1. Home
  2. FrostedCaramel

FrostedCaramel Member

Avatar of FrostedCaramel

Status

User has no status, yet

Bio

User has no bio, yet

Most Recent Posts

In From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large → 2 mos ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Mars, Arisa Mons


“The foremen report another 761 menials and servitors lost in a containment field breach at the dam site.” the monotone voice of Parvel spoke to him with his flesh voice.

Adept Cacyce barely registered the words, categorizing them along with several other lower functions to be sorted through and dealt with later; he had more pressing issues.

“This datasmyth, Acolyte Omah, tell me all you know.” Cacyce commanded of Parvel. His mechanic eyes watched in every spectrum of visible and nonvisible light as Parvel became very still. He registered an increase in the unmodified human body temperature of 1.7 degrees and an increase in his heart rate to nearly double a moments prior.

Parvel, his eyes focused on a distant point in space, began to speak.

“Acolyte Omah, born to a pair of datasmyths in the lower sections of Olympus Mons. Illegally. Still, she was allowed to persist after deliberation and arbitration of a lower court of Adepts. Exceptional data analytics exhibited from a young age. Seconded to her parents for further tutelage. Gained extended posting above Terra as censure for possible heretikal thought, though unproven. Attendance to prayer and holy maintenance rights have been registered as tardy on two occasions both within five seconds of scheduled rites.” Parvel stopped speaking, his eyes refocusing on his master as he took his first breath since he began speaking.

“There is more, though less important data I have consumed.”

Adept Cacyce shook his head, “That is good Parvel, I need not much more.”

Cacyce turned from his human savant and scowled, the magi of parliament had already spent days deliberating the data that Adept Omah had provided before they had decided, by a slim majority, to interrogate the Adept herself. Cacyce had watched as the tech adept had sweat under the gaze of their proxy, as she fumbled and fidgeted in the most minute of ways. He’d noticed her markedly doctrinal responses and the unwavering conviction she held in her work. He’d then sat for several more days as the parliament bickered and dithered over the delegation to meet the so-called Emperor. He had loathed that part the most. He had left Parvel with his acolyte, to help the up and coming magos with her work at Arisa Mons, but he had not been so lucky.

The oldest among the parliament, the most heavily entrenched in doctrine and dogma had insisted they make up the delegation. They had said that they were the most seasoned, the most knowledgeable, the most in touch with the will and command of the Machine God. Many of the far younger and louder techpriests of the parliament had thought otherwise. They had argued that they held the best chance of swaying this Terran Emperor to their cause, that they were among the most forward-thinking of the Cult, that they could most easily connect with and explain the Mechanicum’s wishes. He had agreed with them, though he had held his tongue. The time of the old Cult was long past due. Their obstructionism toward progress was an affront to all things holy, their insistence on superstition and dogma was antiquated and counterproductive.

By the time that the deliberations had ended, the young and youthful of the priesthood had won out. The delegation would be filled with forward thinkers, with those most dedicated to progress and innovation. He could already feel the plotting of the losers taking place behind the shadows, the movement of pieces across Mars was evident. Production quotas were suddenly missed, shipments late or under supplied. There was a small, sputtering, bloodless rebellion taking place across the surface of the red planet, but it would be short lived. For so much was about to change, Cacyce could feel it.

He sent a priority databurst in lingua-technis to his acolyte and received the reply just microseconds later. She was on her way.

“Parvel,” he began with his flesh voice, the action slow but still far more natural sounding than many of his fellow magi, “have the vault readied, I wish to show her everything.”

Parvel, with all his grace, bowed his head and hurried off without a word.

A static burst announced the arrival of his acolyte and her compliance to his request. He noted the exact arrival time and was content with the time she had made in her travel to his locum.

+Follow.+ he commanded in a burst of static.

Parvel had arrived first, had readied the vault doors and the medicae servitor for its function. His mind hungered to experience the ecstasy of the relic beyond those doors, to see its glory for himself. He had seen it, of course, but he had never truly seen it, not as his master had, or as his master’s acolyte soon would.

He turned as the hermetic doors to the airlock of the vault entrance hissed open. He bowed to his master and the acolyte as he raised a hand toward the medicae servitor, “Prepared as requested, Master Cacyce.”

His master replied bluntly with his flesh voice before a burst of static was exchanged between the two techpriests before Parvel.

“She will proceed with the operation.” Adept Cacyce informed him with a wave toward the medicae station.

The servitor whirred to life as his master activated it with unheard commands.

+Glory to the Deus Machina+ it blurted in machine code, +This unit reports all systems nominal and awaits command+

His master's Acolyte slipped herself into the medicae chair without a word. A small port on the side of the burnished bronze plate that had replaced her flesh opened silently and the medicae stations' began to work on the command of some unheard instruction. The many articulated limbs of the medicae station went to work at this command within the confines of the acolytes skull.

Parvel watched in sick fascination as blood and unknown darker fluid was suctioned from within the acolytes bronze skull. He winced as flesh and bone was removed with not even a wince from the woman, and held his breath as the medicae servitor placed a tiny electronic chip with wires dangling into the acolytes head. He breathed a sigh of relief as the bronze port shut once more, and he cataloged every instance of the surgery in his mind for further digestion once the task ahead was complete, if he could remember this after bearing witness to what was on the other side of the vault doors.

She pushed herself up from the medicae station’s surgical chair, a number of errors flowing past her vision as she steadied herself before her master.

+This unit reports function, lead on, Master+ she blurted in static noise as she took an uncertain step toward the massive vault doors ahead of her.

+Satisfactory+, her master, Adept Cacyce, responded in a far shorter burst of binharic.

The vault doors, 31.3 meters tall and 17.2 meters wide by auspex ranging bursts, hissed with the release of a hermetic seal. She watched as the massie doors vanished into the walls at either side of her, each side seating into its position without even a micrometer of material protruding from their slots. She reveled at the engineering of the doors, the craftsmanship that had been exacted to make such exacting measurements reality. At least until she saw what existed beyond.

Parvel saw nothing. Nothing beyond what his unmodified eyes were capable of seeing. A small chamber, especially given the impressive doors that had withheld entry from the sanctum beyond. A single dais stood at the center of the room, cabling ran from it to a bank of cogitators aligned against the far wall. He could parse the purpose from his own reams of knowledge. Data transmission. Data augmentation. Data collating. He found himself underwhelmed.

What had all of this pomp been for? Why had he been remitted to secrecy for this? This was nothing he wished to remember. Nothing that would hold importance within his memory far into the future. He turned toward his master to voice his distaste for the theatrics on display here, for the waste of resources and effort that he had been a part of.

Parvel found his words stuck in his throat as his eyes passed over the burnished bronze form of his master’s acolyte. The woman, or what was left of the woman that had once been, was crying. Tears streamed down her face in runnels of volcanic ash and bronze. And though he did not understand it, he marveled at the form of the acolyte then, at the humanity on display from Koriel Zeth.


In From Ashes We Rise : The Imperium Is Born → 4 mos ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Panpacific Empire
Hive City of Ouran



Dae-Hyun hurried along the street toward home. His shift had only recently been called to an emergency halt at the manufactorum, the entire production line sent away with hurried voxcaster announcements to make for home and await further instructions. He wasn’t sure what was happening, and rumors on the factorum floor ran wild with answers. A workers' revolt in the lower levels had prompted a hive-wide shutdown. The hive nobility had called a national night of remembrance for those lost in the hive tunnel 432-A-56 collapse. Narthan Dume was dead. People from beyond the stars were coming to visit. Enemies from beyond the Jade Citadel were closing on Ouran. He couldn’t decide which to believe, and so he followed the instructions the automated voice was repeating over and over, and made straight for his hab-block.

The streets were crowded with the residents of Ouran, and he had to shoulder his way through a number of intersections as he passed into a lower level exchange ramp up toward the hab-zone he called home. As he came up the crest of the ramp and onto the main thoroughfare within his hab level he had to stop short as a column of eight wheeled hive guard transports rumbled past at speed. Once he was sure he wouldn’t be flattened by another transport truck, Dae-Hyun crossed the thoroughfare and made straight for the lift that would take him home.

He rode the lift silently with a number of his neighbors, the emergency order audible in the distance as it repeated off of voxcasters and pict-screens. He hurried to his apartment, fumbling with the physical keys in his pocket for just a moment before he scooped up the right key and made his way inside.

Dae-Hyun shut the door behind him and locked it tight, breathing a sigh of relief as he deposited his work bag on the small crate he used as an entry table. He passed through his sparse apartment and rummaged through his cold-storage for a drink, smiling as he pulled a sojj from the back near the frost vent. He shut the cold-storage behind him and cracked the seal from the sojj as he moved across to the small window that was his only view of the world outside his apartment. He took a swig as he watched flashes of light bloom all across the rad-waters of the eastern sea, probably just rad lightning, he thought. But his curiosity was building as he noticed stark black shadows picked out along the surface in front of the blossoms of light. The day was certainly strange.


The drone of the landing craft engines had been enough to nearly drown out cross-company vox reports and status updates for the better part of three hours according to the chronometer, but that was nothing compared to the incoming artillery fire from the Ouran hive coastal defenses. Orm Gallius, vox operator of The Emperors Eagles 33rd Company fiddled with the voxcasters bulky controls. He leaned in close, pressing his headset to his ears to pick out the messages coming through as his commanding officer stood perched high in the wheelhouse cupola with magnoculars in hand.

“Reports from the forward landing craft, heavy enemy resistance, coastal batteries and bunker emplacements are beginning to open up now.” Orm repeated for his commander.

“As expected,” Colonel Kane answered as he waved a hand inside the wheelhouse to grab Orm’s attention, “transmit it on, coastal bunkers are engaging with heavy las and heavy kinetic rounds, several landing craft are aflame well before the shore.”

Orm nodded, diligently relaying his commanders report as their landing craft rumbled forward under the barrage. “Message received sir--” an artillery shell landed close to starboard, rocking the landing craft and peppering its thin metal frame with shrapnel. Orm heard the pained screams of wounded men and women in the troop compartment ahead of them as the roar of the explosion subsided.

“Message received sir,” he repeated as he looked up to Colonel Kane in the cupola. He reeled away from the sight as he realized the Colonel was slumped headless where he stood out the roof of the craft. He noticed with a grim interest that the Colonel's uniform was caught on a jagged piece of metal and was holding him up as blood gouted down his body.

Orm gathered his thoughts and swapped to the company vox channel, “Major Vanders, Colonel Kane is dead.” He pushed the news forward to the next highest officer on the craft.

“Understood,” was the only answer from the dour Major over the vox.

“Thirty seconds!” the wheelman called out as the interior troop bay lights switched off.

Orm could hear the heavy stubber rounds pinging off the front ramp of the craft as the engine pitch rose to a high whine.

A number of blinding red flashes filled the wheelhouse as Orm gripped the handhold to his left. He registered the lascannon bolts only as an afterthought as they incinerated a naval rating directly to his right.

The landing craft bucked to a violent halt as it came ashore at full speed. An alarm sounded and the ramp fell with the help of gravity. The first row of imperial troopers barely managed a step before they were cut to shreds by stubber rounds and las. Withering fire poured into the troop compartment, bodies falling where they’d stood for hours without managing to make any forward progress at all. But Orm watched in amazement as the sheer mass of his company overcame the intense fires.

Troopers spilled down the sides of the ramp, a number of lucky ones managed it down the front of the ramp itself, and Orm punched the emergency release on the escape hatch to his left to follow his fellows onto the beach. He leapt without looking, heavy stubber rounds ripping into the wheelhouse as he fell several meters into the rad-water beneath him. He flailed and sputtered in the toxic water, his voxcaster threatening to pull him back from the shore as he struggled for footing in the sludge of the seabed, but his boots found purchase and he hefted himself out of the rad-water.

Throwing himself to cover behind an anti-landing craft obstacle, he surveyed the beach and shuddered. Flames consumed a dozen landing craft up and down the beach, troopers ablaze spilled from their craft to douse themselves in the toxic water never to rise again. Hundreds of men lay dead or dying as more joined them from the fire of the defenders.

He struggled with his voxcaster as he made himself small against his cover, “First wave ashore, sustaining heavy losses!” He managed out into the command net as a trooper was gutted by a heavy stubber round just steps from him.

He turned his gaze out to the waters, and picked out the silhouettes of the second wave of craft approaching at speed.

“Emperor save us.” He whispered.
In From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large → 4 mos ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Ixhun

Cuauhtl had been surprised by Ocotopec as it now stood. Its walls had been expanded, raised some six meters higher than the last time he had laid eyes on them. Large towers stood silent vigil, evenly distributed along the walls, far enough apart for two hundred men to fight back the Easterners from between them. The gatehouse, a modest thing last he had stepped through it, was now a massive edifice of beauty and war at once. Two towers stood to either side of it, and the gate itself towered over them as they approached. Bas-relief images of the Five Suns began at the bottom of the gate, culminating in the Fifth Sun in all his splendor at the top of the gate itself, a heart clutched at its bosom.

They had arrived just as the sun began to rise and the gates were opening for the people of Ocotopec. They streamed out in their hundreds as they made their way to the fields and hunting grounds that surrounded and sustained the great walled city.

Cuauhtl noticed with unease that his strange companion and himself were the only souls moving to enter the city. The people parted in their masses to let them through, the avoidance of their gaze and the lack of greetings turned his attention to his new found acquaintance. He gasped at what he saw.

She gazed all around, her eyes soaking in all that stood before her. Every face that she passed, every newly dyed piece of clothing, the gate house bas-reliefs and the decorative golden statues atop the gate towers. He brought a hand to her forearm without thought, wrapping her from behind and speaking in a low voice as they walked toward the city entrance.

“Keep your eyes straight, your gaze steady. We do not look upon others this way, they will know you are different, not one of us,” he motioned to her steps, his hand still wrapped tight around her forearm as he did, “you will be seen.”

The strange girl nodded as he spoke, and he felt himself breathe a sigh of relief as she steadied her gaze far ahead and began to match his easy pace.

Then he felt the cold terror run through him as the stranger's hand clasped his own firmly.

“Do not touch me again, ever.” She stated calmly in her accent so much like poetry. But he could not appreciate the sound of her voice, for the inherent threat in her statement seeped into his mind as though it had been screamed at him from within his own head.

He tore his hand away, his palms already sweaty as he nodded sheepishly to the stranger. “Of course, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t have time to linger on the surety with which he knew she would end his life over such an infraction again as one of guards of the great city of Ocotopec approached.

The guard held a hand out as he walked.

“You two, stop there!” he called from behind the ornately carved wooden mask of a Jagr, “ihiyohuia,” he began in greeting, “but I do not know your faces, and I know everyones faces in my city.”

Cuauhtl felt his stomach jump into his throat as the guard stopped them, “How did you dawn?” He responded as confidently as he could muster, “And you are not mistaken, we are not of Ocotopec, of your great city,” he offered a bow as he spoke, motioning for the strange girl to follow suit.

He felt relief as he noticed her hair dangling low as she bowed with him, and he spoke as he rose, “We come from Apaxco, and though we wish not to bother you, we bring terrible news.”

He felt his confidence wavering as he spoke. The other guards began to encircle the duo, their macuahuitl clutched loosely in their hands.

“Apaxco, what news do you bring young one, why not your runners or your priests?”

Cuauhtl could feel the suspicion in the guards’ words, and he saw it clearly in the way they closed their circle as he spoke. Sweat began to run down his face and he felt as though he couldn’t quite breathe.

“We must be permitted to speak to the high priest, the matter is beyond your station, I apologize.”

The guard with Jagr mask laughed, a humorless thing as he brought the serrated weapon in his hand up to be used

“Is it beyond my station? I must let two jungle trash within my city? Messengers from Apaxco with no messenger bird to herald your arrival? I must take your word for this?” he exclaimed as he pointed the tip of his club between the two of them.

“I have not dawned well this day,” the Jagr guard concluded as he brought his macuahuitl up to strike.

Cuauhtl screamed, not in terror as when his city had died around him, but in anguish as the Jagr guard slumped to the ground before his eyes. He registered the gaping hole in his chest, and the heart in the girl's hand vibrating in its death throes as the stranger smiled with too white teeth.

“Please!” He yelled, “No more!” He pleaded as his legs gave out beneath him. He crumpled to the ground in a heap as another of the gate retinue collapsed, bisected down the middle by the Jagr guards macuahuitl.

He felt the warmth of blood flowing around his hands as he scrabbled uselessly at the cobblestones of the road.

“Apaxco has fallen!” He yelled as loud as he could as another guard lost his arms to a wild swipe of the stolen weapon.

The other guards, not so lost in the melee before them as to miss these words, stopped short in their swings and lunges, quickly retreating from the strange girl as they collected themselves at the unexpected news.

The girl screamed and growled like a wild animal. Gnashing teeth and darting gaze harassed the guards as they pulled away from her. The obsidian teeth of the macuahuitl flashed in the light as she lashed out at random with excited eyes.

“Speak child, do not make us kill her!” A guard ordered, the confidence of the late Jagr guard gone as his eyes flashed to his armless comrade shaking feverishly on the cobblestones in a pool of his own blood.

“The Easterners took us, six Suns ago!” He motioned to the girl, now stood stock still with the bloodied club at her side, “she and I are all that escaped! We must speak with the priesthood!”

The guards exchanged uneasy looks behind their intricate masks, weighing the worth of this folly Cuahtl imagined, before motioning to the girl, “Drop it, and we will take you both.”

Cuauhtl didn’t need to look at the girl to see if she’d followed the command as he heard the club clatter to the wet stones.[/hr]
In From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large → 6 mos ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Ixhun

Cuauhtl knew the way to the next closest city, for he had traveled it several times in his earliest years with the teopixqui. The priests would go on and on about the Turquoise Prince, babbling away for hours and days as they debated the finer points of creation, sacrifices, the favor of the gods and the beyond. He had found it fascinating, truly, but he had only had a short attention span for such intense theocratic debate in those early years of apprenticing with the holy men. So, instead, as the old men rambled on, he’d count the octagonal pillars that marked every count of five miles on the path, and try his best to estimate their arrival time to Ocotopec based on the position of the Sun.

Now, far enough from his own home to no longer hear the screams of the tortured and dying, but still close enough to taste the acrid burn of ash in the air, he began to count once more. All the while, the girl strode at his side in silence.

He had exclaimed that they should avoid the road at first, reasoned that the Easterners would be watching for those that were trying to escape the death throes of their city. Yet the strange girl had simply laughed at the thought, shrugged lightly and motioned him down the road with a blood stained hand. He hadn’t tried to reason with her again after that. Not for a few days worth of mile markers.

On the third day of traveling, Cuauhtl spoke to the girl once more.

“I’m hungry,” he admitted, still so rattled by the horrors of the night he had met her that he hadn’t stopped to think about his hunger in the slightest. He’d stopped and drank from streams and puddles on occasion, but never once had he found the time, or the will, to face his stomach.

The girl stopped walking, a quizzical look gracing her too-beautiful features.

“I can fix that,” she answered, the first words she’d spoken to him since his rescue, “Wait.”

Cuauhtl was about to question the command when the girl simply stepped off the path and into the dense forest off to her right.

“Wait!” He yelled as he began to follow, only to catch himself at the threshold of the jungle. He wanted desperately to follow, to stay with her, but he found his body unable to move. His legs refused to take another step as his eyes locked on the jungle just ahead.

Darkness consumed the jungle. The dense tree cover and plants smothered out much of the light that the Sun Above offered. His vision began to tunnel as he stared into the dark. His hands became clammy as he looked on, his breathing shallow and quick, and his ears rang. He could smell the charnel house of his temple, the priests’ innards assaulting his nostrils as he found the landscape shifting before his eyes. He was back in the temple, back in that hall of carnage, back with the Easterners. He startled, turning suddenly at the Easterner at his side, only to find himself back on the path to Ocotopec, staring at the strange girl from an uncomfortably close distance.

She was smiling at him. It was a predatory thing, a disturbingly close mimicry of the real warmth of a smile. It made his heart ache with longing, even while that little animalistic part of his brain screamed in protest to run from this facsimile of a human girl. His eyes followed her movements and he felt his mind begin to run as she offered up the carcass of a small child to him. He gagged, wretched, and vomited onto the path as the realization of her offering processed in his mind.

He staggered back from her, the false smile on her lips exchanged for confusion as he did, “I can’t eat that—” he caught his words. He took in the thing in her hands once again, tears welling in his eyes as bile burnt at his throat. The child’s limbs were too long, covered in fur, its head too round, and she held it by the tail.

“You can not eat ozomahtli?” She asked him, “I have seen you people eat this regularly.”

Cuauhtl found himself relieved as he took in the body of the monkey-like animal. The shifting iridescent colors of its fur were a relief as he dispelled the image of the child the girl had held before.

“I—“ he struggled for words for a moment, before finally finding his thoughts beneath the confusion, “I was mistaken. I can start a fire?”

“No fire,” the girl answered quickly as her hands ripped the monkey in half down the middle. Cuauhtl gagged again as the animal's insides sloshed to the earth in a hot mess.

“Eat, we must continue,” the girl commanded as she grabbed the heart and tore it free from the surrounding structures, “time is short, and we are close. The city is loud.” she added as she motioned toward the sun above them with a bloodied finger.

Cuauhtl, disgusted and terrified, felt compelled to eat. His legs carried him to the ground beside the offered meal of their own accord. His hands reached at the carcass that had been offered and grasped at the dripping meat. Tears filled his eyes as he ate, but he could not stop himself. The pit that was his stomach made itself fully known now, and Cuahtl found himself reaching for parts of the ozomahtli he had never even thought of eating in the past.

Above him, the strange girl simply watched, seemingly satiated by the heart alone. Her predatory eyes studied Cuauhtl, and though he felt them boring into the back of his head he dared not turn from the food before him.

In From Ashes We Rise : The Imperium Is Born → 1 yr ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
The Planalto Hive, Hy Brasil

Costas Residence, Outer Spire, Upper Reach

There had been whispers of a man traveling through the high spires of the Planalto. It had been whispered that he came with promises of wealth beyond measure and influence to stretch far into a family's future. They said he had promised, that a new world was just beyond the horizon. All one had to do to suckle at his claimed infinite fount was to give the man one’s firstborn daughter. Miguel had laughed these frivolous claims off. They were nothing but the wives' tales told between the bored and the unhappy among the wealthy circles of the Planalto. A man traveling around offering wealth and power beyond what they already possessed? And all one had to do was give up a child? Nonsense.

Or so he had thought.

“Lord Costas, there is a… visitor for you.”

Miguel tore his concentration from the scrolling text of manufactorum output and shipping manifests to wave a dismissive hand at the servant, “At this hour? Nothing but brigands and thieves, peddlers in the night. Send him away from the gates.”

“He will not leave, and he is not at the gates, Lord.”

Miguel reeled at the tone of his servant, a man of some forty Terran years, all of it in loyal service to the Costas Family, rebuking him for the first time in his lifelong service.

“Lower your tone Sandova--” Miguel stood suddenly, his hand tearing open a drawer at his desk and pulling a masterfully crafted laspistol from within, “What do you mean he’s not at the gates?”

His servant hesitated a moment, looked behind himself, and shirked from the doorway without a word. Miguel raised his laspistol squarely at the open space.

“You shall not find me there,” a voice as rich as honey called quietly from a darkened corner of Miguel’s study.

Miguel spun in place, his laspistol spitting iridescent bolts into the darkness that had spoken to him. He stopped shooting only once the laspistol fizzled at every trigger pull. His eyes struggled to adjust in the dark, the flickering flames from books and tomes he had ignited with his wild shots only heightening the length of the shadows cast about his study.

There was a whisper of the wind to his side, and Miguel felt the presence of a being too immense for him to not have noticed earlier simply appear at his side. He felt the armored hand, far larger than any human should possess, close completely over his shoulder. He sat back down in his chair at the gentle insistence of the intruder, the laspistol slipping from his fingers as he keyed the silent alarm in the chair's armrest.

“It makes no difference, I have silenced all communication within the premises,” the intruder spoke before, finally, Miguel could see him.

“H--- How did you?” Miguel sputtered as he felt himself sink further into his chair at the sight of the being before him. Armored from head to toe in an impressive, if not overly indulgent golden plate, Miguel could see no exposed skin of the massive being from his quick, if not completely terrified, once-over.

The being shifted, the weight on Miguel’s shoulder easing as the golden giant walked around the front of the desk. “Unimportant, Miguel Jose Costas, what is important is that you listen to me as though everything you and your ancestors have built hangs in the balance,” the armored giant stopped squarely in front of Miguel and stood unnervingly still. Miguel felt as though he wished to disappear as he stared at the emotionless red lenses of the giant's helmet.

“Your family, your legacy. Everything that you and the countless Costas’ before you have toiled for, has led you to this exact moment Miguel,” the giant spoke through the helmet’s vox amplifier, though Miguel could not recognize any distortion from the device, a masterwork lost even to the technocrats of Planalto, “it has led you, to me.”

Miguel choked on his own spit, coughed for a moment, and with wild eyes searched the flat plate of the giant for any sign that he was dreaming, “To you…?” he eked out, sweat stinging at his eyes.

“Correct, Lord Costas, to me,” the giant gave him a nod of approval, “I am here to decide the fate of your lofty house, to offer you a place at the side of the Master of Mankind, and to secure the future of your lauded family in the golden age that approaches sooner than you know.”

Miguel felt his breath catch in his throat as the rich voice of the golden giant spoke the name of the tyrant halfway across the planet, “You come from the Imperials…” he stated as much for himself as for the golden statue of armor before him, “to decide my fate…?”

“Just so,” the giant agreed, “I am Amaranthus Gallus, Custodian of the Emperor of Mankind, and judge of all you hold dear.”

Miguel felt the weight of the words pressing in at his psyche. The overwhelming threat of destruction that the Custodian before him represented would have been enough to drive a lesser man mad. Miguel, with great effort, sat himself a little straighter in his chair. “I am listening, Custodian.”

The Custodian took a step away from the desk, satisfied with the little lord's answer, and began to walk about the study with steps far too quiet for the elaborate suit of armor he wore.

“My Master claims glory across the globe, he unites our disparate tribes into a cohesive whole once more,” the Custodian stopped to inspect a number of books on the shelves as he spoke, “he will not remain across the globe for long, Lord Costas,” Miguel watched as his gauntleted fingers plucked a book from the shelves and began to turn through the pages, “It is here, right now, that you must make the most important decision of your life.”

Miguel watched as the Custodian turned O Príncipe, by the 15th-century histographer Matcheveley, his lips going dry at the sight of the book.

“My Master will arrive here, and Hy Brasil will bend the knee, or it will burn. But the end will be the same, this land and its people will be united under his rule. Would you be ground to dust, or rebuilt anew in His light, Miguel Jose Costas?”

Miguel searched for the words to answer the Custodian, struggling to form coherent sentences in his mind as he felt his soul was being bored into by the red lenses of the Custodian.

“Is it as simple as a promise? As my word that I would join your Master?” Miguel stammered unevenly.

The Custodian shut the book and placed it neatly back in its exact spot on the shelf. “There is one condition,” the Custodian began before his helmet turned to face the doorway.

“Who is that Daddy?”

Miguel turned, his heart shattering at the sight of his daughter in the study doorway, “A friend, Clara, now go back to sleep.”

The Custodian watched as the child disappeared from the doorway and only seemed to speak once it was clear the girl was gone.

“It is a small price to pay, Costas.”

“I couldn’t, it’s beyond my ability to give.”

“Nonsense, it’s well within your right, to secure your future, and hers in the annals of history.”

“It’s unconscionable.”

“It’s what is right.”

Miguel felt fire in his belly, for the first time since he had dropped the laspistol he yearned to strike back against the unstoppable intruder, “You take from me my very heart, for what? Leverage? A hostage for your Emperor’s game?”

The Custodian didn’t seem to react behind his stoic helmet, only shaking his head lightly at the outburst.

“We will forge anew what you give to us. She will be perfected, she will outlive all you hold dear well beyond what you could ever imagine possible. Ten thousand years from now, she will walk amongst the stars and stand side by side with our greatest achievements, a perfect representation of all that humanity can be. And you, Lord Costas, will be nothing but dust. Yet your family will remain, by your sacrifice.”

Miguel could find no words. He slumped back in his chair and sighed, only a small whimper escaping his lips as he nodded in defeat to the golden giant. There was no survival here without the giant's blessing. He felt tears well in his eyes and keyed a personal vox that surprisingly crackled to life on the desk before him.

“Bring Clara back to my study, there is someone she must meet.”

In From Ashes We Rise : The Imperium Is Born → 1 yr ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay

[Undisclosed Location]
[Deep Beneath the Himalazian Mountains]


There should be some sort of grand pronouncement at things like this.

At least, that’s how the histories always wrote them down. The Director shifted uneasily as she looked over the final report for the… she had lost track of how many times she had read it. Everything seemed correct, but far from feeling the triumph of success the scientist kept searching for a flaw, some error that she had missed earlier. She didn’t dare to let herself have hope anymore. But…

It was undeniable. The two children, vat-bred and flash-grown from her own genetic stock, had passed every preliminary test and screening she and the rest of the Biotechnical Division could devise. They were perfect, or at least as close to perfect as any human could ever become. It was them, or cancel the project entirely.

With a deep, bone-weary, sigh, Amar Astarte stood from her desk and prepared for surgery. Distantly, suppressed, the glory hound that lived in the heart of every great genius mused upon the words she would use to usher in a new era of human history, the thoughts flashing by as she reflexively went through the motions. She had done the procedure enough times now after all.

I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds flashed into her mind as the boy and girl were sedated.

Too trite. Long overused by generations of madmen unleashing their newest weapon. Besides, these were meant to be more than a weapon.

She paused at that last thought, hands covered in soapy water. Did she still believe it? Did she trust any one of his promises? She had to. It was the only way.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End intruded upon her as the first of the artificial organs were being implanted in the girl’s chest cavity.

Better, but too aspirational. She wasn’t playing God. A frown crossed her face, hidden by her mask, as she looked down at the organ in her hand. Secondary heart, the simplest and easiest of implants. Very low rejection probability. Most of her assistants in the operating theater - failures, all, for so few could be trusted with this most sensitive of tasks - had one beating in their chests, placed there by her own hand.

Perhaps she was playing God. Then again, what did that make those who had commissioned this great work? The heart beat its first beat as she was lost in her musings, her body having carried on with the task without her. The work was good, flawless even. How many of these had she implanted? There was a record with the exact number. She decided she didn’t want to know.

I am He who protects you for millions of years took months for her to remember, the woman thinking of it as she sliced open the boy’s brain. The full-production models would rest years in between the surgeries, but the prototypes didn’t have such a luxury.

The thought was better, she decided, seizing upon the distraction as she took the occulobe in hand. That was the point of all of this, wasn’t it? To create protectors. But that did really mean robbing those chosen of their childhoods, their lives? She stopped, letting out a shaky breath as she pulled her hands back and gave the implant to one of her gene-lineage. She couldn’t work, not like this. The failures could continue the surgery.

Her mind did not intrude again. The thirst for fame fled from her thoughts, chastised, knowing that it had almost brought about failure. The remaining surgeries went as planned, the Director icy-eyed and unfazed as she butchered the pair. She needed the focus more and more as they proceeded, as the two proved themselves capable of withstanding what was done to them. There were far fewer successes with each step further she took after all.

Until, at last, she was upon the greatest and final desecration. Flaying the girl, for there was little else that could be said of the procedure, and piecing the skin back together again with the grotesque black layer now laid beneath.

Like clay I shall mold them.

The thought wasn’t hers, of course, but then again none of them had been. That ate at her, somewhat, that at the precipice of her triumph, she could only think of the ancient prayers of long-dead religions. But this wasn’t one of those either. No. This was his.

“They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give themselves to me,” she whispered to herself as she grafted on the last of the plates. “Like clay I shall mold them and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armor shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines such that no foe can best them in battle.” By now she had moved on to suturing up the mess of skin she had created, hiding the horror she had unleashed upon the two - they were no longer children, no matter the age attached to them.

“They are my bulwark against the Terror,” Amar continued in a stronger voice, the heads of the failures turning towards her quizzically as she turned off the drip of sedative to the warriors she had forged.

“They are the Defenders of Humanity,” she recited, nearing the end of the charge that he had set down when this project had begun so many long years ago. The Director took a shaking step back away from her work as a rebellious part of her prayed that these two, unlike so many before, would wake.

“They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear,” the Director said with a confidence she did not feel as stimulants began to flow into the pair’s blood.

Two pairs of eyes flashed open.



The echo of boots clicking along the floor vied for supremacy over the sounds of hissing mechanical arms and chattering cogitator banks. The place was alive with the actions of several hundred white-suited scientists working tirelessly in the cold sterility of the lab. They spun liquids in glass beakers, moved pipettes of unknown organics across Petri dishes, focused magnometers, and clicked away at archaic cogitators of immense power. Between them, scientists with red stripes running vertically down one side of their sterile suits from their shoulders crossed from station to station, their hands writing ceaselessly at the dataslates they held.

Above it all, Aria Allectus watched through the armorglass windows and floor of her office. She had the best view in the entire facility, her circular office set high above the laboratory floor allowing her an unimpeded view of every workstation. She could pull information from any cogitator bank or workstation she gazed at with her implanted optical augmetics, monitoring the progress of the hundreds under her charge with ease. Few things unsettled her here, in her domain, at the forefront of scientific advancement. But the being standing in her office unsettled her beyond words.

“The cultivation goes with only minor issues, th---”

“Minor issues?” the voice rumbled, rich and low at Aria’s choice of words.

“Minor issues, Lord-Tribune, when the stocks were lost to us---”

“A temporary setback, Assistant Director Allectus, we will bring the stocks back into our embrace soon enough. For now, you must make do with what you have, no matter these setbacks.”

Aria gulped, hoping that the Custodian before her couldn’t sense her fear, but knowing all too well that he could. “Of course, of course. My people are working as efficiently as possible,” she eyed a cogitator bank on the far side of the vast space below her and pulled up the scrolling information within it, the information projecting onto one of the windows of her office as she did, “In fact, we are operating at 137% efficiency, the cogitators provided to us from the Terrawatt Clans have raised our numbers significantly and my Floor Leaders tell me they expect a further increase by the close of next year.”

Tribune Sachiel, resplendent in the golden armor and fine filigree of his station, nodded in approval as he took in the data in what Aria could assume was less than a heartbeat.

“Fine work, Assistant Director Allectus, the Emperor will be proud no doubt,” he paused, turning his head to face Aria as he took a step across the room, “but you must do better.”

“Better, Lord-Tribune?”

“Better. The Sigillite foresees the need for your work far sooner than anticipated, and the Emperor agrees. Show me then, that we can meet His request beyond doubt.”

Aria nodded to the Lord-Tribune and scooped up her dataslate from her desk. She motioned for the Custodian to follow despite knowing she did not need to, and made her way through a hissing autodoor and into a brightly lit hallway. The walls were roughly hewn bedrock, sterilized, and hermetically sealed by engineers long ago, but they had the peculiar look of glistening rock at all times despite the humidity in the entire facility being zero. She brushed past the lingering thought and made a quick pace through the halls with the Custodian close behind.

“Lord-Tribune, might I ask, why the timeline is being accelerated?”

The Custodian, keeping easy pace with the far smaller Assistant Director, nodded as his voice rolled through the corridor in step with them, “Ursh makes inroads in Europa, threatening Franc and Albion as we delay here.”

Aria listened intently as she walked, soaking in the information from the world outside her aseptic halls and security doors.

“We have achieved much, as I’m sure you’re aware, the Nordafrik Conclaves bow to us, and the central Steppes our the Emperor’s as they should be,” the Custodian gave a nod to a fellow Custodian standing before a massive security door to their front.

Aria stopped as an automatic security scan quickly read the pair's biometrics before releasing a set of heavy interior locks from within the door ahead of them. She gave an uneasy smile to the Custodian Guard before it, grateful to warrant such protection but well aware that they served as both protector and goaler here. The groaning of the behemoth of a door filled the hall as it rolled along its track into the recesses of the wall, pulling her focus away from the demigod and back to her task at hand. She stepped through the doorway into a new hall, she noted the auto-turrets tracking only her as the Tribune walked alongside her down a long causeway suspended over a seemingly never-ending abyss.

“So Ursh forces our hand? Can the first of the gene-wrought truly not handle Ursh?” she asked carefully.

“The Legiones Cataegis make a game of the conquest He leads. They accomplish their task well, but there is a need for reinforcement, Assistant Director. Stable reinforcement. Reinforcement that can be sent into our own territory is desperately needed, foul magicks are unleashed in our conquered cities as we march on toward victory, and the Thunder Warriors are not the proper instrument to deal with these incursions, lest we leave our hives and manufactorums devoid of life and purpose.”

“Of course,” Aria agreed, well aware that the Thunder Warrior’s ranks had been left to dwindle for longer than she cared to admit.

Another biometric scan and a lifetime of security checks later and the pair were finally at the final destination. An observation unit, large enough for some fifty people, looked down on an operating theater in all its aseptic glory on one side of the room. On the opposite side, shuddered windows overlooked an unknown room.

“The Director has been busy, I apologize if it seemed a purposeful slight to you, Lord-Tribune,” she bowed her head in deference as she stepped toward the windows of the observation unit, “but I have received word that we have finally had the success you so push for.”

“Survival?”

“More than survival, Lord-Tribune,” she turned her gaze to the two subjects, still strapped down to their operating tables with fluid lines and archaic constructs running from their flesh, and smiled as she noticed their eyes searching the room.

“Space Marines.”

Tribune Sachiel did not seem to share Aria’s awe at the sight before him, turning away in what she could only assume was frustration.

“Only two, they will not be pleased with this progress, the Director must be aware.”

Aria smiled, tapping a key on her dataslate as she spoke, “Two Space Marines, Lord-Tribune yes,” the security shudders began to slide away from the windows on the opposite side of the room, revealing a new room beyond.

“With a hundred thousand more well on the way,” she smiled.
The shudders rose quickly, revealing a room beyond full of growth vats. Myriad organs floated suspended within liquid solutions, monitors reading critical data by the millisecond, in some of the vats, far in the distance of the expansive room, floated humanoid figures. She motioned toward the center of the room, wreathed in cryogenic frost and surrounded by mist, and stood twenty massive edifices, like the sarcoffagi of the Gyptian Kings of old.

“137% efficiency,” she stated proudly, “We are ready, at present, for the implantation of forty-four thousand subjects.”

“Forty-four thousand Space Marines,” Tribune Sachiel corrected with a hint of a smile.
In From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large → 2 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Ixhun


The stink of death permeated the air, a sharp smell of iron that filled Cuauhtl’s head with a dizzying uncertainty as he turned the corner of the passageway. He found himself witness to a charnel house of slaughter, the inner sanctum of the temple desecrated with the bodies and life-blood of its keepers. He ducked under a rope of intestine stretched from wall to wall, its owner's face contorted in a final scream of agony from where he was impaled some three meters up the side of the wall. He slipped as he crept forward, his footing giving way atop a worryingly soft object as the world tilted ninety degrees and pain filled the back of his head.

He scrambled to right himself, his hands sliding across the blood-soaked stones of the sanctum as he hauled himself back to his feet. He wretched, viscous fluid dripping from his hands and knees as he continued his slow movement toward the far end of the sanctum.

Cuauhtl gasped as he approached the sanctum’s pedestal, the haze of the room shifting before him to reveal the tortured form of one of the temple’s keepers strung above the flat surface of the holy altar. He gagged again, the sight of the keeper with their ribs spread wide and their innards missing causing the young boy to swallow down bile in the back of his throat as he inched past the sight.

He stopped dead in his tracks as he heard movement above him. With bated breath he turned his head upwards, following a streak of dried blood up the wall to an overhanging piece of mason work. It was there that his gaze locked eyes with the crazed eyes of the Easterner. The man, crouching on the outcropping, smiled back at Cuauhtl with teeth filed to fine points.

Cuauhtl let out a surprised yell as the man leapt from above him, arms outstretched as if to hug the young boy. His feet carried him without thought from where he stood. He slid into a wall at the far side of the chamber, his hands slamming into the cool stone as he propelled himself down a small hallway and toward the dying light of dusk.

He could hear the feral shrieks from the Easterner gaining on him as he sprinted down the passage, the guttural vocalizations of an animal gaining on him alarmingly fast.

The young man exploded out of the passage and into a new hell entirely. He had only a moment to take in the sight of the death of his home, the fires leaping into the night sky, the silhouettes of bodies on spikes atop the city walls, the feral chanting of the Easterners, the shadow of a savage standing before him.

He slammed into the shadow, his body careening around as he twisted from the impact. He hit the dirt and slid, dust filling his vision for a moment before he came to a stop. Laying there for a moment, staring at the night sky above him, he wondered how the Turquoise Prince could have abandoned him, abandoned his city. His thoughts were interrupted as the Easterner from within the temple sanctum took hold of his ankle and pulled.

Cuauhtl screamed, his fists coming up to beat uselessly on the feral man’s thighs as the Easterner knelt on the boy's chest and cackled like a jungle dog. The horrific stench death and decay of the Easterner brought tears to Cuauhtl’s eyes even as he beat at the man with all the might he could muster. He watched through cloudy vision as the Easterner raised a ritual knife above his head with a crazed grin on his face and could do nothing to stop the inevitable. He closed his eyes.

A crack followed, Cuauhtl gasped as he expected to feel his ribs torn from his chest and his heart ripped still beating to be offered to the moon, but he struggled to register such a horrific fate taking place. At once he realized that it had not.

His eyes shot open, clarity filling them as the head of the Easterner was pulled clean from its body in a gout of dark blood. The savage he had ran into stood behind the Easterner’s body, a small hand, no bigger than his own, rested lightly on the Easterner’s shoulder propping up the lifeless body without effort as the savage, no, the girl, studied the head she held before her face.

“Thank the Turquoise Prince,” Cuauhtl whispered as he the girl tossed the head into the darkness with disinterest, followed by a simple shove to remove the Easterner’s body without effort from atop Cuauhtl, “We must leave this place, run west towa---.”

The girl mounted Cuauhtl just as the Easterner had, except that she was far stronger than the man had been. His eyes rested on the vacant brown eyes of the girl as she studied him now. A hand came down to the side of his cheek, and he felt his heart quicken faster than it had even as he ran for his life just moments earlier. Cold sweat beaded along his forehead as the girl's fingers traced the curve of his jawline, and he felt too hot as her fingers came to rest lightly around his neck.

“Please…” he whimpered as he felt the fingers tighten.

His mind began to slip as the fingers dug deep into the skin of his neck, uncomfortable pressure turning to pain as he felt things within his throat shift to unnatural positions. Warmth spread between his legs. Tears leaked down his face. The pressure released. The weight on his chest disappeared.

He choked for air, his throat ablaze as he greedily sucked in breath. A voice rang out from above him.

“Take us west,” it said, the voice that carried them as sweet as honey, “I will protect you, I promise.”

He felt his heart drop in his stomach as he opened his eyes to find the girl standing over him, those lilting words spilling from her lips. She was lit now by the growing fires around them, and he was more terrified at that promise than he had ever been of anything in his life. The surety with which it was delivered twisted his guts into a knot, and he struggled to calm himself as he stared at the girl as firelight danced over her face before him. Her eyes were too knowing for her age, and her features so unconcerned as a city died around her that he felt nausea well inside him. But even more than these things, he was terrified that he had seen this all come to pass in fever dreams and nightmares, since as long as he could remember he had dreamt of this terrifyingly beautiful being standing over him, and he had seen what was to come next. He prayed to wake.
In From Ashes We Rise : The Imperium Is Born → 2 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay


We've gone ahead and talked over the CS, so here's our ruling.

In no uncertain terms, the only Blanks we are comfortable with the Null League having are those five (5) of the ruling class. Any other Blanks within the Null League are to be so weak they are unobservable and unrecognizable from a standard human, and function as standard humans. There will be no city of Blanks or Psi-Dense individuals.

Second, it appears that this CS has been written without an understanding of what is currently going on IC, and as such it is stepping on the plans of another writer here that has already laid out story plots IC. Given the events that have already taken place, Albyon itself is short on the list of "despots needing to be removed" by the Imperium and is expected to be an open war front after the shortly-to-arrive time-skip. So, the Null League can not be in control of all of Albyon.

Finally, and this is important, the Null League does not appear to either of us to be compatible with the ambitions and direction of the Imperium as it stands. In short, we expect to have the Imperium stand opposed to the Null League. So it is important to understand that while you can write and play with them as you see fit, they are on the list of "to be overthrown" as far as the IC Imperium is concerned and will eventually cease to exist. There are a few player-made nations and characters opposed to the Imperium at this point, and another player-driven enemy to face off against would be a very welcome addition as it adds another layer of novelty to the enemies we all get to write about. I also have no doubt it will allow you as it's writer an interesting and engaging writing experience if you are willing to still write the Null League knowing this.

In From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large → 2 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
The Sun Child


A fog lifted over the mind of the infant, like a curtain pulling free from her eyes as she floated aimlessly in the confines of her world. She pressed a hand against the edge of all she knew, watched as the muscles in her hand and forearm tensed, undeniable strength pulsing beneath her too-small hand, and pushed herself away from it. Spinning in the opposite direction she had once been, she brought her other hand out and moved it slowly before her, the fluid surrounding her playing gentle lines through her vision as she made aimless hand motions.

Had she known of this before? Of her body? She opened and closed her fist as she swirled, brushed her fingertips against the edge of the world, and relished the sensation of the cold steel beneath her fingers. She was unsure of the answer to her own question, for she knew all about her body, but could not remember a time before that she had learned such things. She wondered a moment, for what had come before?

She could remember lights flashing through her world. A great flash like lightning, whatever lightning was, had filled her vision long ago, but how long? She had vague recollections of a multicolored world, strobing reds and pinks, purples and yellows. How did she know the names of these colors? She was unsure, but she knew that the edge of her world was white now, clean, sterile. These things she knew. Just as she knew the strobe of colors that had been her world for… she could not tell how long.

She thought about this now, felt her brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to remember. She grew frustrated. Why did she know what lightning was despite never seeing it before? Why did she know of colors and her own form? Why did she know the complete molecular structure of the edge of her world?

Her memory lagged behind her too fast mind as she attempted to decipher the passing of time in a timeless world. Becoming impatient, she began to wish for the scratching that had lulled her to sleep during that unknown time, she ached for the familiar tapping from outside her world.

She started in her fluid, her eyes opening wide as she spun herself on instinct, and found herself staring out into a world of soft yellows and vibrant greens. The window before her was scarred, as if a great tiger of ancient myth had been attempting to enter, but it did not bother the infant for she could see beyond just as well.

Her world, she decided, was not all there was to know. She could make out uncountable flora of unknown origin beyond her world. No, she knew better, for she knew some of these plants. Good. Her world had taught her something useful after all.

Her eyes narrowed as a pack of quadrupedal creatures darted, vaguely ape-like but with limbs that were far too long. Her mind did not remain on the creatures for long as she knew immediately that she wished to test herself against them.

The infant brought her hands to the glass, and recoiled as it lit up blue at her touch. Text scrolled across the window in long flowing lines. She felt her stomach churn as she took in the too-familiar characters and her mind swam as she suddenly found herself reading a language she knew disturbingly well.

XVII STATUS: VIABLE.
POD STATUS: UNHINDERED.
RECOMMEND: RECONNECT LIFE SUPPORT POD TO POWER SOURCE.
967.M30

Strange. Her world was only a fraction of the world out there, yet her world wished her to stay? She pondered it for a moment, pushed herself away from the window and allowed herself to float idly in the fluid she had known since forever. She liked her world. The warmth, the quiet peace, the safety of those sterile walls. Her eyes closed and she felt her consciousness slip away to something other than this newfound wakefulness, something more familiar to what had been before.

She woke with a jolt, hands scrabbling along the walls of her world with surprise as she twisted and spun in the fluid. Her hands steadied on the familiarity of the cold walls, and her hearts began to beat slower as she recognized the comfort of everything she knew. She wondered for a moment why she had awoken, and turned to her window.

Her hand brushed over the glass, noted the floral growth that now obscured her view of the unknown world beyond it, and focused her attention on the text as it scrolled by.

XVII STATUS: VIABLE.
POD STATUS: DETERIORATED.
RECOMMEND: IMMEDIATE RETRIEVAL OF XVII.
968.M30

The infant thought about these words far longer than the last time she had, and decided that they held no sway over her world. For how could they? She was comfortable, content. So there could be no issues with her world. The text was simply wrong. She allowed herself to slip away as she took comfort in her world once more.

The infant was torn from her sleep as her world evaporated around her. She screamed as the familiar liquid bubbled away and drained through previously unseen holes in her world. She hauled herself upright, her hands clasping at new edges in her world as she wretched vile colored liquid from her lungs.

She looked up to reach for her window, only to find it was gone. In fact, that entire side of her world was gone, laying some distance from where she sat now, the lower half of her body still within the only world she had ever known, while the upper half was in that world she had glimpsed when she had first gained understanding of herself. She stood up, the liquid of her world swirling around her feet as it drained by some unseen mechanism, and she took her very first breath of air. She turned her head slowly, surveying her new surroundings. Massive trees stretched into the sky, obscuring her view of what lay beyond. Vines hung low all around her. Smaller flowers and bushes grew along the earth. She knew this was known as a jungle, though she knew not how. Quietly she thanked her old world for this knowledge, and climbed down out of her pod.

Her feet sank into the unfamiliar world’s edge and she was surprised it was not solid like her old world’s edge. Her toes dug into the cool soil as she took a tentative step toward the edge of her world that had left her open to this unfamiliar new one. No, she knew this was a hatch, not the edge of a world, just a piece of machinery. She walked towards the hatch, noting the obvious signs of an explosive separation in the burn marks at its edges. She hoped dearly that the window still worked.

The infant knelt before the hatch. She ran her fingers anxiously along the window and breathed a sigh of relief as it lit up in that familiar blue.

She drank in the last text she would ever read from it.

XVII STATUS: VIABLE.
POD STATUS: COMPROMISED
RECOMMEND: REAWAKEN XVII. FREE XVII.
969.M30

XVII, that was her, she knew this now.

And so, XVII stood, a child alone in a new world.
In From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large → 2 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Ixhun


The midday sun stood perfectly aligned above the massive pyramid of obsidian and limestone, the blazing ball of light and power reflecting dazzlingly off the massive edifice, the center of life in the city-state of Ocotepec.

The temple itself was an imposing pyramid made of finely hewn obsidian and limestone, the work of three generations of laborers and the finest artisans in recent memory. The obsidian stones were shining a deep purple in the glow of the afternoon sun, the dazzling effect serving only to highlight the great disparity between the color of the pyramid's finely carved four faces and that of its hazardously steep central staircase. An ominous streak of rusted brown wound its way down the white limestone steps from the flat top of the temple to the plaza below where it ended in stained stone.

“Our allies to the west leave us for dead!”

The wails of thousands of people washed over the plaza like a wave, an entire city mourning the words of their High Priest as he lamented atop the Temple of the Sun. Their cries were amplified in the plaza, the sounds bouncing off the surrounding lesser temples and structures before flowing out of the plaza into the greater sprawl of Ocotepec as a tumultuous wave of noise.

The sobbing masses ceased their lamentations at the wave of a hand from their High Priest, a single movement enough to sway the thousands in the plaza out of their distress and into utter silence. The High Priest stood, his elaborate headpiece of brightly colored feathers swaying in the soft breeze atop the pyramid’s top with the masses utterly enthralled by his gaze as he stood reticent before them.

“They believe us already lost! They believe that the Easterners will crest our walls and take out every last one of us to the blade!”

The crowd took up a furious howl at the horrible revelation they were being made to understand; that their allies had abandoned them.

“But they are wrong! For Ocotopec, for all of you, are stronger than they could ever understand!” the High Priest raised his hands in a sweeping motion across the crowd beneath him, “Our allies to the west do not understand our struggle! To them, the Easterners are a problem far from their walls! But to us! To us it is real!”

The crowd began to quiet as around them the shadows began to grow long. The dazzling intensity of the pyramid began to dull, the light dancing around as the Sun seemed to waver. Whispers began to pass through the crowd, a growing discontent at the sudden waning of the Sun.

The High Priest brought his hands up above him, reaching out toward the Sun with open palms, “Our Lord will protect us!” he began as the shadow of the moon began to cross in front of the blazing star, “He is always with us! He has not abandoned us!”

The crowd began to wail once more as the Sun’s light shined weaker and weaker, before plunging the whole of Ocotopec in twilight.

“Do not fear! He shall deliver us!” the Priest called out to the crowd as he brought a hand down to his heart in a dramatic display of emotion for the holy man.

The crowd had been quiet up until this point, but began now to call out in surprise as around them the world shifted from darkness to something far more sinister than the night. The obsidian pyramid, dark as the abyss began to glow a scarlet hue, the sickly red casting out from the pyramid in ever more vibrant reflections across the crowd as the source of the light seemed to grow in intensity.

There was a yell from one of the High Priest’s assistants atop the pyramid, and the retinue of holy men and soothsayers turned as one to face the source of the assistant’s distress.

Above the pyramid the moon seemed as though it had been split asunder by the appearance of a streaking red comet. The light from the pyramid glowed ever brighter as the comet seemed to creep across the sky of Ixhun, growing larger as it fell from the heavens.

The holy man attempted to take up some chant at his place atop the pyramid, a hymn of protection or deliverance perhaps, but his words were drowned out by the crowd as they called out in horror as the red comet streaked across the sky above them and disappeared over the eastern horizon.

As the comet disappeared the pyramid seemed to glow its brightest, almost too bright to look upon. It cast the entire city in scarlet, as if the heavens themselves had rained blood upon all the land.

There was quiet once the comet was lost over the tops of the trees, the shocked milling of thousands of people the only noise as they all kept their eyes focused on that unseen object. Above them the moon began to slip its position in front of the sun, and slowly the bloody mess of Ocotopec became the shining city once more, the Sun creeping its touch into every corner of the land as it once again became the dominant force in the sky.
© 2007-2024
BBCode Cheatsheet