Voyage: Embarkation #5 Corporeal

by Zachary Bonelli

Kal is ready to leave his strange home and is about to embark on a journey to even stranger worlds.

After four years of exile, he can finally escape into the metaxia, the unspace between universes, and explore alternate Earths.

Supremely advanced cultures and natural wonders of immeasurable beauty await him. However, there exist also worlds mired in social decay, and those filled with dangerous, exotic forms of life.

Armed only with defensive nanotech and a computer pad, Kal travels from one alternate Earth to another. Navigating the infinity of possibilities, he embarks on a new kind of voyage, a voyage along the catastrophe of notions.

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Kal and Tria travel to an alternate Earth called Vogg, where the atmosphere is toxic, and oceans, lakes and rivers have become cesspools. Trapped inside this environmental nightmare lies a human civilization of the most advanced genetic engineers Kal has ever met. They might just have the solution Kal and Tria are looking for, but only if Kal is able to play by their rules…

Voyage: Embarkation Episode #5 "Corporeal" is about 8,000 words long.

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Voyage: Embarkation

Episode #1 "Setting Sail" - February 11, 2013
Episode #2 "Longing" - February 14, 2013
Episode #3 "Just a Game" - February 18, 2013
Episode #4 "Tria" - February 21, 2013
Episode #5 "Corporeal" - February 25, 2013
Episode #6 "Norselands" - March 14, 2013

32 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 25, 2013

About the author

I grew up in a small town in northern Illinois, west of Chicago. After graduating high school, I dual majored in English Literature and German Language at a small, Midwestern liberal arts college. After undergrad, I turned my eyes towards exploration, and spent many years in Japan, Thailand and Hawaii.

Nowadays, I live with my partner near Seattle, Washington, where I work in the gaming industry.

I love stories. I’ve long been fascinated by video games as a storytelling medium, and I love exploring different cultures, discovering the different underlying stories that different groups of people tell themselves, the stories that define who they are and how they perceive the world.

Reviews

[Madison Keller · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this episode, Kal and Tria travel to the world of Vogg in search of technology that will give Tria a body. We learn that Kal has actually been here before, although its not clear when. The POV alternates between that of Kal and a native of Vogg, Zeemz.

I love newborn Tria's reactions to the things around him, like a little kid exploring the world for the first time. Its also interesting seeing Kal from the outside for this first time, seeing the reactions of the natives to his technology and unique worldview.

I also like seeing Kal in a moral quandary. Makes him seem much more real and tangible. I would have liked a bit more time with Kal and Tria, to see more of Kal's thoughts and reactions, but overall I liked this episode.

[Matt Sayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Full disclosure: I was provided with a free copy of Voyage: Embarkation)

Find Tria a body, then offload him on one of the more peaceful worlds of the metaxia. That was Kal's plan, and he was prepared to do whatever it took to achieve it, even if that meant throwing ethics out the window and tampering with another world's culture. But playing God is a fickle endeavour, and Kal might not be ready for the consequences...

With a fascinating society of technological nomads and a cast of new characters, Corporeal explores the ramifications of imposing one culture's ideals on another, and the cost of a supercilious mentality when engaged in foreign relations. A wonderfully stimulating read.