Playgrounds of the Phoenix

[RFO-PhX] Profile: Blackdread

phoenixeyrie — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:37:03 +0000

Name: Blackdread
Race: Accretian
Class: Warrior > Destroyer > Assaulter
Tier: 1S (Primary Racial Hero)
Faction: Defenders of the Word
Rank: Praetor
Age at Rebirth: 11

Place of Rebirth: Imperial Albarium Alpha-1, Accretia Prime

Appearance

Blackdread’s Mark V Frame (Warrior; Enhanced) is different from even those issued to elite warriors of the Empire. It is highly modified, appearing bulkier than standard, and was intentionally made taller. Its design is highly Gothic in look.

The Frame is colored in deep midnight black throughout, without any piping. The only way Accretians notice Blackdread in visible light unaided if they encounter him in some dimly-lit corridor is his “running lights” from his exposed circuitry and from the joints of his Frame, which are a deep crimson red.

Of course, the most prominent feature of Blackdread, his distinguishing mark, is his head. With its fully functional and highly expandable maw filled with razor-sharp fangs. Prior to the Fourth Battle of Niven, Blackdread had a telescoping tongue that has a smaller mouth at its tip installed.

Blackdread’s hands are claws, although they remain highly articulate and nimble. His legs end in wicked taloned feet.

Special Titles

Warlord of the Accretian Empire: Blackdread is the overall commander of the Imperial Army and Navy. He exercises imperium over all Accretian military forces, even the Archons, particularly in their conduct during operations and other matters regarding the Imperial Army as a body, except for matters of grand strategy, which is the province of the Imperial Strategos.

No Accretian of Legate rank or lower should be able to say no to Blackdread’s commands.

Except those on Novus.

Executor of Fear: Prior to his ascension to Praetor of the Defenders and Warlord of the Empire, Blackdread was styled by Kesar as “Fear Incarnate,” as much an instrument of terror against the enemies of the Empire as he was a keen axe edge in Kesar’s hands. As such, his Mark V Frame (Warrior; Enhanced) is taller, more “muscular” and ornate, all to project an element of fear to those who face him. He has claws (although they are fully articulate and nimble) instead of hands. His feet are talons instead of the normal foot unit.

And then, there’s that maw. With its tongue.

Blackdread retains this title since it was Kesar himself who elevated the members of the Executors to their exalted positions.

And, really, what other Accretian comes close to being Fear Incarnate?

Special Notes

Teh Kitteh: During his stay at Verne, Blackdread found a toy that once belonged to the daughter of a Bellato officer who died during the Battle for Lebiscuri. It is a large, white, fluffy, stuffed-toy kitten with a pink ribbon on one ear and wearing a pink jumper. The toy still retains its recording and display functions, and looks a little worse for wear. Parts of it show burn marks., particularly at the edges.

When he is not in combat, the toy hangs on one side of Blackdread’s waist by a reinforced Haloment chain, and is encased in a special transparent Halostone Crystal carrycase (and therefore impervious from any harm short of Vanderion Ladenus going all out on that case with Winter’s Sharp Kiss).

Because it is a rudimentary cyberdeck (it has an I/O port, and a simple computer), it projects a representation of itself in any network when plugged in. When Council meetings are held in Command.Net, Blackdread’s online avatar also has with it the large, white, fluffy article.

When sitting in Council, Blackdread is known to hold and absentmindedly toy with the thing. He is also observed to have developed an unconscious reflex with the toy: when getting agitated or annoyed, Blackdread proceeds to play around with one of the toy’s big, fluffy ears. Even when online.

No one, not even Trinary Helix or Messenger of Oblivion, has said a word about the toy, at least in Blackdread’s hearing. No one has also told him what to do with the battered artifact, much less suggest its being in his possession as inappropriate.

Some of the Magistrates swear that, on the occasions the toy’s head peeks out from the long table over which the High Council discusses matters concerning the Empire, or when they are with Blackdread inside Command.Net, the toy makes one feel that it is looking at you with intent, especially if one is even thinking of bad thoughts about Blackdread.

Special Equipment

Devouring Fury: considered as the pinnacle of Accretian technology and weaponsmithing, Blackdread’s signature two-handed, double-headed axe is one of the most dangerous weapons in the Sector. Beautiful as well as functional, its inlaid, Gothic design does nothing to dull its diamond-sharp edge and hides a myriad of Imperial weapons technology that is comparable to none.

Standing almost as tall as its master, Devouring Fury’s blade can cut a War Walker in two. And that is when the weapon is simply dropped onto said machine. In Blackdreard’s hands – or if thrown by them – the battleaxe can cut a mountain in two. This is on record, after all, when Blackdread threw the weapon to a nearby hillock in Verne’s Lebiscuri continent. It is said to be able to destroy a Tier-3 Caitlin with a single blow.

Devouring Fury has several pieces of technology that help make it such a dangerous weapon. The first is that it has a miniature suspensor and guidance field. This means that the axe, although said to weigh as much as its master, is extremely light and well-balanced in Blackdread’s hands. This also means Blackdread can throw the axe, and it will return to him, even if it has to smash and cut its way back to the outstretched claw. Blackdread has used this feature more than once in combat, especially in conjunction with another ability of the axe.

Devouring Fury is actually two weapons in one: the axes Devourer and Furioso, each of which Blackdread can wield with either hand, or (in rare occasions, since he wasn’t really trained extensively for it) both at the same time. Each has its own particular characteristic: Devourer is said to contain the death-dealing aspects of the weapon, while Furioso is speed and balance personified. A special “mimetic” alloy allows the two weapons to become one when the back of their heads are brought together.

Its special repulsor systems also helps the Devouring Fury withstand the powers of weapons of equal caliber by creating a protective field around the weapon. For instance, it is one of the few weapons that can indefinitely engage Winter’s Sharp Kiss, the Cora’s legendary Kingspear, and its signature cryogenic film that renders any substance it comes into contact with as brittle as rusted iron.

Warships: Blackdread can use two warships. The first is his personal battlecruiser, The Black Death. It is a highly-modified Standard Chassis Accretian warship designed for melee-range fighting with other warships and can carry a full Legion. Blackdread uses its especially thick armor and powerful shields to close in with an enemy warship so his troops (and he himself) can board it, making the 14th Legion one of the most adept units in ship boarding combat among the Accretians. It is currently part of Blackdread’s escort squadron.

The other warship Blackdread can use is no less than the Majestic Courage, the Imperial Flagship. It is one of the few ships of its class and size in the Empire, as it was made to be the Emperor’s personal conveyance. When Kesar left on his “vision quest”, he used a specially made fast frigate instead and left the flagship. As Warlord, the ship was detailed for Blackdread’s use. It currently sits in orbit around Verne, with its escort squadron.

Background

“You will be the fear that gnaws at the back of the minds of our enemies. You will be the fear that goes before every rumor of our Legions’ arrivals. You will be the fear that strikes deep into the hearts and counsels of those who dare stand before the might of Humanity’s defenders. Thus it shall be, so that even with the mere hint of your coming, they will bow down on their knees and beg for their lives to be spared. Or they shall lose their necks by the edge of your axe.”

– Emperor Kesar, speaking before a Blackdread coming right out of the Rebirth Chambers.

The Accretian who would eventually become Blackdread was part of the first generation to be born from the Steel Wombs. Blackdread grew up with the first “batch” of Accretian children who would know nothing except the need, even the desire, to become Steel.

Blackdread first achieved notoriety when he killed one of his Creche-mates in gory fashion with a fork. The much bigger and larger kid had been terrorizing his Creche-mates to get extra food, or to make them do his work for him, or even just out of plain cruelty. During one such bullying episode, this one while they were having lunch, Blackdread – a runt of a child at the time – simply came up to his Creche-mate and laid on him with the aforesaid utensil.

This incident actually merited Kesar’s attention, since everything at the time was still an “experiment” of sorts, and this boded ill for the “reculturization” of the Accretians. It was said that, in the throne room, White Knight refused to let the child come close to Kesar and never sheathed his sword, and that Infinite Depths openly admitted his fear of the still-flesh child. At that particular moment, Blackdread was born, and Kesar himself took him under his wing. At his “graduation”, Kesar was there when the new Worker emerged from the Chambers of Rebirth and christened him with the name with which the whole Sector would remember him by.

Blackdread, being one of Kesar’s wards, quickly rose in the ranks, although some said that if it weren’t for the “special favor” attached to him by his “privileged training” under the Emperor himself, the young warrior would never have gotten so far, if not so fast. Too vicious, some Legates and Centurions said, which was saying much from a Race that glorified viciousness in combat. Still, by the time the First Novus War came around, Blackdread was already a Legate, commanding the 14th Legion. He was also made one of Praetor Zero’s Lictors, and it is said that whatever Blackdread had in the way of strategy was learned under his “uncle” Zero.

Sometime after the fated battle that reunited Harvey Lunus with Phaera Ladenus, Blackdread suffered heavy damage at the hands of Erdanios Ladenus and Vanderion, in that more fated battle where the latter became Bearer of the Kingspear. Blackdread remembered wishing, as he lay there on the blood-and-coolant-soaked soil of Theilanvoss with two limbs broken and an arm sheared off (that last the work of Vanderion), how, if he only had teeth, he would have bitten off Vanderion’s head. Hearing this, Trinary Helix (who was then a Lictor to Infinite Depths and Scientist Magister for the 14th Legion) said it would be a simple matter to modify Blackdread’s head unit to incorporate jaws. Blackdread thought this was, indeed, a good idea and ordered the modifications to be done during his repair and refit phase after the First Battle of Theilanvoss.

His ability to “feed” on his opponents – where Blackdread virtually swallows what he bites off from his Bellato and Cora enemies as his matter supplement for his Haloment powercore – came from a battle prior to the Razing of Zelazny where he was almost killed because he kept wasting time spitting out what he bit off. After that incident, Blackdread ordered his systems modified so he can swallow what he bit, and that it would go straight to the matter-processing chamber of his powercore.

Blackdread used his new “ability” in gruesome fashion during the Mir Massacre, where his 14th Legion hit a Corite strikeforce on the planet Mir that was going to attack the flank of Messenger’s main assault force that was leapfrogging its way to Zelazny. Immediately after this, Kesar recalled him to his presence, where Blackdread was formally inducted into the Executors, a new, more powerful and frightening Frame given to him. It was during the subsequent operation, the Razing of Zelazny, where Blackdread gained his reputation as Fear Incarnate in truth. He was so vicious and bloodthirsty during the Razing that many of the senior Death Heralds present seriously considered offering him a high position within their faction

It was a notion that also caught Merciful Dirge’s attention, who was said to have openly wondered if “Forks” – her pet name for Blackdread, stemming from his childhood killing of his own Creche-mate – would make a fine addition to the Heralds. Messenger, who was then Lictor Primus to Dirge, was said to have privately objected to his Praetor, but it was ultimately Kesar who overruled Dirge.

“I want Fear, Dirge, so our enemies will realize it is better to bend the knee than to be broken at the neck. Or bitten off, as is the case here,” Kesar was said to have told the Praetor of the Death Heralds. “In your employ, Fear will become a Nightmare, and that does little to serve Our purpose.”

Blackdread continued to gain both honors and notoriety for the remainder of the First Novus War. During the Battle of Peregrine’s Rock, Blackdread was on rest and refit cycle (forced, it was said) in Theilanvoss, and thus was not part of that battle or the subsequent landing actions led by Merciful Dirge on Novus once the valiant space station had been reduced.

Blackdread was about to come out of his R&R cycle with the rest of the 14th Legion when the joint Bellato-Cora strikefore attacked Theilanvoss a second time. His Legion was the one present when the Third and Ninth Holy Guards almost broke into the facility where the Nova Bomb was kept, and thus were some of the first Accretians outside of the Genekeepers to encounter the Hands of Hybroer (although they were unaware of who they were at this point).

The hatred Harvey Lunus personally felt for the Accretian began that day on doomed Theilanvoss when Blackdread himself intercepted Harvey as he tried to come to Phaera’s aid. All Blackdread remembered thinking at the time was that he had to keep Harvey Lunus from getting to where the Princess was, at the exclusion of everything else, so even as Theilanvoss began to fall apart and Trinary Helix screamed at him to break off and help secure the facility so the Genekeepers can shut the bomb off, Blackdread kept attacking Harvey until it was too late.

Questioned after by an Imperial Commission due to a complaint filed by Trinary Helix and Messenger of Oblivion against him, Blackdread could only say that it was as if an overriding protocol took over him and kept him fighting Harvey regardless of what happened around him. But scans of his bioware and hardware showed little, if any, evidence of outside tampering, except for a slight “kink” in both his EEG and the operating systems that linked his cyborg body to his still-organic brain. Kesar once more stepped in and exonerated his Executor, but Blackdread was temporarily stripped of command of his Legion, and the 14th passed to his executive officer and Creche-mate, Thor.

Blackdread would fade from Imperial politics at this time, surfacing once to “do a favor” for Trinary Helix in the attempted capture of Vanderion Ladenus and Catherine Luminus during the former’s Hunt for the latter. Blackdread was given command once again of the 14th Legion, which promptly lost a fourth of its number in battle with the Hands of Hybroer. Blackdread also began to exhibit a strange melancholia about him at this time, offset only by his new Adjutant, Violetdawn.

His “botching’ of what Trinary said was a simple “snatch and grab” further heightened the rift between the Legate and his former Scientist Magister (who was now a Praetor, having but recently wrested the position from his own mentor, Depths). Blackdread shot back that Trinary and Celestial (who provided the intelligence to Trinary for the operation) never mentioned anything about some half-mad Corite and his cohort that could each pack the power of a Supercharged Bellato Recluse and blamed the two Genekeepers for the loss of more than a fourth of the warriors of the 14th Legion. Since then, Blackdread and Trinary have been “unfriends.”

Blackdread once again faded from the limelight, doing missions instead as Executor – this time with the more overt rank of Overseer – for Kesar, taking only a small guard unit with him led by Violetdawn and once again leaving command of the 14th with Thor. Blackdread would resurface on Novus itself during the Archonate of Mechjaden, ostensibly to do an inspection of Imperial forces there. He left very satisfied, and, in one of the few instances of his vicious life, actually became a close friend of Mechjaden (Blackdread was even said to loudly praise the fighting prowess and strategic acumen of the Novusian Archon. When “MJ” stepped down as Archon of the Imperial Army of Novus and returned to Accretia Prime, he was nominated by his Praetor to the High Council and became a Magistrate. Blackdread’s “endorsement” was said to have been crucial in this, as anyone who garnered the admiration of someone like Fear Incarnate must be good)

It was between his inspection of Novus as Overseer and his return to it as Warlord that Blackdread suffered what he said was one of the worst ever betrayals he ever experienced. Although Thor was now officially the Legate of the 14th Legion, Blackdread still thought of the elite unit as “his”, and never failed to advance or protect the interests of his former command within Imperial High Command and the Council. He also considered Thor as a personal friend; both had come from the same Creche, after all.

Then, the 14th Legion disappeared.

Blackdread was worried and used all the power and influence of his position as Executor to find his former unit. He reacted with alarm when the 14th Legion reappeared on Novus but as a rogue unit, attacking Imperial Army units as much as they did the Bellato and Cora. Blackdread felt relieved when he was told they were acting that way due to a variant of the Arcane Virus and pressured the Genekeepers to find a cure. But even after the cure was administered, the whole Legion decided to join their commander, Thor, in separating from the Empire. Blackdread has sworn to personally bring Thor to justice, and he was getting ready to do so until a more monumental development came around.

At the start of the so-called “Crimson Dawn” – so named both for the bloody beginning of that stage in the Second Novus War and the color of the weapons authorized by the leaders of the Three Races for use on Novus – Kesar and Zero decided to up and leave, with the former simply saying that he went to find the salvation of the human race and the latter simply telling his Defenders that where Kesar went, he cannot be far behind. Among the “Final Orders” left by the two had a direct impact to Blackdread: Zero, apparently, named him as the new Praetor of the Defenders of the Word, and Kesar appointed him Warlord of the Empire.

Far from being thrilled at becoming one of the most powerful citizens of the Empire, Blackdread almost rebelled at the responsibility suddenly thrust on him by his “father” and “uncle,” all the more because there actually was little power to back him up; he wasn’t Emperor, so his two fellow Praetors were still his equals, and Trinary Helix was also Strategos for quite some time now so Blackdread could do little in dictating where the Imperial Army went. And because the Imperial High Council never liked the brash, vicious, young Executor, Blackdread was almost always stymied by the Magistrates, even those from his own faction who were smarting from being bypassed by a mere youngster for the position of Praetor.

Even worse, when Blackdread set foot on Novus for the first time as Praetor and Warlord, the reigning Archon proved almost as insubordinate as Adjutant 001-B was. Although still holding the warriors of the Imperial Army of Novus as the true exemplar of the Empire’s military might, Blackdread found he could not stomach the politics and clash of egos caused by the rivalries of the Accretian leaders on the planet of the Halostone. Trusting in Command.Net’s ability to allow him to coordinate the Empire’s war machine remotely, Blackdread retired to the war-torn planet of Verne, sight of the infamous Burning of Lebiscuri, where the retreating Bellato decided to turn the whole continent into a nuclear wasteland rather than let the Accretians have it whole. It was here that Blackdread found his now-ubiquitous stuffed toy.

Blackdread’s sojourn in the deserts of Lebiscuri were interrupted twice. The first was by Violetdawn, who personally came to convince Blackdread to return to Novus and deal with the Serial Killers. The second time was when White Knight fetched his Praetor for the fated High Council meeting prior to the Fourth Battle of Niven.

Blackdread, as Imperial Warlord, was placed in charge of Task Force Niven. Seething at what he perceived to be a figurehead role in the conflict – the whole Task Force was ordered to follow the strategy laid out by Trinary Helix to the letter – and chafing at the pronouncement that, under no conditions, was he to initiate combat with the Federal Army North Group or the Bellato’s Third Fleet (he could fight back if attacked, though), Blackdread made the fatal mistake of storming Shilaris Stronghold directly. Although badly wounded in the first meeting of Corite and Accretian forces short of the fortress, Kaladar Akadva managed to make Blackdread and three legions pay dearly for gaining access to the main Akdava base, earning the Warlord much censure from the High Council (and a not-so-subtle dig from Celestial, who was personally charged with overseeing the raiding of the datafiles of the Library of the Shastra).

Tensions increased upon the return of the Task Force to Accretia Prime. Although successful, much of the credit went to Trinary Helix (for mapping out the strategy used in the raid), Advent (who was tasked with tying up Corite forces along their common border with the Accretians), and even Samael (for having nearly killed Vanderion in single combat). Blackdread openly accused Trinary of setting him up, which the Genekeeper Praetor merely shrugged off. Seeing how little support he was getting from the High Council, Blackdread stormed off and went back to Verne, refusing to talk even with his fellow Executors, particularly Advent.

Blackdread remains on Verne to this day. He rarely leaves the planet, and prefers to coordinate the Imperial Army remotely via Command.Net. His melancholy is becoming pronounced and he has skipped all High Council meetings following the conclusion of the Fourth Battle of Niven, sending instead one of his Lictors to represent the Praetor of the Defenders.

Blackdread has also shown extreme disinterest in managing the affairs of the Defenders, preferring to let its High Command deal with what he calls the “tedium of bureaucracy.” As such, the Defenders of the Word are bereft of clear direction as to what to do, causing no small amount of anger among its senior leadership.

Since no one has the gall to challenge Blackdread in Ritual Combat – one of the few ways the Praetorship can be taken from him – and no one equally desires to go against the wishes of Zero, many Defenders have begun to look for leadership elsewhere. Some, like Shadow Walker, have turned to Advent, while many have looked towards White Knight, who is said to have departed from Verne and is en route to Novus.

Also, despite caring immensely for his lord, Violetdawn has asked leave for redeployment to Novus. Blackdread was thankful enough for all that his adjutant has done that he ordered the raising of an elite Century of warriors for Violetdawn, the commissioning of an experimental frigate for his Adjutant’s personal use, and promotion to Legate. Blackdread also did not strip Violetdawn of his rank of Lictor Primus, telling his Adjutant that his lord was merely giving him temporary liberty and will most definitely call him back to service.

Blackdread today remains on Verne, brooding. What truths will Blackdread find amidst the desolation of Lebiscuri? What insights will he bring back from its irradiated wilderness? What realizations will he make amidst those tangled and mangled remains of total, unremitting and unforgiving war?

None cannot say. But many wonder – and are afraid – of what will happen once Fear Incarnate remembers itself, and rises once again.

Inheritance

phoenixeyrie — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:12:39 +0000

“I’m hooooooooome!!!”

The sing-song shout of the young girl that just entered the inn, schoolbooks in one hand, ribbon-tied braids trailing behind her as she didn’t miss a beat rushing in, most certainly made Tanya look up from the persistent piece of smudge on the floor that she was cleaning. Normally, the young tavern assistant would frown at anyone who barged into the inn before it was open but this was one of the few beings on this planet that she wouldn’t mind making such a ruckus so early. Or spreading dirt on the floor she but recently cleaned.

The young girl swept by Tanya, giving her a peck on the cheek in passing, but the older woman grabbed the girl by the end of her collar. “And just where do you think you’re going, young lady?”

“I gotta see uncle, atachi!” the young girl said, not even breathless, looking back at the woman she just called her older sister (even if they didn’t share any blood relations; but each was the closest the other had to a real sister) with a smile. “I can’t wait to continue my lessons!”

“I’m sure Garold would be happy to see you, too, but I’m willing to bet the floor of the inn isn’t,” Tanya said, indicating the path the girl just swept through with her head.

The young girl’s eyes went big and she craned her neck further back and down, seeing the splotches of mud that had her unmistakable shoeprints on the otherwise shiny floor. Absentmindedly, the girl wondered how Tanya managed to keep the floors clean despite the weather; fall was starting, and with it, rain. In fact, there was quite the drizzle outside already.

The girl adopted a sad pout and looked at Tanya, who was trying as hard as she can to affect a displeased look. Only the desire she shared with Garold and their friends to rear this young woman up to a proper, if frontier, lady was what steeled her to not give her little sister a hug then and there.

“I’m sorry, Tanyakins,” the girl said, giving Tanya a tight hug. “I’ll help you clean it up soon as I see uncle, okay? I guess I just wanted to get away from boring schoolwork too much.”

“Can’t blame you on that,” Tanya said, giving a hearty laugh and hugging the girl tightly. “Very well, then: go see your uncle and just help me prepare the inn, after you’ve changed and gotten something hot in your belly. I’ll handle your tracks. By the Light, if Dom ever saw this, you’d never hear the end of it.”

“Thanks, atachi. You’re the best!” the girl said. “I’ll come back soon as I see uncle.”

“And it might be sooner than you think, child,” a mild baritone said from the door behind the bar. Garold Roscian, owner of the Journey’s Past inn, managed to fill the doorway despite his physique, lean even as the man entered late middle age. Tanya knew that even now, he was quicker and more agile than she would ever be.

“Uncle!!!” the girl screamed in delight, letting go of Tanya and burying her head in Garold’s chest. Or, rather, his tummy, which was only slightly bulged with age and the hearty meals cooked in the inn.

Tanya smiled as Garold’s face softened with the affections shown by the girl. As far as everyone knew, Garold wasn’t really her blood relation, either. But he’d taken care of her as long as Tanya could remember, and she practically grew up at the Journey.

“So, Krystal, how was school?” Garold asked, motioning for his niece to sit down as he putted behind the inn’s bar, preparing a meal for the girl. Tanya dropped what she was doing and moved to assist Garold, who was also mentoring her on everything that dealt with running the place.

“Boring, as usual,” Krystal said, plopping on top of the counter the books bound by a strap of tough leather with a bright steel buckle made for her by the town’s blacksmith, Brachion. “I’ve learned all of this high school stuff from Master Terry and kaydra Val before I was ten. Why do I have to go through them all over again?”

“Because, young lady, you’re only fourteen and girls your age should be in school, learning these things,” Garold said as he put down a bowl full of steaming cream of mushroom soup. The scent of the meal filled the inn with a wonderful aroma, banishing the damp and gloomy feel the coming downpour was sure to bring. “Also, you need to get good scores from an accredited high school to get into a university.”

“Why do I need to go to a university?” Krystal said between mouthfulls of soup.

“Don’t talk when your mouth is full, dear,” Tanya said from where she was making hot chocolate. Finished, she put it beside Krystal’s bowl and took a napkin to wipe off a soup smudge on the left side of the young girl’s mouth. “Also, I thought you wanted to go to a university?”

“I did, when I was little, spending all those afternoons at the Observatory with Master Terry and kaydra Val,” Krystal said, using a piece of bread to sponge up the last dregs of her soup. “But I found out that there are more interesting things than mathematical formulae, scientific and arcanotech principles, or philosophy.”

“And what would these things be?” Tanya said, taking the bowls and utensils for cleaning.

“Being a gunslinger, for one,” Krystal said before downing a full third of her mug of chocolate.

Tanya stopped midway to the inner kitchen’s door and looked at Garold, who also gave her a look, one that had worry on the older man’s face. The innkeeper nodded to Tanya, who slipped quietly into the inner kitchen while Garold turned to face his niece.

“Now, dear, we’ve talked about this when I began teaching you how to hold a gun,” Garold said, regretting for the umpteenth time why he even considered doing so in the first place. “The gunfighter’s life isn’t an easy one, certainly not for a prim and proper young lady that you’re going to grow up to be.”

“But, uncle, guns seem more interesting than the stuff they teach us in school, or the things they make us girls do so we’ll grow up to be ‘prim and proper ladies’,” Krystal said, trying hard to imitate her uncle’s voice but making it sound comical due to her soft soprano. “Besides, what else do I have going for me in this town? A provincial or even regional college? Or, and I shudder at the thought, the life of a simple housewife? I’d rather be a gunslinger girl”

Garold was at a loss right now about how to explain to Krystal why those lives were infinitely better compared to the excitement and danger that the life of a gunfighter, or any combat profession, entailed. He was actually blaming himself for this. In a moment of weakness, he had taken his old guns out and tried them in the field at the back of the inn, thinking Krystal was yet to come home. But their class ended early and she had been observing him for a good long while before Tanya discovered she was watching.

They knew her insatiable curiosity would get the better of her – she was still too young to really know better, despite her maturity for her age – and everyone agreed it was better that she knew how to handle the weapons before she got anyone, including herself, hurt by mishandling them. At least, early on, they could teach her the proper values associated with such horrible things.

Garold was about to engage in a debate he little relished with his brilliant (for her own good, Garold thought, but that’s something she got from both sides of her family tree) niece when the door opened, admitting a tall but lanky man wrapped in a raincoat.

“By the Light, the wind’s making this drizzle seem worse than it is,” the man, young by the sound of his voice, said, doffing the rain-slicked hood of his coat and beginning to slip out of the whole thing. “It’s like it came from nowhere!”

“Kaydra Val!!!” Krystal said, rushing to the young man and hugging him as he hung his coat on the rack beside the door.

“Whoa there, Krys, haha,” Valiant Kreis said, ruffling Krystal’s red hair. “You’re getting bigger everyday. And heftier.”

Krystal let go of Valiant, an annoyed look on her face. “Am not! That’s just baby fat! I’m going to lose all that when I get older! You and Master Terry said so!”

“I’m sure you would, dear,” Valiant said, patting the young girl on her head. She huffed and stalked to the counter again, Garold laughing at the exchange between the two. “Ho, Gar! Quite a night this is going to be, eh?”

“You bet, Val. I hope that downpour won’t scare away too much of the clientle,” the older man replied, putting a mug of hot coffee laced with vanilla on the counter for the newly-arrived guest. “Tanya! Your lover’s here!”

“Heard him the first time, Gar! I’ll just fix up his dinner for him, be out in a minute!” Tanya said from the inner kitchen. Krystal snickered at Valiant’s reddening face and Garold shook his head, smiling. The two were only a year into officially being lovers, after all, and it was a match few thought would happen: practical, no-nonsense, and gorgeous Tanya Winters and the bookish apprentice-Weaver Valiant Kreis? Preposterous. But here it was, and no one was happier for the two than Garold and Krystal.

“Anyway, since you raised the issue of flooding, I’d be happy to report that Master Terry thinks the new drainage system should work,” Valiant said, adjusting his glasses a bit. “The Gnomes were masters of engineering, as they were with most science and technology, and even the little they left after they abandoned Tinker Hill allowed us to advance our own civilization by decades, if not centuries!”

“Yes, but at what cost?” Krystal’s voice piped up beside Valiant, a sad look on the girl’s face. “The Gnomes are gone. The Dwarven Forge Cities are sealed. And the Light knows what happened to the Elven Sanctuaries.”

This time, it was Valiant and Garold who shared a look. One of Krystal’s earliest interests, even without prodding from them, was history, and she learned quickly like with most things.They only wished they could keep her away from some of the more… unsavory parts, but they didn’t want to “edit” her learning. Better for her to know and ask them. At least they could guide her.

“Well, maybe someday it’ll all be better, eh, little sister?” Valiant said, putting an arm around Krystal’s shoulders. “We can hope, right? After all, who would think a man, Nobari though he be, would be the instrument of the Shadow’s death? Bet you Garaghan or Anarcaine didn’t see that one coming!”

Krystal only gave a wan smile and Garold could see the obvious distress in Valiant’s face. The young Weaver-to-be wasn’t really good with words, although he was a good, honest and hardworking young man. His true talent lay in realizing the Patterns and Effects that are a Weaver’s stock in trade. He wasn’t Gifted, but Master Terry often told Garold about the great potential in his latest protege. And skilled enough Weavers could match the best of the Gifted if they had enough training and experience and the right kind of Vibranite Crystal to help them Weave thoughts into reality.

At that moment, Tanya entered with a large plate of freshly cooked pasta, a rich patch of her special white sauce on top of it. Garold was a good cook, but one of the things his protege had over him was a gift for cooking. Of course, the older man knew where part of her excellence in putting things aright, from her methodical orderliness to her capability with gardening, carpentry, cooking and even visual arts, came from. Some of the new paintings adorning the mezzanine of the inn, where more… refined clientele went, were made by Tanya. One of their regulars even inquired two nights ago if he could buy one of them, and promptly doubled the asking price when he found out it was Tanya who made it. She had a legion of fans in the town, too, truth be told.

Tanya gave Valiant an affectionate peck on the cheek – no passionate kisses in front of children, Tanya insisted, eventhough they all brought Krystal up very open-minded about these things – and hung onto her lover as the rest of her little family attacked her latest culinary creation, their debates and concerns, which Tanya could hear from the inner kitchen, momentarily forgotten. All that was lacking was gruff Dom and even gruffier Brachion and, of course, Master Terry and Tanya’s world would be complete.

When the last of the pasta had been fought over and won by a Krystal wilier than usual, Tanya decided to continue one of the earlier discussions. She didn’t want to leave something important as that hanging. “So, little sister, what’s this about not going to university?”

The statement elicited a shocked look from Valiant, who regarded learning as one of the foremost pursuits mankind can have. That look made Krystal far less sure in her response as she would with Garold and Tanya, since she looked up to Valiant with a certain sense of awe. After all, she wanted to be a Weaver when she was younger.

“That true, little sister?” Valiant asked.

“Well, I… It’s just that…” Krystal tried to explain but couldn’t find the words. How could she explain to her bookish (if a Weaver) older brother, her practical-minded (if awesome artistically) older sister, and even her uncle (whom she loved and adored over anyone else), why she found it hard to get away from guns?

She knew the value of a good education; she loved learning as much as Valiant did and regularly visits Master Terry in the Observatory just to read books, even the ones she’s read dozens of times. She also knew, both from her education and stories told by her elders about the war that ended fourteen years ago, the… things that guns do. They took lives. Weavers, at least, knew Patterns and could make Effects that save lives, even if one of sufficient power can rip a small hill apart with just his or her thoughts.

Still, that chambered, rifled, tube of steel and wood awakened… something inside of her, almost like a yearning, a… call, ever since she saw her uncle Garold practicing with his old pistols. It was the high points of her week, those every-other-day-except-Sunday practice sessions, which Garold used to make her go to school and work hard even if she knew everything the teachers taught.

Garold was about to say something when Valiant suddenly sat straight. Everyone looked worriedly at him until he started patting the front of his polo and found what he was looking for: the Weavertech communicator his master, Terry, gave him. Valiant excused himself and went over to a corner to answer the call.

Everyone was silent as Valiant talked to Master Terry, who was most likely in the Observatory. From what they could see of his face, Valiant looked a bit concerned, his normally bright face all scrunched up, bows knit together. Tanya took the plate and utensils to the inner kitchen as Garold refilled their mugs. Krystal just looked with concern at her older brother.

“All right, Master, I’ll be there soon,” Valiant said, turning off his crystalcomm and turning back to his friends. “Something’s come up at the Observatory, so I’m afraid I have to cut this short.”

“Do you have to, kaydra?” Krystal asked, a pout on her face her arms around Valiant. “I don’t see you a lot these days and that weather’s going to turn nasty soon.”

“I’m sure it’s extremely important, dear, otherwise Master Terry wouldn’t make Val go back so soon,” Garold said, putting a package on the counter and shoving it to Valiant. “I was hoping the old coot would spare some time to go down here, even with the weather, but I think that’s not going to happen tonight so I packed him this soup, which I bet is better than the stuff you two concoct.”

“True that, Gar!”, Valiant said, draining his coffee and giving Krystal an affectionate peck on top of her head. “I’ll make sure Master Terry eats it all; the Light knows he’d take care of himself more. He’s not that young anymore and he’s not Alari to be sprightly in his old age.”

“Like he’d listen if he has a new research going on,” Tanya said, coming out of the inner kitchen with a paper bag. “Some more of the pasta for you two; the sauce is inside. You eat a lot of these yourself, okay? You’re getting thin.”

“Thanks, hon, I will,” Valiant said, giving Tanya a hug as he took the proffered bag. “I’ll send the master your love and best wishes. He wants to see you soon, said something about a package of sorts?”

Tanya had a quizzical look on her face. Garold cleared his throat. “It’s something I asked Master Terry to make for you, dear, but it can wait as soon as this thing gets sorted out. Will you kindly see Valiant out?”

Tanya nodded and walked to the coat rack, arm in Valiant’s. As the young man was about to go, the two looked over to the bar where Garold and Krystal were, both looking at the pair. Two large hands suddenly blocked Krystal’s eyes.

“Oh, come on, uncle!” Krystal complained. “I’ve seen them kiss before, you know!”

“And let’s hope you won’t have to see too many public displays of affection, young lady, until you’re a bit older,” Garold said as the two lovers laughed at the other end of the inn. “Just because we’re liberal with your education and upbringing doesn’t mean we have to set values aside, yes?”

Krystal complained some more, albeit playfully, about wanting to see as Tanya and Valiant exchanged a short but passionate kiss. The young man gave Garold a salute and a flying kiss to a now able-to-see Krystal before stepping out into the world that boded ill weather.

to be continued…

[Vampire: The Masquerade] Manila at Night: Power Struggle

phoenixeyrie — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:35:09 +0000

I’m waiting for the pen,
To come up here again,
And devour me whole.
They’re screaming to the gods.
Screaming to the gods.
And I’ll be here holding on.

~ A Day Before Pisces, Faspitch

————

Private Airstrip
Manila Domestic Airport
Pasay City, Philippines

Ah, Manila. No matter how far I run, no matter where I go, I always come back to you.

This thought intruded into the mind of Desmond Kingsley, Jr., almost unbidden, as the Gulfstream touched down on the rain-slick ferrocrete of this private airstrip of the Domestic Airport. Ordinary people would have been worried about whether their plane could safely land after the sudden downpour that drenched the Metro an hour or so ago that came from out of nowhere, as if the very weather itself wanted to keep someone away from this Godforsaken place by making the airlanes crowded, the microclimate unpredictable and the landing strips slippery.

But Desmond is not one of the masa, the common, everyday citizens of the Philippines, damned to the vicissitudes of airlines on a budget with overworked and underpaid pilots flying airplanes one incident away from being the next feature in National Geographic’s “Air Crash Investigations.”

No, Desmond thought as he retreated further into the embrace of his Armani long coat, felt the smooth thrum of the Gulfstream’s engines as the elite pilot at the airplane’s controls expertly taxied it to its berth, he has long ago set aside the concerns of ordinary human beings.

As the Gulfstream smoothly came to a stop, Desmond could see a small group standing a bit of a ways from where a groundcrew was putting the ladder into place on the plane’s door. The first thought that comes to his mind was how few they were; in the old days – old? Wasn’t that just half a decade ago? – there would be a virtual gaggle down there to meet one of his rank. As it is, Desmond couldn’t even get past the fingers of one hand for the main welcome party and he highly doubted that all of those down there were… like him.

Desmond let out a soft sigh at that realization. That bad, eh? And, somehow, a small stab of guilt went through his blackened, unbeating heart. After all, he was well aware of what he did the minute all hell broke loose, hiding himself in the far provinces of the Philippines while his people reportedly perished in the dozens, if not hundreds. In fact, his last act before leaving the Metro behind was throwing his celfone out of the open doorway of the Philippine Air Force Huey that took him to Villamor Airbase and his waiting Gulfstream that whisked him far, far away from the madness that was engulfing the capital.

I have not been a good Childe, Desmond thought as he rose and an attendant took his hand-carried luggage. And why do I feel so much like the prodigal son returning? Only, it is not the kind, loving Sire waiting to take me back, no questions asked, with arms wide open, but my angry, possibly-vengeful brother who stands at the gate.

So why are you back, Desmond? Why did you leave your personal Haven and the ministrations of your dear Nephtali (the crazy girl took the first flight to Davao the minute she heard I was gone from the Metro) for the… insanity of Manila?

A tall man carrying an umbrella – it was still drizzling, after all – waited for Desmond immediately outside the Gulfstream’s door. “Greetings, Lord Desmond. Welcome back to Manila,” the man said, and Desmond saw that he was smiling.

He also saw the prominent canines sticking out of the Neonate’s pearly whites.

“Stop grinning like some monkey waiting to get a treat, Diego,” Desmond said, not breaking his stride and walking confidently down the stairs. Diego was forced to keep up, lest Desmond get raindrops on his Armani. “if a Ragabash or a Mage with a sniper rifle were around here, you’d be a messy little vampire in seconds.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Diego hurriedly murmured, obviously distressed. “I shall be more careful next time,” the Neonate added as he opened the door to the armored (in more ways than one) Lexus to let Desmond in.

“See that you do,” Desmond said as he slipped into the relative safety of the Lexus; relative, because the alliance between the Mages and the Garou had taught the Lupines the… efficacy of rocket-propelled grenades. “It would be such a waste to have this Armani thrown away after your brains get splattered over it; Giorgo himself gave this to me.”

With that, Desmond closed the door and the Lexus began to move, one other car in front and another behind, four motorcycle-riding policemen running escort. On the jumpseat, another Neonate gave Desmond a once-over before putting a celfone to his ear. “Package is secure, Lord Victor. Heading to the Tower now. ETA 45.”

There’s the reason why you’re back, Desmond. Because Victor demanded it. And after what you did to him, and because of what he might become very soon, do you dare say no to your own friend?

Oh, wait. He’s more than a friend now: he is my Primogen. My Lord.

I must never let myself forget that.

The lights of Metro Manila at night went by like fireflies on steroids outside Desmond’s window. Somewhere out there, a werewolf was howling at the Moon, even Luna’s silver luminescence was hidden by the clouds. Somewhere out there, a Mage poked at Reality, and one of them could even be responsible for this rain. Somewhere out there, Wraiths flitted about, trying to find pieces of themselves amidst the concrete of their graveyards and the gnarled branches of Balete trees so they can finally Transcend.

Somewhere out there, one of the Kindred was feeding, that sweet, crimson nectar renewing their strength, sustaining for a few more nights their unlife.

Unlife like his.

And somewhere out there, one of those four would be dying at the hands of a Hunter, brought low by that plain human’s extraordinary Faith. The way Desmond and his friends almost nearly experienced five years ago. The way hundreds of Vampires fell to the power of True Faith during The Breach.

Ah, yes. It’s good to be back, Manila. Nephtali was getting boring, anyway, what with her endless bleating. And Davao reminded me too much of my father.

Despite himself, Desmond begun to hum a familiar tune. Something about gaudily-colored public utility vehicles that flew and women whose beauty shone forth.

And why you always go back to Manila, asking it promises to never let you go.

————

The Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies
Ateneo de Manila University
Quezon City, Philippines

The footfalls of his booted feet echoed in the silent halls. The young-looking man, his trenchcoat partly wet from walking in the soft drizzle, remembered the stories from his Sire about how the corridors of the Tremere’s primary Chantry here in the Philippines would be filled with activity, of Neonates running errands for their elders, and those selfsame – and, he thought, self-important – older members of the Clan clumped in small groups everywhere, discussing everything.

Now, it felt like a graveyard outside of All Souls’ Day, and about as silent, too.

If there was a joke in there, somewhere, Alexander Philip Mercado couldn’t find the humor in it. But then, even before his Embrace, Alexander had not been a familiar friend to laughter.

After climbing a set of stairs, cunningly designed to give utmost advantage to defenders while extremely hampering attackers, he stopped before a set of double doors, and one of the Gargoyles that flanked the entrance gave him an appraising look. After a short but uncomfortable while, the monster nodded and signaled to his companion to let Alexander through.

The young Tremere stepped into a room softly lit by a variety of lanterns. One glance told Alexander that, should the need arise, many of the light sources could be quickly taken down and, most likely, thrown at whatever invaded this sanctum. Books lined tall cases everywhere, and he silently admired how many of them were not only thick but covered in strong, ironbound leather. Not only did it keep the paper in the books safe, but Alexander would bet that they also made for excellent impromptu bucklers should the need arise.

And, standing there with her back purposely to the door as if in mockery of the threat such an ingress presented, looking out of the large window of her private study, was the woman whose every action conveyed such attention to detail, determination, and danger.

Sarah Palmer, Primogen of the Tremere of Metro Manila, didn’t even deign to acknowledge Alexander’s presence and continued to look at whatever it was outside her window that absorbed her attention, as if he absolutely presented no threat even if her back was turned to him.

Some have learned too late that little mistake, a voice whispered in the depths of Alexander’s mind.

Of course, even in these chaotic times, no one becomes the top Vampire of the Tremere in a domain unless he or she was powerful, enough to be so confident that nothing can harm them, even if their back was exposed.

Alexander saw no chair in the room other than the one that, strategically, lay between Palmer and the large, sturdy-looking narra desk that was before him. Not even showing any outward reactions to this situation like annoyance, Alexander did what was expected of his station and knelt on one knee.

“Is it not… fascinating how our greatest fortress in these benighted islands is right in the middle of one of the most powerful institutions of the Church that tried to destroy us so many centuries ago?” Palmer said, her tone more whimsical than anything Alexander could guess at. “In fact, it is quite surprising how we manage to pull this off, considering many of the Jesuits are Mages themselves, if not members of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.”

“Perhaps they use it to observe us, do you not think so, Alexander?” Palmer asked, turning slowly to face the kneeling Vampire. “The way a scientist would watch the behavior of a couple of lab rats, all the while taking notes on what made them tick.”

“The assumption is not without merit, my Lady,” Alexander said, not even looking up. “The Jesuits have always valued information and knowledge above all, and our being in their midst must satisfy some perverse curiosity in them, for otherwise how can our Chantry have survived this long? It becomes a most curious achievement considering that the Father Provincial of the Order and Father President of the Ateneo are usually Mages.”

Palmer smirked, and let out a snort. “Yet, it did not take much knowledge to destroy over ninety percent of us. Oh, no, the Mages and Garou did not need much to know a flamethrower or an assault shotgun can kill us as easily, or even easier, than a fireball spell or a Daiklaive. An assault from the Sabbat, even in full, we can easily thwart; but a combination of all our enemies, especially after the Hunters severely weakened us? That was too much.”

“And they did not need much knowledge, either, to take out our dear, old Prince, do you not agree, Alexander?” Palmer asked. “He just sat there, broken in the end, as Sancho Castille, the lord of the Silver Fangs of the Philippines cut him to pieces. Right on top of his own throne.”

The younger Vampire only nodded his bowed head. The Tremere Primogen of Metro Manila sat down and bade Alexander rise. She regarded him a bit before speaking up again. “I am aware of what particular focus Leonard trained you in, but I am sure your Sire was not remiss in instructing you well enough on the politics of the Kindred? Leonard is one of our best, but he tends to forget things when he begins teaching his field of expertise.”

“Aye, my Lady. My sire made sure I was well versed in this matter.”

“Excellent, then. So you are aware that a vote for a Prince is coming soon,” Palmer said. “We are long bereft of leadership, after all. We managed to beat back the Sabbat and make them pay dearly for their temerity after the Hunters were exhausted, but if the Mages did not eventually come under pressure from the Technocracy, or the Garou got distracted by events in Mindanao, we would have been wiped off the face of this country five years ago.”

Ah. This is… interesting, Alexander thought.

“I know what you are thinking; Leonard was pretty clear to me about your hatred for the Castille, particularly the Philodox son of Sancho who stands to inherit the leadership of the Philippine Silver Fangs, and perhaps all the Garou of the Philippines,” Palmer said, her tone becoming stern. “He is not your concern for now, and I doubt you have the powers and abilities to best him in direct confrontation, especially after his exploits during the Breach. Aside from his Tribe, and their allies, you will have to go through his Pack, first. And his Mage twin and his Coven, if not every one of the Traditions on this country. You go and attack Patrick Isidore Castille now, you might start another Breach.”

Now there’s a thought, a voice said in Alexander’s mind, one that doesn’t sound so bad. He hurriedly summoned his Will to hush it.

“No, young Tremere, I have other plans for someone with your unique talents, and I will not see them wasted going after dogs.”

You have no idea about how much I want him dead, that I would not care what stood between him and me if it meant my blade piercing his heart and ending his misbegotten life, Alexander thought. But, yes, I shall play your game for now. Because, hate it as much as I do, you are right on that score about the gap in fighting ability between him and me.

“What is it my Lady wishes?”

Palmer looked long and steady at Alexander. Her gaze lingered on him for so long that the younger Vampire was worried about his Primogen finding out… something about Alexander. But the Tremere leader suddenly let out a small chuckle. “I feel the inferno within you wanting to lash out, but you control it well. Your Jesuit mentors, and your own Sire, taught you well, indeed.”

Alexander merely bowed his head. So you did not see. This is good. This is very good.

“In two hours, there will be a grand ball of all the remaining Kindred here in Manila, to be held at the Quezon Memorial Circle,” Palmer said, steepling her fingers before her. “Do not ask me why such a… tacky place was chosen to hold it in, but what is important is that rumors are rife that Victor Sisko, the Ventrue Primogen, will make a bid for the throne of Manila. This must not happen.”

I see. The game’s afoot, then.

“You will accompany me to the Ball as my Second. It is expected of my status and your being relatively unknown will only throw the others off-balance,” Palmer said. “That is partly why Leonard and I kept you in Singapore; you are our hidden ace, Alexander.”

“I will tell you more of what you need to do on the way to the Ball, for I have things suddenly needing attention.” The Primogen levitated a small black block of plastic and waved it towards Alexander, who promptly caught it. “This flash drive contains dossiers on the current situation of all the Clans here in Manila as well as the general condition of the city. Study it well. You will need the information in it later tonight.”

“Very well, My Lady. I shall see you in two hours then,” Alexander said, pocketing the flash drive. He bowed as if to leave but stopped upon seeing Palmer’s raised palm.

“Where will you be staying?” the Primogen asked.

“I have been left with substantial resources by my Sire, Lady Sarah, which includes an small abode in the Fort; Leonard’s way of making up for the… suddenness of his Embracing me, I suppose,” Alexander answered. Suddenness my ass. That crazy Jesuit kidnapped me, put me on a boat and sent me to fucking Singapore without even a by-your-leave. Giving me a cozy little place in the Fort and a substantial expense account plus other assets and properties is the least he could do. “I shall repair to there and return posthaste to the Chantry at the appointed time.”

“No, that won’t do,” Palmer said. “You have clearance to use one of the upper suites. Our servants have brought your personal effects to there, and clothes have been readied for your use later.”

I am to stay here at the Chantry? And I was hoping to visit my flat. Or maybe check on her; Leonard told me nothing of what happened to her during the Breach, save that she was “somewhere that the Castille can’t go to.” An annoyance, to be sure, but nothing to get angry over.

“As you wish, my Lady,” Alexander bowed.

“Do not think this is just because of some whim by your elders, or some sort of dominance contest,” Palmer said, standing and actually walking towards Alexander. She was a small woman and rather thin at that despite the fullness of her figure, but she stood ramrod straight and exuded an aura of danger that was so palpable you can almost taste it. “Do you have any idea how many of us Tremere are left in Manila, Alexander, excluding me and you?”

“I… admit to not have an idea, Lady Sarah.”

The Primogen held up a hand and slowly straightened one, two, three and then four fingers.

“Ah,” was the only response Alexander could say. Despite the doom and gloom he wore like a comfortable cloak, even his sorrow-clad heart felt despair at that revelation.

“And none of those four are nowhere near your power. Nowhere, Alexander. I know the kind of arrogance the Jesuits breed into you Ateneans and I have no wish to feed the ego it is rooted on, but there is no hiding it: you are our foremost weapon right now, and I do not wish to take chances that someone will seek to weaken the Tremere in Manila further by taking you out.”

“Of course, that only means the Clan expects much from you,” Palmer said, a strange, predatory light in her eyes as she smiled to Alexander. “Do not fail me. Do not fail the Clan.”

You have no idea how much I do not intend to fail, Alexander thought

Or how far I wish for my plans to succeed.

Alexander knelt again and kissed the hand of his Primogen. “I am your Sword, Lady Sarah, forged by Leonard Disanto, known as the Black Flame of the Tremere, to be the weapon of the Clan. Failure is not part of my training.”

To be continued…

[RFO-PhX] We Soldier On

phoenixeyrie — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:32:26 +0000

The Ruins
Sette Desert, Planet Novus

I’m tired.

These thoughts were all the warrior could muster as he lay face down on the sands of Sette, its dry, rasping wind howling over him while bullets, arrows and missiles flew everywhichway. In fact, even coming up with that thought, the recognition of what he truly felt, was an effort in itself.

The old warrior could feel pain across his chest, where Blackdread’s battleaxe, Devouring Fury, had smashed his armor apart and cut a furrow deep, long and bloody. He knew that if he just lay there, the end would surely come and Blackdread didn’t even need to finish the job. Blood loss or infection would do him in, as even the legendary rapid healing ability of the Bellato physique will not even be enough to deal with the injuries he sustained unless he gets immediate healing.

And where will he get that? The push by the Accretians not only ended the bitter fighting between the Bellato force and the Corite army but pushed both back. Distantly, the warrior could hear the telltale thrum of Winter’s Sharp Kiss the legendary Kingspear of the Cora, as its Bearer, Prince Vanderion Ladenus, struck again and again at the ring of living steel closing around him. It might be over for him, soon, too.

That would be great, the warrior thought. At least it would be an end to all our suffering. All our pain. All our hate. No wars, no fighting, no killing. Nothing but peace and quiet, for all eternity.

And her.

That last thought made the cold embrace of death even more compelling to the old warrior. After all, he thought, what else did he live for after she died? Certainly not his kin; they were the first to reject him. The warrior could still remember the sneer on his uncle’s face as he pronounced the warrior disowned. He remembered the disgust on his kin’s faces. In the years after, as he wandered the Bellato worlds as a nigh-penniless Ronin and then as a mercenary, the warrior would often snarl his anger and hate in defiance to what his family had done to him.

But in the cold, loneliness of night, even if a woman had shared his bed, all he wanted to do was cry. In a society and culture like the Bellato, there are few things that hurt more than the rejection of your own bloodkin.

Certainly he did not live for the politicians, the so-called leaders of the Bellato or this postwar invention of convenience and expediency that the Federation was. As a veteran of the Royal Bellato Foreign Legion, he knew that these higborn looked at him and his ilk as nothing but pawns in their games, or resources to be used, abused if possible. Whether they fight for coin or for flag, no matter if the uniform he wears now is that of a regular soldier of the Armed Forces of the Bellato Federation, he knows that his life, like all the other soldiers in the AFBF, are nothing to these politicians.

How many times has he bled and sacrificed for their precious Federation, the warrior thought? How many times has he fought on this misbegotten planet, for a couple of glowing rocks? Lives for baubles. He tried to laugh, this tired old warrior, but the pain on his chest felt horrible and the sand was now getting into his nose and mouth. True, He Who Owns the Halostone Owns the Galaxy, but if the cost of even a ton of the crystals was hundreds, if not thousands of Bellato lives, why bother?

He remembers something his niece (well, technically she was also his cousin, but it’s a bit complicated, these family trees among the fecund Bellato) told him, something her mother said: why can’t we just bombard the Cora and Accretia to dust? Good idea, that. Politician par excellence as the old hag was, she had a good model in that head of hers.

Of course, they all knew the reason. The reminder of it shone above him, visible to his Bellato eyes as Space Station Sanctuary flew in near-Novus orbit. The Guardian Masters and Vanguards would never allow the Bellato fleet, the biggest by far among the Three Races, to bring its entire might against their enemies. In fact, this planet was Bellato by rights. It could not be retaken the way the Bellato wanted because the Hastatum didn’t want a full-on bloodbath. Like this wasn’t?

I’m dying and all I can think about is politics. How sad is that?

Yeah, better stop thinking. I’m getting too tired to think, anyway.

And I’m finally going to see her again. After all these decades, I’m going to be happy again.

The old warrior remembered her as if he just saw her hours ago. Silver-gold hair flying in the wind. A voice that could calm a rampaging beast. Laughter so soft and pure it would put the rain to shame. And that smile, that beautiful smile, more radiant than the sun of this war-torn world.

He used to live for that smile, this old, tired warrior. He fought an entire army, beings of untold power, and that ugly excuse for a tin can that Blackdread is, just to keep that smile from being taken from him.

But he failed.

And since then, this tired, old warrior has been living each day asking why he shouldn’t just put a gun to his forehead and pull the trigger.

I’m tired. I want to rest. I want to be with her again.

Give me one good reason, Lords of the Light, why I shouldn’t just lie here and die?

And just then, his commlink crackled to life. He hears Adolf Meir shouting orders to his men to lay down suppressive fire, for the warriors to engage the Accretians in close-combat. The unmistakable staccato of a Catapult’s heavy cannons added its song to the concerto of death being played on the sands of Sette.

What the f*** are you idiots doing? The warrior thought. You’re all supposed to be back at Brahm City!

He hears the warriors scream their defiance as their charge slams onto the Accretian front line, the sounds of their maces and swords and spears striking cyborg steel a counterpoint to the fury in their voices. He could feel tendrils of heat and electricity as spells from the Archmages went off a few feet away from him. Autofire ripped into the Empire’s ranks as the Rangers used their precision firing training to provide fire support to their comrades.

A shout. He’s here, one of the warriors said, and he’s still alive, but barely, as a strong hand touched his back. The warrior screams for a medic and an evac, leaning down to the old warrior’s ear to whisper to him that everything will be alright now and he’ll soon be safe and sound.

Then a large shadow blocked the Novusian sun out. Through his largely-muted psionics, the old warrior could feel the aura of menace, of fear, in whatever it was that cast this shadow. And before the comm chatter screamed the name of this thing above him, a clawed arm, deceptively fast for its bulk, had reached out and grabbed the warrior by its neck. The warrior could hear the screams from the warrior as Blackdread ate him. Alive.

The warrior felt blood and pieces of his fellow Bellato drop on him. And eventhough Blackdread had already eaten the poor soldier’s voice box, the old warrior could still hear the sounds of his screams.

He feels a body land a ways from him, and he knew Blackdread was done eating that soldier for now. A claw grabs him from the back of his neck and lifts him from the ground. The old warrior found himself face-to-face with the face that has inspired fear in even hardened soldiers but one that he has never stopped hating since that day on Theilanvoss.

“So here was where I dumped you, Harvey,” Blackdread said, his breath foul from the fluids of the man he just ate. “Silly me to forget, but Vanderion was, as usual, being a prick, grabbing my attention and all. I don’t think he liked it too much when I gave him what he wanted.”

“Now where WERE we?” Blackdread said, that horrible snakelike tongue with its secondary mouth slithered in and out, licking the blood from its master’s face. The Avatar of Fear brought Devouring Fury beside Harvey’s face, using its edge sharper than diamonds to trace a bloody line from left temple to left chin. “Oh, yes. I was about to kill you.”

Harvey thought about all the pain and suffering he has gone through. He thought about all the sacrifices he had made for God(s), Queen, Clan and Country. Surely, by now, he has earned the right to finally rest? Surely, by now, he has earned the right to ride off to whatever afterlife there was and be with Phaera once again?

I’m so tired, Harvey thought. And I so miss you, Phaera.

Blackdread raised Devouring Fury for the killing stroke. But Harvey chanced to look down on the inert form of the warrior Blackdread just ate. What’s his story? What stories would this young warrior have made if this Abomination had not ended it so quickly and violently? How many more will this creature and his entire Race kill before their lust for battle and death are sated? How many more stories, like that of Phaera, will this war end?

And then he remembered that one, final night and day he and she spent here in Novus. How beautiful she looked then, more than ever. It was like all that was right and true in the universe had distilled itself into one form and that went by the name of Phaera Victoria Ladenus.

He remembers her lips touch his, those delicate but strong arms embrace him, one last time as she went to rejoin the Third Holy Guard and he the 10th Battalion Combat Team. Harvey remembered little of what he said, but he remembers what she said:

“Live, Harvey. I want you to live. I want you to fight hard for your life, even if I am not with you. And to fight for life. For the life of all those who cannot.”

I’m so tired, Harvey said aloud. And I so miss you, Phaera.

“Oh, don’t worry, Harvey,” Blackdread said, “You’ll be seeing her soon enough.”

The axe fell, a blade that can cleave a mountain in two with nary an effort.

But a hammer met it halfway to Harvey’s face.

If Accretian faces could display emotion, Harvey was sure he’d see Blackdread’s eyes going round and big. Instead, its two blood-red lights flashed angrily, and steam vented from exhausts around his neck.

“You continue to defy me, Harvey Lunus? You’re supposed to be dead.”

Harvey planted his feet on the big cyborg’s armored chest and with all his might pushed back, throwing Blackdread and him away from each other. With the skill of a master warrior, Harvey landed from his somersault on his feet and in a crouch, ready for anything Blackdread would throw.

Harvey searched his armor’s legs and manually reactivated the pump for his medkit. It won’t be as efficient as when its control systems were still whole, but that contraption was destroyed along with his upper armor. At least the throbbing on his chest faded a bit, as the chemicals flooded his body and helped along the natural fast-healing ability of the Bellato.

Blackdread stood a few feet from Harvey, observing. His frame then shook and Harvey knew the Accretian was having their equivalent of a laugh. “Seriously, old man, you’re going to face me like that? Perhaps you want to wait until one of your Chandras can give you some healing?”

Harvey hawked and spit, the gob red with his blood. “Nah, I’m fine just like this, Sharkface. I want to feel your fluids bathe me clean as I hammer them out of your frame.”

Blackdread’s frame shook again, and the Warlord of the Empire, the Avatar of Fear, First of the Defenders since Zero left, adopted the fighting stance of one who has been trained personally by Kesar himself. Then and there, Harvey knew Blackdread was serious. Then and there, Harvey knew only one of them would leave Sette alive.

“Very well, then, if you wish to die so quickly,” Blackdread said. “I am not one to be so… unaccommodating to an… old friend.”

I’m so tired, Harvey thought as Blackdread charged, Devouring Fury cutting the wind itself as he went. And I miss you, Phaera. I miss you so much.

But I can’t rest yet, Harvey thought as he hefted his mace and charged himself. And, my apologies, beloved, but we’ll have to postpone our reunion.

Warmachine Battle Report A-2-06-2011: First 25, pStryker vs. Kaelyssa

phoenixeyrie — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 09:47:55 +0000

This isn’t my first Warmachine game; in fact, that first battle seems so distant now. But this is my first game in the 25-point range, and just my third with Stryker. Talk about learning from the school of hard knocks with this Warcaster. I’ll make the general commentaries later.

I’m actually sleepy as I write this, and there seems to be some… slowness to the laptop, and we didn’t make records or pictures of the battle, so bear with me. I will try to give as accurate a report as I can.

For my first 25, I retained my 15-point squad from my second battle with pStryker, namely:

pStryker, as Warcaster
Rowdy
Stormblade Infantry Squad with Officer and Bannerman attachment
Black 13th

To complete the lineup, I added:

a Lancer (at Louie’s suggestion, so I could cast Earthquake from behind cover)
a Squire
Harlan Versh

John Benares was playing a Retribution of Scyrah force that had Kaelyssa as its Warcaster, two Heavy Myrmidons – a Manticore and a Phoenix – a Mage Hunter squad and what looks like a full force of Halberdiers, plus Officer UA.

I rolled lower, and since they know I prefer playing second, John B made me deploy first. As per our House Rules, I can choose and deploy one terrain, so I put a forest, again, in the middle between our armies. John B put the fenced house on my upper left , and I put a fence to the lower right of the forest.

I deployed Stryker with the two ‘Jacks on either side behind the forest, using it as a screen. To his right were the Stormblades, the Black 13th on his left. Versh was on the extreme left of the formation. John basically deployed his force blocked right behind the forest and to the right (of me).

Round 1

I ran all of my units forward. My plan was to pressure John B’s left flank with the Stormblades while the Black 13th and Versh would threaten his right. Rowdy was on my left, so it could support a right wheeling attack by Stryker to John’s right while the Lancer could help the Stormblades threaten John’s left, as well as give Stryker options to casting his spells on that side.

John B I think also ran his forces forward. Both of his Myrmidons were taking on my left flank, while his Halberdiers were his center. The Mage Hunters were largely screening Kaelyssa, facing my Stormblades.

Round 2

Louie came over and wondered if there was something wrong with the Stormblades, asking me if I ran them. I said yes. When we measured, apparently I did something wrong and they were 2″ short of their full Run distance. Whoops.

What I could remember here was casting Arcane Shield on the Stormblades and Snipe on the Black 13. No action yet here, I think, on my end, although I think I moved the Stormblades further forward, with the Lancer close by, hiding behind the forest while Stryker was on one side, Rowdy in front of him (B2B), Squire beside Stryker

Meanwhile, John moved his army further forward and popped Feat, turning them all Stealthy and unchargeable. Bummer. Damned Elves.

Round 3

So, maintaining Snipe and Arcane Shield, I waded the Black 13 in, moving forward. Watts was in range of one of the Halberdiers, but because they were Stealthed, his attack misses. Wrong activation sequence, because it should have been Lynch, who I now had Flare sent to the Halberdiers. Now visible, I had Ryan Magestorm one of them, causing the demise of… 2-3 of them? I can’t remember.

Meanwhile, Versh was ready to round the bend of the house while I pulled back the Stormblades since I can’t charge them, daring John’s forces to come closer.

Instead, he moved his two ‘jacks to my left flank, using the Manticore’s ranged weapons to attack Rowdy. His attacks did 4 damage to Rowdy’s 3 column. And, oh, think John had Kaelyssa cast Backlash on Rowdy, so Stryker took a point of damage.

Round 4

I think I moved the Black 13th closer and Ryan’s Magestorm took out another 2-3 of the Halberdiers. Meanwhile, I pushed my Stormblades upward and the Lancer was now on the right side of the forest. Versh was making his merry way to the back of the Iosan formation, while Rowdy was on the left-side tip of the forest, daring any of the Myrmidons to come forward while he and the trees covered Stryker, who pops Feat.

I think it was here that John Charged his Manticore to the Black 13th, killing Ryan but missing on Lynch. Since the Myrmidon didn’t have reach, Watts was not engaged.

Then, he charged Rowdy with the Phoenix. He was planning on Charging through the forest, but lacked the SPD to do it. On contact, he used the Combustion Special Attack of the Phoenix but Rowdy’s base was too large, and Stryker was right behind his old buddy, for it to reach my Warcaster. And at ARM 25 due to Stryker’s Feat, the fire attack barely scratched Rowdy, although he was on fire.

John then moved his Mage Hunters to face Versh. Two of them managed to get into range to see him (Versh has Stealth), but they couldn’t hit or damage him. Two of the Mage Hunters also attacked Watts, but Stryker’s Feat saves him. Then, John moved Kaelyssa, putting Versh in her ranged weapons threat area. Because she has True Sight, Kaelyssa could see Versh from 12″ and managed to kill him off with one attack. Earlier, he put the Halberdiers B2B with the Forest.

Round 5

But, John’s movement left Kaelyssa exposed to my right wing forces, specifically the Lancer and the Stormblades. Recall that Stormblades have a Ranged attack, although the distance – base of 4″, +2″ with the Squad leader alive – is a bit laughable. But, Stormblades with an Officer UA get Assault, which allows me to resolve a Ranged attack before doing Melee and ignore the Engaged penalty. Also, the Stormblades bannerman has an additional utility: his banner has something that makes Stormblade ranged attacks become AOE 3″.

My problem was that the two Myrmidons kept Stryker bottled up. With Versh gone, I only had my right wing force that could threaten Kaelyssa, but I wasn’t sure the range would be enough. But then, I saw Watts, and the fact that the center of John’s formation was clear, and that there was an LOS to Kaelyssa there, between the Mage Hunters. And because the Manticore didn’t have reach, there would be no Free Strikes on Watts.

After some precise measuring, I decided to do the following:

Move the Lancer 6″. If I gauged the distances right, Kaelyssa would be within 10″ of the Warjack’s Arc Node. If I put him on the right spot, he’d still be in Stryker’s Squire-modified 14″ Control Area.
Move Stryker B2B with the Forest on his right and cast Earthquake on Kaelyssa. Drawing one Focus from the two the Squire had left, and choosing not to maintain Arcane Shield (on the Stormblades) and Snipe (on the Black 13th; they were close enough) should give me enough Focus to add an Arcane Bolt to the mix.
Move Watts for the finisher.

Louie suggested I Assault the Stormblades, but I complained that they weren’t close enough until I noticed that Kaelyssa was beside one of the Mage Hunters. So, the poor Elf became the target. The Assault’s melee component would fail – not enough SPD to connect – but we could resolve a Ranged attack before the Melee attack.

So: I moved the Lancer. Then, I moved Stryker and, sure enough, it was in CA (and just right to not be engaged by the Reach-capable Halberdiers). I cast Earthquake on the Mage Hunter beside Kaelyssa – the same guy my Stormblades would target – and down goes every Elf within 5″ of him, including the Warcaster. Her DEF now down to 7 for Ranged Attacks and Spells, and being within 10″ of the Lancer, I hit Kaelyssa with a Damage-boosted Arcane Bolt for 10 points of Damage that went in.

Then, I ordered the Stormblades to Assault the poor Mage Hunter beside Kaelyssa, who took one “bzzt.” The POW 8 AOE managed to bring Kaelyssa to around 2-3 life. The second Stormblade who was in range of the downed Mage Hunter also connected with his “bzzt” and killed Kaelyssa.

I lost around 2-4 Stormblades due to the Halberdier’s Free Strikes, but they died for King and Country to give the victory to Cygnar.

After-action analysis

In the car on the way home, Louie and I realized that the first ranged attach probably would have killed the Mage Hunter. It had DEF 14 [now 7 due to being prone] and ARM 11. The Stormblades’ Storm Glaive Blast was a base POW 12, with a +2 due to the Officer’s effects. I didn’t even need to roll, as that’s THREE in. So the second “bzzt” should have been negated.

So Kaelyssa should have survived that Round?

No. Because, right after, I showed Louie and Eric that Watts would have slipped past the No-Reach Manticore and threaded past the scattered Mage Hunters to be in Range of a prone Kaelyssa. If the RAT 5 Stormblades could hit a DEF 7 model, how much more a RAT 8 Black 13th member? And with 3D6 due to Brutal Damage on a POW 10 attack, Kaelyssa’s ARM 14 wouldn’t have kept her alive, unless I rolled really, really, bad.

I’m still rather lacking in aggression with the Stormblades, and not abusing Stryker’s Feat enough to wade them into the thick of the fighting, trusting in their Feat-enhanced, Arcane Shielded-ARM to survive a beating. More battles, then, maybe 15s to give me the same level of confidence and familiarity I had when I was playing pHaley with Thorn and ATGMs.

I still haven’t been able to use Versh to “maximum effect,” but at least he managed to act as a threat enough for my first flanking maneuver to work. He forced John to “turn” his Mage Hunters and Kaelyssa to meet his threat, leaving the Warcaster exposed to my right wing force.

Also, putting a Squire on Stryker and that Lancer made the difference. I think I’ve found my 25-point force.

Good game to John B. It was an awesome learning experience.

Also, 3-0 now with pStryker. That’s scary.

I need to lose.

Edit:

I forgot something here. I don’t remember if it was in Round 3 or 4, but I moved the Lancer to the right side (my view) of the forest. From there, I cast an Earthquake on the Halberdiers, making all of them go down, and I think taking the Phoenix with them, too, since the spell deviated (I think I missed?) and hit the Warjack.

My intent there was to break up any offensive ability of the Halberdiers next turn. Knocked down, they had to forfeit action or movement; either way, I minimized their offensive threat. If I was right that the Phoenix also took a fall, that would have forced John to do the same with the Myrmidon OR, what I was hoping, allocate Focus. That’s one less Focus Point for camping.

I’m finding Earthquake to be a very… versatile spell. Louie did tell me that pStryker had the ability to “break momentum,” although he was referring to the Warcaster’s Feat. But I think I’ll experiment on Earthquake more this way, to add to Stryker’s “momentum break” ability. I can’t be as offensively aggressive with him as I was with pHaley, after all; that girl tends to kill a LOT OF PEOPLE with a single Chain Lightning, and Thorn has, to my memory, two Warcaster kills already.

The road to Valinor

phoenixeyrie — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:44:04 +0000

Where is the road to Valinor?

Do you know the way?
Did the straight path truly bent round
when the last Ringbearer took to ship?
I seek a way to Valinor;
do you know how?
I will not even drop anchor at Tol Eressea,
nor marvel at Alqualonde restored.
Tirion upon its hill is no solace to me,
and the garden of the Trees only speak to my sorrow.
I will not even stay, as Beren did,
in the Halls of Mandos.
For nothing keeps me here.
There is no one I will wait for,
on the final shores to Night.
No one will come to sing my song
to the Doomsman of the Valar.
I seek the road to Valinor.
Do you know the way?

The Elves of Luminaria

phoenixeyrie — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:22:14 +0000

The Coming of the Alari

When the Elves first awoke, the Great Soul Crystals, as the embodiments of the planet’s spirit, instantly became aware of them. And because it was the one nearest to their place of awakening, the Great Soul Crystal of the East, what would eventually bear the name of the Eldest Children of the Light, reached out to the minds, hearts and souls of the Elves and called them to it.

By this time, Luminaria had almost been subdued by the Crystal Breed, the ones later to be called the “Mythical Races” by the Children of the Light. The Dragons, who were recently given dominion over the world, and their helpers – the Tikbalang, the Ki-Rin, the Naga, the Werewolves, the Minotaur and the Centaur – had long prepared the world for the coming of the Children, and their vast cities and majestic fortresses dotted the land, filled the depths of the seas, and even flew in the skies above. They deemed the time ripe for the true masters of Luminaria to take what was theirs.

The Elves were born with the Gift, of course, in full measure, and with some in levels beyond even those of the greatest of the Lords of the Mythicals. Thus, they easily heard the call of the Great Crystal of the East, and the whole Race walked as one to the direction of the Isle of the Crystal. And from their great capital in the center of what was once the single continent on the planet, the Mythicals were ordered by the Crystals to come to the assistance of the Eldest Children as they made their way northeastward.

But in their eagerness, the Mythicals came upon the host of the Elves in their might and splendour, flying on their own power or carried to where the Children were in their vehicles made from the Vibranite-based technomagic of the Crystal Breed. To the newly-awakened Elves, barely even able to speak beyond simple sounds and words (although their voices, even that early in their awakening, were fair to one’s hearing) and with everything in the world a new experience, the coming of the Mythicals was a frightening thing, indeed. Loud sounds and glaring lights. Beings more than ten times their size with power radiating from them. Forms odd and even outlandish or garish to the eyes of the Elves.

It was not a surprise, then, that the first meeting between Elf and Mythical was a chaotic affair. Many of those at the edges of the great host fled from the Mythicals. Those in the front and center were like deer caught on headlights at the sight of the Mythicals and their technomagic transports. The Ki-Rin and Tikbalang immediately went to damage control mode, the former creating soothing Effects on the large mass of Elves before them while the latter tried to gather those scattering into the dense woods.

Amidst this chaos, the tailend of the host, delayed a bit due to the perils of the crossing into the great forest where the first part of the Elves had met the Mythicals, came upon their brethren fleeing, and being chased by strange creatures. These latecomer Elves, although frightened themselves at what they saw, attacked those they thought were assailing their brethren.

The Minotaur were the soldiers of the Mythicals, their herds the backbone of the military might of the Crystal Breed. But over them were the Tikbalang, the Knights and Generals of the Dragons. The horsemen were the first to refine combat into an art, and were masters of every weapon then invented, for, indeed, they were the ones who developed many of these implements of war. They were also the pioneers of Battle Weaving, and were some of the leading artificers of the Mythicals. On that day, the Tikbalang came in full armor and fully-armed, in case their martial expertise was needed.

They just did not expect, though, that they would be using their skills against the very people they came there to welcome and protect.

The Elves, of course, would be no match to the Tikbalang. Against the then-pinnacle of Weavertech materials and weaponry and skills, the Elves pitted spears and crude clubs of wood. This was not a concern to the Tikbalang, who could easily subdue their assailants with ease and without undue harm to the attackers.

It was when the Elves started using their Gifts, creating crude but effective – because they came as a surprise to the Tikbalang – Weaves that badly injured some of the horsemen. This would not have been much of an issue, since the Tikbalang were hardy and the Ki-Rin were nearby to heal any of those who were seriously injured. But, then, the Werewolves joined the fray.

The Werewolf packs had been shadowing the Elven host since they left the place from which they awoke. The wolfmen were not that active in the affairs of the Mythicals, preferring to do their assigned roles away from the politics and noise of Mythical civilization, but they knew of the Children, of course, and came to the same conclusion, even before the Summons and directives from the Dragon Lords arrived, that these were the long-awaited ones. And because the Elves, at the dawn of their Race, needed little to sustain them, they harmed the land little and thus did not merit the ire of the Werewolves.

But now, seeing the damage the Elves were doing to the Tikbalang, some of the Werewolves acted, trying to scare away the emboldened Elves from pressing their advantage. But because Werewolves were never known for their gentleness or diplomacy, their attempts were rather rough, at best.

Seeing the Elves getting roughed-up (however unintentionally) by the Werewolves, who were either in their bipedal “battle form” or the huge “dire wolf” form, the Tikbalang tried to stop them. Being in the heat of combat, some of the Werewolves reacted… negatively to the attempts of the horsemen to stop them from, say, biting a chunk off an Elf that refused to stop blasting with crude combat Weaves. Further bloodshed was only avoided by the arrival of more Ki-Rin, the Naga, and a division of Minotaur.

Having pacified the first Elven host, and after rounding up what they could of the latecomers, the Mythicals debated as to whether they should continue searching for the Elves who fled and could not be brought back (most having used a crude but effective form of cloaking). The Werewolves stated that the land itself, and the spirits of the forest, were angry at the violence done to the Eldest Children of the Light, and were actively resisting efforts even from the Werewolves to locate those that fled deep into the forest. The Naga counseled a return to the capital, and the Dragons acceded to their wisdom, tasking the Werewolves to try and locate the rest of the Elves. The Werewolves grumbled, saying something about having to clean up the mess made by the other Mythicals again, but acceded to the commands of the Dragons.

The Great Crystal of the East was of course upset at the less-than-stellar outcome of the welcome the Mythicals gave to the eldest Children, and Glimmer, the Dragon of the Crystal, expressed her displeasure to the group of Dragons from the capital that gave the report. She immediately dispatched her personal Dragonhost and asked that the Elves, or what of their Race the Mythicals were able to gather, be brought to the presence of the Great Crystal of the East.

After introductions (and apologies) had been made and the Elves began their communion with the Great Soul Crystal that would eventually bear their name, the Race stayed for a while on the island of the Crystal. The Tikbalang, hoping for a bit of reparation for the violence of their first meeting, built the first Elven city on the slopes, and around the base, of the Spire of Dawn. Krysallos, City of the Crystal, was founded and today is one of the few remaining cities from the Mythical Age. It was there that the Mythicals began to instruct the Elves.

Eventually, the Elves formalized their language and called themselves the Alari, from Ala, the very first word the Elves spoke on seeing the dawning sun. Therefore, they named themselves after the dawn and the morning, the eldest Children of the Light. The island was then named Alarinos, Land of the Alari. And after an age or two, the Alari began to migrate to other cities and locations throughout Luminaria, but never staying far from their new homeland.

Having learned all that the Mythicals could teach in the ages that followed, the Alari began to establish their own cities and sanctuaries outside of the Isle of the Great Crystal of the East, which was now called the Krysalari, the Crystal of the Alari, or Elvenstone in the later ages when Man started walking under the same skies.

Starting with the codifying of the Principles of Weaving, they began to expand on the knowledge and techniques learned from the Mythicals. This was the time when the Alari began experimenting with higher-degree Weaving techniques that would be used in the creation of the WeaverHorses and SoulBlades, and, eventually, the transformation of the Dragonhost of the East into the Dragons of Light at the start of the War Times.

With their numbers and power and territory growing, the Elves, now gathered into large groups called Houses that were centered around a single, dominant family, organized themselves into the first Realm of Luminaria. To govern their own affairs, the leaders of the Great Houses of the Alari established the Council of the Spire, which became the governing body of the Light Elves. One House in particular was chosen to be the Protector of the Alari, and from that day onward House Khera was formed to act as the leaders of the Elves in peace and, should it come, war. Alari architects and engineers, alongside the best of the Tikbalang, built a majestic Council Chamber just short of the Spire’s summit that would serve as their official meeting place.

Next: Finding the Lost: the Forilari

The Sorrow War: On Sorrow Weaving

phoenixeyrie — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:13:15 +0000

The Sorrow War
On Sorrow Weaving

Did it ever occur to any of us Paladins, or me specifically, that we would Fall to the Shadow? In the whole history of the War Times, no Paladin has ever, to our knowledge, renounced his or her Oath or Service to the Holy Light.

I remember the person asking me this, during one of the many functions it was my role to attend as Marshal of the Armies of the Second Alliance, being berated by her fellows. What kind of a question was that, they rebuked her. How could anyone even imply that the Champions of the Light could so easily Fall?

I merely smiled and pitied the poor lady as her peers teased her. For long ages, the evil was out there, as exemplified by the Shadow King and his minions. Evil we can hit with our weapons, Shadows we can banish with our Light, Demons we can exorcise with our faith. We have long been used to externalizing the things we are afraid of because for so long we could see them, hear them, feel them. Even with the horrors of the Reclamation Conflict and the Intolerance Wars, horrors caused by our squabbling over glowing rocks and unbridled pride and hubris, we remained defining evil and all that we should be afraid of as nowhere near the core of our beings. Always out there. Always someplace else other than inside us.

How easily they forget that there are other things to fear, greater than even the Shadow itself, within the hearts and souls of the Children of the Light.

– From the journals of (the second) Rion Alexander Raios, Grand Duke of Ayrion, two years before the Great Crusade.

Crystal Weaving. The wondrous act of realizing your thoughts, what we know of as Patterns and Effects, the one being the repertoire of established, common Weaves while the other refers to the generalized creations of a Weaver, through the use of Vibranite, the Holy Crystal that is the manifestation of the Soul of the planet.

Regardless of what kind of Weaver it is, or whether he or she Weaves something from the library of established Patterns or from sheer creativity, all requires the use of the Holy Crystal, Vibranite, and, unless one were Gifted, long years of training and mental conditioning. Any person can pick up pure Vibranite and do something with it, but it will be crude and simple, and if the one doing so were of insufficient mental might he or she will end up drained from the effort. It takes a trained Weaver, Gifted or no, to bring to life the Patterns and Effects the public and legends speak about.

The first thing an apprentice Weaver will learn is that central to Weaving is the mind, or rather the mental state of the prospective Weaver. Although Vibranite readily responds to thoughts, like any conductive material it will have resistance. Weavers, especially the strongest and most talented, might seem like they create Effects and Patterns effortlessly, but this is only due to long years of training, practice and mental conditioning, the last considered by all as perhaps the most important aspect of Weaving. After all, a Weaver is only as good as how he or she thinks he or she is. Sap a Weaver’s will, and they cannot even make the simplest of Patterns. Send their minds into confusion, and the Holy Crystal will not understand what it is the Weaver wishes and can simply disregard the Weaving, at best, or bring about horrific Effects at worst.

Paladins are perhaps the best example of how mentality affects Weaving. Ever since the Alari trained the first Human psions in the early centuries of the War Times, the Light Elves have sought a way to harness the martial abilities of Human psions while keeping their powers in check. The Alari were so confident of their connection with the Light, as amplified through their Communion with the Elvenstone, that they could Weave Holy with one hand and cause destruction with the other, and find no contradiction in it. Humans, as the Light Elves viewed their “younger siblings,” could not be given the same amount of trust.

Battlers are Weavers who have trained extensively in the Weaving of Effects and Patterns for combat and warfare. They can send a bolt of Arcane energy to smite their opponent in a duel, or rain down fire from the skies on armies. Some Battlers, especially the pioneers of Crystal Weaving Combat that are the Tikbalang, can engage in melee combat using special Weaves as much as they would strike at foes from a distance. Knights, on the other hand, are melee combatants who use Weaving to negate the significant advantages guns of all types have since their introduction by the Dwarves in the early Steam Age. Knights are Battlers who are proficient in the combining of melee combat using a SoulBlade and Weaving, and train to Ride WarHorses. Blademasters are, at their core, specialized melee combatant Weavers without WarHorses or even battlearmor, relying on their mastery of both combat Weaving and their chosen weapon to defeat even opponents who can strike from a distance.

Paladins, in this context, are a conundrum that defied all logic, mostly because they were able to Weave Holy Patterns and Effects while engaging in combat on the level of Knights. The crudest description ever given of them was they were the Light’s foremost killers, a statement that in itself is a contradiction, but a truth, nonetheless.

The Light, of course, in its long struggle with the Shadow, understands the need for violence. Even Priests of the Church of the Light have Holy Weaves that can harm, smiting their targets with the wrath of the Light. But this repertoire of combat-oriented Holy Weaves is extremely limited, unless the Priest were battling a creature of Shadow, a spirit, or even a demon.

Paladins can do most of what a Priest does, but all in support of their mandate as Knights of the Holy Light. The doctrine, even at the Crystal Age, is that their being psionic allows them to bypass the mental restrictions that come with Priest training, allowing a warrior of such martial ability as a Knight to call upon the powers of the Holy Light.

But (the second) Rion, foremost among Paladins of the Crystal Age, realized that what really defined Paladins of Luminaria was their conditioning: they could Weave the powerful life-giving, abilities-enhancing Patterns of Holy because part of their training kept them from using these same powers for something other than what they were designed to be used for.

Rion pointed out in his memoirs (a copy of which he sent, including updates, to his brother Rigel up to his Fall) that the only time Holy’s power was seen in a context outside of the “regular operational limits” of the Paladin was when a Priest would grant the Blessing of the Crusader. This special Blessing turns the Paladin into the Holy version of a Nomadic berserker, an extremely dangerous foe for anything and anyone since Holy fuels the rage of the Crusading Paladin.

This made Rion theorize that perhaps every Paladin had a form of mental limiter somehow implanted in them during their long training. And because nearly all Paladins – psionic Humans – come from the ranks of the Nobari, their upbringing added to this conditioning. Every scion of a Nobari family, be they noble or commoner, is brought up with a reverence for the precepts of the Holy Light, so nine out of ten chances a Nobari psion would seek out their Parish Priest and declare their intent to become a Paladin. It was only after the defeat of Garaghan by the First Rion that Nobari psions explored… other options (and there were the Demonhunters, but that is a discussion for another time).

Rion also remembers that his namesake forebear was able to wield the might of the combined Seven Swords, and act as Glimmer’s Knight (therefore channeling the powers of both the Sword of Light, and the Elvenstone through Glimmer) while essentially in a state of rage. Even before he acted as Glimmer’s Knight and wielded the Sword of Light, the First Rion managed to stagger the Great Shadow itself through sheer fury, after the Paladin had seen his beloved, House Ozamiyas Crown Princess Aina, and his Lord, High King Larion, die in combat with Garaghan.

The Second Rion himself felt the “stirrings” of this form of Weaving during his battle with Gladiator Prime Isidore Coranes before the Burning of the Plains Union. Unable to defeat Isidore during their celebrated (and some say, fated) duel using his regular Paladin abilities and his psi (since Isidore’s “Awakened Potential” as a First Generation Gladiator was Nobari-level psionics), Rion channeled all his grief, frustration and anger over the yearlong war with the Plains Union into a force that not even Coranes could resist.

In a sense, this is what “Sorrow” Weaving is: the removal of the mental limiters to the powers of a Weaver or Gifted.

The Principles of Weaving that were codified by the Alari at the height of the Mythical Age and became the basis for Crystal Weaving in Luminaria emphasizes control and the precision that comes from this. The Alari, except for a few (like the Brightsuns), are so in control of their emotions that the Great Shadow and its agents found it nigh-impossible to turn them against their fellows, much less the Light. In psychological terms, the Superego of the Alari was extremely developed, their Ids thoroughly suppressed under a lifetime regimen of training and study, a culture that emphasized this control, and the stability of the soul provided by their Communion with the Elvenstone. Because the Nobari learned Weaving from the Alari, it was natural that Humanity would follow what they were taught.

Sorrow Weaving taps into the emotions the Weaver is feeling and uses these to amplify the Patterns and Effects being Woven to great degrees. To a Weaver in a state of Sorrow, the restrictions psychological and spiritually imposed by the Precepts as handed down by the Alari are negated totally. As Isidore Coranes would describe it later on, it was like suddenly removing all the control rods in a nuclear fission reactor.

The best example of a Sorrow-fueled Weave is the Pattern used by the Sorrow King himself to obliterate the core of Manidria. In one single Weave, the Sorrow King destroyed an area the size of London. To replicate such an effect, a Master-level Weaver needs to do a controlled overload of the “powercrystal” that acts as the engine of a prime-grade WeaverHorse and “stoke the fire,” as it were, steadily increasing the Pattern into what is essentially the equivalent of a multi-megaton nuclear explosion. That, or a DragonKnight would do a Kamikaze maneuver with his Dragon – which is, essentially, a Dragon sending his Vibranite heart into “meltdown” – which is what the Order of the Blades of the Dragons, the ancient organization of the DragonKnights, did to deny Anarcaine access to their cities, fortresses and storehouses at the end of the Mythical Age and the beginning of the War Times.

Such a spectacular display is not necessary to understand the power in this new form of Weaving. Those Knights who survived the Razing of Manidria, particularly LanceKnight Ardain Sherezad, Knight Marshal Valedor Augustine, and Order of the Star Grand Knight Warren Andunias described their duels against the “Shadow Knights” in perfect detail.

The first thing anyone will notice, especially if they’re psionic, is the palpable Battle Aura of these “Shadow Knights.” Even Norms could feel the oppressive pressure of the power of a Sorrow Knight / Justicar unsheathed. To the Sight of a Gifted, or a Weaver trained to See, the aura of a Sorrow Knight is thick with power barely controlled. A psionic Sorrow Knight has spiritual and physical manifestations of this power depending on their Totem: lightning crackles around Thunderbirds; flames and intense heat move around Phoenixes; a swirling maelstrom of wind accompanies Griffins.

Then, there is the unleashing of this power. Few records are available of non-combat Weaves by Sorrow Knights, so no one as of yet knows how Sorrow Weaving happens outside of a battle. But what the Realms know of what happens when the “limiters” go off with Battle Weavers is accurately recorded in the after-action reports of those who survived the Razing of Manidria.

Ardain, Valedor and Warren all describe fighting a Sorrow Knight as akin to being in the middle of a hurricane or tornado of psychic might. Each contact of their SoulBlades creates shockwaves that can topple or fling away objects and people not secured or strong enough to resist the force emanating from the two combatants. Valedor, who fought the Grand Knight of Sorrow on the stone steps of the Grand Cathedral of Manidria, remembers craters forming underneath him with each meeting of their blades. Every blast and every psychokinetic push felt like a warhammer weighing tonnes slammed onto you or whatever unfortunate structure was standing behind or beneath you as you dodged. Even Warren Andunias, the greatest Paladin of the High Kingdoms, commander of the elite Knights of the Order of the Star, complained of pain in his arms and chest weeks after dueling the Grand Knight of Sorrow. Warren admitted to his liege lord, Valerion High King Leonar, and Grand Marshal Leothran, that if he had not asked a Priest of Lark’s Heralds to give him the Blessing of the Crusader before their desperate rescue of Valedor, he might have died then and there given the sheer fury of the assault the Grand Knight of Sorrow backed his every Weave with.

This, in a sense, explains the overwhelming power that managed to all but destroy the Republic of Philodos in just over two years. Armies and regiments were crushed under their bootheels. The Skyfleets of the Republic fell in flaming wrecks. And not even the strategic brilliance of Madeleine Albrecht could hold back the tide of Sorrow sweeping their world away.

This is also, some people say, what keeps the High King from sending his Guardians, Knights, Weavers, Paladins and Skyships to the defeat of the Sorrow Fleet. The Elenghearts, like their symbolic animal that is the Lion, are not given to charging into a battle unprepared, and the Sorrow King and his forces are foes that have not only defeated a major Realm of Heptos and contains the industrial might of the Confederacy of Forges, but has also claimed the lives of many of his Knights and Guardians, including (he believes) some of his greatest, like Rion and Order of the Star Swordmaster Arkan.

Until now, at the dawn of the War’s third year, he refuses to directly confront the Sorrow Fleet and its deadly Knights, depending instead on the Buffer Zones to contain this invasion while the High Kingdoms rebuild the strength and confidence they lost in the Great Crusade. The massive losses the Ozamiyas took in their ill-advised Summer Offensive during the second year of the War has further reinforced his belief in a defensive policy for now.

The Lion will move, and the other High Kingdoms will follow. But only after he has taken the true measure of the what they face.

[RFO-PhX] The Overthrow: The Sons of Unity

phoenixeyrie — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:37:19 +0000

Previously: the beginning of dissent

The first shouts of dissent: The Sons of Unity

One would think that, given the provisions of the Royal Decree that created the RBFL, all parties concerned would be at the very least content with it. But given that the RBFL was a setup that introduced many firsts to the longstanding traditions and prerogatives of the Great Clans, problems were certain to rear their heads.

Many of these issues, particularly with the way the mercenaries were being treated by most Clan Regulars and the Royal Guards and the disposition of “spoils” and payment, went by with little incident at first. It was only after the vicious action on Cariella IV, where the Wheldan Conglomerate fought a two-week battle with the emerging Cartella over the rich mining concessions of the planet, a conflict largely fought by mercenaries from several Clans, did inequalities between the mercenaries and their masters came to the fore.

To combat the large force gathered by Cartella for the battle, the Wheldan Family hired “regular” Divisions from Clans Solus and Lunus along with an elite battalion of Verduran Nightblades. The Solus Second and Fourth Irregulars, and the Lunus First Long Rifles, bore the brunt of the fighting against Cartella’s own troops and its mercenaries from Clan Lupus. Meanwhile, insisting on their “signature tactics,” the Verduran Nightblades used the Lupus’ preoccupation with their traditional rivals (the Solus) to do significant damage to their command structure and support systems, forcing Cartella to withdraw.

But not after the Wheldan’s Solus and Lunus mercenaries suffered heavy losses. The Fourth Irregulars were a combat unit only on paper, while the Second was down to three effective battalions (RBFL Divisions usually fielded at least three to four regiments, plus the Solus usually attached Battalion Combat Teams to its Divisions). The Lunus First Long Rifles were almost wiped out to a man, since the Lupus commanding the Clan’s divisions under contract to the Cartella – no less than the Red Maw, Duke Leonidas, himself – ordered his “special strike battalion” to specifically target the elite marksmen of Clan Lunus.

This special unit was commanded by a certain Harvey Lunus, and it was in this action where he fought his last as a warrior of Clan Lupus; when next he brought his hammer to the field a year later, Harvey wore the colors of the Third Solus Irregulars. But this is a story for another time.

Death, especially that of one’s comrades, is the lot of every warrior, and those who specifically make war their trade should expect no less a cost for their endeavors. The heavy death toll was, therefore, not new to those who were left of the Solus and Lunus formations. After all, they were paid to die for the Wheldans.

What irked the commanders of the Second Solus Irregulars was that the Wheldans paid the Verdura more. Granted that the actions of the Nightblades contributed greatly to the success of the cause of the “client,” the officers of the Second Solus Irregulars argued that the compensation granted to the Verdura was far greater than those who sacrificed their very lives to act as “bait” for the Lupus and the Cartella. The Verdura haughtily commented that, though the Nightblades were part of the RBFL, they were also mostly composed of Verdura men and women, since the secretive Clan rarely utilized the “Freemen Hiring” clause of the RBFL Edict.

“When you think about it, the Nightblades are actually at par with Clan Regular Divisions, and we see them that way and thus demand greater payment, to which the client agreed to,” the Verdura said. “Do you expect a commoner’s payment for the service of your betters? It would be like putting Tamara Black Gold beside that powdered thing you all drink in the morning and calling them both coffee.”

Even more galling, instead of honoring the dead of the First Lunus Long Rifles and their sacrifice, Archduke Isidore, Head of Clan Lunus, considered their near-destruction as a “failure, and example of gross ineptitude unworthy of the storied martial history of the Lunus,” and struck the colors of the First Long Rifles from the Rolls of Clan Lunus’ RBFL Divisions. This done, Isidore Lunus also denied the families of the dead any recompense, since he wasn’t expected to pay those who were not (anymore) in the employ of his Clan, nor those who were removed from service to the Lunus for lackluster performance.

(An aside: some say that Isidore Lunus, though thoroughly insane at this point, reacted with such harshness at the fate of the First Long Rifles because it was Harvey who destroyed them. He couldn’t accept that his “abnormal” nephew, by then long outcast from Clan Lunus, could better his troops.

Harvey was already haunted at having spilled so much of the blood of his Clan and especially those in their employ as mercenaries; dislike them he did, but hate them he did not, at least not enough to visit such destruction upon them if he could avoid it, most especially to men and women who were merely working for his family. But Harvey was ordered by Leonidas to “wipe them damned Lunus off the face of this planet; and what better way to do it than at the hands of a damned Lunus? Hrhrhr,” and as a warrior he could do nothing but follow his orders.

Hearing of the fate of the First Long Rifles, and the casualness at which Leonidas and the rest of the Lupus regarded this incident, was the last straw that made Harvey resign from service to Clan Lupus. The abuse he received from the Lupus was something he could take, but the casual disregard for the lives of those who fought well and honorably, or the lack of concern for those they left behind, was something Harvey found despicable.

Decades later, after he came to his own and was restored to his rightful place as a Lord of Clan Lunus, Harvey sold much of his recovered birthright and gave the money raised to the survivors and families of the First Long Rifles. And one of the bills he personally saw to becoming an Act of the Federation during his time in the Senate was a law that provided adequate recompense and honor to all those who fought and died as members of the RBFL)

Angered, the officers of the Second Solus Irregulars brought their grievances to their lord, Archduke Mikhail. The Head of Clan Solus, though sympathetic to his soldiers, eventually had to tell them that he could do nothing since, apparently, the RBFL Edict allowed the Wheldans, Verdura and Lunus to do what they just did. Archduke Mikhail could only offer to hire the remnant of the Long Rifles and absorb them into the reforming Third Solus Irregulars alongside the survivors of the Fourth Irregulars.

After several more actions in the Trader War, the Second Solus Irregulars, along with elements from several RBFL divisions, mutinied. They gathered at Ankaris II, the planet called the “Proving Grounds” of the RBFL, and there declared themselves as the Sons of Unity, calling on all Bellato Freemen “to overthrow the decadent and greedy oligarchy of Clans, Corporations and Crown”, put an end to the centuries of Bellato spilling Bellato blood, and ensure equality for all. They called for all RBFL Divisions to join them in their cause, for the Royal Guards to lay down their arms and Queen Serena to abdicate in favor of “the people.”

In response, Serena sent half of the Royal Guards Divisions, and two Divisions of Clan Aquius’ Marines. The Avius also contributed two whole fleets to the action.

The Sons of Unity were defeated in just three days, one of them seeing the Avius warfleets subjecting Ankaris to almost continuous orbital bombardment for a whole day.

She also charged Clan Solus with the total expenses incurred by the Royal Guards and the Avius fleets in “fixing a problem your men caused.”

Everyone thought that this was the end of the Sons of Unity, but a few cadres escaped the devastation of Ankaris and went underground, biding their time and rebuilding their strength. Their next major action was an attempt to torpedo the negotiations between the Monarchy and the Holy Alliance of Cora, where the latter was considering hiring RBFL Divisions for use in its coming war against the Accretian Empire, to which the Monarchy had already signed contracts with.

As is told elsewhere, the Sons of Unity apparently succeeded, though events during the First Novus War would show that the conspirators had been outmaneuvered once again by Serena, who used the incident to hide from the Accretians, and the Bellato public and the Recluses, the fact that RBFL Divisions would be provided to the Cora at need.

For a substantial price, of course.

Next: the RBFL during the First Novus War

The Coming of the Ten Plagues of DECEM: The Hounds

phoenixeyrie — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:18:28 +0000

And their heralds come, three.
The scent of the Great Evil leads them here,
found on the rotting carcasses
of the ones clothed in steel.
They will know of our sins.
They will know of our taint.
To the stars they howl of the prey found,
calling their masters to the kill.
Thus, shall the Endtimes begin in earnest.

– Eltania Kivana Elis, The Negatios

The Gaussian Wall

Decades ago, the Accretians strip-mined space for light-years across in order to build the many fortresses and strongpoints that once dotted this place. The Empire brought here more than two-thirds of their Legions and navy, and their best and brightest warriors were led personally by Kesar himself.

They could do no less, since the Herodians, after so long, had finally come.

For the better part of the First Novus War, even during its most critical moments for the Empire, the Accretians stood here and died by the thousands. Their greatest losses were here, not on fated Theilanvoss. And this was also the scene of their greatest triumph. For despite the odds, the Accretian Empire managed to halt the Herodian invasion fleet.

When it was all over, the Empire hastily sent its warriors back to Novus, leaving only a scattering of sensors and automated probes amidst the flotsam of total war. Few living beings – whether it be the scions of the Alpha Adam Project or of Herodian parentage – have been through here in the decades since the end of the First Novus War.

———-

The being, humanoid in form and features, floats half-aimlessly through the debris field. It flits to and from the scattered hulks of Accretian battlecruisers and starfighters, of warriors themselves frozen in the extreme cold of space.

If someone could see this being, it would be surprised about one glaring fact about it: this person moves through the vacuum of space seemingly without a spacesuit.

Another thing that can be observed with the being is that it appears to be… looking for something.

Here, it tarries awhile on the twisted wreckage of an Accretian warship, poking and prodding, going inside its many holes. There, it examines a floating corpse of a warrior from all angles, at one point its delicate fingers cupping an equally-delicate and pointed chin, its eyes almost to slits.

This the being does for a time. And because it is the only one moving on its own power anywhere in the vicinity, one could be mistaken to assume it was alone. But, nearby, in the shadow of a massive Accretian battleship, torn in three large pieces, were two others.

The taller of the two looks similar to the many drifting dead of Empire Accretia, although he is not one of these mostly-robotic humanoids. Its armored arms are crossed in front of its equally-armored torso, a massive cannon strapped on its back.

The smallest of the trio looks with interest at the one poring through the wreckage of the Gaussian Wall, its arms crossed above its head while leaning its body on the side of the shattered warship. Down its right side, part of a long and huge blade could be seen, gleaming with a light of its own.

“Why do you insist on this detailed survey?” the armored one asks his curious comrade.

“A good question that,” the smallest adds his voice (and one wonders how they can even speak in a vacuum). Or, rather, her. A lilting voice, as if that of a girl, its tone and manner of speech full of hinted-at mischief. “Much as I simply adore watching you move, you have been at this for the better part of an hour and I grow weary. Is the evidence here not enough for you?”

The third of the group barely misses a beat in his exploration at his comrade’s queries. “Ah, my dear, you truly lack patience, yes you do,” this third speaks in a slightly bored voice. “If Lemuria were not an irradiated plateau buried under equally irradiated sands back on Terra, their Masters would have taught you a thing or two about that virtue.”

“But she is right, brother,” the armored one said. “We have a duty to fulfill, and if we stay here any longer we might be remiss in the doing of our most sacred task.”

“Aye, what more do we need to see here?” the shortest said. “It is clear that these poor metal beings ran afoul of the Herodians. The carcasses of the warships of the Devourers have long devoured themselves, but we three, of all the beings in the universe short of our masters, can smell its taint even in a single atom.”

“Precisely why I linger,” the third one said, a glint in his catlike eyes. “I smell something.”

“And you think you can find something in these half-decayed, half-frozen corpses?” the short one said, launching from her perch to one of the floating remnants of an Accretian warrior. She casually grabs it, and breaks it in half at its midriff with a single wave and snap. “Popsicles, one and all. Even their DNA would be horribly corrupted in this graveyard.”

The third being sighed as it poked and prodded another carcass. He was nominally the leader of their triad, but he had always been a libertarian when it came to these investigations, and listened well to the inputs of his fellows. What did he expect to find in these things, anyway?

“What I need,” he murmured softly, almost to himself, “is something… alive.”

———-

Hated as they are by their rival Races, the Accretians, or at least those who do not learn combat in Novus, cannot be faulted for being… lax.

Although there are sensors aplenty throughout the Wall, it has been the mandate by Kesar himself that a substantial enough force – around a century’s worth of elite Accretians – be kept in Battle Station Midway, a small asteroid about twice the size of Mars’ moon Phobos and on the “halfway” mark between the edge of the Wall and Imperial Space proper.

Most of the time, especially as the Second Novus War escalated, its residents were content to maintain their vigil by consulting the feedback from the millions of sensors dotting the Wall. Accreitans believe in efficiency, after all, and those things are far better in doing the job of watching the Wall than any physical presence by an Accretian squad.

Still, if the almost-careless excursion of the strange trio on the “central front” of the Gaussian Wall – and right on the spot where the Behemoth had first smashed through the Empire’s defenses – had not triggered the sensors located there, the small patrol composed of three ships from the Imperial Navy would have most certainly come across them.

Accretians can be quite the cautious things. The ones in the patrol were actually in a quandary and did not charge in on the first instance: the trio looked familiar, after all. But if that short one was a Bellato, and the tall one a Corite… how could they move about in space without space suits?

And what was a Bellato and Corite doing all the way out here on the edge of the Wall?

For that matter, what about that Accretian over there? That certainly didn’t look like any standard-issue armor, or even one of those handcrafted ones from Emperor Kesar’s time.

So the patrol contacted Midway, and they were told to “properly ascertain said Unidentified Lifeforms,” before any further decision can be made. The commander on site decided to play it smart by sending a small force of spaceflight-equipped Accretians out to… confront the trio. The Accretian commander decided to move his ships around and other assets to a crossfire position in case something went wrong.

It was at the moment the “Corite” murmured his desire to the cosmos that the lead Accretian of the squad that the commander sent reached the trio, and told them they were in Imperial Space and should identify themselves and their reasons for being here, while pointing his Launcher at them.

———-

“Oh. We have company,” the shortest said.

“Indeed, we do,” the armored one added, now launching himself forward from where he leaned on the battleship. “And my DANA’s sensors detects three warships and several smaller objects, presumably more of these, ‘Imperials,’ around them.”

“Warships?” the shortest asked her armored comrade.

“Most likely. Cruisers, by the power output from the one at the center aiming its cannons at us head-on, and from the two vessels flanking it above and below.”

The third being remained still. Yet, minutely at first, one could discern that he was actually… sniffing. Or at least acting like he was.

“Do you… smell that?” he softly asked.

“Aye, brother,” the armored one replied, “Although these don’t look like Herodians to me.”

The shortest one huffed, drawing the massive blade from its back, “You have been fighting them all these centuries and you still are surprised to see Herodians in forms other than the ones Herodians or the Children take? They’re not all ugly as the Children, you know, although these metal monsters look little prettier.”

“True, sister, true,” the armored one said as it took from its back the massive cannon. “Its almost as if they are parodies of our blessed DANA systems. As if they spit on the handiwork of the Maker.”

“Herodians or not, one thing is clear,” the third said, materializing on its right hand an ornate staff that shone with power, “they carry the Taint, and they threaten us. Our mandate is clear. Even without that second circumstance.”

“Which ones do you want to take on, sister?” the armored being asked the short one.

“Try not to annihilate them all, sister,” the tall one said, “I want to… check something.”

“Fine, fine,” the short one said. “I’ll take on the ship in the center and its escorts, then. And that other ship below it and to the right.”

“Greedy girl,” the armored one said, with a touch of mirth.

“The other warship is yours, brother. I shall deal with these nearest to us,” the tall one said.

“As you wish, brother,” the armored one said, nodding its head in a salute to the tall being. The nozzle of the large cannon he held with one arm began to glow with familiar energies.

———-

On the virtual representation of the bridge of the Accretian destroyer, as seen through its “node” in Command.Net’s all-encompassing domains, pandemonium was ensuing.

“I detect weapons charging, sir!” the sensor drone screamed to the small squadron’s commander. “That Accretian seems to be carrying a superbattleship-class Launcher!”

“Sir! The scout squad reports it has been engaged by the Corite!” another drone, the one who coordinated the attached compliment of warriors and starfighters of the flagship, also screamed.

“By Kesar’s Flaming Blade, what the hell is going on here?!” the commander screamed back to his subordinates. “All forces, weapons free! Engage the hostiles! We’ll just confirm who they are through an autopsy!”

“Sir! We’ve lost contact with the Bellato!” the radar control officer screamed.

“What?! What do you mean you’ve lost contact with the midget?! She was just floating in front of our squad a second ago.”

“Sir!” the sensor drone screamed again.”The Accretian’s firing!”

Seconds after that statement, an explosion reverberated through space from what would to the right and above of them.

“Sir!” the radar officer screamed, shrilly this time, “the Razorblade is gone!”

“What?!” the commander screamed back. A single shot had taken out an Imperial warship. How can that be? Not even the Corite’s Shadowspears could do that.

“Sir! Our forward squad is getting wiped out! Other squads are requesting permission to engage!”

“I ordered them to engage five minutes ago! What are they tarrying beside our ships for?!”

“Sir! We’ve found the Bellato!”

———-

She stepped through the spaces between dimensions, and in the blink of an eye reappeared in the middle of a squad of these DANA-like things.

Almost on instinct, the short one swung her massive sword in a great circle around her.

And before the gathered Accretians could even finish registering the fact that something other than one of them was in their midst, all ten of them had been cut to pieces.

“That was no fun,” the short one said, a pout on her face. She saw the side of the Accreitan warship looming in front of her. She smacked her lips.

“Well, now here’s something I haven’t tried in centuries.”

The short one flew above the warship and hefted her sword high above her head.

———-

In seconds, it was all over, and all that’s left of the small squadron of Accretians were additions to the floating debris of the Gaussian Wall.

“Yes, no fun at all,” the small one said, sitting on a floating rock and removing pieces of metal stuck in the serrations of the sword’s blade. “Just one slice and that vessel was cut in two. Why aren’t ships in this sector of the galaxy made any tougher? No wonder the Herodians beat them this badly.”

“You’d rather fight a flotilla led and crewed by Vanguards, sister?” the armored one asked.

“Any day, brother, any day. At least, that’d be far more interesting than this.”

While the two exchanged banter, the tall one was looking over one of the newly-dead Accretians. He was sniffing, once again.

“Found what you were looking for, brother?” the small one asked.

In response, the tall one put both hands out. Suddenly, wicked claws appeared from his fingernails, and he stabbed onto where the spine of the Accretian should be, as well as the back of its head unit. With one heave, he tore out its spinal column and brain, whole. And before the cold of space could freeze it, he put a protective shield around it.

And then, the tall one passed the whole, dripping thing across his nose.

The girl put two fingers on the dripping spinal and cranial fluids, and put the fingers to her tongue.

The armored one simply stood there, as if listening, and watching.

“I taste the Taint of the Devourers,” the shortest one said, licking her lips with her tongue clean of the spinal fluids of the dead Accretian.

“I hear the echoes of the Taint of the Devourers,” the armored one intoned.

“And I… smell the Taint of the Devourers,” the tall one said.

The three looked at each other. And then, in unison, howled into the vacuum of space.

———-

Thousands of lightyears away, another commander wrinkled his nose, as if to get rid of an unsavory smell. His uniform had the insignia of the Taurian Alliance, and his epaulets were adorned with the mark of a Vanguard of Commander Rank.

“Sir?” his subordinate asked, behind him, as the commander and his staff looked on at the strategic planning holo display. “Are we waiting for something?”

“Do you want to go and charge them all by yourself?” the commander asked with exasperation to his subordinate. “Then, by all means young man, please do so. But please commit suicide on your own.”

“Sir, ah, I… didn’t mean any offense,” the young Vanguard said. “It’s just that… people are dying down there.”

“Was your power at your Elevation that to state the obvious? Of course we know that!” the commander said. “But in case you didn’t notice, she alone just destroyed two companies’ worth of Vanguards! If I had known she was there, I wouldn’t have sent those in the first place and waited for, oh, ten times that many!” and now all those dead brothers and sisters are on my conscience, too, the Commander thought.

The subordinate was sufficiently cowed by now and kept further comments to himself. Vanguards were the leading edge of the spear of the Alliance, their most elite warriors. True, few remain of the old cadre, the Terrans who could use the DANA systems in full, but the new breed since the loss of Ancient Earth were still formidable opponents, a match even to the Herodian’s vile Children.

But the Plagues were on that planet. And formidable as the Vanguards were, they were hopelessly outmatched.

For that matter, not just any Plague was present on the dying world below.

———-

She held the Vanguard by its neck above her, effortlessly. One would think that such thin arms could not carry so much weight, but there she was, holding this fully-armored warrior aloft with nary an effort showing on her face.

“Why?” she asked the struggling form. “Why do you stand in the way of our holy work?”

“Murderer!” the Vanguard defiantly shouted back. “The Herodians had only landed a small force of their warriors on one island on this planet! One island! Did you have to devastate the entire world?!”

“Can you not understand?” she said, “The Taint… it is now everywhere. And we must eradicate that Taint, down to the last atom. And nothing, not even you Vanguards, will stand in our way.”

Her eyes glowed, and power flowed up her arm. The Vanguard screamed, and inside his battlearmor, he died a painful, agonizing death.

She drops the corpse in front of her and considers the Alliance fleet in orbit. A hundred warships, and more coming, perhaps even a Hastatum or two in tow. This will be a bit of a battle, if this whole fleet decides to interfere with what was left of their work on this planet.

Then, she hears something in the very fabric of the cosmos. A sound. A call.

A howl.

“My lady,” a tall man with a gigantic sword strapped to his back walks up to her and kneels reverently at her feet. “That is the Call, yes?”

“Yes, my Champion, you have heard right,” she says, placing a loving hand on the head of the Plague called Blood. “Our Hounds have found the Taint again, and this time in great numbers.”

“Shall I gather the brethren, then?” Blood asked.

“Yes, my Champion, even if our work here is unfinished; this takes precedence,” she answered. “But just the ones here: I shall Call the rest.”

Blood bowed once, and proceeded to call to him three more beings.

Behind him, the Queen of the Plagues, Lady Death herself, closed her eyes. And sent out a call.

From all over the Taurian Alliance and its border with the Herodians, five other beings heard her summons. And shifted time and space, to where she was.

———-

The Vanguard commander sat on his chair now, fingers massaging his broad, bony forehead. He still had around three companies of Vanguards in the hold of his flagship, and they were seething with the news of their dead comrades, and the dying planet below.

Four of the Plagues, and the Queen herself.

Not even the Champion, wielding the legendary Kingspear, could defeat them. He was there, a young Vanguard newly Elevated to the elite. He remembers their battalion being wiped out by the Plagues, until the Champion arrived. They thought that was the end of the Plagues, for who could withstand the power of the Kingspear, and he who wields it?

The Champion barely held his own, the Plagues only leaving because their Hounds had found a planet with a bigger concentration of the Herodian “Taint.” The Champion had only enough strength to stumble to a tall, burly, man who watched on the sidelines, and died in that being’s arms.

Today, the Commander’s force did not even have a Vanguard with half the Champion’s power, and the Zele-Kingesriche was lost that day.

“Sir, I’m getting spikes all over the dimensional sensor arrays,” one of the crewmembers said.

“What now? Is that our reinforcements?” the commander asked. The commander hoped.

“The warp isn’t manifesting on the La Grange point, sir. It is coming from inside the planet.”

The commander momentarily looked confused. Then, his face sank, and he didn’t care whether his staff saw the horror and despair on his face.

“May the One preserve us,” he intoned. “That’s the other Plagues arriving.”

———-

She looks at her fellows, nine in all. Some floated in the air of this dying world. Some stood, surveying the area. Blood knelt in front of her. Delirium, the youngest of the ten (or at least the youngest looking), clung to her legs, a smile on her childish face.

“I apologize for taking you away from the work,” the Queen said. “But our Hounds have sent out a Call of such intensity that I believe we must heed it.”

“My Queen, it sounds quite from afar,” the Plague called Pestilence says, “Shall we abandon the work here, allow the Herodian Taint to grow?”

“I believe, brother, that we have been thorough enough to have slowed the spread of the Taint throughout the Alliance enough for the Vanguards to contain it,” the Queen said. “Let them do their duty. And I grow weary of dealing with their interference again and again. We were not born to kill the servants of the Shining Ones, after all.”

“All who stand in the way of our work must step aside or perish,” Despair said, in her deadpan voice.

“Are you talking back to Mother?!” Delirium shouted back at Despair.

“Hush, child, I’m sure your sister did not mean anything with that, but simply meant it as a reminder of our mandate,” the Queen said to Delirium, ruffling her hair.

“And I remind you of it, too,” the Queen continues. “We were born to eradicate the Herodian Taint anywhere it may be, down to the last atom. This is our sacred charge from him. If the Herodians have put roots in a distant corner of the galaxy far from the influence of the Shining Ones, should we allow it to grow unchecked? Nay: we must seek it out, and destroy it to the least and last.”

The other nine nodded as one.

“Then it is settled, brothers and sisters,” the Queen said.

Delirium looked up to the Queen. “Shall I open a Gate now, Mother?”

“Yes, please, my child,” the Queen said to her sister/daughter with a smile. “Bring us to where our Hounds found the Taint.”

With undisguised glee, Delirium ran up to a nearby hill. And on top of the corpses of Vanguards, she tore open a rift in time and space.

“This will still be a long ride, my Queen,” Blood said as the first of the Plagues entered the warpgate. “That was indeed a Call from very far away.”

“True, but we still must go there. And even more reason to leave posthaste, yes, my Champion?”

“Aye, my Queen,” Blood moved to step inside but paused. “I realized that the Call appears to originate near Lord Leon’s last known location. Do you think he is there?”

The Queen paused a bit. At the mention of the old Grandmaster Forger’s name, something in her stirred. But, like with all similar instances in the eons since she has existed, the Queen can’t seem to place what it was with Leon that evoked such reactions from her.

She brushed such thoughts aside. Their mandate is clear, and not even their Maker has the authority to gainsay it.

“If he interferes, then he dies,” the Queen said, before stepping into the warpgate.

———-

“Sir? I don’t read the Plagues anywhere on the planet, or even the sector, for that matter,” a sensor operator said, on the bridge of the Vanguard flagship.

“Scramble the EMTs! I want a full rescue and recovery effort down on that planet ten minutes ago!” the commander shouted. “Second and fifth companies on escort duty! If the Plagues return or their Myrmidons appear, you are to hold them back long enough for the rescue units to retreat!”

“Sir… I don’t understand,” the commander’s subordinate said. “Why did they leave?”

The commander looked out of the bridge’s viewscreen to the stars beyond. “Because, young man, the Plagues have found a bigger concentration of the Herodian ‘Taint’ out there.”

“And may the One have mercy on the souls of anyone who lives where that ‘Taint’ was found.”

———-

On the Gaussian Wall, the three floated in the vacuum of space, eyes closed, as if waiting, listening, for something.

The tall one was the first to open his eyes. “The masters come.”

“Aye, brother, although it will not be for quite some time, this far we are from the Alliance,” the armored one said.

“So are we to wait here for their arrival?” the smallest one asked.

“We are their Heralds, sister,” the tall one said, turning his head to the direction from where the small Accretian squadron came from. “We must go to where these beings live, and tell them of their Fates. It is the least we can do for them.”

“Aye. So they can at least make peace with whatever gods they have, if any,” the armored one intoned.

“It is settled, then,” the smallest one said, almost cheerfully. “That way, right?” she asked, pointing towards the direction leading into Imperial Space.

“Aye, sister,” the tall one said, opening a rift in time and space as he answered. “let us go visit this… Novus.”

And in the blink of an eye, the Hounds of the Plagues departed, leaving nothing but silence and death