To say things had been disorienting was certinaly something, not to mention increeibly awkward had she been observing herself from afar. And yet? At the same time, the cry felt like it had taken some kind of weight off of her shoulders. Shoulders? Hmm. More like a weight off of her chest, her head, or her...soul? Actually it felt like something had happened to her beyond simply almost dying and everything else she'd known before, because new spells were floating around in her mind and ready for use. New. Spells. Like she was some character in a game who had just earned enough exp and-...had...oh by the Quinity. Not only was she apparently using local phrases in her head now, or at least in this moment, but more than that she'd just leveled up. Gained more power. Killed enough monsters, or perhaps in this case been alive enough for a kill to happen, and by proxy been granted just enough exp to power up. Or something? Certinaly it wouldn't be because...ah. A chill ran down her spine as the thought of getting EXP from the party deaths crossed her mind, before the mage shook her head back and forth and took a deep breath. No. That couldn't be it, it didn't even work like that in video games much less in the crazy video-game-type isekai stories for that matter.
Though with the others also discussing the topic, she probably wasn't the only on-...ah.
As much as there perhaps was a change, some thing apparently did not based on what little time she'd been here with this group of people. Zell especially, if this was any indication. Him and James talking about the matter of the former apparently teleporting at some point, however, seemed to break the mage out of her deep thinking at the very least as the strange idea raced through her head. Teleportation? With a non-magic individual? Now that was certianly something interesting to ponder. Had it been something he perhaps was given when arriv-
"TELEPORT!"
Oh. Oooooooh no.
The group's path took them through a huge marketplace. All the while down the road, Zell had been trying to activate his Teleport.
Squinting.
Blinking.
Grunting.
Pointing.
"TELEPORT!"
Shouting.
"Pffbpt-!"
The fact Zell could teleport became breifly lost on Lillianna's mind, mostly as the man seemed to put on a show as they walked through the marketplace. A loud show. With all the kind of attention a village idiot would draw by shouting a random word and pointing at people. And then to top it all off? He tried to convince Adam to put himself in danger for the sake of 'testing' things. While thankfully the red-eyed man didn't play along with the preposterous idea, all of this did one thing for her personally.
It made her laugh. Or to be precise, stifle one back as best as she could while the attention was on Zell's antics. Raised eyebrows, hushed whispers, a smaller child laughing at it for some reason, and whatever else just seemed to make her laugh in combination with said antics on Zell's part.
And then James walked over to where she was, moving alongside her. It was enough to get the slightly red-faced mage to suddenly straighten her back up and feel the urge to laugh disappear in a heartbeat. Was it because James was scary? Er, not really. Stern perhaps, but he seemed to be lightening up compared to their first meeting at least. Or, well, hmm...she didn't know him too well, but as he got her attention she would look over with the intent to listen to what he said at least. It was the least she could do after-...well...truth be told she needed to ask about what else had happened back there. Last she'd known were things moving and blurs and the like.
Even so, what did he want to ask-
"Hey Lily, how you doin'?"
"Ah...ahem! Yes, I am doing better than I was before...at least."
Perfect delivery. Totally not socially awkward-sounding and said half-blurted out too quickly because she had been caught off-guard by being called a nickname, one she usually didn't have most people call her at that unless they were close to her, while being asked a pretty standrd thing to ask someone who had nearly died. Nope. Not at aaaaaaaaaaaallllll!
"Physically I mean, your injuries were pretty bad when we entered the hospital and for you to be walking already they must have done something short of miraculous."
Ah. Well, yes, that was certainly something ot talk about she supposed.
"I believe they must have applied some kind of medicine from here...which is fascinating, really. Magic? Technology? It seems both are in play here-"
"Ah right, you okay with me calling you 'Lily'? Last time I asked you were pretty delirious."
Well if she was near death, then it made sense if she-...wait, delirious? Talking in her unconscious state, perhaps?? Wait a second, they needed to back up a bit so she could get the full picture here!
"W-W-Wait! Delirious??? What was I saying? Or, ah, no, wait, I also need to know who carried me here for that matter! How in the world did-?"
James had unleashed one of her secret forms, as her uncle had called it, in this case being: 'Hyper-Ultra-Mega Panicking Lilly'. This was also known as the 'knowing she had the occasioonal time she mumbled or talked in her sleep back home and it was incredibly embarassing' thing. Well, known as that to her personally at least. Not to anyone else...not to anyone else? Was it known to anyone else?! Please someone tell her it wasn't something everyone else in the party had been forced to hear in the middle of a life or death situation! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Perhaps somewhat luckily for the poor man talking to her unfortunately for her desires to ask James everything else she could about the prior situation, what had happened to her, what had happend to the stuff going on there, and so forth, they had arrived at their next destination. The Adventurer's Guild, if she remembered hearing about where they were headed to correctly along the way there. Right? Or maybe she was assuming things based on how it all looked as they'd headed inside, before getting odd looks before being pointed upstairs by a seemingly confused bartender (among others). Not to mention the presence of a few armed perople with various weapons in hand, others in robes akin to her own (but different), and even other species for that matter! Pointy-eared elves! Short and stocky dwarves! She'd seen them in the hospital, but outside of the awkward situation she'd created there it gave her time to notice more of these things on her part.
Even Zell's attempt at the same antics once more was lost on her as her attention was-
-...wait. Wait. WAIT! WAS THAT A FLOATING MAGICAL ORB DISPLAYING MOVING PICTURES ON A WHITE BEDSHEET HUNG FROM A WINDOw IN THAT ROOM JUST NOW?????!!!!!!!
Such was her utter and total fascination with things around her that Lillianna was looking the place over with wide and almost twinlking excited eyes, but a closed mouth admittedly, as she mostly followed the others up the stairs to get to where they were directed. A simple thing for her to do, at least, though as it turned out this was a woman who could sign them up at least according to what she'd said. Indeed Lucinda's words seemed to snap the mage out of her fasination, and she had to admit the woman seemed to have a good choice in outfit. Yes. Outfit. Still, the visage of the elf, with an odd little pet with her at that, seemed to give off 'superior' vibes to the curious mage as well. Like she was used to things, or managed something around here, and they had just been the oddity to walk in the room.
Or perhaps she was just assuming things. Again. For not the first time nor last time in her life.
Built into the well-polished wood desk was a golden metal plate with a wide slit that glowed the same blue as their crystals. As they passed their left hand over the scanner, both the blue glow and their crystal would briefly go purple to signify a connection. Then Lucy would peer at her magi-tech screen and look at translated Source Code provided.
Ah, so they were to simply scan the crystal on their respective hands? Effective. Advanced. Modern, even, but with a fair fantasy-like charm to it. She liked it, but that was more a side note. Perhaps it could tell her why she could see the spirits of the DEAD, among other things about her new..er..self? Status? Existence after being kidnapped to another world after dying in hers like an isekai protagonist? Whatever the case was, she looked forward to it.
However, what she didn't look forward tro was having to make a 'party name'. A name for the group. Certianly it would fulfill the need to identify separate groups of adventurers from each other, but it was not something she frankly favored.
"As for team name, what about - and I know you guys'll love this -" he paused for suspense, then drew a line up across the air.
"The Zell Squad."
Nodding a few times, his eyebrows raised expectantly. "Eh? Eh? Gotta nice ring to it, don't ya think." No positive reinforcemrnt came so he thought quickly. "Or maybe, The Zellionaires." No takers. "Zell's Angels. Vroom vroom."
...No. In fact, not just 'no' but a vehement, all-in 'NO' was in order. The expression on her face, so utterly disappointed and yet somehow not surprised at all, would say it all as she looked Zell back dead in the eyes after he had said all of that. No chance it'd go through, she hoped, but if it did she was going to zap him in a flustered rage.
"Ignore all the team-name suggestions with the name "Zell" in them, please."
"Hello Lucy, I'm Adam, nice to meet you."
"James would be a good leader and I support it, but…I agree with Fenna."
Two people who didn't want the dumb names...praise be to the Quinity for that one, as the locals might say. Or at least kind of things the dead spirit she'd talked to might've said, if she had to take a gues. Oh. Yes, actually, she had no idea what had happend to the unfortunate spirit after all of that mess after saving her skin. Probably was a former adventurer himself, now that she thought about it, but she hadn't even a name to ask about before she'd gone and tried to use the time-honored technique of the 'electrocution double-kill suicide' technique on herself and a water-transforming cyborg ninja. Which, in hindsight, was a fair thing to have taken up all of her attention span at that point in time after having been IMPALED by said cyborg ninja in the torso.
Even so, the elven woman seemed to react well to what Fenna had said at least.
"Party idiot. Got it. Most parties have one of those. My condolences to you..."
He was an idiot, but he was their idiot at least. One who had fought to save their lives back there and so forth. So as much as the mage agreed, she did feel a bit softer toward the big doofus in the aftermath of everything. Attracted to him? No. Like rubbing his head and giving him a scooby-snack for a job well done after lovingly but alsomightily bonking his head with her staff because of his dumb suggestion of a team name? Yes. More like that really.
Hehe.
“How about Sky Heroes?”
Hmm. As the mage walked forward and ran her crystal under the scanner, she heard Joji give his own suggestion for a group name. Not her favorite, but certainly not something bad either. Not as bad as Zell's suggestions to boot. The rather imposingly large Japanese man did seem in good spirits, however, and that did at least help her feel a little more at least about things for the moment. Even so, she was curious.
"I'll concur with Adam and James, James should be the group leader."
Using blessings and healing skills, hmm, yes he'd be at the back and a support already during combat if she had to go by RPG rules. Plus from all she'd heard and seen, he had a level head and had helped the initial party members take care of the invasion back at the village. Certainly not something bad for leadership qualities, no? It was thus logical to choose him in her mind, then, and run with that as her answer.
Even so, she would keep her attention for a moment on Miss Lucinda, well 'Lucy' she supposed, a she stepped aside so another could get their crystal scanned. Or at least she did this before speaking to the beautiful elven woman once more at least.
"Pardon me, Miss Lucy, but I do have a couple questions if that is alright."
If the elven woman let her ask away, then she'd proceed on. Still, it was a bit odd-feeling to her to address someone by a more casual name in this instance though. On a first meeting, really? Hmm. She supposed she wasn't much used it still, even after the bit of time spent living with her Uncle...heh. The silly goofball did, as long as the two had been living out of the same abode, make up quite a few silly nicknames for himself though. Tried to get her to call him them too, like "The Bodacious Beach Bod Extraoadinaire", to get her to 'relax and chill' as her Uncle had also said at the time.
Ah, but she didn't need to get distracted in her thoughts once more. Not yet at least.
"I can unleash lightning and see the spirits of the dead...ah...is this in any fashion normal for one with a class such as mine?
And secondarily, would you happen to remeber a party in the past who had a gambeson-wearing halberdier among them? Bit of an accent, perhaps came from a rural place, maybe died back in the Mazy Hillocks?"
It was certianly something to ask, at least, and while still odd to ask perhaps she did want to know these things. The first thing more so she was interested in, whilst in regards to the latter thing it was just if Ms. Bottrill happened to know anything on the matter or person if interest. It felt like an odd combination of factors when it came to what she could do, at least, unless she was going to become Doctor Frankenstein and make a new body for a dead person and bring it to life comically with lightning. Meanwhile with the second thing it wasn't something she'd press about hard, to be frank, if the elven woman didn't know anything in regards to the second question. Really, the mage didn't even know herself if he'd been dead for a long time, died more recently, or not! But perhaps she could look into the matter later and on the side, if nothing else could be learned or done at this point in time.
((EDIT: Removing the WIP mark at Tort's encouragement. Still needs a flag though, but hopefully it is in enough of a state to approve. Will fix whatever I need to though!))
Nation Name: The United Republic of Arhas
Government Form:
Unitary Democratic Republic
Demographics:
Humans (that’s all there is at this time, genetically modified, unmodified, both. Nothing legal in United Republic space in the vein of genetic modification actually deviates from being the same species honestly. The closest one gets are the “Purified”, which will be explained in the “Culture and Society” section in one of the parts there.)
Population: 2.45 billion
(Flag To Be Made And Added Once Eventually Completed)
Planet Name and Description: Eos IV/"Arhas”
The planet of Eos IV/Arhas (both names are valid as locals use them both) is a large world about four times as large as Earth, though its surface is incredibly hot and is covered in a vast desert sands as well as has some rocky areas and formations interspersed randomly throughout it. Surface radiation exists to certain limited extent, but the myriad driving winds and inhospitable heat, combined with the searing sands that when blown by such winds can easily both strip and burn both skin and muscle off of the bones of the unprotected, are far more dangerous affairs for anyone going about above-ground. Occasional tornadic activity, which is of a larger scale than an “Earth-grade tornado” and more akin to an old world hurricane, is also a highly dangerous thing. Notable underground oceans and even underground freshwater bodies can be found deep under the surface, however, which seem to naturally replenish and have an alien yet unique water cycle of their own that enables this.
What life, both flora and fauna, exists on the planet mostly developed deeper underground in the underground bodies of water there, though these varieties of life have gone well beyond these waters as well by the time human colonization began. In fact, they’ve expanded as far as the surface. Large, even whale-sized at their largest and oldest, tunneling worm-like creatures with grinding ‘filter-teeth’ in their mouth pass around near the surface of the planet as they grind up sand above (more of which is formed from naturally eroding rocky areas/formations on the surface) and pass it out of the back of them as they digest certain minerals. These creatures have long lifespans, and the digestive juices of these creatures have potential industrial uses as well as acting as a form of inherently toxic psychoactive substance that apparently is very risky but pleasurable to use on the part of local ‘worm junkies’ who try to farm or harvest it for their use despite its dangers (the fact it even has an effect on humans, who come from another planet, is both surprising and utterly strange).
On the top of the sand also live rapidly-reproducing photosynthetic extremophile microorganisms, which can better navigate the ‘top sand’ and seek to get in the radiation and sunlight so they can harness it to produce energy. Said energy is also used by them to create life-sustaining water inside themselves through the intake of atmospheric gases in the air and using some of the energy they harvest to do this in a process that is not yet fully understood by humanity even now. This is also why juvenile as well as adult “Sand Worms”, as the worm-like creatures are called, will go closer to the surface at times to get hydration through devouring a large quantity of these water-producing microorganisms by filtering them out of the ‘top sand’. Beyond this there are a number of creatures that exist near, close to, or somehow on the surface of the planet, in part producing the quantities of gases needed in the local atmosphere to form it in the first place.
At the same time, though, the deeper underground or closer to actual water one gets the more vast and rich the planet’s biosphere becomes and the more strange and different it all begins to look like. Some creatures living in the underground of the planet even seem to look like creatures from Earth’s own ancient past, more or less directly so, which has been of a fascination to scientists as humanity has settled around and upon these underground oceans and underground lakes and so forth in turn. In fact, even deeper below these creatures and near the ‘uninhabitable zone’ far enough down below the sands and earth and rocks and underground seas and so forth….there are even mostly anaerobic creatures which have a part-silicon part-carbon chemical makeup.
As for the sun of the Eos System, it is a larger and hotter sun than is comparatively present in the Sol System and many others.
***Note: A single year in the Eos system on the planet is 307 days long, in comparison to the 365 year-long days back on Old Earth.
History:
The United Republic of Arhas began simply with the arrival of the colony ship HMCS Bartimaeus arriving in the Eos (the name of the star) System with its cargo of Earth refugees and a dream for the future. Its destination? The vast desert world of Eos IV, also nicknamed ‘Arhas’, a vast world larger than Earth and existing as a titanic desert with notable water deposits hidden deep beneath the Earth. In that vein, it was only natural that the plan for colonization began with and was to forge large, underground cities and settlements to establish humanity in one of its many new potential homes. Even so, the horrendous weather and deadly nature of the planet’s surface were not exactly confidence boosters for the new locals.
Initially the colonial government looked at the issues with trying to place the underground settlements too close to each other, eventually spreading some father out in an attempt to not have too many settlements tapping into the same underground resources as each other. On the other hand, certain areas would prove to have certain things that the others would need as the first decades of digging, building, and settlement began. Resource transportation, however, was far from ‘refined’ or ‘completely stable’ enough between many of the settlements at the same time. Heavy enough vehicles with the right design, and enough infrastructure to make them more widespread, simply did not exist. Most things of such a nature had to be made from the colony ship itself, and then be shipped down from orbit after bringing up the needed resources to make them from deep underground…a process that for many became increasingly vexing.
On top of this, as the population of the colony ship had been taken from various areas and not simply one or two regions of the nation it was made within, the myriad of differing ideas and concepts and beliefs would further begin to clash as the remnants of the old world carried over a bit into the new one. People who wanted to make a microcosm of their home nation, who wanted to make a theocratic state, who wished to only live with those who came from the same place as them, and so forth simply made things more chaotic in those initial years than otherwise might’ve been possible with a more mono-culture population or similar-culture mixed population. This in turn would lead to the establishment of the colonial government as a confederation-type affair, seeking to keep the various ideas in some manner of harmony with each other as concessions were made to try to maintain order in regards to the cultural and political problems. This in turn would prove to be more of a band-aid on a growing problem, especially as the bickering of the confederation’s component parts slowed things down and bogged down being able to solve certain issues with further added problems, it was at least keeping what goods could be moved slowly trickling here and there to where they were needed (and could get them to) as well as preventing an early civil war for a time. At the same time, the Confederation government began to make promises of establishing a pan-settlement highway network to help improve things…a project that due to internal squabbling and issues never really manifested in the end either.
However, sixty nine years into the colonization of Arhas (by the standards of the Eos Systems), things would finally take the increasingly explosive politics of the Confederation to the breaking point. This occurred when a town governor named Thomas Feldman illegally intercepted a shipment of moisture-harvesting machines and food destined for the underground city of New Hamburg, seizing the driver on false charges and confiscating the cargo to disseminate to the locals. The town’s vital hydroponics had been damaged due to a minor cave-in incident when trying to make the room to expand them, and whilst relief had been promised the timeframe had been extended by delay after delay in trying to get the goods to the suffering town. The seized machines were also used to expand the town’s water production, and generally got Thomas Feldman a notable bit of popularity among his own people.
At the same time, the city the shipment had been intended for was in a notably worse state. While its hydroponics were working fine, it needed more moisture-harvesting machines to maintain and supply those hydroponics as well as the growing population within its borders. Upon learning that the shipment has been seized, and not wanting to go to the deteriorating government to ‘solve’ something that would either simply get brushed aside or debated until more ‘nothing’ happened, in the sixty ninth year after the initial settlement of Eos IV the underground city of New Hamburg would launch a surprise invasion of Thomas Feldman’s town under the guise of bringing them more relief and aid. What ensued was a slaughter that would finally break the existing confederation-type government of the colony as other members took sides on the matter or tried to exploit the issue for themselves and so forth.
After this point, conflict was frankly inevitable.
Member after member suddenly left the Confederation as things shattered, and any remaining resources being moved by that time were taken or seized by whoever was closest or could otherwise muster the force to take it from the others. Without what little connections were had, many places lost access to what little of certain resources they’d had before. Politics, resource scarcity, and the ineffectiveness of the colonial government would ultimately drive the colony into a state and time period of over a century of constant war and fighting. Many fought over what could be mined, gathered, or taken for use by locals in one area or another. Many fought to establish control or dominion over others, so as to improve their own conditions or enforce what they saw as ‘the best way’ to do things. People desperate to not get involved in the underground began to build up and live on the surface, and those underground even dug tunnels between each other underground (as well as built installations above ground) to fight each other and try to establish areas of control and dominance at the same time as new underground cities and towns and such were being forged into being. Companies that rose up would likewise work for the locals, or otherwise play sides and arm different groups to their own ends as long as it profited them or their area of primary residence. It was a time of vast bloodshed and constant war that became called the “Red Sands Era”, and for a good reason indeed.
…Yet hope would not be lost entirely either. Forming from the corpse of the old Confederation, and taking some inspiration from the initial ‘temporary colonial government’ that had existed briefly before that and back on the colony ship, the “Republic of Arhas” (or “Eosian Republic” as it also called itself) would form within the last real cluster of underground cities and towns that had stayed banded together. At its best a ‘successor’ to what had come before, it would in the early years of the Red Sands Era exist as mostly a side-thought that seemed to mind itself and seek trade where it was even possible at times. Meanwhile, the Republic of Arhas would begin to build up and accrue as well as channel its capabilities under its leadership to ramping itself up to be a power despite being less involved at first in the ongoing conflicts that ravaged the human colony.
Bit by bit it would build up in strength and capability, until eventually it launched its first conquest of a nearby grouping of bickering polities. It would put itself on the map of the other warring factions at this stage, but would simply be seen as no bigger and stronger than any of the other ‘larger factions’ that existed at the time. Smaller factions nearer to it would be most alarmed, especially as the Republic of Arhas moved to suck up more of its smaller neighbors and forge new cities and towns underground within its network. At the same time, however, despite the strict rule of the Republic it also worked to build things up. The once promised underground highway network began to form and grow outward, resources were able to be moved more easily to keep local populations intact, and a singular manner of government alongside relocations of parts of the populations of conquered areas would seek to dilute and ease the overall process of integration with the Republic. Fully-integrated areas, once satisfied with them on the government’s part, would then be used as platforms to further expand outward.
In time the Republic of Arhas would become the largest faction on the planet, though not without the process being gradual and done over time in its case. Slow and steady, for all intents and purposes, would be winning the race this time. Inherently the chaos of the era would also target the Republic’s own territories and areas of control, set it back at times, or even provide opportunities for the increasingly less and less rare peaceful integrations that occurred as it sought to grow. Of course the situational or occasional ‘enemy alliances’ that formed in its face were to be expected, seeking to put the growing and snowballing faction down, though these only lasted as long as the other sides could stand each other and not stab each other in the back or other issues to tear them apart. Some did try to integrate with each other to increase their odds of survival as well, though even these would be assimilated in one way or another. One place, one area, and one year at a time, all as the need to survive and fight and compete to get toward that final goal of planetary unity got closer and closer in the eyes of the Republic’s citizens and government.
Ultimately, 213 years after settling first on the planet, humanity’s colony on Eos IV/Arhas would be reunited once more under a singular planetary government and would be both somewhat renamed as well as formalized in a constitution in honor of that. While smaller and surface operations would be involved for the next seven years beyond that point, there would also be the necessary further integration of the last captured territories as well. Further, humanity would even reach back toward the stars as mining, economic, and colonial ambitions would be taken to the local solar system to a certain extent by current times. What had once been for a long time a bunch of disunited, struggling, warring, angry factions was reduced down and then reconstituted into something grander. A republic that upholds its citizens’ rights, and yet holds higher central authority to try to avoid past mistakes. A place where people and places are far more interconnected and prosperous than the initial colonists could have dreamed of, but also where the might of the military and the police have fused together over three centuries into something peculiar and at times rather brutal. A place where hope for the future, a more genuine peace among the citizenry exists, and where humanity once more stands together in the face of a cold universe…..but where even rebels fight against it all even now to achieve whatever goals they desire after all this time.
Yet in the last few months, the awakening of the Gateway Network has become a rude and unexpected surprise for the United Republic and its citizens. It has led to several stations being set up to study the activity that was now coming from the location of the system’s Gateway, though the Gateway itself did not seem to be opening up outside of this activity causing some odd ‘light shows’ and detectable disturbances people could notice. Whispers and rumors have coursed through the lifeblood of the local population and media, though, of what could lie just beyond if their Gateway actually managed to open. Allies? Enemies? Paradises, ready to claim? Enemies, ready to pounce upon them? Aliens? No one has known for sure, but with the Gateway of the United Republic’s home system finally opening again the nation must hope to be ready to face the truths of whatever comes through…..or whatever truths emerge from what or who by heading out there themselves for that matter.
~General Major Timeline of the Republic~
***Year 0 - Settlement of Eos IV began after the colony ship HMCS Bartimaeus entered the Eos System.
***Year 65 - Fractures begin to more notably form as the struggle to maintain order between existing underground cities/towns, resource scarcity as the confederation-type government of the colony tried and failed to manifest the ‘underground highway network’ it had promised to help improve the problem, and political divisions/debate further created fractured in a system that was already acting as a ‘band-aid’ to try to prevent civil war. The state of affairs would only continue to worsen for the next few years.
***Year 69 - The “Shattering War” begins, boiling over with a sudden igniting spark known as “The Feldman Incident”.
***Year 71 - The “Shattering War” ends, ending the confederation-style government that had come before almost entirely and rendering what was left of it sitting in meager power over a scarce few initial underground cities/towns/settlements near the initial colonization site. From this emerged an era of constant warfare and conflict that would see many born, many die, and others try to push ahead in what would become known as the “Red Sands Era”.
***Year 213 - End of the “Red Sands Era”, ended after the Republic of Arhas/Eosian Republic defeated the final underground ‘holdouts’ in that year and reunited the planet into a nation named The United Republic of Arhas. However, roughly 50% of remaining above-ground inhabited places/areas still existed outside of governmental control at the time. Space operations beyond the planet’s surface begin to emerge, establishing mining and resource-processing operations elsewhere in the home system.
***Year 220 - Only eight years later, the last surface remnants outside of governmental control would be subjugated or otherwise integrated or even wiped out in the process. Outside of minor loners, individual families, or maybe groupings of like 3-5 families at tops living together in a cluster, the planet would finally be entirely under governmental control once more. Work begins as well to further expand the existing underground highway network, and now could connect larger as well as smaller inhabited surface areas to the underground as well.
***Current Year - A number of off-planet operations and off-planet colonial settlements exist, and internal stability has been cemented as well as settled into place for a number of decades within the United Republic. It has also been some time since the local Gateway site in the system began to ‘stir’, and an attempted study by stationing of researchers near the site was put in place to try to uncover whether the site might ‘reopen’ again. However, the potential for the Gateways to reopen began to circulate around the overall population regardless, spurring equal parts concern and debate over the matter among locals. News media also picked up on it all to boot.
As of the current day, the Gateway of the Eos system has finally opened again for the first time in over three centuries.
Culture and Society:
-Hydroponics have been the bread and butter of subsistence and feeding the masses on Eos IV for over three hundred years by this point, and this has had some long-term effects. Whilst rural areas with underground or above-ground farms do exist and have existed, within cities and larger suburban areas hydroponically-grown food has taken off as an art form of its own. Growing or tweaking plants and livestock species to alter appearance, flavors, colors, consistencies, textures, and so forth has become the basically literal ‘high fashion’ of the cooking world within the United Republic. Anyone from a suburban restaurant serving more widespread or niche faire, to hipster concepts grown and served in smaller restaurants in the cities and some suburbs, all the way up to large-city five-star establishments with the strangest and most expensive creations and combinations imaginable and unimaginable, food has remained both a necessity but also bloomed into an artform of sorts here.
Grand shows are held akin to a fancy ‘fashion show’ a few times a year in the biggest cities, with the latest creations, cuisines, and even strange tricks pulled off using such foods being put on display and served to attendees and putting on displays of them to likewise woo audiences who might be watching streamed or televised from their homes far away. Everything from texture to taste and the like will be critiqued and commented on by professionals in the field, and this ‘higher food culture’ has even created celebrities who do not simply cook but ‘transform the very ingredients, and from these construct grand and enticing dishes into incredible works of edible art’.
To a certain extent this is just the concept of Old Earth existing food culture having been ‘elevated to a new form’ via the hydroponic and genetic tweaking/modifying of the ingredients themselves alongside doing things when making dishes with them. It has also become far more presentation focused alongside the work put into making them edible and the experience of eating these things ‘more unique’.
-Life aboveground is something that only 18% of the United Republic’s home world's population has chosen to do, compared to the 82 percent of the total population who live underground on the very same planet. Whilst not living underground and dealing with the more cramped spaces and lives led down there, even having vast areas of space one can travel across at that, the harsh weather of the planet is also a suicidal endeavor for those not hardened or prepared for it. Protective ST’s (see the “Technology Overview” section about these) are a must, and even areas with homes placed in above-ground rocky formations to get out of the wind will still build their homes half-underground for the sake of safety up there. Such homes are only half-underground, short enough on the surface to have a lot of the weather pass over the top of them safely but just underground enough to also keep them cooler. Such homes will usually have bedrooms located at the lowest portions, with the doors of it being more just hatches of some kind with stairs.
The harsh driving winds of a greater force than the Earth’s own likewise mean that high-speed sand that can easily blast and tear off unexposed skin in a heartbeat, and without the weighted nature of individual ST’s ((or being inside of a proper surface structure or heavy vehicle of some kind) someone could be blown away in surprise larger gusts of surface wind. Even then, ST’s are not designed to withstand the worst of the possible surface weather. Scorching alien heat and a bright local sun also require that one be in possession of moisture-farming equipment to take moisture, any at all, from the air. And if one does not have such a moisture-farming machine or water-acquiring setup, then simply getting connected up to an underground water pump network or being part of a close enough water delivery service’s route will be required unless one wants to dehydrate fast. More common surface-dweller ST’s are even designed to take sweat and filter it into drinkable water for the wearer at that.
Those who live aboveground are also seen as more ‘rural’, as the largest any settlement up there can get is a respectable mid-sized town without running the risk of environmental hazards blowing it away or destroying it. Many ‘upgrounders’, as the majority of underground residents have taken to calling them, have become or are just as rugged and seasoned and hardy as the conditions they live in are harsh. Even so, they have also been known to be warm and welcoming to guests in certain areas….or as it has been said before by one visitor: “Life’s hard up there, really hard in the more remote places, and while some people will be just as harsh right back to any visitors and people they see no matter what…but other upgrounders are friendly folk who’ll treat you as well as you treat them in return. Or as they say up there: ‘The winds blow favorably for the good host and the respectful guest alike.’.”
-Within the last 80 years, however, the installation of underground transport networks has led to a government presence in even the surface towns and villages that have popped up. It has also given them greater lifelines to the rest of the nation. Yet even before that, just about 87 years ago, at the end of the planet’s “Red Sands Era” (which lasted for about 142 years), many on the surface lived lives very much independent of those who lived underground. It was a Wild West where frontier law and local mindsets determined what was legal or not, and where death could come from a nearby home or the weather at any moment, through a concerted effort to rein them in ultimately led to by current times many resisting and many other cooperating in turn. Those who resisted didn’t last for all they tried to do to not be integrated, whilst those who did integrate more easily have generally benefited from it more so in the long-term from being connected to the rest of the homeworld’s population centers. Those seeking the ‘independent lifestyle’ mostly have taken up in the most remote and dangerous or inhospitable parts of an already harsh and otherwise inhospitable desert planet, which is saying something, usually loners, caravan-attacking bandits, or even being a small cluster of families. Likewise there are government-legalized caravans that carry goods, resources, and so forth as their jobs and lives lead them to nomadically move across the rocky areas and sands of the planet itself, moving goods on the surface or buying up scrap from underground areas to keep themselves going.
-The “Red Sands Era” was an era of invention both wrought from raw necessity and the driving force of constant warfare, and an era that one knowledgeable in history might more commonly call “a blend of the Sengoku Jidai period of Japan, and the time period of the Wild West in the former USA” as well. The fight for supremacy of the planet, as well as over resources and so forth within the planet’s wild frontier up top as well as most definitely underground, would drive this time period onward for just over 140 years. This as the various factions and ideologies and so forth shed quite a bit of blood and likewise the population grew across the planet through the building up new underground (mostly) and above ground (less so) habitations for humanity. All of this would come together to create the name this peculiar yet tragic time period.
To say that the unification of the planet under one government within the last 100 years was peaceful, however, would be an utter lie. Outside of what cases of negotiation were done, most other parties were wiped off the map and taken over by the Republic of Arhas/Eosian Republic (the successor to the original colonial government) that would finally achieve true planetary supremacy where its predecessor had failed to even stay together and intact. It was a process that shed even more blood, though the winners had been seeking to integrate and consolidate their growing and newly-acquired holdings evenly over time and along the way as they’d acquired them, with the initial victory and end of the Reds Sands Era in around Year 213 being simply the jumping-off point to enable this to finally take place on a planetary level.
-If one were to ask the vast majority of citizens, they would exclaim being used to the status quo of how things are and have found things to be ‘fair yet strict’. If one were to ask their ancestors who lived through to see the end of the Red Sands Era, they would likely speak of being glad that the constant struggle and bloodshed was finally and truly over with. Indeed, the rise of the planetary government would see a great economic boom as well as a cessation of constant conflicts above and under the ground. Places began to heal, new rural areas emerged, old rural areas grew to become towns, and existing towns would grow into cities as the existing cities themselves grew even larger and more vast. All of this and more was done to accommodate the population growth, especially as the growth of the local population has spiked locally in the last 80-something years and finally stabilized by current times. Things the government by current times has done to help manage this population have even included setting up space-bound economic and mining operations along with starting some initial colonial settlement within their solar system.
However, not everything is perfect in any society. Some exist even still on the disenfranchised fringes of this rebuilt society and nation, poor or downtrodden or the like. There are also those who have chafed under the grip of the current government and its ‘military police’ forces, those who have been passed down the grudges and anger and ideologies of former ‘free cities/towns’ veterans who wish to return to that old status quo of the Red Sands Era, and even those who simply wish to see the world burn. In the end the existence of such ‘rebel factions’ is something that, due to these factors, has continued to persist into current times as well. Such groups have mostly remained smaller or been whittled down over time, though they will still on occasion strike at local areas in more distant/fringe areas or government establishments in the big cities to try to ‘make their point’. Better armed than the top criminals, but usually kept in check in a general sense, they range from those seeking to ‘topple the fascist government’ (as they claim it is), to those ‘seeking to return to a better age of independent city-states’ they idealize the Red Sands Era as having (blindly even in some cases), to even simply those who wish to seize power and take what they want and wish to use the same propaganda and recruitment and so forth to manifest those ends.
The top three Rebel Factions of any real or viable mettle/power in modern times are the following:
***The “Peoples Confederated Militia” (aka the “PCM”) - A rebel faction seeking to destroy the current governmental structure, and in its place replace it with a far looser system of ‘united in purpose and goals yet wholly independent city-states’ they claim was, would be, and is far more ethical and good for humanity both on-and-off of the planet. They use the initial colonial government as an example of ‘how this would not work’, but try to portray the Red Sands Era in a far more positive if not engineered ‘light’ as they claim that the independence of the cities was fair and just and that all they needed to solve ‘the problems of that era, which were few in nature’ was to bring people to the negotiation and diplomatic table. They decry the unification of the planet under one government as ‘evil and tyrannical’ and as ‘suppressing the freedoms of human beings to choose for themselves as they see fit’ whilst generally disapproving of any sort of centralized national-level command structure.
Their command structure is generally manned with the “Council of Six” at the top, below which are four officers each assigned to each councilor. Each officer in turn manages local affairs in their area, organizes squads and other military units under their area’s command, organizes the distribution of equipment and resources, etc, as well as report back and share information with the Council and each other. It is generally run as the organization says it wishes to organize the ‘rightful new government’ they seek to bring about, though this has had its share of success and issues over time. Sometimes the officers assigned to the same or different councilors have competed against each other within their own ranks to earn further support or to expand personal influence, or otherwise run and manage their areas and subordinates differently than each other in various ways. At times these officers have been inherently disorganized when trying to work with each other, due to internal competition for glory and the allocation of more resources from the Council of Six, and at other times have managed to form a comprehensive front well enough to prove to be a frighteningly effective force at certain times.
This group is perhaps the most widely-spread-out by current times, many major bases having been lost and others having been weakened by retaliation against them by/from the government peacekeeping forces. They are in cities and some on the fringes alike, but they lack any area of highly-concentrated control…which is for them both a major weakness but has also been to some extent a strength in keeping their organization alive somehow. At the same time, the organization is ripe for taking down piecemeal, one area at a time….and were the right circumstances to arise and the Council of Six’s uniting influence to collapse, then perhaps the organization could be rooted out once and for all…
***The “King Cartel” - A rebel faction seeking to turn as much of the United Republic as they can into an area under their control, to hell with the areas they don’t want, all to the ends of exploiting the existence of ‘worm junkies’ and production of ‘illicit pharmaceuticals’ to drive a greater and greater profit for themselves. The only reason they are not considered ‘simply another gang or organized crime group’ is the fact they use the same grade of armaments and so forth as the other two major rebel factions….and treat their head in the form of “Don Carretera” (every head gets this title, which means ‘road’ in Old Earth Spanish) like a national leader and hero. These are the same family heads who have maintained a dynastic and hereditary style of absolute rule over this organization (in contrast to many of the Old Earth mafia families of old). The mafioso aesthetic and some terms have been used for many generations now as well, originally set in place by the founder, and once the family’s organization even controlled a small fringe underground town before being driven out.
Their organization is smaller than most, but when it comes to being well-armed and keeping a ‘small profile’ they are among the very best in doing so. Dealing in shadows, trying to crack open and create new markets, and gradually build up what they seek in areas rather than trying to rush in and ‘liberate’ them from the existing government as the PCM has seemingly been trying to do. When their trademark drugs hit the streets and are noticed, it is generally a sign they have their fingers in the pie of whatever local area they’ve tried to set up in. They have been described as ‘a fly stuck on a turd that can’t be chased away for too long’ but also ‘takes a long time to be noticed rearing their heads back up again’, as well as being harder to root out when found or discovered but also posing a less immediate and present danger than others. On the other hand, when they do get noticed they are a group who get distinctly adapted measures and actions taken to combat them. This mostly takes the form of purging their peddled substances from the streets, as well as engaging in greater espionage and both covertly taking out their hierarchy and otherwise rooting out any contacts they have to drive them out of an area. Then they usually avoid said area again for a time, only to slowly and subtly begin sticking down roots in another place bit by bit…like a festering parasite.
Were the organization to be hit where it hurts most, at the very top of their hierarchy, then perhaps enough chaos could be sowed internally among them to cause the remaining parts to disappear…
***The “Wildern Group” - The most odd-sounding title for a group, they are named for where the group was founded in the former above ground town of Wildern. The area was among the largest independent surface settlements to arise, even moving to exert influence through the use of nomadic caravans loyal to them and the trade of supplies. In time, they even established a sort of soldier-police as the practice became more and more common beginning in the “Red Sands Era”. They were also the head of the briefly-lived “Wildernian Federation”, trying to form a ‘nation’ of their own in haste to try to oppose the largely-snowballed faction that would win planetary control and take over the planet to form the United Republic. They were known for the ‘encouragement’ they tried to push on ‘members’ of the Federation to ‘generate a sense of new nationalism and unity’, which is to say they did some good for the surface but also used a lot of threats and force to get people under their ramshackle banner of a ‘nation’ that those from Wildern had a total hegemony of power over.
In the ensuing conflict to secure the surface, this group came to blows and expected to use their knowledge and strength on the surface, alongside an understanding of the weather patterns and so forth, to wage a guerilla war aimed at ‘shattering the dirt-eaters from underground’ and bringing back the old status quo of the Red Sands Era so they could ‘shine like a star in the sky’ over those living on the surface and also (mostly to serve their own ends) ‘free the surface from dirt-eater oppression’. On the other hand, their ambitions and hasty actions were all too late to be able to stop anything, mostly being due to their spiteful disregard for anyone and anything originating from underground and thus not paying attention as the ones who united all the underground settlements and had snowballed to quite a large degree of control and power. Their distaste for those living underground has been ever-inherent from the start, with the discriminatory term of ‘dirt-eaters’ being just one of the many terms coined by them or in less-hospitable areas of the surface to describe those living underground in turn.
By current times, the group mostly exists in holdouts in the worst areas to try to live on the surface…horrible areas where they live and host their three remaining ‘larger bases of operation’ where no one else dares to normally go. However, they have engaged in raiding nomadic traveling caravans, attacking small fringe underground settlements, and even setting up some underground operations in certain fringe areas to try to enact sabotage and sink in some kind of (even if reluctant and demeaning) influence down there to help channel supplies back to their main bases of operation. For the most part they can be driven back from underground areas and into the desert world sands, though on the fringes they are a constant pestilence whose root is essentially ‘stuck in a hard to reach place’ and refuses to curl up and die either. Were a strike made possible to destroy their main bases for good, it would certainly stop them in their tracks though…
-Ruins lie across the planet’s surface, though whether they have been buried or uncovered by the sands of the planet once more depends on the fickle whims of the planet’s weather. Many are vestiges of the initial colonization, long abandoned remnants from the Red Sands Era, or even far smaller locations where fatally fateful adventurers or families or settlers built up before dying off and leaving only empty husks in their wake. Abandoned military bases, former homes or small villages/towns, all sorts of ruins made by mankind can be found among the sands….
…but could there still, even after three centuries, be something else out there too that humanity has not yet discovered? Only time will tell.
-Among the wealthy elites that exist within United Republic society, there is a group known as the “Purified”. These people have focused on for many loong decades, as their movement has grown from the time of the Republic of Arhas/Eosian Republic until current times under the United Republic, using genetic engineering technologies to ‘refine’ and ‘harness’ the human genome among their own. No splicing or dicing, but instead taking what is ‘human’ at its core and ‘amplifying it and removing imperfections’ from it. Augmented healing, greater strength, the gradual erasure of genetic ‘faults’ and genetic diseases from among them, and so forth. They seek to achieve the ‘deific beauty of antiquity’, using this as a baseline to refine their forms and looks and so forth to degrees that by modern times have become definitely noticeable.
The movement even has a growing pool of followers among the middle class, mostly as the movement has oddly sought in more recent decades to bring more into the fold and spread their ideas. It is more a cool club or form of ideology (rather) that believes humanity choosing to embrace its ideas will benefit all, but also does not seek to push itself on others despite its odd nature due to legal codes within the United Republic. In the end, really, they just remain simply one of many social or cultural groups that has formed within the United Republic in the end. (But the idea felt cool so why not toss this in, eh?)
-(space here in case I think of anything else)
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Governance and Politics:
The United Republic has adopted a high-authority central government that sets the rules at lower levels, being the top authority and possessing most of the power by far and inherently. It controls the national and planetary policies of the nation proper, as well as controls the military at the top in a similar manner. A bureaucracy exists as part of the central government, with various Departments being created and managed and overseen to ensure that overall work gets done, things keep running, and order is maintained. The central government is generally seen reasonably as a certain amount of ‘authoritarian’ by its nature, though isn't wholly an authoritarian-type system either. Hence the classification of the nation’s government being as it is.
Local authorities, meanwhile, are democratically-elected individuals alongside their respective City/Town/Village Council in kind. Above these are District Governors, who are also democratically elected, and above these Regional Governors, who are selected to take their positions by the Central Government and have to pass proper meritocratically-aimed examinations and background checks and experience requirements at lower levels of government to take up office. In this sense the democratic process has remained, and people do choose leaders and have formerly chosen leaders rise up the ranks after a certain point at the behest of the central government to be assimilated into it.
The lower-level democratic processes are holderovers from Old Earth, which after the failure of the initial colonial confederation-type government set in place would re-emerge in part once more during the Red Sands Era to an at least distinct and lasting extent politically. Once the nation was united under one banner, a high-authority central government was balanced out with properly formalized lower-level democratic processes. These democratic processes were also combined with allotting certain limited powers and flexibility to such elected leaders, helping and allowing them to properly manage locals and keep the order and peace properly as well as act as a conduit to enforce national-level policies but also have local-level nuances to the laws of the land.
The judicial system has its top authorities as part of the central government, who take the form of the “Seven Judges” who are a council of the seven highest-level judges of the land. Meanwhile lower level judges below this have to have the proper experience, education, and clean background check requirements as among the necessities for them to take up higher and higher offices after entering the system. Elections are also used to elect lower level judges from among applicable candidates in turn. District and Circuit Courts likewise exist, as well as concepts like a bench trial and rules such as ‘having a right to trial with a jury’.
In fact, the government of the United Republic even has within it a proper constitution of sorts, stating both the powers of the central government and those of lower officials as well as laying out a certain number of ‘human rights’ (albeit there are certain legal exceptions to even this due to the authority of the central government as dictated in this document as well). In this vein it can be seen as an echo of the old world, but in this case was something proposed by the central government, which can be amended and updated and so forth through input by the general public, and yet entrenches and enshrines the current system of things in both writing and law.
Technology Overview:
-The nature of construction and life within the United Republic has mostly led its population to overall become rather skilled at the art of macro-engineering. Large structures, grand architecture, building underground tunnels and cities and towns and so forth, all of it has stemmed back to this same core engineering type as it has been a longtime backbone of the United Republic. This isn’t to say that smaller technology doesn’t exist, but rather than looking at the local society and culture as a whole this nation has seen far more notable developments in the realm of macro-engineering than in many others. The art of making durable, cost effective, longstanding, workable, and better-lasting structures is something they have refined to a distinct point indeed.
Likewise concrete(s), improved tools for calculating and enacting macro-engineering projects, and so forth have emerged within this realm of things.
-The United Republic has also developed humanoid-type pilotable working frames, with robust but neural-connected control systems (and even pilot-shielding cockpit attachments in some cases), which are used en-masse for many forms of construction and building and on other notable worksites in some capacity or another. It is a common and well-understood technology, but one that is normally not used in a warfare-type-form either by the local military police forces due to its vulnerabilities and exposed parts. There is a reason they are mostly used for labor, after all. At the same time, they have found use among rebel factions, armor and weapons being welded on and creating ‘rebel technicals’ as they’ve come to be called. These usually do well in hand-to-hand, and in moving things or breaking into places, but struggle to remain effective against ranged combat and find themselves outmatched against the powered-exoskeleton-type augmentations of government-made Grade 4 full body armor. However, the use of these working machines as ad-hoc combat machines due to their easy-to-use nature and cost-effectiveness in augmenting new troops by having recruits pilot them (among other similar things) has led them to see continued usage even into modern times.
Minimalist powered exoskeletons, more bulky and simplistic but by far much easier to use and cheaper than what (in comparison) the elite military police use, are machines used for a number of construction projects and other sorts of worksites and industrial areas. The pilot is usually strapped in, after donning general work safety protective personal gear, and then is attached to the resilient system of the device to get started. The exoskeleton, or ‘frame’ as it is called in layman’s terms, will simply translate their bodily nerve impulses and muscle movements in the arms and legs to produce the corresponding motions in the frame itself, moving its arms, closing fingers or grabbing things, etc. A headset is even added to give the pilot a useful HUD and data/information needed about the unit, what work the unit is doing, and so forth within a limited scope. These are prolific at construction sites and various areas of work requiring heavy lifting and the transportation of goods on the grounds of the workplace, replacing things like forklifts and certain on-site manned vehicles to a certain extent (not entirely mind) as workers can now complete work with these robust, strong, and capable tools of the trade.
Rebels in the past have even turned these widely available devices, stolen or bought after-market or otherwise acquired, into a myriad of technicals out in the field. Replacing the arms with guns that can be operated somewhat simply using these exoskeletons’ available and easy-to-grasp neural controls, attaching a gun turret to the top and having someone ride in a ‘basket’ held on the back of the exoskeleton to fire when out in battle, ad-hoc missile launchers welded to the sides of it to fire homemade explosive rockets out of, carrying ‘holsters’ for moving around with large recoilless rifles, attaching small artillery or mortars to the back of a larger one to have it walk to location to sit down or stay still (lest something bad happen to it because it's crap) and fire rounds from long-range at a location before moving on, and even things like scrap-metal swords and scrap-metal spears or rebar-reinforced welded-together hammers have been used when theses sorts of technicals have appeared in the field locally. In even some more rare cases, two frames might have their control systems wired together and then be welded to a singular platform to carry between them so one pilot can move rudimentary firepower around of a somewhat larger size. Likewise, rebel versions of these exosuit technicals have ‘armor’ welded on in some capacity or another to try to protect them or better protect the pilot…as these things were not designed with combat in mind at all really.
But likewise, with their simplicity and effectiveness they have seen use at times as well by criminals who have either stolen one or bought one after-market or used to try to use for robberies or the like. Sometimes they get turned into technicals in these cases as well, but these cases tend to be smaller-grade and usually lesser than what a rebel might turn one into…and likewise are in number far fewer and much rarer to find used by general criminals in turn. Most of the time such criminals want the physical strength of these exoskeletons to move things, tear things out of walls, or the like rather than to fight outright most of the time.
Military Police implementation of such devices is mostly limited to Stratus, specifically when they are performing heavy lifting to make barricades or the like and/or doing very limited building-breaching work done on the part of personnel without Grade 4 full body armor. Combat-capable version of these machines have been experimentally looked and, toyed with, and made in recent years for potential use by Stratus, though nothing fit for the battlefield has yet been developed.
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{{SYSTEM ERROR}}
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{{THE SUBMITTED IMAGE CONTAINS ONE OR MORE PERSON(S) IDENTIFIED AS A CRIMINAL}}
{{ZOOMING IN FOR ENHANCED IDENTIFICATION OF CRIMINAL SUBJECT}}
{{ZOOM COMPLETE. ACCESSING MILITARY POLICE DATABASE…
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IDENTIFICATION OF CRIMINAL SUBJECT FOUND}}
{{THE INDIVIDUAL DEPICTED IN PICTURE IS “CRIMINAL SUBJECT 4287 - ‘PEOPLES CITIZEN MILITIA OFFICER’ ALENA MARIE CALLISTO, AGE 26, DAUGHTER OF NADYA IVANAVNA CALLISTO [DECEASED] AND ALEXANDER GIOVANNI CALLISTO [REPORTED MISSING]”}}
{{FILING AUTOMATIC SIGHTING REPORT OF SUBJECT TO THE MILITARY POLICE DATABASE…}}
-In terms of transport, the technology for lighter hovercraft has been developed well and is in prolific use underground by civilians for their capabilities to move up and down vertical heights quickly, as well as having use of still moving reasonably fast over the flat and paved vast underground highway network the government has long since created by current times. However, vehicles carrying the heaviest loads will usually be either ‘heavy hovercraft’ or mostly ground-based vehicles using tires as a mandatory measure to ensure loads can be safely transported.
Meanwhile, above-ground transport craft are mostly track-based by virtue of being well-understood, adapted to the hotter and more dangerous surface terrain, cost-effective to make, and being better for driving over softer terrain like sand (it is a desert planet of course) to boot. Hovercraft used above-ground must be made in the ‘heavy hovercraft’ vehicle category, otherwise they will blow away easily in the harsh winds and storms of the surface. Even wheels find themselves worse-off in the sands of the planet’s surface than tracks, performing worse than them in this setting by a distinct degree and causing vehicles to be trapped in accidents whose ‘wrecks’ are either barely visible or were long buried in the shifting sands themselves.
This general principle of vehicle development above and under the ground has led to more modern work aimed at developing a more versatile and cost-effective ‘heavy hovercraft’ base design, which would be a point to branch off from to make better designs for civilian, military, work-related, and other such vehicles that would be highly effective to use no matter the setting. This could in turn allow the nation to switch its vehicle production all over to a singular line, heavier hovercraft, and hopefully cut costs and improve developments in the long-term. Work is, of course, still ongoing in this area as more notably specialized and unique ‘heavy hovercraft’ designs continue to take on what roles and work they can in the meantime.
-When traversing the surface of Eos IVV, the local technology has developed what is called the “Surface-Traversal System” or more commonly as the “ST-Suit” or even just “ST/ST’s” in layman’s terms. It is an advanced but simplistic protective suit with a level of radiation and heat protection, which likewise grants full-body protection and resistance from the elements such as driving winds and sandstorms for good reason. Is it perfect? No, walk into the worst aboveground weather in one of these and one will find themselves likely dying anyways. But for those who live aboveground, these suits are their lifeline for heading out beyond the shelter of a surface town’s ‘sand barrier’ protections or whatever rocky place or semi-underground home they set up shop in.
-(space here in case I think of anything else)
Military Overview:
It is of distinct note that the military of the United Republic is not a distinct entity of its own, but rather that has become fully fused with its police force. Years of underground and aboveground battlefields, smaller-scale issues between cities during its chaotic years, and internal conflicts have led the locals to fuse these roles together sooner than later throughout the last 300 years history, alongside the need to conserve and maximize the efficiency of resource usage over the course of that time to boot. This has created a hybrid modern ‘military police’ whose ranks both keep order on the streets and likewise can be easily swelled in times of conflict by tapping into the large ‘reserve’ pool of these forces to fill the role of ‘soldiers’ both standard and elite in the general sense. Even during times of war, there is even a proper ‘gameplan’ to ensure that there will be enough police on the streets (‘home duty’ in the local lingo) versus those sent out to fight on the battlefield (‘away duty’ in the local lingo).
However the Ordos Custodes, what the force is called formally, does suffer to an extent from a lack of specialization as well though. While it can fill two dual roles by its nature, and has sought to accommodate those roles accordingly over many decades of experience, by virtue of being a ‘middle ground’ it lacks the raw numbers of a formal and separate military force. Against such a force being deployed at wartime levels, the Ordos Custodes will inevitably be smaller than the militaries of larger or equivalent nations when it comes to how many are being deployed into the field. Likewise, the fusion of military and police has led to these forces being very much ‘over the top’ in terms of what they can do in the field…basically being overkill by the standards of places with their own police forces. This in turn has also made them seem and feel notably more ‘brutal’ in their application as police forces, though whilst this has been a ‘boon’ to keeping order it has also painted them in a darker light than the average police force for sure as well.
((A member of the Standard Military Police, or Magistratus, aka “Stratus” as they have been commonly nicknamed by citizens.))
The standard frontline unit for the Ordos Custodes, the police of the United Republic, is simply called a “Magistratus” (or “Stratus” for short). They wear more traditional-looking adjustable body armor for protection targeted at core and key areas of the body, such as the head and torso. This armor provides mostly explosive and ballistic protection, with some thermal protection. Meanwhile the rest of their attire in general is lined with advanced ballistics-protection and impact-softening fibers, as well as having built in general thermal regulation and surface-capable environmental protection capabilities also being thrown in to make them both longer-lasting and resilient on top of the obvious use for their general protective qualities above and below ground. The equipment in the pack on their backs are made to, along with the sensors and night vision and personal HUD displays and such that are installed into their helmets, facilitate rapid comms between each other on official channels, connect them to and allow them to control the quantum-entangled drone they make use of in the field, and work in tandem with the individual cop and other equipment to facilitate ‘the most effective performance in the field’ possible. It is also by this measure the material composing the pack also has electrical insulation/protection, inherent high impact and ballistic protections, and likewise high durability/resilience to protect and facilitate the functioning of what is kept inside of it.
The Stratus are, in terms of weaponry, lower grade versions of their higher-grade counterparts of the Fulgur Militum. They use the same “Argo Rail-Revolver” and “Lumen S-15 EM-Shotgun” as their primary weapons in this case, with long-range options taking the form of the “ARMS-21 Assault Rifle” which is of a lesser caliber/mm than its more elite counterpart in the form of the ARMS-27 Assault Rifle. The ARMS-21 also has a larger clip, storing eighteen rounds per clip, though has the same semi-automatic and three-round-burst firing modes, but it does possess more room for combat attachments than its more powerful descendant. It also has an uplink that normally feeds data into the helmet of a stratus regard itself, but can connect to a Stratus’ accompanying drone and the helmet to allow for advanced targeting capabilities in turn. This differs from how the drone is connected to its individual Stratus by a quantum entanglement to ensure it cannot be hijacked or interfered with by non-quantum means, but considering the far more vast range of frequencies the Stratus and their equipment can switch to and work at it becomes hard to ‘jam’ them unless one has quite a large setup.
Lastly, but certainly not least, each Stratus is accompanied by the aforementioned ‘Drone’ as their final piece of equipment. This little machine uses gravi-tech to flit about in the air, has a built-in incapacitating-to-fatal electroshock mode in case anyone tries to grab it (or it is used to fry some electronic it is put in contact with alternatively), and likewise has sensors and a durable little frame that allow it to stay small and send data back to its corresponding Stratus. It is a versatile A.I. driven machine that works in tandem with its Stratus for the most part as an assistant and tool both, and is connected to its controller via a quantum entanglement. This primary connection via entanglement is also useful in preventing hijacking of this device, as even if other uplinks are jammed or used to try to gain control over or scramble it…the primary connection can cut the other means of connecting to this drone off in an instant and immediately secure it from corruption or issue in that sense at the first sign of an issue. Perhaps somewhat amusingly, Stratus have generally over time taken to calling these drones things like their “Little Buddy” or giving them nicknames like “Siggy” and “Jeff” or the like. Even began treating them sometimes like a little on-the-job pet, really, and ultimately many would take theirs with them when retiring before doing silly things like putting stickers or custom paint-jobs on them after taking them with them to further personalize them. On occasion it almost seems like the A.I. of these drones becomes attached to their operators to boot, which is an unexpected but certainly interesting development as their programming and hardware has been upgraded over time. Of course avoiding sapience in A.I. and machinery has remained a strict legal mandate, and something those who develop this little thing have kept in mind to boot.
Otherwise the non-notable parts of a Stratus’ loadout generally are: 3x flash grenades, 2x gas grenades, a first-aid kit, and extra magazines for whatever primary firearm they are using at the time. Their armor is also updated with camouflage for whatever environment they are in to a certain extent, despite the obvious “Police” displayed on their torso body armor, whether it is urban, rural, or other settings they are being sent into in particular in different regions.
***Note: Stratus wear Grade 2-3 Body Armor, with Grade 2 being the highest grade civilian-purchasable type of body armor and Grade 3 being the lowest tier of policing/military forces body armor. Grade 3 is mostly what is worn during times of war, with Grade 2 being used for average police work.
((A member of the Elite Police, or Fulgur Militum. aka “Fulger/Fulgur” as they have been commonly nicknamed by citizens.))
Members of the Fulgur Militum are outfitted with Grade 4 full body armor, with built-in full-body + surface capable thermal protection and regulation, anti-explosive protection, electrical insulation, and ballistic protection for their line of work. Helmets are installed with a myriad of EMP-insulated visual and other sensors that provide full coverage for the wearer, as well as a comms system and HUD able to display live data and data feeds useful both in-combat as well as outside of it. Meanwhile the armor itself is designed to cover any potential ‘cracks’, provide maximum protection to the body to minimize potential vulnerabilities for the wearer, contains EMP-insulated and protected equipment for engaging in secure comms as well as searching databases and so forth on the fly even from far away, and likewise assist in physical movement and strain with a built-in and advanced powered-exoskeleton-type augmentation and assistance system. It is certainly a force to reckon with in terms of equipment, though one must mind that it is simply the local version of ‘top of the line protective armor’ by their standards. It takes what the Stratus has to use in a pack, and has an accompanying drone with them for as well, and compacts it more into a singular package meant to deliver utility and potency in as effective a manner as possible.
The Fulgur Militum themselves are likewise armed to the teeth, it would seem, with their common armaments being the XM1275 machine gun, the SIG ARMS-27 assault rifle, the Argo Rail-Revolver, and the Lumen S-15 E-Shotgun.
The XM1275 is a weapons platform that makes use of old-fashioned propellant-powered bullets to pepper targets with magazine-held belts of .50 caliber (12.7x99mm) rounds with improved recoil control, training to fire in ‘bursts’, and longer-lasting barrels alongside the use of a tripod. This weapon is the definition of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ in a nutshell, as with the increased modern cheapness of propellant-powered bullets and their corresponding firearms after centuries of development and eventual improvements to the economic situation within the modern United Republic it had made these weapons more ubiquitous than ever in the general market. This occurred despite the basically linear improvements to their capabilities not really putting them above harder-hitting electromagnetic or “E-Weapon”, though the reductions in cost efficiency for producing such weapons and their corresponding ammunition has been the largest factor in their continued use to a certain extent.
The ARMS-27 Assault Rifle follows the lead of the XM1275, mostly by making use of propellant-powered ammunition and a gradually more streamlined design. It is often mixed in with a combat squad’s usage of the XM1275, this weapon allowing for more controlled three-round-burst-fire (compared to the training of users of the XM1275 to fire in bursts) and semi-automatic modes of fire that allow it to take on more precision roles on the battlefield. The weapon also uses the same ammunition as the XM1275, with likewise improved technologies for managing recoil and so forth included in its design. It has a twelve round clip as well.
((It and the XM1275 are both weapons developed by the “SIG Future ARMS” who was a branch of the American-originated branch of SIG Sauer, Inc that would come aboard the same colony ship as the colonists of Arhas. It would make itself out to be a monopoly for a time with some initially vicious business contracts, though once this was ended with brute force 75 years after initial settlement (in part due to prices being vastly inflated to ridiculous degrees and the government going ‘no we aren’t doing that’) the room for competition arose…and indeed took off with a ‘boom’ from that point onward. Even so, SIG Future ARMS still has a notable user base when it comes to government contracts…but has also been notably being out-competed elsewhere more and more over time. In that vein, many feel it is just a matter of time and waiting to see if SIG Future ARMS can adapt to the times or runs itself out of business.
***Note: The SIG ARMS-27 and ARMS-21 both have an array of attachable components that can be made use of in the field. Anything from ‘infrared flashlights’, to underslung 2-to-4-round capable grenade launchers, to targeting devices/lasers used in tandem with vehicles or sniper fire, to improved scopes of varying designs and uses, mounted flashlights, and frankly even underslung shotgun attachments or strong tasers. A highly versatile platform indeed, though the ARMS-21 has more room for adding such attachments to it than its counterpart does.))
The Argo Rail-Revolver is perhaps the most advanced individual weapon in the Fulgur Militum’s arsenal, using a six-chamber cylinder with each chamber having a self-charging-capacitor attached. The end result is that each capacitor is ready to go as it is moved into place, and each shot ‘powers itself’ without having to use more space for a battery pack or such on the weapon. It is a common sidearm for all members of the force, even being so for the regular cops at the next level of jurisdiction below them, and is known for being a reliable weapon with a generally robust design and easy-to-change parts being among its best selling points within the realm of local electromagnetic weapon designs. It also inherently packs a punch meant to knock down a target flat on their back, punch through light barricades or homemade armor, or even land a more steady and decisive shot to kill a target. Its local nickname in many areas has become “The Chunker” after seeing it in action for so many years…because anything it hits will usually get a chunk taken out of it. Vehicles, buildings, and especially bodies alike. It was the brainchild of the R&D Department of the local arms company “Argonaut Military Industrial”, which is an arms company known for being the first to go all-in on electromagnetic weapons from its inception and having pioneered a number of ‘quality of life’ and ‘effectiveness/robustness’ advances that pushed competitors to start keeping up with it. The fact this pistol hasn’t changed its design and has seen effective use for 75 years is nothing short of a testament to the usefulness and resilience of the armament in the long-term.
Then finally there is the Lumen S-15 EM-Shotgun, a tool that is the newest part of the Fulgur Militum’s arsenal and replaces the older Lumen S-12 Shotgun (its final and last propellant-powered-bullet-using weapon). The Lumen S-15 EM, or “LumSEM”, is a shotgun with semi-automatic and fully-automatic firing modes that uses an electromagnetic coil around the barrel to rapidly accelerate and speed up the dense clusters of lethal metal ‘pellets’ that its basic ‘shells’ consist of. Originally design began with the idea of using a coil near the end and shells with a smaller propellant charge in them to try to cut back costs. Yet with some tweaking and fiddling on the design in terms of its barrel and the coils, a direct battery connection for powering the coils and including a battery into the weapon’s ammunition clips (protected by the weapon once a new clips is put in) led to the device becoming more economical and the new concept for it being approved for use by its parent company, the “Lumen Interplanetary Arms Manufacturing” company, who has mostly converted its arms production and design over to electromagnetic forms. In fact their shotguns were the last part of their handheld-arms production line to convert over, partly due to the reliable nature of their shotguns being so profitable they hadn’t had to change for a longer time than most.
The Fulgur Militum are the elite wing of the United Republic’s police force, with the general police forces overall being the “Ordo Custodes” as an aside. Acting as the equivalent to a ‘SWAT Team’ of Old Earth, the Fulgur Militum are basically a ‘police crack special forces’ that can rapidly deploy and come in for serious cases and serious incidents of a dangerous nature. They are even trained to handle terrorists and terrorist incidents to boot, being advanced ‘police’ who to some might as well be just professional civilian-realm soldiers in all but name for how well armed and prepared and trained that they are.
***Military Note: The existence of other more distinct roles such as ‘snipers’ and ‘breaching personnel’, with their respective equipment loadouts, do exist within the Magistratus and Fulgur/Fulger of the United Republic as well. Even ‘demolition’ experts are among their ranks for that matter. Elite military police and standard military police versions of these roles exist respectively, mostly using the lower-tier versions for police situations, though in times of war this flexibility with both standard and elite forces being able to deploy such troops has been seen as beneficial at times.
((To Be Added As Found/Required/Needed Over Time)
The Words ABOVE Each Picture Designate What It Is))
~Main Battle Tank~
~Secondary Supporting Battle Tank~
~Light Battle Hover-tank~
~Surface Hover APC~
~Surface APC~
~Underground APC~
Additional Info:
-Military naming uses latin terms generally, as do governmental organizations.
-National animal is the Cockentrice (Because they made them real I don’t care I am making this a thing.)
Certainly a fair portion of meat, given her snacks beforehand as she had tested her theory about ingesting parts of the beast. In that vein the female orc had no complaints as Esfir divided up the meat among the four of them. The smell of the cooked bird was certainly as it had been described to her within the information provided by her analysis skill, though the taste to her didn't seem too bad considering. The first bite was a flood of sensations to her, really. Heat from the flame, and flecks of grease that stung the chin and tongue. A soft, stringy consistency, with a slight grain. A lightly salty, slightly yeasty taste on the tongue, but dense and moist. A metallic hint of blood still lingered, along with an earthy game-flavor. The first bite was a flood of sensations. Heat from the flame, and flecks of grease that stung the chin and tongue. A soft, stringy consistency, with a slight grain. A lightly salty, slightly yeasty taste on the tongue, but dense and moist. A metallic hint of blood still lingered, along with an earthy game-flavor.
Consumed: Congealed Elwet Blood Consumed: Cooked Elwet Meat Consumed: Cooked Elwet Marrow Consumed: Small Cracked Elwet Bone Fragment
You are Well Fed. Your HP and SP recovery rate is temporarily boosted. Current Ingestion: Elwet - 100% All Ingested Skills have been detected! Choose ONE:
[Skewer]
[Fire Bolt]
[Murderous Intent]
A new feeling settled in the pit of her gut...as though a muscle she'd never known had begun to flex, a muscle akin to the lungs that could draw something into their bodies. The more she ate, the more this feeling swelled. And then, each time she bit into her portion, the smells and tastes and even the consistency upon her tongue provoked a mingling of senses and the memories associated with them...
The Elwet's sharp horns and spear-like beak... The Elwet's flaming breath... The Elwet's fiery, angry eyes burning with malice...
Just like when their lungs grew full of air, this new "muscle" inside them needed to breathe out...yes. This would do nicely, and now she had all of her portion eaten as well. So that was valuable data in and of itself to learn about ingesting things, as well as being of a benefit in being able to choose a new skill to learn due to [Ingestion].
She would choose the [Fire Bolt] skill to take in this case. Seemed to be the most useful to her, if it was like thhe MMORPG spells it sonded like from back on Earth. Perhaps even a branching into the magical arts at that. Mmm.
Perfect!
So what she'd had beforehand, added with this portion of meat and bone marrow, was just enough to get her to 100% when eating an Elwet. Would this change with large creatures needing more biomass? Would it also vary depending on her and the others' own physical maturity and development? What if they advanced in level far enough? Hmm. So many questions yet to be answered, but she would remember all of this for the future. It was certianly a learning experience indeed, especially as they'd need to get another creature to complete the quest for the Head Warrior now. At the same time, though, having a well-fed body and being able to hunt and get things done with that before heading back would be to their advantage in her mind. Just as much of an advantage as her choice of first skill.
Every little advantage over the world around them was certianly be valuable in these days and beyond.
But if she had to place another theory out there in her mind, simpler creatures such as these Elwets would maybe be easier to unlock all of their 'ingested skills'. This compared to stronger and more powerful ones, which might need more biomass to unlock more potential skills and likewise to 'ingest' fully then. In that vein, that would be something to keep in mind for the future. Could be a way to ensure that they got the best 'bang for their buck' on skills and accruing capabilities in this new world. Eh, depending on how long they worked together in the long-term of their new lives at least. For now, though, it was certainly something she was happy to do for their survival and so forth for mutual benefit unless any of the others got back-stabby.
"I am at one hundred percent ingestion for Elwet now, with all potential skills to get revealed, after all I've eaten before and with my portion here. Hmm. I'll assume it's because these are smaller and simpler creatures that we can unlock Elwet-related skills so quickly perhaps.
I'll also wait before eating next time, though, my apologies everyone."
The female runt made sure her gathered Elwet antlers and such supplies were with her. It would be well enough to carry at this stage, but they'd need a pouch to carry anything else with that. Just something to try to learn to craft, or get someone else to for a favor or such, in the future. Preferrably sooner than later, though, if they were going to make anything of note along the way. Heck, maybe they could find some useful materials to boot among the plants and such as well...which only made it a shame she could only have chosen one analysis skill. But the one she'd chosen would be useful indeed, if employed correctly.
Yet the Head Warrior's warning about the caves and nocturnal creatures 'havving a reason to only come out at night' still lingered in her mind a little bit. Concerning, but useful to know in this case then.
Her eyes then moved over to Akeno, and the particularly familiar behavior of sorts that the other female had shoown before eating. Or rather, a cultural habit she assumed? Either way maybe it would spark some conversation before they took to the road so they could get kills to bring back to the orc camp to fulfill their quest. Wanted to do that before it got too late into the day, or heaven forbid dark, for that matter.
"Though if I may ask to indulge my curiosity, Akeno, your name and mannerisms remind me of the Far East. Would you happen to have been from that region of the world before?"
Ingestion - After consuming a required amount of biomass from a particular Creature, 1 of that Creature's Skills can be copied at its lowest Rank.
Creature Analysis - Rank I - Upon analyzing a target, information relevant to the chosen type will be displayed. Higher Ranks will grant more detailed information. (For example, using Creature Analysis on a Slime would tell you the most generic, widely known information on Slimes as a species)
Fire Bolt - ???
Empty Skill Slot
Current Equipment and Inventory:
Swaddling Pelts - Equip, Clothes - Old animal skins used to keep an Orc baby warm as they sleep. Once the Runt is old enough to start hunting, these are usually just enough to cover the parts that need the most covering.
Wooden Stick - Equip, Weapon/Tool, Material Component - A wooden stick. From a tree. That's...that's all there is to it. Can be thrown.
Sharp Rock - Equip, Weapon/Tool, Material Component - A rock with a slightly sharp edge. Useful as a primitive knife or chisel. Can be thrown.
Rising again from where he was sitting at a normal speed to talk to Lillianna at eye level, Adam spoke sincerely to her. "You were so brave back there, taking the ninja on like that. And I'm so happy to see you're okay. Do you want some water again? …Or maybe a hug? Whatever you want."
She...she didn't know how to respond to that one really. Not that she knew how to frankly respond to any of this. Lillianna felt her tear ducts about to burst, and yet at the same time the red-eyed Druid's words ending on such an awkward note almost made her want to laugh-cry at the same time. Did that even make sense? Maybe. She appreciated the sentiment at the very least, the edges of her mouth ever so slightly curling up on either side in response to Adam's words. However, even then she still tried to hold herself in restraint, visibly so, her staff still clutched tightly in her hands and whitening knuckles.
Her mouth still refused to form proper words, perhaps even a bit afraid to make physical contact at the moment, but in lieu of that she seemed to be-
"If we are going to have a group hug I want you all to know, my safeword is Chayanne, nothing worse than saying your dad's name in the middle of it"
He stood up from the wall he was resting on and rolled his shoulder, damn the anchor was heavy "Full seriousness though, nice to see you walking around Lily, I knew a cray- a genious wizard like you would't kick the bucket by something like that" A lie, he knew exactly how bad were her chances had they not found the hospital on time "So, let me get you up to speed, we are in Valhaim right now and we are waiting for Mac and Joji to join us to head to the Adventurer's Guild to get rid of the Cube of Doom, they are not here because they" The idea of laying briefly crossed his mind but he dismissed it, she would learn about it sooner or later, better take the bandage off now when they were safe "...They went to give a proper burial to Clive, he and Arthur didn't make it"
'CRACK'
...Ah. Her vision would turn to James as the other man spoke, seeminmgly scrambling for words himself in the heat of the moment. As much as he was trying to distract her and perhaps the others for a moment, it was not hard to tell that much, the news he gave did cause the corners of the mage's mouth to turn back down once more. She'd been afraid that-...so it was just Arthur and Clive, then? She'd had a guess in her mind at seeing the anchor strapped to the cleric's back, but hadn't had a way to know for sure really. Not until someone told her something, really, and it wasn't that she wasn't glad for that.
No, she was glad someone had told her. She could feel the cracks in her facade beginning to grow at it all, her attempt at self-restraint wavering even closer to the point of no return, and yet at the same time she felt grateful for at least knowing. The pecuiliar farmer and the odd other man, both gone to the dangers of a new world and the violence they had managed to survive back there. Somehow. And yet here they were in the aftermath. Survivors, still alive and living.
Part of her felt somewhat...'guilty' about it all, really. Felt guilty about still being here when the other two were not, still holding onto her own second chance at life with a clinginess as tight as her hands were gripping her staff. Did she even deserve this? To still be around, and not having passed away into the pit of oblivion that had seemed like it was sitting just below her? It was seemingly chance and magic and the others who had managed to get her to what was seemingly on first glance a proper medical facility in this new world, like a vast swath of sheer dumb luck keeping her alive through this point. More importantly...
...was this how her Uncle or others might be feeling back home? Even if just a bit?
Here she was feeling sorrow over the deaths of others who had fought alongside her, but family was certainly a bond that was far deeper than even that. She'd learned that much from her Uncle, perhaps for the first time in a long time at that. The one who who had shown her nothing short of unconditional love from day one of meeting him and living at his home, all without the fuss and education and mess thrown into the mix like before.
A couple more tears would run down her face, then, even as the last two living members of the group entered the hospital.
"H-", but when she saw Lillianna, her words caught in her throat. She was alive and perfectly well - finally some goodness in all this mess! Marching forward, her eyes alight with joy, she squeezed past everyone else and threw her arms around the white-haired wizard. "Lillianna, thank god you're okay."
Death comes in threes, she'd heard her grandmother say before. Not today. She let go of Lillianna, only to take the wizard's face in her hands, smile and then hug her again. "Don't scare us like that again, okay?"
And then the Frenchwoman threw her arms around her, regardless of her posture or stance, seemingly on first instinct and without hesitation.
'CRACK'
'CRUNCH'
'WHOOSH'
Thse all were not sounds that anyone could hear, in the room or otherwise, but within herself the mage could hear and feel them. The final blow to the mental dam in her mind had been made. It was like pulling the trigger of a firearm to start a race, even, or opening the gates of a flooded city long left abandoned and mired in the deeps contained within its walls. Or...something. She couldn't think of it all right now. Or think in general now. Yet whatever the case was, the tidal wave that had been contained for so long had finally been loosed in its entierty by this one action.
MacKensie thought she'd get the chance to step back, but this ultimately would not be the case. Instead the white-haired Lillianna instinctively threw her arms back around the other woman and pulled her in tight in turn. No more thinking. No more pondering. Just burying her face in MacKensie's left shoulder and holding onto her tightly, as if either of them could disappear again, as she began to ugly sob as hard as she could into the warmth of another human being. The hot tears were pouring out like a deluge coming down upon the world, like a dammed river that had just been unleashed downstream, overwhelming everything else in its path and wiping it out of her thoughts and mind. It was nothing short of raw emotion, burning, searing, painfully hot and yet flowing freely from her without any more restraints or attempts to hold it back.
Not this time.
Lillianna cried, and she cried hard. Cried for a family that she had many fond memories of and still loved, but which had broken apart around her without being able to do anything about it as she'd been pushed to the limit and beyond along the way. Cried for a future long sought, even fought for, by her...only to be lost on the wind of change as it had all been cut off brutally yet simply at the head. Cried for someone who had become like her second family, even after it had all fallen apart and she'd been left sitting in the very basement of despair, offering her a hand and that stupid relaxed 'beach bum' smile he'd always had on his face. Cried for the pain of separation, from the fear of dying alone and being left sitting in the darkness by herself once again, for the fear of the others around her dying, for all the feelings of loneliness she'd tried to push back since her arrival, and for the lives lost so quickly and horribly in the little time they'd been stuck in thisd crazy and dangerous world they'd all been pulled into.
She'd even cry for the sake of crying, should it help in the end, but even so her heart couldn't help but let it all go like the disaster she felt like right now.
Her staff even fell to the ground with a sudden and unceremonious 'clack' amid all of this, though with all else shut out in the heat of the moment the twin element mage didn't even so much as notice it.
Gossip. Idle chatter. Things potentially seeded among them partly in-place by older students trying to get them to spout things in front of the teachers. Whatever the case was, it was nothing that Sera herself paid much attention to. Well, paid attention to 'much' to being the key word there. It was certainly a wait for the initial address to the students to begin, and admittedly the girl found herself listening with bent ear to the whispers going around. Auristel, the Second Battlemage, and the Victoria Charbeneau? Really? Was that the best an older student or peer had to toss to them in the way of made-up gossip?
She would turn to the mage that the little cospiracy theorist had called 'Theo', someone from the next cohort she surmised, trying to politely get his attention with a soft smile before speaking to him.
"They are just dirty little rumors, nothing more. Perhaps from upperclassmen trying to get someone to say something stupid here or to a teacher at that. Doesn't make such things any less tasteless though."
She felt bad for the boy, though she had no idea why the other student had asked him about the rumor in particular. She hadn't heard of any siblings of the Second Battlemage ever coming to join this year. Ah. Whatever the case, as soon as the talking and whispering and so forth suddenly was cut off Sera's eyes came up to the stage to see the face of the Headmaster himself up there. It was almost amusing to see a few peers attempt screaming at the top of their lungs but only achieving silence, as childish as such as thing was, though her ears dreaded when the spell would eventually be lifted again even if it didn't show on her face and in her expression.
Still, the tactless man seemed to have more to him than met the eye. That much her gut instinct was telling her for sure. Placing a silence spell over a whole room, the confidence in which he was on the stage, his dress and manner of appearance, all were among things that seemed to give her the impression of there being something 'peculiar' about him. She wouldn't doubt he was a highly skilled mage either, though, and that was for certain unless proven conclusively otherwise in her own mind.
Once the spell was lifted, and the Headmaster gone to formulate another ad hoc speech for the older students, Sera would turn her attention to her own Cohort's overseer. Certainly not someone who looked as if they volunteered for the job, if his expression was of any indication, but all the same she did have a few questions to ask of the man as well. Just a few things about campus, such as visitable locations, where to find office hours, and that sort of thing...well, at least in the basic sense. She could ask more later, she figured, so a few basic things to start would suffice then with haste so she could get over to the food. Could already smell the divinely cooked meats and other array of dishes...mmm~ She could barely wait as her stomach was already growling with anticipation.
Yet as she walked over to the overseer of Cohot VII she would find herself seemingly beat to the punch, perhaps in part after having to push through the crowd of her peers that was bolting for the free food. He seemed to be a tall yet bored-looking person himself, with short blond hair and blue eyes to go with it. Something about him felt grating to her, perhaps it was how soberly he seemed to drag himself over to the overseer in her eyes, but at the same time it wasn't what mattered in the end. She would take her silent if not somewhat relaxed place near the overseer, to that end, to ask what she wished to after this other boy was done with his own question.
@ERode Just to be sure and on the same page, would Esfir still do all the same stuff she did in the post then? Or would there be some small change to your post?
All good! I was a little confused as well, but I think I got it right.
She had some blood simply to hydrate while hoping to find proper water in the future, chewed on some scales because it was something to do to pass time (like chewing gum) and she wants to see what happens, and the cooked skin was apparently eaten by her so idk if anyone else wanted some of that I suppose since it got counted as part of stuff. XD
Meanwhile she is waiting for the bones and meat to cook before eating any of that, and getting that good marrow as part of that unless someone stops her. Also got that liver going for the fire along the way as well, depending on how long it would seem to take to cook.
nothing to be done with bones cracked to bits for the marrow inside.
She was only going to do that with the cooked bone of whatever portion of Elwet she got to eat. Not going around the grabbing any left behind bones to do such a thing too. So it'd all just be tied to just her doing that with her potion of Elwet once it was doled out to her.
Otherwise Lazash deinfitely agrees with the others getting more straight meat since she's been eating other bits or getting other stuff cooking over the fire they wouldn't want. No complaints there, just her wanting to see what it takes to ingest something and not thinking much about it all in this instance. XD
Everything was a blur, only for darkness to take hold over her vision and mind as the others picked her up and transported her finally to Valheim. Even James' words to her didn't really register to her unconcious mind, though his efforts did certainly help her insides stay inside and her outsides stay outside for that matter. Yet even then she had no way to know of Arthur and Clive's fates in her state, nor an understanding of whatever James alone could have detected about her when he had tended to her. She also didn't know whether MacKensie was safe, or if Fenna or her bird were still in one piece. Not even knowledge of whatever it was standing over her, or the cyborg water ninja's fate, coould have been gleaned. Not even a single word of Zell's grand speech could be heard. In the end, neither did her mind register the soft warmth of Adam's arms as he picked her up and carried her along with the others, her breathing somewhat unstable as her flesh and blood tried to stay alive as best as it could...
...though along the way she certainly wasn't wholly silent at least.
'Un..cle..."
A little mumbling in her sleep. Did she think she was still trying to stay awake? Well that was certainly-
'Ta..cos..."
Eh? No wait that was a little drool cooming from the corner of her mouth. Was she dreaming about food, or home?
Then her body curled up a little in Adam's arms as a small whimper escaped her lips, the dreaming seeming to shift visibly as her unconscious countenance changed sharply. But what could be causing it? What could it be?
...
...
...
...
Darkness. Pure oblivion sitting before her with its neverending maw stretched open wide for her, sitting there under her like she was standing on some invisible platform that could crack and give way under her feet at any moment.
Had anything or anyone heard her? Maybe. Or perhaps it didn't care to say anything back to her. Maybe only James could tell if there was anything there, for all she knew, but in the end it didn't matter.
...She didn't even know if the others were still alive, or if she was either.
Heh. It was so strange, but part of her almost didn't care to know. What was the point? She'd died already, and now she was dying or already dead once again. Below her was the eternity of oblivion, or perhaps something else she hadn't a clue about, and...well it was all so fleeting.
Life, that is. Like a short blip on the radar of eternity. If you blinked, you'd miss it.
And what had she done with that life? Wasted it being drug around by people who didn't bother asking her what she wanted to be? To become? Then barely scraping into a point where she had the reins, ohnly to just die in the middle of a pretty normal day, out of the blue, like it was nothing. It was...haha! Hahahahaha! It was LAUGHABLE at best!
Then what had she done after waking up soulnapped into some other magical world? Nothing of use. She'd panicked in a stone coffin that felt like it had fallen from the sky or something, which apaprently had been the case, and missed the blasted first battle. She'd made a shelter by overthinking everything from the start, and then fondled a MAGICAL UNDEAD CONTROL CORE MADE BY A CRAZY NECROMANCER that had given her nightmares and a sense of some potent magical power far away in the end. After that? Not talk to anyone really.
Heck, she hadn't even bothered to talk to the others by the fire. Hadn't joined MacKensie on the watch. Hadn't done a single thing to talk to anyone but a small bit to Adam, or even Fenna. Hadn't even so much as engaged more with Clive or Arthur or Zell, beyond some kind of unspoken first impression, though in hindsight she could remember that one random answer she'd made to Cliuve's attempt to comment on her shelter. Not even time to...well, she was certainly alone still in other ways to boot. Had she even seen anyone that she'd, ah, well thought was nice-looking? Maybe. Ah...but what were the chances she'd get the chance to say anything? Get to know anyone like that well enough, or know if they'd like her in return?
Ha. Maybe she was secretly forty after spending time dead back home for a while, and had been kidnapped to another world to become a wizard as her reward for the milestone! Oh that'd be priceless.
On top of that, the group had all taken her at her word seemingly outright despite being strangers! Did these people have no common sense?! Did they not worry about someone willing to lie to them or the like?!?! They were in some foreign, dangerous place with all of this crap that had been going on! Who just decided to take everything at face value like that? Idiots. Loveable, kind, honest, and goo, yet still idiots for that all the same.
Ah.
Then she'd barely did anything but carry the stupid little trinket into the Mazy Hillocks, cast a couple spells, and then decided to turn herself into human barbecue to suicidally spite a random evil cyborg water ninja who had impaled her through the torso with a water sword. A. Cyborg. Magical. Ninja. With. Water Powers. And. A. Water. Sword. Just how absurd could it all get? Certainly the magical world was something, but part of her just wanted to laugh at it and cry at the same time too.
...So why wasn't the floor giving out under her yet? If she was dying, it was sure taking a long time to do so. She could only mock herself and the universe so much in a pitiful, last-moment-of-life rant for so long before she ran out of material here or went insane from the tension of it all.
Because in the end, she still didn't want to die. She didn't want to die alone. She didn't want to spend an eternity isolated and at an insurmountable distance from everything and everyone else.
What had 'genius' gotten her? Praises and accolades from deans and officials and teachers alike? Divorcing parents and siblings torn apart from each other? Loads of college debt and scholarships for things she hadn't even chosen to go into or do? Thrown into the home of an uncle who didn't deserve to deal with the mess of housing her disrupting the life he'd made for himself? Brought on shopping trips with a woman and her two daughters who were nice to her, even though she didn't deserve any of it?
She was the pathetic one, really, in the end of it all. Yet here she was, in the middle of all of this and thrown into something she had no idea about before dying again. Albeit dying on her own terms this time, if she had to find the silver lining to it all.
...
...
...
...Wait. What was that light suddenly rushing up from the abyss towar-?!
"The patient hasn't woken up yet...should we call the healers back in?"
"We used the water diffusion spell to administer the perscribed potions to her system, and waited the appropriate amount of time for her body to heal. We did find markers of her brief contact with soome kind of dark magic, but nothing lingering like a curse or other such affliction stemming from it. By all means, her system is clean.
So I would chock it up to her state of deep sleep. A nightmare if her sleeping expression is of any indication, even after the application of the body relaxing charm spell to stop her tossing and turning in the seat."
"You seem to know quite a lot about these things."
"Well I've been working here for some time now, and this is your first day on the job after all. You can't expect to know everything from the start, but I'd say use these cases as a learning experience.
Plus the healers are currently having to deal with that Platinum-ranked adventuring party in surgery, according to the latest Message spell sent to us. Worst case we can call in the nursing staff to assist, as they would be specialized in helping wake the patient if she was lingering under a sedation spell, but we can't interrupt a whole party being operated on in the operating theater either. Not a batch of cases that severe. They need all hands on deck for that one for sure."
"Gotcha... So we just keep waiting for the patient to wake for the time being, then?"
"Presicely. If she does not wake in about, tch, fifteen more minutes? And still has no abnormal readings or otherwise? Then we should grab some assistance for-
Ah! Speaking of our sleeping friend here, the patient seems to be waking u-"
From the waiting area where Zell, Adam, James, and Fenna were sitting, a voice and two distinct sounds would be audible somewhere down the main hall as they could be heard even as far as the waiting area. They were certainly the sort of sounds that were enough to get a few staff members seemingly concerned and rushing down the hall toward the room that Lillianna was being cared for in, but which at the same time were sounds that would perhaps not be entirely alien to the ears of the other group members either. In fact, there was the potential for those who could hear potentially having a sort of deja vu if they remember a certain someone waking up back in-
Wait, why was Lillianna suddenly shouting that loud and-
*CRASH*
*BOOM*
...Ooooooh no.
The door to the mage's room, down the main hall from where the waiting area was, would suddenly open up as a pair of medical assistants stumbled out and into the hall. One of them was a man with blue skin and horns on his head, with the other being a slightly taller man with pointed ears and a more slender build, though both seemed to be coughing a little bit as the other staff moved them to the side of the hall and others entered the room itself. Their clothes seemed to be clean and intact, though, and the former of the two men would raise a hand before speaking as he was inspected over.
"Patient is awake and fine...woke in a panic and...cast a spell suddenly on waking up. Room is going to....*cough*...repair itself and be fine...just send the janitors....*wheeze*...in."
The man with pointed ears would then butt in right after.
"I put out the fire...*cough*...all by myself...asshole..."
The blue skinned man glared back, and the slender taller man back at him in turn, before staff around the two men quickly separated them before they could come to potential blows. One even seemed to start lecturing them, visibly at least, though kept her voice down when doing so apparently to avoid everyone being able to hear her.
Then finally, sheepishly, and with a face that looked utterly mortified and panicked at whatever she'd done, Lillianna would slowly emerge from the room. With her would be a short, stout woman with short fiery red hair in a couple of braids, who was escorting her gently by one hand. This was all as the mage otherwise clutched her odd staff tightly to her body with her other free hand, with said free hand's knuckles were admittedly turning a bit white from how tight she held it to boot. Even so, the stout woman seemed to talk to her where the others couldn't hear as she led her along, walking her along to where the rest of the party was before letting out a small sigh.
"Yer' friend's goin' ta' be fine, got er' potions in ahn' ah' checked her out fore' bringing her over here jus' ta' make sure. Tha' assistants at' were in er' room takin' care of her'll be fine as well. Room'll even repair isself' ahn' everythin' too, so no worries bout' the damages. We're well prepared fer' this sorta' thin' ere'."
The stout nurse's face then seemed to rapidly change, going from 'professional' to 'shit-eating grin a big as it could be' before a hearty laugh erupted from her throat. A definite 180 from what she had come over seeming like. She even gave the twin-element mage a joyful slap on the mid-back, causing Lillianna to jump a bit in the direction of her group members before the nurse continued speaking with a now joyful somewhat glee-filled tone.
"Relax, lass, yer' fine like ah' told yeh' back there! An' personally speakin', ah' needed ta' see all o' that ta'day! Hahaha!!! Ah...whew! Kay'. Ta'day's been ah' rough one fer' sure, lads' n' lasses', think ah' few of us needed somethin' like at' ta' snap us outta' tha' sour mood and get us' thinkin' bout' thing gain'.
Ahn' if this one's any indicashun', be sure ta' send any more friends of yer's ere' if they need help too. "
As she seemed to calm back down, though, the nurse put a hand to her chest and then adopted a softer and once more 'professional' type look. Her gaze then turned to Lillianna once more as she smiled back at her calmly.
"But truly, dunna' worry any bout' tha' damage though. Ah' meant that seriously. Even our clothin' ere's got some magic ta' protect us, buildin' too, so no worries bout' that stuff. Take yer' time, lass, ahn' dunna' forget ta' take tha' time ta' breathe, ok? Come back any time ya' and yer' friends need ta', darlin', ahn' if anyone ever tries ta' judge yeh' ere' jus' ask fer' ol' Head Nurse Kreim'ild ere' and ah'll set em' all straight!"
The mage would slowly, even if still a little nervously (but not as much now) nod back silently in return. With that, and a small wave, the stout woman would leave Lillianna with the group and walk back down the hall. A few staff walking down the hall would move to avoid her path, though others would simply walk by her like it was normal business. It certainly was telling if she was the actual "Head Nurse" of the place, though, especially as she seemed to move directly toward where Lillianna's two former in-room caretakers were still being held apart from each other by their peers.
...Perhaps it was best to not spy in on that business at this point.
Whatever the case would be for the staff down there, in the meantime the white-haired girl would look back over at her party-mates and silently look over their faces. Their hands. Their postures. The anchor now sitting on James' back and the absence of his staff. Without a word her expression seemed to drop into that of a more acute worry and concern, among other emotions that seemed to be swirling within her just behind that expression, and yet she seemed to be unable to get a single word to come out in the heat of the moment as her mouth opened and then silently shut again. Both of her hands now clutches at her staff tightly and with slightly white knuckles, though after a few more moments of awkward silence on her part the mage would take a gulp and open her mouth once more in an attempt to say something while looking at each of the faces of the group members there in the eye.
"...I'm happy to see you...so....so happy to see you all are still alive."
Her voice would slightly crack audibly as she spoke, all as small tear would very visibly run out from the far corner of her right eye. The year would begin slowly starting to fall down her cheek as it left a slightly glistening trail behind it. Like a small crack in the dam she had thrown up, which was threatening to burst even more so at any given moment as she struggled more visibly to hold it all back.
In reality, she felt like she was barely holding it back by a thread at best. Like she was afraid any more, or a hug, or something and she'd burst open with all of the tears and the sobbing and all of it. Tears she'd been trying to hold back for some time for a beloved uncle and a home now long lost to her, and new ones she'd be shedding along the way for people who had apparently risked their lives for and now carried her to a hospital in what she'd assume was Valheim...as well other tears shed to boot for the lost. The anchor strapped to James by its chains was more than telling of something having happened to Arthur, and the lack of the presence of Clive and MacKensie and Joji was something that she worried meant the worst had happened to...t-to them too. And on top of all of that she'd-...she had...after all of that and...she'd almost died. Alone. Alone and left sitting in the darkness once more.
She was trying to be strong...so much...for so long thus far...it...and it was at least more visible to the remaining members of the group. She struggled to even put words or further actions to it though...to allow herself to let it all go in this instance. Her, someone who had held herself and all her life been held by others to 'be strong' and 'restrain herself' and all of that crap. And here she was, not far from bursting at the seams.
Zapdos
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