NationStates Jolt Archive

If you are easily offended by descriptions of torture and all the scaring, emotional and otherwise, do not continue. You have been warned!

“Welcome my friend to Kephalia. Or rather, welcome to the surface. Oh yes, there is much more to this land than meets the eye. Just you wait for nightfall. Hah, then again, you really shouldn’t wait. What’s down there? Hell, you don’t want to know. See this brand? That’s your proof.

They’re daemons, black skin, white hair, red-eyes. They come up every night and scour what they can. They take anyone who catches their malignant gaze. And if you try and fight, they kill you. Yes, we have our fancy guns and such, little good it does against magic though.

Magic? What? You’ve never heard of spell-craft? Wizards? Arch-mages? Well, they’ll teach you. Your nice guns and lasers might work against most foes, but what can you do when your enemy summons up a giant spirit of death. It’ll look at the hardest soldier, and he shits his pants, then and there.

Fight you say, find outside help. Bah. We’ve tried, trust me. I tried to cross the mountains. That’s where I got this brand. See, those beings don’t have a proper society. Their women lead the men, ya, that’s right. They captured me, and took me captive, treating me no better than a dog, but I guess that’s what I was to them.

This one bitch, she had me branded, and then set free, as I warning I say. But the others won’t believe me. No they say, that can’t be. I’m insane they say, and I must be. That land was beautiful, great cities hanging down from the sky, great metal horses flying in the sky.

And I saw them too, the people taken away! Alive! But different… twisted and strange. I don’t know what happened to them, but they seemed… broken. It’s like they only lived because there was no other option! I couldn’t stay any longer! And then she just let me return.

They were rich, let me tell you that. Lots of gold, gems, precious metals, and the Mithril! The armor! They were masters at their arts!

If you want to go down there, my advice is, don’t. They’ll capture you, torture you until you snap, and then work you until you die, or worse. I’ve seen the sacrifices… to one god, they torture you for weeks before they finally kill you, and then they trap your soul, and torture you some more.

Sir, don’t go down there, I beg ya, it’s terrible. Stay away from this entire country, it’s a purgatory, and below us is hell. They’ll come up, grab ya. The women they take captive, rape, then kill, if the girl is lucky. If not, the soldiers are the least of her worries. The men are sometimes used as breeding stock, other times they are sacrificed, or they work, or they too become toys for the wealthy, and not so wealthy Drow.

Don’t let our government confused you, we are slaves in our own land, servants to them. The under-worlders. Don’t come back here, leave after you learn what you want, and run. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you my details, if you want them.”

~John Lasuis, to a visitor to Kephalia

OOC: Just a Story RP for now, it will open up later

“So yer back, eh? Alright then, you want to hear about how I was captured? Well, back in those days, I was a spry young man and when a request went out for young adventurers to go to one of the large cities for an ‘undertaking of great importance’ I jumped at the chance.

My father had given me an heirloom, a gun from before the enslavement. It was a great work of art, a pistol as accurate as a rifle, it could fire thirty shots before I had to reload. I loved it. So I packed it, some food, all the money I could gather for my ‘adventure’ and set off for the largest city on our continent.

It was not that hard a journey, and I saw things on my way that I still cannot believe; great beasts, machines of iron and fire that shot along tracks like carts in a mine. Bah, John, you wouldn’t know one of those things if it ran over you!

Anyways, these men think I’m crazy, telling tales of things that couldn’t be possible. Well, they can shove it up their ass. As I was saying, when I finally reached the city I was amazed. There was a huge ship, floating in the sky. One of our few mages later explained to me what it was. An ancient dirigible, from the Age of Technology, that had been recovered and repaired by the air mages, and made to fly again.

I was amazed to hear that I would be traveling on this ship! It was incredible! I was introduced to a grizzled old man, with more scars on him than I have ever seen. He was easily seven feet tall, and carried a great axe which lightning sparked across. The man, Wolfson the Lightning-Axe was how he introduced himself, a hunter of the Slavers.

I learned quickly that we would be traveling over the Barrier mountains, to the lands beyond. There were rumors, much as there are today, that great beings live beyond those mountains. And they were our best, and only, hope for defeating the Slavers.

He told me that the sky-boat was called the Freedom, and that it was powered by the same mechanisms that power the trains, the marvels of iron and steam. It had great weapons, guns the size of men to protect itself, but we hoped that her flight would keep us safe from the Slavers and their magic.

It was that evening that I got my first taste of the real Age of Technology. For the first time, I suited up in a great weapon, a suit of armor, powered by what the steam-mages called an ‘Internal Combustion Engine.’ All I know was that it enhanced my strength, and protected me from swords and even the bullets of muskets and flintlocks, even my own pistol, able to go through the strongest breastplate, was useless against this power armor.

I can’t tell you what it felt like, feeling the magic coursing through the armor, my strength, speed and agility enhanced ten-fold. With a thought flame erupted from my arm, and with another whisper, great fire-magicks allowed me to fly short distances.

Ah gods. That was a great band, each of us had our specialty, mine was brawling, others had large rifles from the Age. There were six of us heroes. I don’t know why I was chosen, a simple country boy. But I was chosen. The Freedom had sixty soldiers who had been given expensive weapons; breach loading rifles.

And so we set off, believing ourselves invincible, but by the gods were we wrong.

And how’s that for suspense? Heh. You’ll have to come back tomorrow to hear the rest. Now away with you!”

“Damn. I didn’t scare you off. Well, time for you to learn of our downfall.

It was early in the evening and we were cruising at just above cloud cover, the huge smoke-stacks that rose above our ship belching thick black smoke into the clear air around us. I don’t know how the hell we actually flew, the boilers alone must have weighed tons, but we did.

I was standing in my power armor, watching the clouds around us. Night-time was the most dangerous, because the Drow didn’t have to worry about the sun blinding them. We were nearing the mountains and were expecting an attack, maybe from the huge guns that were rumored to be placed in the mountains.

In the watch-baskets that hung below the ship, our watch-men scanned the mountains below for the flash of artillery, and listened for the whistle of incoming shells. When we did see the flash, and heard the explosions, they were not from below.

The three ships, two of them maybe four hundred feet, the last was almost eight hundred. They came from above, the massive turrets on their bellies pointed at us. I’ll tell ya, that was a scary sight. The battleship looked like it had four main turrets below, each one with four guns a piece, with light guns bristling along her sides, and smaller turrets lining the belt.

The two small ships were less well armed, maybe four turrets on the underside, each with only one light cannon. I quickly learned though that one light cannon was enough. Our captain was a brave, but foolish, man, ordering his sailors to return fire with the primitive solid-shell cannons that we carried.

Can you imagine that? A ship, two hundred feet in length, with weapons which could have been hundreds of years old, made of iron and wood, might I add, trying to stand up to three ship, one almost four times her size, and the other two roughly equal.

We could feel the air move with the salvo of the battleship, it was a deafening roar, followed by gale winds as the air rushed into the void left by the gigantic shockwave. We were lucky. Out of sixteen shells, fifteen sailed over our heads, the proximity fuses detonating behind us. Still, shrapnel ripped into the hull, and I heard the horrendous sound of metal striking against metal, distorting the port side armor.

That last shell got lucky. It struck out hull and pounced, the proximity shell exploding seconds later on our starboard side. Those screams still haunt me. It blew away the stern, starboard quarter of the ship. An entire side. Gone. Men fell hundreds of feet to their deaths. I think a sailor remarked “plenty of time to make peace with God.”

Those who weren’t killed by the blast were wounded by the shrapnel. It ripped through our pitiful wooden structure and corridors as if they were nothing. I heard that men, all the way in the front of the vessel wound up with grievous wounds.

Somehow, even after that, out ship was still flying. With one boiler completely blown away, and the other leaking pressure even as it tried to drive the ship, we were dead in the air, and the Drow new it.

One of the destroyers circled us, achieving maneuvers we could never dream of, apparently assessing our damage. As they circled, and the battleship floated alongside, every gun pointed at our damaged vessel, the crew grabbed swords, pistols, anything they could find to defend themselves. The remaining adventurers, my companions, rallied to the top deck, watching the smaller ship tighten its circle, and suddenly pull alongside.

They came forth, jumping the short gap to engage us. It was too close for guns, and many of the soldiers were killed by their sharp blades. Even in our power armor, my fellow adventurers were cut down as they fought, unable to handle the odds arrayed against us. Wolfson moved in great circles, cleaving the Drow soldiers in half.

Even he was brought down. A sniper shot him in the back of the head, the bullet penetrating the helmet of his armor, and exiting the face plate even as he killed another Drow soldiers.

Those few of us who survived fled deep into the hull of our ruined ship. I was the last of the adventurers, the six men with me were simple sailors who had grabbed the rifles dropped by dead soldiers.

I heard the quiet click of the boots on the deck before I saw her. She was clad in power armor like I, but where my armor was crude, hers was beautiful, where my armor belched smoke, hers glowed with a subtle light, where mine obstructed my movement, hers only seemed to enhance her grace.

And where my armor was vulnerable to bullets, hers was quite apparently not. The sailors fired at her, each round bouncing off and thudding into the wood around them. And where my armor allowed me limited magic, hers enhanced it.

A bolt of lightning lanced out from her hand, striking a soldier, then arcing to the next. In seconds, my compatriots were lying dead, smoke rising from the burns on their bodies. I stepped back, feeling the bulkhead behind me and raised my sword, praying that she would make my death quick.

Her hand moved slowly, and my sword shattered, the well-forged blade crumbling under whatever arcane magic she used. Her hand moved again, this time pointing directly at me, and as black clouded my vision, I thought that I had finally achieved death.

And, I’ll leave you there for today. If you really want to learn more, come back tomorrow.”

OOC:Is this just your own ranting monolaug, or can other people join?

OOC:Is this just your own ranting monolaug, or can other people join?

OOC: Just a Story RP for now, it will open up later

There, that wasn't hard, was it?