In Part 2 of Lodestar, five of the seven main characters have a part to play, as follows …

Characters and their Roles

1. Kestrel and his people are traveling from their Party Camp toward ShowTown where they are to undertake their yearly gladiatorial combats in return for winter grazing for their camels.
2. Srese, the avatar of the game master’s choosing, undergoes her trials and then is encouraged to leave the habitat.
3. Sard, Srese’s brother and remaindered avatar, hangs around influencing events until he finally accepts his fate.
4. Ahni will have Srese speaking for her, as she is caught by the game master, and has her voice supressed by the implanted ancestress.
5. The implant/ancestress breaks out.
   

Sard Kerr’s story can still be read at Fiction: The Remaindered Avatar, starting back in April 2021.

From the next post, Srese Kerr is the avatar. There will also be more of Kestrel’s adventures, though the two don’t meet in this section.

Preface for Part 2
Though the SkinGifted have used Lagoon Beach as a safe halfway destination for generations, they’ve never seen any evidence of a community living inside the rocky ridge backing the lagoon that they visit. Unfortunately for them, cameras and sensors keep a close watch on their doings.

A digital gamer fanatic—aka Gamester, also called Gammy by the young people in the community—lords it over a community in Rockeater Ridge, running it like a computer game from the past. (Their past is our present.) He even had his brain/mind scanned into a computer. He has an AIs control over his people by way of hundreds of sensors and cameras, and many loyal servants, robotic as well as flesh-and-blood.

For the sake of keeping the community’s human gene-pool healthy, regular input from passers-by is needed. Every generation a boy and girl avatar pair are bred up, to have ready either a male or female lead, whatever is required. By way of sensors and cameras on the beach side of the ridge, the SkinGifted are observed. A plan is set in motion.

For the sake of continuity on this blog, The Storm Event though the first chapter of Part 2, will count forward from the previous chapter.