, hand-crafted objects of beauty and meaning. Technology and superpowers were so intertwined that the few machines that existed served mostly as conduits for collaborative projects. Agriculture and terraforming were acts of communion with nature.

If anything, art, research, and philosophical inquiry were the main industries and often blended together. Artists painted murals in the clouds and wove music into the wind. Others used psychic energy to imbue sculptures with stories and emotion. Knowledge itself was treated as a sacred art form, and libraries were equally sacred buildings.

Even their sky is bluer than ours—a deep, rich blue resulting from near-zero pollution and higher densities of oxygen and nitrogen.

Though content on their homeworld, the Dunamen weren't isolationists. From time to time, they sent envoys to other planets. Groups of ambassadors, explorers, and philosophers. Their vessels were among the few true machines they used, but even they were works of art. Each ship was crescent-shaped, grown from living metal and layered with crystal. The ships traveled through a mixture of its passengers' inherent power and reality warping, and they used warp gates for deep space travel. These ships glowed softly in the void, leaving shimmering wakes like comet tails behind them, symbols of peace etched into their hulls.

~

Clara stood alone in the Sim Room—the Gray Room 2.0.

Normally, the walls were dark and featureless. The floor beneath her feet acted like a seamless treadmill, humming faintly as it tracked her movements. Nanites stirred in the walls and ceiling, ready to form objects, walls, or even custom gear the moment she commanded it. Originally, the space had once been designed for training exercises. Now, it had become a sanctuary for all of them.

Since the attack on their home, Emmett's family had been hiding in the backup lab. TINA had been able to make additional rooms for everyone, even making jungle gyms out of nanites for the nephews. But still, it was hard for anyone to stay cooped up underground for weeks on end.

So, they'd used the Sim Room to visit places. Some days it was the canals of New Venice, with lanterns swaying over still water. Other days, it was national parks, sunny beaches, or even the familiar streets of home. Anything to help them forget, for a little while, that they were in hiding.