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Areze's Inane Scribbles


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#1 Areze

    Gnurf Gnurf Gnurf

  • Project Team
  • 2143 posts

Posted 09 July 2010 - 17:02

People who know me may also know that I write as something as a hobby. Well, I'm still at it. In fact, I plan to a make career out of it someday; I'm already writing my own book, partially for the lulz. Here's the first (by no means only, there's something like fifty, sixty pages) chapter.

WARNING: NOT TL;DR FRIENDLY. WALL OF TEXT INBOUND.


The text format for the forum doesn't support indents, so they don't show up, sadly. It's formatted all nice and pretty in the file. :read:
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The forest was rather bright, but shaded just enough to give an edge of mystery to it all. It seemed to stretch on for kilometers and kilometers, without an end. The most jarring of it all was the utter silence. There was not a trace of wind rain, or any show of weather than the occasional weak spear of sunlight peeking through the canopy. It seemed quite peaceful, restful. A log laid in the grass next to a small stream nearby, also silent. He didn’t think to argue, it didn’t appear to matter. He walked over, the only sound now being his bare feet giving under the grass. Sitting down, he stared at the water, seeing the canopy reflected in it’s perfect, mirror-esque surface. He let out a long, slow sigh, feeling whatever tension he had fall away like a heavy weight.
Just then, he heard a second sound. Like someone walking across the grass. It appeared that he wasn’t alone. He tensed, preparing for anything. He felt the tension he just lost returning with irrational alacrity. He was usually a laid-back person, but now all he wanted to do was flee, quite unusual for him. It started to dim, although that may have just been his imagination. He could not be certain.
The footsteps were close, now. Very close. He stared at the stream like a man inspired, consumed by a completely unexplainable dread as to what in all the worlds was going on. He even started to feel his hands tremble. He clutched them in a vain effort to stifle their shaking. It was of no use. Whatever or whomever was inspiring his fear was standing almost right behind him and by now he was intimately acquainted with fear. He could not even tell what kind of fear it was. Simply an irrational terror, almost akin to a child’s fear of the bogeyman.
He felt more than he heard the person sit down next to him. It was getting noticeably darker the closer she, for the figure was assuredly feminine, came. Why was he so terrified of her? Whatever did she do to scare him like this? It was bizarre.
He nearly jumped when she murmured his name in a voice that sounded familiar, but for a reason he could not explain, sounded different. He could not explain it; it was as if he did know, but his memory was being blockaded. It only amplified his nervousness. The female giggled a bit, and murmured his name again. She sidled close to him, and he recognized part of the fear as lust, or desire. It was not a feeling he was familiar with.
The light was virtually gone now; it was getting very hard to see. On impulse, he looked at the stream, trying to see who the woman next to him was. He looked at exactly the same time…

His alarm went off. He sat up in the bad, grumbling to himself. Same dream, again. It had been coming back repeatedly for a while now, he couldn’t quite remember when exactly it started, but it’d been a long time, to be sure.
“Leo, for the love of God dude, wake up! It’s almost noon.”
Leodogan Kenthis couldn’t, quite, keep the annoyance out of his voice. His head hurt and he did not feel rested one bit. “I had half an hour left.” He said, glancing at the digital clock in the corner of the room. “Need some sleep meds or something.” He grumbled under his breath.
His door was flung open. Many spacers preferred the simple privacy one with a classic style locked door provided in their bedrooms to the sliding bulkhead door throughout the rest of the ship. In walked in the voice outside the hall, Selira Mazan. She co-captained the ship with Leodogan for nearly two years now, and she was well aware of his erratic sleeping patterns.
“Bad again, eh?” Almost everyone who knew him knew Leodogan had troubles sleeping. Not that it made them more sympathetic to his tendency to sleep in late. ‘Unprofessional’ they called it. As if they were captaining a Geisepi dreadnought in the Emperor’s Fleet! He bit back a sharp retort. It would only make it worse, with Selria. She was a bit hot-tempered, just as space is ‘kinda big’. It was sort of endearing at times, but at others, an utter pain in the ass. He climbed wearily out of bed. Another thing that irked him was her seemingly cluelessness in terms to social situations. Only she would find nothing wrong with barging into people’s rooms. No warning or anything, just going right in without a second thought or care. Knocking was a great thing.
He realized he was just cranky and tired, and was mentally taking it out on her. He shouldn’t especially since she helped him run this tub for so long, and was one of the very few people Leodogan Raanier Kenthis counted as a trusted friend.
Cracking his back and neck, he grabbed a pair of shorts and a belt. Selira just leaned against the wall and curled her lip a bit in amused annoyance. Technically they both co-captained the ship; in reality, it was actually correct. The free and easy nature of Rhonik military hierarchy and society in general was enough to induce horror in the more prudish members of the Geisepi Empire’s social mass and apoplexy to damn near all of the Terrans’. As far as what most Rhoniks sneered at as ‘batshit insane old ladies’ were concerned most of them could make a solemn vow of chastity and live as a hermit in the woods and they still would cry that they’d fooled around with someone. It was a classic example of culture clash. Compared to it’s neighbors, the Rhonik region (composed of Selira and Leodogan’s native nation Gourholl, it’s sister nation Ceruliia, Karvenke, Jordamünka and various single-system nations) was much more open and blunt. Terrans, on the other hand, were mocked by a great deal of the human race owing to their sometimes reactionary beliefs. It was bad enough for the generally old-fashioned Geisepis to ridicule them, although this was not saying much as the Geisepis weren’t really all that old-fashioned so much as conservative. Why would they? Their methods had won them the power-brokership over the human race as a whole for all practical purposes. It’d be lunacy to change that just for the sake of change, even Leodogan could recognize that.
Not that it made him hate their guts any less. Them or the self-righteous Terrans for that matter.

He ran himself through the shower and brushed his teeth and hair. Feeling somewhat rejuvenated, he headed up to the kitchen to get some food in his stomach. He decided to head for the mess hall instead of the private kitchen; it was a longer walk, and it’d let Leodogan stretch his legs. Leaving the private quarters, he felt the chatter and noise of a fully operational starship, along with the banter and informal cheer of what most would sneer at as a ‘pirate’ ship. Leodogan found ‘pirate’ to be such a dirty word; he preferred ‘privateer’. Selira didn’t give a shit either way, being her usual blunt, crude self. Leodogan thought she may be right.
Getting there, he looked around, raising his hand and grinning at the yell of greeting form the ship’s crew. He headed over to a case full of plastic containers, which had labels on them saying what was in them. He pulled a key out of his pocket, unlocked the case and pulled out one with a sub sandwich, salad, and an apple. He shut the cold-foods case and sat down at one of the nearer tables, grabbing a bottle of vodka on the way. He sighed happily and went to work on his food, knowing it was a matter of time before somebody bugged him. He took a bite, noting the sub’s flavor, almost authentic Old Earth Italian; pastrami, pepperoni, ham, provolone and a crap-load of other things he didn’t much care about. It tasted good and it went down well with the strong Rhonik vodka he was drinking and that was all that mattered.
He got two-thirds of the way through the sub when he saw Selira come in, along with the ship’s first mate (or executive officer, if one towed to the formal government regulations set by the Geisepis and Terrans both) Roan Garack and Issak Kurzmän, the Chief Maintenance Officer. Leodogan slumped forward a bit, trying to go undiscovered.
No use. He didn’t really try anyway. They’d spotted him and without preamble headed over to the table. Selira got there first, her stride was the longest of all of them, being the tallest. She was only a few centimeters shorter than Leodogan at one-hundred-ninety-six centimeters to Leodogan’s one hundred-ninety-nine. Her height was very unnerving to most people at first, but Leodogan and everyone else on board was used to it. Although their discomfort probably also stemmed from her belligerent, forward nature and crude sense of humor. She was clad in her favorite brown leather long coat and had a pair of black sunglasses on her head. She wore the coat and shades a lot on the hotter and sunnier planets because of a condition she had. She was, to put in crudely, border-line albino. Leodogan did not remember the technical name, but it was common on her home world. She had quite pale skin, despite her grandmother being black, which burned easily. She also had rather striking, bright purple eyes instead of the blue she was supposed to due to the same condition. This was because the people of her native world were genetically modified to suit their plant’s conditions. Her purple eyes could see better in the dark at the sacrifice of being vulnerable to bright sunlight, hence the sunglasses; the skin simply was because her home planet was known for being quite cold. Together with her pin-straight, almost painfully intensely black hair, it created an ensemble that might have been odd but worked, if the looks she got from most men was to be judged.
Rown looked exactly like what his title called to mind. He was a native Karvenki, with the features a pre-space human would have called ‘mulatto’ to prove it. Short black, wavy hair that looked almost suspiciously Gespic, olive skin that was rather impressively scarred in a few places, a perpetual scowl, and very alert eyes. He was in reality much more amiable than his exterior suggested and was the second person Leodogan could trust as a friend, having known him for a long time. At times, he was almost a father figure to Selira and Leodogan, being eleven Terran years older and having obviously seen man things, most of which he did not tell. Neither Leodogan nor Selira were actually above thirty T-years yet, Leodogan being twenty-five and Selira twenty-two. In a society that had undergone and accepted the ‘genetic remapping’ program many years ago, jacking a person’s life span securely into the two-hundreds, that was mind-bogglingly young. He also had a tendency to tease his technical superiors about the minor fact that they were of opposing genders, much to their embarrassment and everyone else’s mirth. Leodogan did not know what planet he came from, though he suspected it was on the warm side of the spectrum as he frequently whined about the cold.
Lastly there was Issak. There was not a whole lot to be said for the mahogany-skinned Chief Maintenance Officer for there was not a whole lot he was willing to volunteer. Part of it was that he came from one of the outlying Rhonik states that were now under Geisepi control. Part of it may also lie in just his nature, as he was an almost stoically quiet man, though this gave what he had to say extra weight. However, he was very good at his job, and while not being expressive, was actually good-tempered and quick-witted. He was a very reliable CMO and a large man, having the kind of build that suggested he could bend Geisepi matrix titanium with his bare hands. CMO’s were worth more than their weight in gold, especially in Free Trader/Pirate ports; most of the time the first mate would have doubled, making both duties suffer, but Leodogan and Selira were among the luckiest ones as that had not only got a full-on CMO, but a good one. Most were little more than rev-head grease monkeys or laid-off mechanics that fell on the wrong side of the law. Issak served aboard the Kradian research vessel St. Martin before deserting and joining his countrymen.
Selira was grinning as she reached Leodogan’s table. She reached over and snatched the apple before Leodogan could get to it. Leodogan shook his head and gave her a wry look as she took a large bite out of it, looking triumphant at her small victory. She was incorrigible sometimes. Leodogan chucked a wadded up napkin at her, she smirked and batted it away with her hand. Soon Rown and Issak caught up to her. Rown was smirking at the antics of his captains. Issak looked innocently neutral but there was a glitter of amusement in his dark eyes.
“Thought we’d find you here.” She mumbled through a mouthful of apple.
“So are we gonna harass you about doing your job now or when you’re finished?” Rown asked blandly.
“Later man, you see me trying to eat.” Leodogan said. He grabbed his fork and started on the salad.
Issak nodded his head, quietly said something about needing to check on the engineering crew and left. Selira just shook her head and tossed the half-eaten apple back to Leodogan. She turned around and headed out of the mess hall, waving her hand dismissively. “A’ight, see ya, spoilsport.” She bent her head back, grinned and left.
Leodogan gave a mock scowl in return, taking a bite out of what was left of the apple. Rown leered and said in an obnoxiously cutesy, sing-song voice. “Aw, innit cuuuuute, you’re sharing.”
Leodogan looked thunderous at his second-in-command for a second. “You’re reading way too much into shit, you know that?”
Rown smirked. “Oh, quit bellyaching and grow a hide. What the hell do you think I’m gonna tease you about? The fact my two superiors -happen to be of differing genders provides limitless entertainment potential for me. That and you two share food.”
“Just because you’re scared of cooties doesn’t mean I have to be, you know. And how the hell is this-” he held up the apple “-constitute as sharing food?”
Rown laughed heartily. “Just shut it man, you’re digging yourself into a hole.” He kept on laughing and walked off.
Leodogan glared at his retreating back and finished hid food in peace and quiet.

After Leodogan was done with his food and everything else; he was deliberately procrastinating, having no interest in the mendacity of ship maintenance, but he couldn’t stop time any more than he could shut Rown up. After he was done he got to the bridge in the ships’ heart and was surprised to see that only Issak and the usual crew terminal-jockeys were there.
Issak smiled thinly. “The others are not up yet, sir. I recognize the tedium of the work, trust me, I really do, but it just wouldn’t do for the inertial dampener to fail mid-jump, would it? It would cause such a mess.” His eyes glittered, and Leodogan smiled a little sickly at the thought. Moving several thousand times the speed of light and having the one device that made it all practical by forcing physics to look the other way go and pack up would make pretty much everyone on board resemble overcooked pasta instantly. Not a pleasing thought; and it was that kind of dark humor Issak used to get his points across.
Leodogan held up his hands. “Yeah, sorry man, I was stalling, I know. But hey, being around you ain’t easy.” He grinned.
Issak’s smile turned into a smirk; considering his personality, that was the equivalent of uproarious laughter. “I know I have a tendency to preach captain, just as you have a tendency to sleep in.”
Leodogan clapped a hand on his heart. “You cut me to the heart. Touché.” He bowed dramatically.
Selira came in next, her hair damp, and new clothes than the ones she had before on. Nothing more formal than a pair of cotton shorts and a tee-shirt, with a pair of flip-flops she dug up. “Sorry, was takin’ a shower.” She greeted Leodogan by throwing her towel at him. She grinned. “Here, make yourself useful and hold this.”
“Do you insist on being a bitch at every opportunity? Why do you do it?” Leodogan asked dryly, holding the towel in one hand.
“Sure. It’s very liberating.”
“Then why me?” He whined pitifully. He even had the puppy-dog eyes down. Selira snorted with laughter at the ridiculous sight.
“You’re convenient.” Her grin gained an almost nasty air about it. “And it’s just plain fun to pick on you.”
“You’re mean.”
“Thanks” She said almost sincerely, as thought he were paying her a compliment.
Rown came in almost right after her, just long enough to catch the tail-end of the exchange, and he was trying valiantly to hide his smirk. He was not succeeding. At least he had the decency to not giggle or tease like he normally would have done.
Leodogan dropped down on the couch, tossing the towel over the back to dry. Selira sat down next to him, propping her legs on the table and crossing them. “A’ight, let’s get through with it. What we got?”
Issak cleared his throat. “Well, sir, ma’am, I’ll start minor. There seems to be a small issue-”

It went on for a time, probably half an hour, more or less. Issak was just finishing up. “The ammo for the missile tubes are running a tad low, sir. It’d be advisable to refill our stores next time we dock. Shells for auto cannons are fine for now, but I would suggest on stocking up on those as well. One can never be too careful. Medical and food supplies are of moderate capacity, and we should look at getting more of those as well.”
Leodogan tilted his head to the side a bit. “So a general restock is what you’re suggesting?”
Issak nodded.
Selira looked thoughtful. “How about our armor? Nothing too big hit us from that last raid, but I would definitely feel better getting a general refit as well. Never know when we’re gonna run into the wrong side of a Geisepi missile frigate or Terran battlecrusier.”
Issak nodded again. “That would probably be a good idea as well. The minority situation’s tight enough that we should be able to cover all of it and still turn a profit from the last few raids.” He smiled thinly at that last word, and everyone listening did too. Rhonika had become much more dangerous lately, with the war between the Terran Federates and Geisepi Imperials having finally showed up on their doorstep. They both had annexed large chunks of territory, justifying it with their own excuses, and separatist movements abounded, as well as crime and ‘privateering’. Leodogan and Selira were among those privateers.
These separatist and rebel movements were funded primarily by sacking the supply convoys from the home nations to their forward outposts scattered throughout Rhonika. By capturing these supplies and using them themselves or peddling them to whoever wanted them, the Rhoniks were able to work up an enviable level of money and supplies for their efforts. Overt gifts from friendly governments or governments that just wanted to see the Terrans and Geisepis dealt a bad turn also helped considerably, too; indeed, it was almost as important as the raids themselves.
Leodogan and Selira’s own ship was a heavily modified version of the Thor class of Missile Frigates. It was a misleading title, as a Thor was about the size of a dreadnought. The Thor class was built for long-rage engagements, and had missile pods all over it’s keel as well as some torpedo launchers to give it some serious heat. Leodogan and Selira’s variant, dubbed the Ephidna, which was Rhonik for Wolverine, was a very different animal. Instead of the regular variety of torpedoes it had EMP torpedo tubes (which were very illegal in most governments), an improved keel with much heavier armor, better missile pods, improved engines and two more railgun batteries. All in all, it was superior to it’s sisters and it’s construction gave Leodogan and Selira both a reputation as gifted ship designers.
The Rhonik naval forces, being forced to project their influence throughout a large amount of space with few ships and superior enemy forces, was based primarily on long-range combat, utilizing the lighter, more effective if not slightly more expensive option of missile tubes instead of the heavy, large rail gun the Terrans used and the Torpedoes preferred by the Geisepi Empire on the ships they wanted to fight with at a distance. They were faster and more maneuverable than their counterparts, although they were more lightly armored. What use was armor when if you fought properly, the enemy couldn’t even hit you?
Calling Selira and Leodogan, and the rest of the organization they belong to ‘pirates’, was not only unfair but inaccurate which was why Leodogan ragged on Selira for it. They engaged in piracy, true, as well as assassination, gun-running, and mercenary work; but they only targeted caravans running supplies for their Terran or Geisepi foes. They were determined to win their independence; if they cracked a few eggs, so be it. Indeed, the Guorhali branch of the rebellion movement, dubbed the ‘Timberwolves’, despised actual pirates for the murderers, rapists and thieves that they were and killed them without mercy or hesitation. It was so much that rebellion-controlled territories were better-policed than ones ‘held’ by the ‘government’ forces.
They had been in a deserted system, with no stellar objects of any real use, just a couple of gas giants and some ice-based dwarf planets, for the majority of a day now. The system did not even have the dignity of a name, just a call number. They were going to enter hyperspace in a little under an hour, heading to Dufladki in the Drengr system. They were now mostly making sure there were no gravity wells nearby. No one wanted to enter hyperspace near a gravity well (such as a planet or star) for the consequences would be dire. Many scientists were trying to find a way around this, especially the ones working for the military, but it was an immutable fact of life.
Leodogan had his men pass the time by practicing on passing asteroids. Rown looked a little cranky at first for ‘pushing up costs’, but Leodogan firmly believed that shooting actual weapons was vastly superior than sims in testing a crew‘s efficiency, even if the targets didn’t shoot back. Selira was dismantling a laser rifle and putting it back tog-ether. Leodogan chuckled inwardly at the thought. Not a very lady-like hobby, but nobody in their right mind who actually cared complained. Leodogan personally thought it was quite pragmatic. Useful skill.

They’d finally reached the safe hyper limit. As always in such situations, the bridge was a barely-controlled chaos, with people scampering all over the place. Anyone standing in the way was going to get jostled aside. No exceptions. Several times Selira was forced to juggle a critical part because some jumpy ensign bumped into her, in which case she snarled at the aforementioned nugget while he or she looked as small as inoffensive as possible.
The engineers had now gotten the ship moving at the pace they wanted to enter hyperspace. Entering hyper at full speed was not a way to guarantee one’s survival. The massive amount of energy involved meant that putting undue stress on a ship was entirely likely to rip it apart. Not a thought engineered to make one sleep easy. Thusly it behooved one to turn off the regular anti-matter thrusters for sub-space travel when the hyper-drive was working.
“Beginning transition, captain.” One of the rating’s said, staring at the flowing figures on his screen. “We’ve got maybe a minute left.”
“Good.” Leodogan tightened his grip on his end of the couch while Selira leaned back and closed her eyes. It was really hard to get used to these.
The ship suddenly began accelerating. A hole into hyperspace opened up in front of the nose. Leodogan stared at the beautiful, silent fury of that window into hyperspace. Then the ship entered it, and with a heave of shock, they entered hyperspace.
The views from the cameras that lined the ship was mesmerizing. No sane ship designer put the bridge anywhere but the center of his vessel. Due to the ways ships were constructed nowadays, it defied all logic, as it would wipeout the bridge in the first moments of battle, as long as screw with a ships’ internal gravity. The ship was built around a core consisting of the bridge, the hyper-drive and the structural support centers. As such, it was put in the heart of a ship to keep it from being damaged as much as possible. A captain ‘saw’ using a range of internal and external optical cameras (zoomed in of course), gravatic sensors, and almost every other conceivable way of seeing another object.
Right now, those same cameras were seeing the silent chaos of hyperspace. Cracks of pure ionic energy, manifesting itself as bright-blue and thunderbolts. Most of the sensors were going berserk and so a tech had turned them off to save energy and keep from doing them undue damage. The optics, however, provided a scene that had mesmerized captains ever since hyperspace had become a common method of travel.
Due to only being able to use optics, they could only see about a kähtä in any direction. The kahta was a part of interstellar measurements initially created by a Geisepi scientist called Jäni Tehän. A kahta was around one million kilometers; a kutnä was about five million. The hrünka was the first of two hyperspace units, being about one kahta in hyper, and an amount Leodogan never bothered to learn in normal space. Forty-trillion or a light-year and a half, or something. He knew they based it on the distance between Sol and Alpha Centauri, for some odd reason as they were both very, very far away. Inter-dimensional math was one of Leodogan’s less favorite subjects. That was more of Selira’s forte.
Leodogan shook his head and got off the couch, cracked his neck, and told everyone he was heading for the gym. Being as this was not exactly a government ship, formality was at a minimum; he only got a round of assents and he headed down the corridor. It would have been dangerous in the eyes of a firm naval crew, but for the Rhonik purposes in general and the Ephidna in particular, it worked. The crew had formed a form of blood-pact and when the shit hit the fan, it was all business.
He got to the gym and headed towards the locker room. He guessed he’d start with whaling on a punching bag for a while.

Selira finished the last touches on the laser rifle she was overclo-cking, well aware she was breaking at least half a dozen laws and conventions in doing so but not really caring, and tested it out on the three bags of sand on the other side of the firing range. Modern laser-based weapons were not like those seen in the holos and old-fashioned movies. They fired a red beam of light mainly for the shooter to see what they were doing, and the effect of a concentrated beam of energy moving at light-speed was much like that of a bullet, but nastier. Laser-wounds were not neat little holes, but ragged gashes weeping blood, a wound that looked much like a cross between a gunshot and knife wound. They were efficient, deadly weapons, with no kick whatsoever. With three quick successful shots at a range of around fifty meters, all of them exploded satisfyingly. The range was an affectation on her part. Most ships used a simulation, which had the advantage of flexibility, but Selira preferred actually seeing what she was shooting and feeling the rifle in her hands. She knew people called her a brutal psychotic behind her back, and she bragged about it. Regularly.
Then again, whenever she got the opportunity, she made a jab at established society and it’s beloved ‘tradition’. If they’re going to call her a rebel, why not go all out? It’s not like those armchair statesmen and ‘wheeler-dealers’ ever did anything but be a bunch of blowhards. She realized she was just being cynical, but she’ll stop being a ‘cynic’ when people stopped giving her reason to be cynical.
She didn’t even know what got her started on this tirade. It might have been reading something over the news about the Terrans being up to their usual bullshit. The country was technically supposed to be a ‘direct democracy’ but it was closer to being a corporate plaything than an actual star nation. It was utterly economically and politically dominated by the merchant and mining cartels who, whatever they said, everyone knew paid to maintain their power and kickbacks. They hated and feared the military and tried their level best to keep it as weak as they justifiably can; all while being able to (in their mind) defeat the militaristic Geisepi Empire.
It was a policy that made Selira smirk nastily whenever she thought about it. And giving her a headache. How could anyone be that blatantly militarily retarded? Effectively handicapping your own armed forces and forcing them to take on a navy that outnumbers something around thirty to one? And that’s ignoring the fact that the Geisepi military has a tradition of success and a lot of combat experience to call upon. On the face of it, the Geisepis should have rolled over the Terrans without even so much as breathing heavily. How did the Terrans manage to be so amazingly arrogant yet seem to ignore the fact that the Geisepi had so many more advantages to them that it would be an utterly lopsided curb-stomp?
Politics. That’s what it is. Bunch of suit-wearing pussies with no balls. She thought to herself, fiddling with the laser pistol’s settings. The Geisepis were undoubtedly stronger than all the other current human nations combined, to be sure, and Selira hated them for how they were turning her homeland into a war zone in the name of politics. She hated that word everything that went with it. The Terrans, whom she outright thoroughly despised, managed to weasel out of getting their ass handed to them by getting everyone to gang up on the Geisepis. The Geisepis had to spread out their forces throughout their enormous empire to protect against incursions from the Kradians whom had their own bone to pick with the Geisepis; the Arkadians, who were generally isolationist but did make incursions against the Geisepi Empire to protect their interests, and the many, many single-planet nations that formed the Confederated Star Nations, which, of course, was more fiction than fact. She went down another mental pathway at that last one.
The Karskians were probably the only part of the Neo-Confeds that represented anything close to a threat. Their native planets being basically death worlds, they were a group even Selira would have cheerfully called hardass. Located in the Karskis system, their core worlds of Aukhamer, Strevich, and Aenkhridge were all in their own way, violently difficult places to live. She might be able to make a claim on Aukhamer, with it’s volatile weather and sometimes cruel cold, but it’s extreme axial tilt and high gravity would finish her off with little trouble.
Then there was Strevich. Of the three, it’s axial tilt was the most extreme and it’s gravity the heaviest. A person could stand the surface pressure on Aukhamer for a little while, ten minutes or so if suited. Not so on Strevich, where they have to live on the plateaus and mountains for survival. Luckily, all three planets are huge compared to something like Old Earth. Strevich’s weather was temperate, if that was not a rather amusing term. This was, of course, ignoring the regular hurricanes that curl an Old Earthling’s toenails and blizzards that‘d freeze everything else.
And then there was Aenkhridge. It was the general galactic consensus that being a Aenkhridger automatically made that person the biggest badass in the room. Aenkhridge was enormous. It was also barely habitable by any human on a good day. Any sane person would avoid it like the plague. It was nearly the size of Sol’s Saturn, with the same cloud colors. It looked chronically polluted due to it’s clouds, sky and dust being various shades of a sickly pale yellow and the same dust on top the mountains and plateaus being loose and easily kicked up. It was legendary for scorpions growing to be as big as people, and for there being a large market for food and water there due to the fact that any native life on Aenkhridge being further down, and nobody wanted to know what kind of abominations survived down there.
Diklad, her home, was pretty harsh sometimes. It got viciously cold during summer nights and the forest cover was so thick and dark the people suspected they’ve been genetically modified to see and survive better there, like she has. The predators were swift and mean, and they could survive on human meat. But Diklad, and really virtually any Rhonik planet was a happy paradise compared to the Karskians’ core worlds.
She shook her head and stopped wool-gathering. She fiddled with the laser pistol some more and nodded as she got it where she wanted. She put it on safety and slung it over her shoulder and headed towards the kitchen to get a drink.
She saw Leodogan snuffling through the fridge. She couldn’t help but smirk. His (and her) eating habits were enough to make Rown bang his head against the wall and wail like a lost sheep.
Leodogan emerged, carrying an armful of cold-cuts and condiments. He did not look like what one imagined a pirate captain to look like. Then again, neither did she. He was tall enough, sure, but that was about it. He was wiry, had long, over shoulder-length blond hair tied into a ponytail, wire-and-box-framed glasses over pale green eyes and a goatee. The goatee and especial the anachronistic glasses were affectations to help alleviate allegations he looked like a ‘schoolboy’. There was easy corrective eye surgery nowadays; one just had to look. But he kept them anyway. In all honesty they fit him better. Selira was amused that she was not the only one who got catcalled to mud-side. There were a fair few drunk female sailors who made their opinions known as readily as the more traditional sort did at her.
She didn’t really think about it much. Just the way he was. She also knew that the one thing he was not, was a ‘schoolboy’. She’d seen him kill people before. With a grin on his face. The two of them sometimes competed over how many thugs they can thrash in a bar.
She kicked the fridge door with her foot slightly, and said with a slight smirk: “’Ey, pig, try not to eat all the grub, a’ight? Throw me something.”
Leodogan tossed a bag full of apple slices. He mumbled something about the rest being on the counter. She went over and made herself a sandwich. A large one, as she freely admitted her appetite was at least as endless as Leodogan’s.
“Mmph. How long we gonna be in hyper?” Selira mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich.
“Prob’ly the rest of the day.”
Selira shrugged and took another bite out of the sandwich. In many ways, the inactivity of being on spaceship drove her stir-crazy. In others, she always felt rather uncomfortable mud-side because she spent so much time here. She favored being on a space station most as it provided the best of both worlds. Plenty to do without the physical discomfort any long-time spacer was going to experience.
Space Stations had their downsides however. Their were hives of scum and villainy and a female of Selira’s attractiveness was going to attract unsavory attention. That hardly worried anyone, least of all her, because only a lunatic would mess with her if they had even an inkling of her fighting ability. Such occurrences are rare, as they usually land on one of two or three space stations regularly, and it did not take long to establish one’s ‘informal’ dominance over a port and the scumbags that prey on the little guys that try to get through with the least amount of fuss.
Leodogan smirked at Selira and hit her upside the head with a wadded-up napkin while she was looking away. She turned and gave him a thunderous look. He stuck his tongue out at her.
“You immature-”
She got cut off my another napkin hitting her square between the eyes. Leodogan snickered visibly. “Serves you right.”
She slugged him across the shoulder and returned to her sandwich, trying (unsuccessfully) to project an aura of offended dignity. She swallowed a bite of the sandwich and gave Leodogan a raspberry while he pretended to pout.
The rest of the day past uneventfully. There was not a whole lot to do for most people while in hyperspace. A lot of the navigation techs worked their fingers off, of course, but for the combat techs, marines, and the ship’s captain(s), it was mostly a case of finding busywork to occupy oneself. Next to anything, including paperwork, was preferred to sitting there and letting cabin-fever creep in.
There was also, of course, the gym. The things were built standard in any spaceship worth calling the name nowadays. Also, it was the most useful of all in burning off excess energy. Both Selira and Leodogan practically lived in it during times like this. The sparred against each other regularly to keep their unarmed combat skills at their peak. One never knew when that would come useful.

Leodogan dropped to his knees to avoid a sweeping clothes-line from Selira and took her legs out from under with a sweep of his leg. She dropped to the floor and rolled quickly, regaining her balance. Leodogan was already on his feet and made a move to put her in a headlock, which ended in her grabbing his arms and heaving him bodily behind her, throwing him to the floor, again.
He leapt up to his feet and grabbed her foot, which was directed straight for his chest, and threw it upwards, wrecking her balance and making her land on her rump with little dignity.
“All right, you win. This time.” She added that last with a conspiratorial grin.
“Serves you right for dislocating my shoulder last time.” Leodogan said with commendable gravity.
“That was an accident!”
“Still hurt.”
Selira just sat there and pouted. Leodogan laughed heartily, savoring his triumph while it lasted.

As it had been since the dawn of time, the time to hit the sack came far to early. They had another twelve hours before they got out of hyper, so around the time either Selira or Rown dragged Leodogan out of bed.
Selira smirked at the though as she flopped on her own bed and closed her eyes, placing her sunglasses on the desk by the bed’s foot. It was so much fun throwing him out of his bed bodily after he hit that damn snooze alarm a half dozen times. Three hours after everyone else woke up.
It was not that she was jealous exactly; she knew Leo had trouble sleeping. He never stated why, and her and Rown’s questions have met with a grumble and a change of the subject. It was a subject she never really pushed.
She shifted mental gears as she pondered why Sven called them to Dufladki. Sven was the leader of the Timberwolf Association, a rather innocuous-sounding title for a tight-knit organization of pirates, assassins, mercenaries, guerillas and spies all working towards freeing Rhonika from the foreign generals and admirals using it for a playground.
They were minding their own business, looting government caravans as usual, when a messenger ship, little more than a core and communications array, burst into the system. It dutifully sent it’s message and was off on it’s way to god knew where and for what reason. It was prudent to keep a lid on such curiosity.
So they finished up with the caravan, it’s escorts, such as they were, were on the other side of the system, half of them heavily wounded and bleeding atmosphere. Once they got their money and cargo, they plotted a course for Drengr. Drengr was a good three hrünkan away, so it’d be a while.
They stopped in that deserted system way back for a technical reason. Ships traveled along hyperspace ‘dumps’ or paths, of which there were a limited number for any system. It was theoretically impossible to go from one dump to another without reentering normal space, so a ship had to basically leapfrog from one system to another. It was another technical limitation that drove physicists and merchantmen mad.
It could be inconvenient for someone with Selira’s occupation as well, as it was possible to lay an ambush for an enterprising pirate by having a fleet waiting placidly, disguised to look like merchants, waiting to strike in some deserted waste with no value or worth. It was a favorite tactic of marauders on anyone unfortunate to cross their path.
Hence the call to return to Dufladki. Selira knew that a local pirate, the real deal, not attached to an association or anything, but a by-god vulture, was causing a lot of grief in the local systems. Some tosser named Grenek Hurkan. Hurkan was running an operation out of some mud-ball with no real reason to exist and striking at anything he thought he could take and loot, with little to no regard for whom he was attacking at the time.
She really wondered what was going through the stupid motherfucker’s microscopic mind. Was he really dumb enough to think that he was going to get away with this? Whatever it was, she’d deal with it when the time came.

Edited by Areze, 10 July 2010 - 15:39.

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#2 Failure

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Posted 10 July 2010 - 18:07

Good read mate, good read!

#3 Areze

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Posted 10 July 2010 - 19:31

View PostFailure, on 10 Jul 2010, 13:07, said:

Good read mate, good read!


Thanks! :D
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#4 Areze

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Posted 23 July 2010 - 07:29

An intro to a story. Fantasy, obviously, or sci-fi, with some fancy literary footwork. I can't decide what do do with it afterward. Any ideas (If I get any replies, that is)?

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The sun rose from the misty dawn; ethereal, amorphous, like a dream. The burble of a nearby creek and the chirp of strange birds added further serenity to the scene. It was peaceful and quiet. Seemingly no life for miles around. The huge trees, of a type that was utterly alien to human eyes, yet at the same time nostalgically familiar, soared, the spires of a natural cathedral, and just as hushed, as if not even nature was willing to raise it’s voice to break the scene.
The illusion was broken by the unmistakable sound of a crossbow being released. A bolt pierced through the heavy fog, punching into an ancient tree, looking almost like a pine, very nearly up to the bolt’s stiff fletching. There was the crack of a twig, and two figures broke out of the copse they were hiding in, trying to rest, and broke into a sprint. There were cries from deeper in the forest by the Justiciar’s men; they were on to their quarry, and the one who had fired the bolt hastily reloaded his heavy crossbow while his mates fired theirs. The ones with no ranged weapons drew wicked two-handed swords, the steel a lightless black and serrated viciously, and chased after the outcasts.
The trees whipped past them as they ran, but it seemed so slow. The grand trees of the forest remained unperturbed by the intrusion of the mere sentients at their feet. They were enormous and majestic, ancient beyond reckoning. It did not matter to them, the senseless affairs of lesser beings.
The outcasts ducked behind an outcropping of mossy rocks as viciously barbed crossbow bolts pinged off them. When the crossbowmen were reloading, they continued to run.
“Hurry, Mari! They’re right on us, we have no time!” One of them, the taller one, said, desperation in his voice. He was painfully aware that a crossbowman was tracking his every move, and that there were at least eight elite Dread Knights chasing them. He could not take them on with only his dirk and emotionally and physically exhausted little sister.
“How… much farther, Ka’al? I can go much further…” She panted slowly, unable to catch her breath, running from the Justiciar’s soldiers. She just wanted to sit and rest, let the guards butcher her, they’d be doing her a favor after the past few days, after seeing almost all she held dear burned and killed before her eyes as if they mattered not at all.
“Just over the next hill. Not much farther, I promise, then we’ll have gotten away. Please sis, keep going!” They began running, putting everything in to putting as much distance between them and the goons behind them. The soldiers were encumbered by their armor and weapons, while the outcasts had only the clothes on their backs and their desperation gave them extra speed. They ran until they saw red, hearing the thunk of crossbows being fired in their direction, the bolts striking the trees. The crossbowmen were obviously not trying to hit them, but herd them into a spot where the Dread Knights can do their grisly work. If they happened to hit, however, all the better.
They finally crested the hill, and the forest was beginning to thin out. However, Dark Templars, heavy mounted cavalry under the Justiciar’s command, were advancing towards them with their heavy warhorses, swords drawn. There were at least four of them, including one in more ornate armor, the leader of the entire party chasing them. It seemed to be the end.
One of them shouted orders, and they began at a slow canter towards the outcasts. They were confident that their quarry was captured. Nothing could escape them.
Ka’al took his sister by the hand and nearly dragged her around towards a steep cliff in the side of a mountain. A large cave was dug into the side. When the men of the Justiciar saw it, they Templars started moving at a full gallop and the soldiers started running as fast as their heavy mail would allow. The outcasts weren’t really trying to-
At the cave’s mouth, Ka’al sighed. He pulled down the hood of his cloak. He did not want to do what he had to do. But his sister had to survive. Mari pulled hers down, her dusky blue skin highlighting the sweat and tears on her face. Ka’al own muted red one showed nothing but grim determination and deep sadness. “Mari. The portal only takes one every few decades. You’re going through.”
The look of shock and betrayal on her face was heartbreaking. But Ka’al would not be thwarted. “I will find my way through, soon enough. Even if I don’t, at least they won’t get you. I won’t let them butcher my sister like a mad dog. GO!” He shoved her with all his might into the cave and took off running, throwing a stone at one of the Dread Knights. He sprinted away, luring most of the forces away from the long, narrow cave so his sister might live.

Meanwhile, Mari began walking slowly down the cave, utterly devoid of hope. She had lost her parents, the one male in the village she liked, and now her brother to the Justiciar’s cold-blooded plans. Why not just give up and let them kill her, or better yet, save them the work? There was nothing else left for her here. Yanhalzanbec was no longer a home.
Mari sighed. She could not let Ka’al down. She kept walking. Hearing voices farther back in the cave, she sped up. The Justiciar’s men. She broke into a run when she heard them kicking a stone, following in after her. Whatever else, the soldiers were not a stealthy lot. She found the portal, a lot less impressive then legend allowed. It was just a pool of water, a bright milky white, true, but not the flaring fireball she expected. She did not know whether or not she hoped the rest of the legends about what was on the other side were true or not. It may save her life, but if they were true, this new would may kill her just as readily as her home tried to.
She had to make a decision fast. The soldiers were catching up. She took a deep breath, the last she would take in this realm, and jumped in. She left her old realm, the one of the Arganai, and made the journey in to a new one. The realm of humans.
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#5 Areze

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Posted 02 August 2010 - 18:35

Chapter 1






The weak morning light was searing, painful. It stabbed at Ragnar Kjartanson’s eyes like relentless spears. He screwed his eyes shut as tight as possible to block it out. No use. He grumbled to himself and sat up, running a hand through his fiery red hair. It would need more than that to be tamed, stretching to his backside as it did. He fluffed the linen shirt he wore, crawling up to his feet. He opened the shutters all the way, deciding to get used to the vile sunlight as soon as possible.
He went over to the washbasin and splashed water on his face. He grabbed a brush and ran it down his hair, trying to sort out the worst of the knots. He then grabbed a smaller one, this one meant for teeth, spread a solution over it and cleaned his teeth. The solution in question was a recent innovation.
With that done, he rinsed his mouth from the basin holding the warm water and got his boots on. He looked around the room. Aside from the sleeping mat, the window, the chest holding his equipment, and the washbasin, the rough wooden walls were stark and bare. They were not even stripped of their bark, and daub between them insulated the room from outside weather.
Ragnar shook his head. He should not have drank as much as he did last night. He knew he’d pay for it come the morning, but such as it was. He opened the chest, grabbed his spectacle helm and tossed in his sack, where it landed with a metallic thump; his fighting axe, which he put in the loop at his belt; the longbow, unstrung, which he leaned against the wall; and his old seax, which he put in the leather sheath in the front of his belt. He grabbed his shield, painted in a pinwheel pattern between black and red and hung the shoulder strap around his back.
He grabbed his bag and the unstrung longbow and headed down the narrow staircase down to the main room of the tavern they were resting in on their way to Blankenwell. He squinted his eyes slightly, trying to search the gloom, having already adapted to the piercing sunlight of his room.
He found his companion, Gediminas Radjeskas, sitting at a table, quietly cutting apart a loaf of cheese and another of bread and eating them with a stein at his elbow. It was impossible to tell what was in in from across the room, but Ragnar was sure it was not alcohol. Gediminas has frequently made it a point not do drink in the mornings when he had done so, perhaps more than advisable, before going to bed. It was a tradition that confused Ragnar, a bred-in-the-bone Njaelander, and therefore a drinker straight from the womb, but to each their own.
He walked over and sat at the table, dropping the pack on the floor and leaning the bow against the wall. He thumped the table to get a server’s attention and leaned back in the wooden chair he sat in. He gave Gediminas a weak grin.
He looked up, his expression blank as he sipped from the stein. “Drank too much?” He asked as he put it back down on the table. Gediminas was not much of a talker, and was a sorrowful, introspective man with an appearance to match. He had black hair as long as Ragnar’s, tied back with a piece of leather at the base of his skull in a ponytail, limped gray eyes, and was strangely for one of the men from the wild, pagan lands to the north, clean-shaven, with a unprepossessing jaw line and a mouth unaccustomed to anything other than a very slight frown. He was a marked contrast to his Nordic comrade.
“Yeah, yeah, so I did. But by Odin’s beard, it was a grand night!” He barked a hearty laugh and thumped the table with the flat of his hand.
The two of them were outsiders in the tavern, and several people gave them wary looks. They were from the region the locals fearfully referred to as Obrkaand. Obrkaand was a collection of petty kingdoms and fierce tribal states, which was renowned for cruel winters, crueler animals, and crueler still people. It was said that the men were more ferocious than bears, the children as pitiless as demons, and the women more vicious than snakes. It was perhaps exaggerated slightly, but it was indeed true that Obrkaand was a hard land, and only the strongest survived there.
The primary from of suspicion came from the fact it was still untouched by the Light of Koledim. The Old Gods reigned supreme, and the ‘pagan’ traditions of the inhabitants went on unhindered. Indeed, the Koledim church had sent missions to the hard north, but none had returned.
Gediminas and Ragnar came from two different groups. Ragnar came from the ’kingdom’ of Obrkand, and Gediminas was from the Jaskinia Vilkas Klano people. The name meant ‘Cave Wolf Clan’.
A serving girl appeared at the table, looking perhaps more nervous than she would have otherwise. Ragnar looked up from his mirth and gave what seemed intended to be a friendly grin, but scared the girl nonetheless. “Bring some mead, stronger the better!”
She nodded and put some silverware down and ran off behind the counter and the narrow staircase to the tavern’s store room. Gediminas took the large cutting knife and sliced off a few slices of bread and cheese and gave it to his companion.
“How long ‘till we reach Blankenwell?” Ragnar asked, taking a bite out of the bread. It was heavy and brown, perhaps a few hours old. He tasted better, but certainly worse as well. The cheese was fresh, as well.
“If we leave within the hour, we’ll be at the Gates before dark.”
Ragnar nodded, took the stein that the server put onto the table. He have her a friendly, if appraising smile and took a large quaff from it. Smacking his lips appreciatively, he went back to the food before him.
Ragnar and Gediminas were mercenaries. They led a band of about ten or twelve warriors throughout the temperate, war-torn landscape of Cavall. Cavall was a small, moderately rich patchwork of petty fiefdoms, free cities, dukedoms and a tribal confederacy or two and the occasional knight chapter. It was a land that actively attracted ones such as Gediminas and his cutthroats. The region was mostly Koledim, the majority of the Tribal Confederacies remembered their tribal spirits and ancestral worship whenever a Koledim spiritual authority was not watching.
They were heading to Blankenwell to work for the local Consul in his needs to defend the city against aggressors. Blankenwell had many enemies, being one of the richer towns in Cavall, as it was a free city that sat on the meeting of the rivers Kesla, Surtman, and Fertha, as well as the most reliable fords across these. Effectively controlling the hub of most of the trade here in the eastern continent of Yesterhaven, the Grand Consul wielded more political clout than many autocratic kings, and Jarvian III respected the strict constitution that bound him, making Blankenwellian power all the more blatant.

It did not take long to polish off the remains of the food. Once everything was cleared off, Gediminas took the mail shirt out of his bang and put in on, and slipped his longsword into its baldric. He had Ragnar go rouse the men still sleeping upstairs while he paid the tavern keeper for the rooms and food. It came out to about a hundred and sixty denars. The price was on the steep side, but the tavern was one of better quality than the usual stews that populated the area hereabouts.
Having everything in order, they got their horses from the stable and headed down the main road. It promised to be a long trip, so one of the men started up a traveling song, and it did not take long for the others to join in to pass the time.
A few hours passed, and while they were traveling, a merchant caravan passed them along side the road. The merchant on the wagon at the front hailed the mercenaries, waving his hand and having the caravan stop at the side of the road.
Gediminas stopped the horse and brought it alongside the merchant in the lead caravan. “What seems to be the matter, sir?”
The head merchant was a middle-aged fellow, with a brown beard with slight streaks of silver running through it, he was somewhat pudgy, but still fit; it was a body accustomed to travel by horse or wagon. He had slightly beady, suspicious gray eyes which locked on to Gediminas in something that was not fear, but a kind of wariness brought on by a lifetime on the roads of Cavall. His wear was fairly Spartan, but well-made. A moderately rich merchant, then. “Did ye boys come from the tavern down the road?” The fellow asked in a thick Blankenwellian accent, sounding to Gediminas’ ears as if he were chewing on something.
“Yes, sir. Why do you ask?”
“Ye and yer men are quite heavily armed. Who are ye boys, if ye mind me askin’?”
“We are heading to Blankenwell to work for the Consul there as mercenaries. We stopped at the tavern down the road for the night to rest and recuperate after a long day on the road.”
The merchant nodded. “Mercenaries, eh? Well, if ye’re lookin’ for work, I can think of something for ye. I got enough gold ‘ere to pay ye enough for all around.”
Gediminas nodded and turned to Ragnar, who sat on his horse next to him, staring contemplatively at the back of his mare’s head. “How about it, Ragnar? Shall we?”
Ragnar shrugged. “Sure, why not. We’re in no rush, and little extra gold in our pockets will never hurt anything.” He looked up at the merchant. “We accept. So, what do you have for us?”
“Thank ye kindly, sirs. Ye see, there’s been strange happenings goin’ on around these parts. Strange monsters ’n horrors from beyond the grave makin’ life interesting’ to the likes of us.”
Gediminas gave the merchant an incredulous look, with one eyebrow quirked. Ragnar just suppressed a snicker and gave the merchant the benefit of the doubt. “‘Horrors from beyond the grave?’”
“Ye think I’m crazy. Justifiable, not like ye hears the likes of such on every god-lit evening after all, but ‘tis true. Oh, they avoid the areas with a lot ‘o traffic like the main roads and taverns ’n such, But you go off in the wilder areas, and there are things that, well, a body might have trouble explainin’. I meself have seen things that I usually keep shut about. Why, I lost a guardsman just a few moons ago to what I’d swear on the great spirits’ golden knickers was a walkin’ skeleton. Some long dead warrior, of sorts, still had bits ’n pieces of armor hangin’ off ’im. Gruesome sight, covered in rotting pieces of flesh ‘n stuff. The poor soul attacked the ghoul with his spear, brave lad, if stupid. The skeleton had an old, rusty sword and a moldy old wooden round-shield on it, worthless to us, but the thing cut straight through t’lad with no problems by me eyes could see. Two more of ‘em appeared, one with a two-handed battle axe and another with a shield and board-shield.
“The rest of the guards rallied, and before we could get into a scrape, the undead just stalked back into the heavy woods. We ran as if the Deceiver himself were on our heels. T’was a strange encounter, to say the truth. Wish to never see the likes of those abominations again in my lifetime. No doubt that ye’d be interested in such, if only to keep an eye out.
“Anyways, some brave scouts’ve figured that they’re coming from an old crypt of this long-dead rich old family that had a manor way out in the woods. The family was rich, but they were nutters, for sure. Brothers marryin’ sisters, cousins on cousins, huge guard detail, to chase away people they didn’t want snoopin, which was pretty much everyone. Nobody knows what happened to the family, them and their guards suddenly stopped interactin’ with the outside world at all, and all the bodies that went over to see what was wrong; or loot the manor, if they were dead, never returned. Methinks I know what happened to them.”
Ragnar smirked. The merchant had stopped in his story to grab a jug of what he strongly suspected was not water, and he considered the options. Being a mercenary, he was hardly willing to get himself and his men into something that was likely to get them all brutally murdered; they weren’t heroes, after all. But on the other side of the coin, he was a Njaelander. His religion told him that war was life. To die a coward was to die in shame. Only the brave, who died in battle with arms in hand, went to great Valhalla, to feast with Odin All-Father and prepare for Ragnarok. A harrowing fight against undead creatures, however unlikely, would appeal to him and his sense of adventure. He turned to Gediminas and cocked an eyebrow in silent question. Gediminas turned to the men who were listening nearby with avid interest. They looked wary or amused at the stories of the walking dead; but the prospect of payment for wiping out the abominations as well as an abandoned manor to loot appealed to them. As a whole, they gripped their shields, spears axes and teardrop shields and nodded.
Gediminas turned back to the merchant, who but the stopper back on his jug and turned to the two mercenary captains. “I never caught ye names, terribly sorry. May I have them?”
“I am Gediminas Radjeskas. The redhead is Ragnar Kjartanson, my second in command.”
“Aye, I can tell ye’re not from these parts. Ye’re accent and diction’s a bit off, and yer names are strange to my ears. I’m Martin Van Haargen, and I make me living in trade along the major land route between Blankenwell and Sanderfall. Anyways, I’ll pay ye four hundred pieces if ye can get into the manor, find out what’s causin’, it, and bring back whatever you think’s the cause. If there ain’t anything, just bring back an old medallion bearing the family’s old coat of arms.”
Gediminas nodded. “Sure thing. Where do we find you, the tavern?”
“Aye. I’ll give ye a fortnight from tonight to find and take out whatever’s makin’ life difficult for us caravaneers. The road to the manor is just about a mile down the road. Look for an overgrown path. From there it will be maybe a league or so to the grounds themselves.” He pointed west, towards Blankenwell.
“Done.” Gediminas turned to the mercenaries who waited with trepidation for his orders. “All right, boys. We have a job to do. Let’s head out.”
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#6 Areze

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Posted 07 November 2010 - 00:31

The frosted ground reflected the weak sunlight, seemingly turning the whole land into a crystal. It was bitterly cold; a soft but penetrating wind chilled the soul. The snow-capped mountains stood like antediluvian sentinels over the ancient forest. Berry bushes, lakes of moss, and beds of wildflowers turned much of the ground into a riot of greenery. A road went through the landscape, but had fallen into disrepair. Many bricks were missing, filched by people for construction or worn away after many years of harsh conditions. The greenery and the fresh snowfall conspired to render the road almost invisible. The land was silent as a cathedral, and the pale sky smothered the landscape like a blanket.
The men were cloaked in mail hauberks and shirts, or clothing made of linen or fur. Their heads were covered with iron spectacle helms, and trudged along with weapons in hand.

They were equipped with thin wooden shields, swords, javelins, or axes. One of them carried a great sword, a five-and-a-half-foot beast, able to cleave through earth and man and horse alike. He himself wore a double-layered mail hauberk crowned with the pelt of a great wolf. He was a fierce-looking man, with a grim face with glacial blue eyes, long brown hair and a great beard. He bore a good resemblance to a Teutonic war god.

Yet, his shoulders were sagging, beaten. His fierce, piercing eyes were lifeless and dull. The god had been defeated. He seemed hardly able to carry the weight of the armor he wore.

It is because in his mind, he had been beaten. He had doomed his people. He was the chieftain of the Obrkandr tribe across the Sea of Ice. He and his brother Erik had ruled the Obrkandr since their father, Kjartan the Bear, died. Thusly, his two sons inherited their father’s war with Yrinhogg.

Ragnar had decided to end it once and for all. He had his brother take care of things back home while he led the army to the distant Ulthinrir Isles to get the Vethyr tribe, ruled by Jarl Sigurd, to join the Obrkandr, and then lead his forces into a strike against Yrinhogg that could cripple them.
Sigurd knew this, and had already allied himself with the Yrinhogg. He stationed Ragnar’s army in the shade of his castle while holding the ‘conference’ far away from prying eyes where Ragnar could be quietly assassinated and then the army crushed easily.

Little did he knew, that Yrinhogg was ahead of them both. The treacherous Yrinhogg manipulated the equally treacherous Vethyr like a child’s toy. They cared not if Sigurd’s scheme worked or not. All the cared was that they were poised to annihilate each other, leaving them both too weak to avoid forceful assimilation by the Yrinhogg. It was a masterful scheme. And Ragnar had fallen for it.

The sole hope is that the assassination failed. Not trusting Sigurd the Cunning, Ragnar had smuggled a knife with him into the hut and stationed archers in the woods. When the assassin tried to knife the Obrkandr chieftain in the back, Ragnar cut him down easily and ordered his forces to take up arms and slay any Vethyr they found. His archers intercepted and killed enemy archers equipped with flaming arrows to burn the hut Ragnar was in to the ground.

Ragnar and his band escaped. But they needed to join up with the army, defeat Sigurd, and rush back to Obrkand before it was too late, and the Yrinhogg’s schemes pay off.
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#7 General Kirkov

    The very model of a modern major general...

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Posted 11 November 2010 - 11:52

Nicely done sir!

Edited by General Kirkov, 11 November 2010 - 11:53.

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#8 Areze

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Posted 01 January 2011 - 22:59

I have real trouble with the section concentrating on these characters. This is a major problem as they are central character of the story, and their actions are very important, driving the plot. I need help here, please. Anything is good. Here is the first section:

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Rear Admiral Gerin veki Skanar davi Holzer stood, black shako cap in hand, on the reception plate aboard the Geisepi Imperial Space Station Ukesje. He watched the small corvette move in slowly to dock at his port. ‘Small’ was an amusing name to refer to a ship weighing in at four thousand tons.


But compared to the overall tonnage of Gerin’s new command, it was barely a blip. It and its crew of seventy-five might as well have been a speck of sand compared to a mountain. It could have fit in his capital ship’s cargo holds perhaps three times. This was even more noticeable as the Corvette was effectively unarmed. Oh, true, it had plasma torpedoes as a defensive measure, but using those at anything heavier than belligerent asteroids had the same effect of throwing eggs and overripe tomatoes at them.


Gerin had been placed in command of The Emperor’s 77th War Fleet. It was a new command, having been formed a little over four t-months ago. It consisted of three full-strength squadrons of Segetsia-class heavy cruisers, another three squadrons of Dugo-class heavy torpedo cruisers. There was twenty-four ships in a h-cruiser squadron, so that made one-hundred-forty-four ships all by itself.


Then came the two Kusavihla-class dreadnoughts. A hundred-twenty-thousand tons of matrix titanium, weapons, and over twelve-hundred crewmen. They were slow, ponderous, and nigh invulnerable. Man-made metal glaciers. There were twelve of these giants in a squadron, so the twelve Gerin had were like a metal fist poised over the empire’s enemies.


Besides them, there were a squadron of Kurimanka-class battlecruisers. The seventy-thousand ton ships were a black sheep in the empire’s navy, but the eighteen versatile ships in Gerin’s armada made an invaluable addition.


There was the usual screen of light cruisers as well. Twelve-thousand, thirty-two a squadron, and fleet, they were meatier than the corvettes, but not enough to have a hope even against heavy cruisers. Two squadrons of those, and four corvette squadrons (forty each) made up the rest.
Not a huge amount of variety. But that necessarily wasn’t a bad thing. The empire, in its two centuries of existence, had learned that having a fleet made up of ‘a bit of this and a bit of that’ resulted in a case of the jack-of-all-trades. While this was good in theory, as in paper it had no real weaknesses. In reality, it placed more emphasis on no strengths. They had long since streamlined the empire’s navy composition.
He was stationed in the Arpanko system, in Kharzosi space. The trinary star system, with the binary stars orbiting a third, had a few dusty, hot, rocky ’planets’ orbiting the stars, and precious little else of immediate military use. Of course, there was a small outfit doing atmospheric mining of the gas giants. There was always a need for at least small amounts of hydrogen, helium, and an assortment of other gasses. There might have been some interest there, were it not for the fact that there were operations like these in virtually every solar system between the Veronionsgrad system and Sol itself.


Gerin wished he could dig his orders out of his bags again. He already had them memorized, co course, but he was very nervous, and he suppressed the urge brutally. It was not easy. He had been ordered to take control of his forces, assemble his command staff and move them to the disputed Havkandar system in northern Rhonika. From there, he was told to operate on his own authority, with his long-range directive being the disruption of Terran influence and power in Rhonika and intelligence on the Rhonik ‘liberation movement’.


The lack of specifics on his orders was very deliberate. In this modern age of space travel, the time it took to get a message from the capital to the frontier of the empire was several months. Trying to keep firm control of officers with that slow of travel was both impractical and foolish. It was better to give them some initiative.


Gerin knew he was slowly going mad from anxiety. He took a deep mental breath and forced his frayed nerves back into line. Being recently promoted, especially in the Geisepi Navy, which doesn’t hand such things out easily or quickly (ignoring a few naked cases of nepotism, of course).


The corvette had drifted into the port bay, the coupler bay extended and attached to the ship. It looked vaguely like sticking a straw into a whale. He saw to small, black figures cross the bay tube. He nodded to the porters and made towards the greeting station. There, he greeted two officers, their uniforms crisp.


He greeted the two of them with the imperial navy’s traditional salute: feet together, clenched fist over the heart, and the other arm behind in the small of the back. The two officers returned it with synchronousness that no choreographer could have matched. Gerin nodded his approval and went at ease.


“Commodore Alena Sakrinota, Kharazos Auxiliary fleet, reporting. I have been placed under your command as your second-in-command, sir.”


“Commodore Jonetan Kedilik. South Gespian Navy. I have been called upon to be your intelligence officer, sir.”


Gerin nodded and smiled slightly. “Grand; I was hoping that command would see it fit to grant my personnel requests. It is good to see that I wasn’t in the midst of a pipe dream.”
“Things are tight all around. The Kradians are getting active again and have made raids into the more backwater systems to the south. The commanders there are screaming for whomever they can get, but command saw that the Eastern Theater is more important at the moment, what with all the chaos. So they granted the requests. I hear a rumor that it has a lot to do with a bit of polite arm-twisting from the Duchess of Takhaila.”
Gerin nodded, his reserved smile becoming somewhat wry. “Indeed. I’m no great believer in the virtues of a hereditary aristocracy’s merits, but it can come in useful. Me and the Duchess go far back. I saved the life of her daughter when she was commanding a small squadron of corvette shipping-protection against pirates, and me and the Duchess’ consort have had several enlightening conversations on topics that would no doubt bore you to tears.”


The two commodores looked a little surprised at learning that the daughter of a duchess was in command of a lowly corvette squadron. They must not have been aware that unlike many, the Duchess of Takhaila was one of the few who ran her lands on a sometimes harsh meritocratic fashion. Even her own children had to prove themselves capable to get the cushier assignments. Incidentally, her province was one of the most productive in the empire.


“At any rate, shall we be going aboard and getting the staff formed? Rest assured I will try to keep my meddling to a minimum.”


The two officers nodded and smiled. As one, Gerin, Alena, Jonetan, and the porters crossed into the zero-gravity boarding tube towards the waiting corvette.
Writing Thread

#9 Areze

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Posted 01 June 2011 - 23:57

More stuff I have. This is the first half of it.


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The weak morning light slanted through the overlapping leaves. Only a few reached the forest's floor. A soft layer of mulch gave way over the cloaked man's boots. There were shrubs and vines all along the path, huddled around rocks and the stumps of trees for support. The path itself was barely worthy of the name, a thin line of dirt wrought into the soil by the countless tracks of the hooves and paws of animals, the wheels of carts and the boots of men and women.

Behind the cloaked man were two young men wearing thin, yet strangely ornate leather armor. They wore capes with hoods, to protect against the weather. They were down now, though. The weather was quite humid. They carried tall staves, almost as long as they were. They were topped with strange blue orbs that seemed to glow with an inner light. The cloaked man, perhaps a leader, carried a gnarled old wooden staff, blackened with age. It had the carved image of a dragon’s head headpiece. It was incongruously ornate, and reinforced by thin bands of black metal. His cloak was black, with gray lining. It was plain, yet study and warm. His boots were brown leather, with a layer of animal warm fur over it, and held together with rawhide string, they looked aged, but well cared for.

The part of his wardrobe that matched the least was the shining steel mantle around his shoulders. It was blood red, with gold trim, and tapered down in to an extremely shallow point at the center of the man’s chest. It was crowned with a sapphire the size of a fist. It glowed, like the headpieces of the lesser men’s staves. His clothes and gloves were similar to his cloak and boots. Plain, yet utilitarian. They were simple tanned brown leather, built to take lots of abuse from the weather.

His face was slightly aquiline in its features. His cheekbones were high, skin sallow, nose aristocratic. He had black hair, with a short, groomed beard limited only to his somewhat sharp chin. Most striking was his eyes. They were slightly hooded, but bright and piercing, and most of all, two different colors: bright, pale green on the left and equally bright pale blue on the right. They had a sort of fire in them that the generous would call inspiration. The less generous would call it insanity. His mouth was a thin, and uncompromising. At the moment, however, it was curled into a snide, tight sneer. It uttered, in a voice that was equal parts smooth velvet and acidic malice:

“Ahh, Inner Loskha. Beautiful, serene, contemplative. One of the greatest strongholds of nature’s kingdom.” The voice turned harsh, hateful: “Oh, how I despise this wretched place.”

One of the young men behind him started in shock. It was rare to hear their master speak so spitefully. He was usually calm and composed; with an undercurrent of dark menace, yes, but always in control. To see him snap like this was a jarring, unfamiliar experience for the young man. He was suddenly very scared.

The black-cloaked man snorted loudly and waved his right hand through the air. A small orb of flame slowly flickered to life around chest height. It glowed like a beacon in the poorly lit night. The black robed man, a magician, leaned a bit on his staff, his expression fading from burning hate to mild disgruntlement. He reveled slightly in the flame’s warmth. He waved his hand to summon the two apprentices behind him to come forward.

They edged carefully towards the flickering ball of flame, eager to feel its warmth and dryness, yet wary of their master’s unexpected wrath. When they were next to him, they fond themselves holding their breath, as if the mere act of breathing would offend the master enough to fly into a violent rage.
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