NationStates Jolt Archive

Ruins of Auckland

Visualise a city, built on seven hills like the Rome of old, but clustered around a harbour.
Watch the city grow over a hundred years, watch it grow twice that.
It spills out of its' hills, moving outward like a great black blot of ink on the green around.
A hub of industry, a home to ghettos and factories, its' great bowl of a harbour had been dotted with sailing craft even up until its' last day.

Now a chill wind from the sea blows in, stirring the ash around the feet of a strange procession, a file of radiation-suit clad men, nervous and sweating, weapons twitching from shadow to shadow, clearly unhappy but for the leader, who's suit is marked with the swastika, a symbol of loyality to a now discredited regime.
His hands are empty, but for a thick, leather-bound book.
The leader, smiling face exultant inside his plastic hood, isn't seeing the devastation, isn't seeing the shattered, blackened buildings.
The charnel reek of those whom residual effects claimed does not reach his nostrils, all he can see is the city restored, its' towers soaring once again.

And he has the means to do it.
Researchers in Iesus Christi, flogged onward by the unflagging drive of the leader, had found the book he brandished before him like a talisman buried in an archive.
It was Providence, a symbol that the Lord's favour had not deserted him, that he would be able to restore his nation and take bloody revenge on the murderers who had brought him low.
All through this good book.

Behind him, the troops are worried, the Geiger counters ticking unhappily faster as they trudge behind the swastika-bedecked leader, heading deeper into the centre of the blast-shattered city, the leader following some internal compass to a location that, upon arrival, is no different to any other ruin in the city.

The leader sighs contentedly. The Lord told him here would be a good place to conduct the ritual the book requires, and so it is, he knows what the ruin was, the former Auckland Catholic cathedral.
A house of God will be a suitable place for the new Genesis of God's Own.

His men, somewhat relieved by having stopped their tramp through the ghost of the city, set to following his detailed, carefully re-checked from the book and lengthy instructions.
A circle is prepared, the leader discarding the central pentagram shown in the book for a cross, no symbols of the witch would stain this, his most perfect riposte.
The holy symbol created, he sites his men on twelve points around it, marching to the head of the cross and starting to read the sonourous phrases in his book.
The words seem to hang in the air as they drop from his lips, each a brazen clang on the stillness of the tomb city, writhing in the air, the tone of the syllables changing as he keeps reading, the sonourousness of the words shifting into something more sinister, more sybillant.

Darkness gathers, unnoticed by the leader and his men, twining its' coils about them even as a red light suffuses the circle drawn in the ash.
The leader smiles, delighting in the fact that it is working, God showing His favour to His servant!
He continues to read as the light intensifies, growing brighter and brighter till it sears the air and overwhelms the eye.
A final syllable drops from his lips with a death-like rattle, and it is done.

Standing at the centre of the cross is an angel, shrouded in grey, but its' wings are shining, shining so brightly in the red glow of the circle.
Amadeus, for it is he, drops to his knees, a prayer of thanks tumbling from his lips, calling down blessings on this day.
The angel doesn't look at him, constraining its' attention to the circle, the shape of the cross on which it stands.
As Amadeus invokes God, it looks up, and all the leader of God's Own Reich has time to realise before the creature moves is that angels...should not have red eyes.

Screams rise from the church, screams that do not sound as though they could come from any human throat, screams that ring out across the dead city on and on, till at last, they are silent, and an awful silence reigns.

Something laughs, and the men of Amadeus's escort leave the church, eyes blank and pace shambolic as they trudge, zombie-like, back across the city.
As they move out of earshot, the screaming begins again.
This time it does not stop.

o.o.c.
alrighty, this is of course the "what happens next" in God's Own, post-war.
A few points.
+ Don't post anything till I next reply.
+ This thread will be open to anyone who can inveigle themselves past the Reich's security net and the survivors of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.
And by inveigle I mean either technologically surpass them to a massive extent or be very sneaky. Or a combo of same.
No warfleets need apply incidentally.
+ This is my thread. I'll discuss the matter politely if I disagree with something that happens, and if the result of the discussion isn't acceptable to me, the post will vanish.
+ In addition to that, people who previously rped with God's Own will not be allowed to change tech-level.
+ And finally, I know where I want this to go. By all means do what you want in the interim between the result of Ammy's indiscretion becoming obvious and resolution, but realise this goes where I want.

New Munich

The trouble starts small in scale, disappearing into the greater chaos of God's Own's present state.
Only for a little while of course, because God's Own is nothing if not a police state, and unusual activity is reported on swiftly by citizens who are always anxious to divert official attention elsewhere.

So, the Reichspolizei are dispatched to deal with a routine "suspicion of unadherence to God's Laws." complaint, a definition which can be expanded to cover anything from homosexuality to assembling a radio.
In this case, it's to deal with a group of individuals reported to be acting strangely, an echo of other reports of people disturbed by the destruction wrought, mainly on civilians, by Allaneans who's bloodlust needs no further demonisation.
So this fresh upset in these unsettled times has to be dealt with firmly, halt the rot here, so the RP are encouraged to respond to use maximum force.

The red and white squad cars roll to a stop outside the industrial estate where the call had come from, the RPs donning riot kit, the estate quiescent as is the usual practice by God's Own civilians confronted by authority.
Perhaps it's a little more quiet than usual, but then everyone is nervy these days.
The RPs finish organising themselves, heavy swastika-embossed plastic shields and long alkathene pipe clubs ready.
As a disciplined phalanx they move into the estate, trotting towards the address recieved in the report.
Still no sign of anyone, even as they press deeper into the empty squares and quads around which the blocky towers are formed.
A complete lack of movement is unnerving, and for it to go on this long suggests a number of nasty possibilities to the RP, mostly revolving around seditious elements luring the RP in for a massacare of the most immediate face of the regime.
It'd happened before, after all.
A halt is called, a brief discussion had, and most of the RPs sling their batons and draw their side-arms or shotguns.
Fortified, they move ahead again, slower, the baton-armed men at the fore, seditionists are never armed with anything more than clubs and knives after all, so they are the first to tumble into the final, largest square of the complex.

Inside, the packed ranks of the estate's inhabitants are grouped around a figure wearing the tattered remnants of a rad-suit, his back to the RPs as he lifts his hands in a gesture of blessing over the meal he is preparing, the eyes of the inhabitants locked on his hands.
The Reichspolizei stumble to a halt.
This looks ominously like...religion.
God's Own is nominally a faith-based society, but decades of neglect and abuse from those supposedly part of the Church have ruined any sense of faith in the inhabitants, despite what Amadeus and the other true believers say and do.

The preacher turns and smiles at the gathered officers, his face alight with welcome, even if his eyes are dark, shadowed, as though a veil of smoke had been drawn across them.
"Greetings, greetings in the name of our Lord. Truly, your presence among us is a blessing, an answer to our prayers."

The RPs look at each other, confused, until their leader, a grizzled sergeant stumps to the front, levelling his riot-gun at the preacher, who's smile never wavers.
"Silence. You're all under arrest on suspicion of seditious activity. Come quietly or it'll be the worse for you."

The preacher cocks his head, smile fading.
"You will not break bread with us officer? You willl not share our feast?"

The sergeant doesn't reply, before one of the Reichspolizei who's attention had fallen on the table the preacher had been working over shouts in anger and disgust.
"It's a kid, the sick fucker is butchering a kid!"

The sergeant reacts swiftly, the reflexes of decades allowing him to blast the preacher's face off as the unholy man leaps, smashing the not-cleric backward.
The crowd snarls like a buzz-saw and surges forward, hands like claws, grasping and tearing, a crashing wave of angry faces with blank eyes.
The Reichspolizei fire their weapons, pistols cracking, shotguns booming, and the civilians fall as fast as the RPs can fire, but there are many civilians and few Reichspolizei.
Almost as swiftly as it had begun, the riot is over, the Reichspolizei literally torn apart by the civilians, who snarl and struggle over the flesh of their foes like dogs.

The preacher, face unmarred by the shotgun blast, picks his way delicately through the crowd to where the sergeant had fallen, last, shotgun shattered from its' use as a club when the ammunition had gone.
Without apparent effort, the preacher tears the corpse's head from its' shoulders, looking into the eyes, the horror-struck expression of the dead man a sharp contrast to the smug, awful smile on the preacher's face.
"Ah, so you did want to join us for dinner after all Sergeant. How polite of you."
Delicate as a spider's walk he plucks out the Sergeant's left eye and pops it into his mouth.
"Delicious."

And so it begins.
A tide of killing, hatred and disease spills out from the ruins of Auckland, areas north of the city vanish out of communication almost immediately, teams sent to investigate find nothing living, or don't come back.
But the majority of the population lives south of Auckland and it is here the Wehrmacht draws a defensive line, struggling desperately against a flowing tide of madness, frenzied bodies hurling themselves against terrified conscripts.
Regiments, divisions, armies all break, the conscripts fleeing, the veterans making last stand after last stand, the Wehrmacht gouting numbers, fighting an unwinnable battle as fresh cancers of insanity appear behind its' lines, along with ominous rumours of things which are even less human than the hordes of the mad, zombies and further out, still avoiding the light, fouler things.

God's Own is divided.
The vast majority of the population huddle below the Hamilton Line and the General Staff refuse to abandon them.
In Christchurch however, sheltered by the Cook Strait and thousands of miles of distance, the National Socialist Party Caucus decides to abandon the North Island to its' fate, exhorting all true Nazis to flee southward, leaving the impious North to its' fate.
A split develops in the General Staff, the true believers head south, the pragmatic wing stays on to fight the war it had always believed itself designed for, the one to protect God's Own's civilians.
Christchurch warns the rest of the Reich that the North Island must be avoided, imposing a quarantine with the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, allowing no one in or out.
The pragmatists, meanwhile, make it quietly known that anyone coming to help will be welcomed and if victory is achieved, might find themselves well rewarded.

Microsattelites.

No more then eighty kilograms in weight, equipped with cameras – but no broadcast devices – they look like another piece of space wreckage. Right now, there’s lots of that around, anyway – left over from the massive slaughterfest in orbit.

They give out no broadcast messages, and so are hard to recognize as anything more then a – particularly stealthy – piece of black metal. As such, they’re rather difficult to get a target lock on, and usually cheaper then an ASAT rocket a few dozen times their own size.

Their orbit takes them over God’s Own – or at least some of them. Clearly, the more paranoid of the Reich governments will try and shoot some of them. Hopefully, not all.

The satellites record, and they observe. Somewhere – probably on the other side of the globe – they will in fact send out a few transmission-bursts, downloading their information to some intelligence computers. Right now, they record radio broadcasts, and take high-resolution pictures of the surface of the planet.

Click.

In space, nobody can hear a shutter…

OOC: Feel free to shoot them all down if you don't like this.

Deep Below The Ocean, In a Highly Secured Lab

Alzis collapsed back into the large comfortable chair placed just for this purpose. He had a love/hate relationship with the curious object (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=342127) that had been dredged up oh so long ago. He knew quite a bit more about it now than he had, such as how to focus, but it was still a draining prospect. He still didn't know why there was the burning sensation every time he made contact, but the information it provided was invaluable. Of course, it carried risks, but the Others hadn't been very active lately, so he was a little more willing to use it. It was still stored in a giant laboratory, however. In fact, on that front, the only difference was the large, cushioned chair for Alzis to flop back into when his explorations exhausted him.

The next day he was in Alric's office, fully recovered. "Strange happenings in God's Own, sir."

"Who?"

"Oh, they're one of the backwards nations in the Reich."

"The Reich... that name sounds familiar..."

"We once worked with one of them... Eurusea, I believe."

"Ah yes, I recall. So, what's happening?"

"It's hard to say, really. I know they were recently engaged in a war, and apparently that war went... bad. Hard to say how bad, but I saw images of cannibalism when I turned my gaze in their direction."

"Cannibalism?" Alric leaned back in his chair, thinking for a moment. "What do you suggest, Stephan?"

"Well, this is obviously an internal problem, and I would never suggest that we poke our nose into their affairs," he grinned a little, "But, I have to admit that I'm terribly curious about it all."

Alric smirked, "Always the word smith. What Reich assets do we have?"

Alzis frowned, "Minimal. They're a paranoid bunch of fucks, I'm afraid. Still, we should be able to insert an observer of two. It would have to be a high-level clone, though. Which, raises problems, of course."

"Indeed. How critical is this?"

"Again, hard to say. However, I have some bad feelings about this. Something... sinister."

"Relations of yours?"

Alzis' features darkened, "Let's not get into my heritage, sir." He sighed, "But, yes, it has certain similarities."

Alric nodded, "Well then. I believe it's time to thaw one of your backups. No sense in half-measures." He cut off the nascent protest from his second in command, "No buts, Stephan. Only a high level clone will have the social skills needed for this, and none of them have your knowledge; especially on matters such as this. Besides, it's just one of your clones. You'll be safe and sound down here."

The empty bottle crashed to the floor as the sleeping pills started to kick in, he could feel the snare tighten around his throat as he slumped forward on his chair. Thoughts rushed through his numbed mind as he felt himself slip into darkness. The stench of whiskey and vomit was now distant and he felt an eerie melody mixing with the drunken thought in his mind. God, will you forgive your servant? He could feel the tears burn his cheeks like molten lava on a sloping volcano. HIs throat was too constricted to carry out his screams of agony and hatred. He felt as he was rushing in a tunnel towards the face of his dead wife and daughter. He felt his body slumping forward ever more only restricted by the carefully tied snare around his throat. Doubts floated into his mind. Did I tie the knot right? Darkness enveloped him and his doubts were dispersed, he would finally meet his family again. He heard a snapping sound and he felt like falling. And then. Darkness.....



*Riing* *Riiiiiiiiing*


He felt like someone had stomped on his head. The room was still moving and a ringing noise came from somewhere to his left or his behind. Is this purgatory? He opened his eyes and was met by the sight of the content of his stomach. He raised his head and edged away from the smelling puddle his face had rested in. The ringing noise had not stopped. He slowly rose and looked at the stump of rope attached to the chair that clearly had snapped from his weight. Fuck! I should have bought better rope... He took a few faltering steps towards the sound and fell flat to the floor, feeling a stinging pain in his knees and palms of his hands as they hit the floor with a cracking sound. He crawled towards the sound and reached up on his bureau and pulled everything on top of it down. He caught a glimpse of his phone falling to the floor together with books and magazines. As he swept his hands through the piles of books and magazines he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror that stood leaned against a wall. A madman on all four with bloodshot eyes, vomit all over his white shirt and a snare around his neck. He finally found the still ringing phone and pressed the little green button as he pushed it to his ear.

"Yeah? His voice was hoarse and he felt the throat burn as he tried to speak.

"Herr Commissar? This is the secretary of mr. Slivovic office. Is everything allright? The calm voice on the other side of the line was filled with confidence that only higher rank could fill someone with.

"Yeah" He moved the phone away from his mouth as he coughed again, trying to regain his voice. "Just woke me up that is all." Every word felt like a burning matchstick being pulled through his throat.

"At eight o'clock in the evening? The question almost sounded like an accusation.

"Yeah, coming down with a cold. Thoughts popped up in his mind. Slivovic? What could the office of external affairs possible want him?

-"I hope you get better. We need you down at the office, its an urgent matter. Could you be here in an hour?" He knew better than to turn down a request like that. It usually ended with the invited person being picked up by the black bus and dragged to the office.

-"Make it two hours, I need to get a shower first.

-"Good herr Commissar, We expect you at ten then!" The man hung up without waiting for an answer but that was only to be expected.

Kellermann slowly stood up, still watching the phone. He gently removed the noose from his neck with his left hand as he threw the phone on his bed on his way to the shower.

The ship cycled through the supernova’s peak again. In truth, these events didn’t occur that sharply, but this spectacular peak of brilliance was nonetheless staggering. The shuttle coasted at a cruising speed of a hundred times the speed of light, moving and slowing, moving and slowing, every few nanoseconds. The Milky Way was almost outshone by the brilliance of the nova, frozen by his ship’s course in place, as it outraced the light on a course that was an ever-widening spiral ‘below’ the galaxy. The supernova seemed constant, but the rest of the galaxy changed year by year, the position that kept the ship in the same time period as the supernova meant that galaxy changed at a hundred tames the rate – more – than it would seem to for a ship in a privileged frame of reference like a ship in hyperspeed-lock. The constant light of the supernova was pleasing to Klaus de Vere. The brilliance of the supernova streaming thorugh his window strove vainly with the darkness of the interior of the modified assault shuttle, and merged with the green lights – an archaic trait that pleased the Supreme Director of the Imperial Security Agency – shed by equally archaic cathode ray tube touch-screens set around his office.

The desk-lamp shone wanly and flickered – another eccentric affectation, like the screens, or like the Director’s grey hair and weathered appearance. The Supreme Director had power second only to the Elenaran. Lots of people of course, could make that claim accurately. With his left hand he wrote on thick writing paper watermarked with the ISA’s ominous serpent symbol and letter- headed with his ‘title’ as Duke of Tebat-Neteru-Set and vastly more importantly, his job, a letter to a friend, a former Callidus Assassin, a human even older than he was, and with his right, he absently tapped at a keyboard slung on a rickety frame beside his chair, looking up at the flickering screen now and then between sentences or words, glancing over his reading glasses.

He stopped, and leaned closer to the leftmost screen. He pulled his glasses up to double check.

Ruins of Auckland

The goggled figure had been looking around the rubble of the ruined city, he wore a powder-blue cloak, and still sported tufts of white hair. His face seemed as if it had been severely beaten by the elements and was lined with crags and worry-lines, it was a face that spoke of high intellect, wisdom, kindliness.
Anybody that might have seen Him might have noticed he was apparently talking to the rubble around Him, half-muttering, half-shouting at times before apparently giving up and moving off.
But anybody couldn’t have seen Him, if they did it’d be out of the corner of their eyes and then a mere fuzzy hint that somebody was there.

He suddenly looked up when he heard a piercing scream echo across the bleak scene before him. He glanced around him at the horrors of this massed-murder, it was because of this that he was here, had this been a place of more military significance, as he knew, he wouldn’t have bothered coming. But as it was, He had to know, he had to gain the knowledge in some way.

He saw 12 figures walk a few streets over. He ran, cloak billowing as his sandaled feet kicked up clouds of black ash. He observed their movements, then frowned. Something wasn’t right. Not just the scream, but the way they were moving. He lifted his goggles, and moved in front of one of them, walking backwards and trying to see through the clunky radiation hoods. Then He flicked His goggles down and gasped, fell over, rolled, gasped again, then turned and scrabbled through the charred sticks of a doorway, somehow still standing, and simply vanished.


The Eternal Library, somewhere in Midlonia

The Eternal Library was an interesting building, its exterior was usually that of a small second hand book-shop off of an alleyway in a small market town somewhere near the Snowdon Mountains. Inside would be a single room, where a young clerk usually sat, and for the most part sold books and the odd curiosity to customers. The library was safely tucked away in an area that none but a chosen few, and those invited, could reach.

The Leather boots clattered on the floorboards and the small bell rang happily as the door was pushed open.

“Welcome to Black Books, how may I,” the clerk ran out of steam mid-sentence and looked at the figure who had entered. “…. Oh Terefedel, its you.”

The Vampire was wearing his blonde hair shorn short, a worried look on his face.
“The Librarian called me. Said it was urgent, you have any idea?”
The Clerk shook his head, “Not really, he kept muttering about souls and books snapping shut”
The vampire raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s nothing really new…. I mean, when people die the book closes, and it goes to its place on a shelf, right?”

“Yes, but when its 15 million books, and when a load of those re-open after the “END” page, you really worry!” cried out a faint voice.

The two of them were no longer standing in the bookshop, but on a pathway suspended apparently amongst the clouds, rising up from a pillar stood the Eternal Library.

Terefedel shrugged and walked along the pathway, opening the heavy oak door at the foot of the tower they stood in a small circular room, a soft tap-tap sound echoed through the small space.

Suddenly they were standing in a large room that stretched high into the sky, apparently beyond plain sight, around them were pedestals, some with open books on and quills writing furiously away, thousands upon thousands of white quills moving quickly back and forth, the sounds of overlapping scratching causing a dull roar.
“Come and look at this, just come and look!” cried out the cloaked figure known as the Librarian as His face was knotted with worry.
“All I see is the usual.” muttered Terefedel with a shake of his head.
Suddenly the Librarian was inches from his face. “This is what is unusual.” he hissed and pointed to a side-room, a wooden sign marked it as “Auckland, God’s Own”

Terefedel looked in and saw more books on pedestals, all writing away.
However, a lot of these quills were black.
“What the…” the Clerk was looking around and reading a few pages with fear written on his face.
“Dear God, what is happening in this place?”
“I was trying to find out, I went to Auckland myself with the Spirit Glasses to ask those who’s spirits remain as to what was happening. Suddenly the spirits I was speaking too all gave out a silent scream and vanished.”
“So, what is happening here? I heard rumours of something wrong in God’s Own, but I thought that was just radiation sickness cases…. You know something, don’t you, Librarian?” Terefedel tore his eyes away from one book who’s gruesome details were captivating him and looked at the Librarian hard.

“From what I can tell? They have another copy of a certain book and used it. I thought they were more responsible than that, especially as my attempts to destroy it failed because of their security, but I guess those stupid bastards in Allanea have pushed them to this.”
“Book? What book?”
“One of what we call the Arcanum books.” shrugged the Librarian with a sigh.
Terefedel and the Clerk both suddenly looked at him.
“One of the…. But I thought you had all of them in your possession, Librarian?” stuttered the Vampire, he eyes wild with fear. “How can they have one of them?”
“I have in my possession all the originals, yes. That is true, and I have tracked down most of the copies and destroyed them, I think, but they still had theirs…” he shook his head and clapped his hands, suddenly they were in a room that was simply surrounded by the sky, where there were just four pedestals, on each was a different coloured book.

“The Arcanum room…” whispered Terefedel, who then clasped his palms flat against each other and bowed to a dark book with the Dark Angels symbol, an Cross with the Dove on it, rather than the D and A on each arm though, was an A and a T.
Arcanum Twilit. The Shadow Tome.
“Arcanum Divinity, Arcanum Litica, Arcanum Twilit….” He pointed to each in turn, then stopped and looked in a certain direction.

The Clerk and Terefedel were still looking at the three mentioned, one shone with almost blinding light, its cover was marble and the all-seeing-eye of the Gods was blazed into its centre. Arcanum Litica showed off the living creatures and all that was really “noble” in the world, its cover made of bronze with the letters of A and L. Arcanum Twilit was merely a black book, no features aside from the Symbol now used by the Dark Angels.
“…and the one they have dared to use, Arcanum Chaotica!” exclaimed the Librarian as he swept his arm and pointed to a writing flesh-coloured book, faces frozen in screams bubbling to the surface, before vanishing.
“Good grief…” choked the Clerk, as he coughed and fought back the rising bile.
“Surely this’d be a bit obvious that it is dangerous?” Spoke Terefedel, his face turned in a frown.
“Not when its outside of this room, the reason why it is so dangerous is because it hides itself so well, the others are very obvious. This thing turns into a normal harmless book when taken out of places such as this, that see it in its true form.”

“If they have a copy… then what do we do? Why do you need me?”
“Simple, I need you to help me scout out and find out what is going on, I know that now this is happening my usual magical charms wont always work, so….”
“You need this?” he asked as he drew his Katana.
“Yes, but I want you to mount this in it first.” he rummaged in his deep pockets and produced a small glowing blue stone. “Should give you the extra kick I feel… hopefully.”
“A Moonstone?”
“Moonstone fragment, yes, mount it in your blade handle and go practise for a bit, it should help you see things you wouldn’t normally.”
Terefedel merely nodded and walked away, soon finding himself merely walking to the door of the bookshop.

“I’ll be back in three days.” he called over his shoulder to the empty room and left.

The Northern Front

The attack had...not been a success.
Or so the old bureaucracy would have framed the result.
General Friedrich von Walsleben snorted, yes, not a success. He raised a gloved hand to his chin and stroked it thoughtfully.
How should he, a veteran of the nigh-constant warfare God's Own had maintained against enemies both within and without, a highly trained and excellent strategist, a man who's ability to command had seen him kept well away from from the centres of power until the abortive 'war' with Allanea.

Hrm.
von Walsleben decided the best technical term for the results of the attack would be...clusterfuck.
He nodded to himself, the gesture curt and firm, just like nearly everything else about his personality.

Yes. A clusterfuck, just like that war with the daemon-worshippers who's fault this current infestation undoubtedly was. A pity they'd not had sufficient moral fibre to do the job themselves.
A sigh escaped the General. He'd rather been looking forward to slaughtering the idiots who assaulted his beaches. Instead...this.

"Ah well. No matter."
This last, spoken aloud, caught the attention of his aide, who'd been surveying the results of the battle and had turned rather green, but not green enough to miss his general speaking.
"Sir?"
von Walsleben waved a hand.
"Nothing Ensign. I've seen enough."
A swift turn and the General was moving back to his staff car, the ensign hurrying after him.

Behind them, barbed wire coils around bunkers and trenches, men in the field grey of the Wehrmacht coming and going, moving through the maze of tunnels, ditches and foxholes that formed the front line.

The province formerly known as the Waikato, renamed after the Glorious Revolution as Amadeia and now, with the disappearance of the Fuhrer, not called anything much more than "the Front", is an appalling place to fight the sort of battle the Wehrmacht was fighting.
Nearly constant rain soaked the ground, the system of rivers riddling the area and the high water table contributing to make the trenches muddy and miserable, reducing visibility to near-nothing at its' worst, mist cloaking everything.

Worse, the enemy's forces swelled constantly, the dead rising if not properly buried, men falling victim to the strange plagues swirling in the vanguard of the horrific forces which the Wehrmacht faced with little more than bodies and bolt action rifles.

von Walsleben's closest colleague, a rather more political general by the name of Allofs had described the war as a crusade, a word made tired by the propaganda of the old regime, but made new, sanctified by the blood and deaths of those on the Line.

And so it was Crusade, a final war to make good all the old ones, a final charge in the name of all that was good to wash all the lies and losses of the Fuhrer's rule.
Men and machines threw themselves in desperate attacks like the one von Walsleben had observed the bloody aftermath of against an implacable foe, or they clung tenaciously, desperately, gouting men for each foot of ground the monstrous Enemy took.

The depth of the Wehrmacht's determination in a sector was visible by the condition of the barbed wire before a unit's line, universally along the Line the wire of No Man's Land was strung with the bodies of men, and the bodies things which had once been men.
No bodies too close to the trenches of course. That lesson had been learnt. Too often had the Wehrmacht had to face the pale and eternally hungry dead rising, tearing themselves from their barbed shrouds to feed upon their former brothers.
So, bodies which fell near the wire were burnt, man or monster, killed by the enemy or disease.
Or the Commissars, who had also been purified by this true crusade, the political officers of old had died or been reborn as men who lead, espousing the cause of God's Own, first, foremost and always.
Still, they shot enough of their own to remain feared, but at least the shootings were now unlikely to be political.

Slowly, changes in the Wehrmacht were rippling back from the front, ideology lost to expediency, National Socialism giving way to a purer patriotism.
Men died for God and His own country now, not the Fuhrer.

Die as they might, the Front moved down the country. Men could generally stave off the dead, the inhuman mutant, the frothingly beserk cultist, but the stalking, unnatural spectre of the daemon lay across the land, gore-soaked killers tore tanks apart, abominations beckoned and men laid down their weapons, stumbling to their horrid deaths with eyes fixed on nothing but illusions.
Everywhere, in a thousand, thousand forms, the unnatural, the vile, the perverse shape of powers unknowable and alien to man hopped and crawled and chittered their way across the land, killing and feeding, growing ever stronger, horrid shadows staining the land in their wake.

And in Auckland, Something squatted on a horrid throne and laughed, waiting for Its' awful moment.

The raindrop fell, born of condensation in the thick clouds blotting out the land of God’s Own, it tumbled down the dirty ground beneath it. Away, just a little, from the ruins of Auckland, its destiny was to fall upon plant or grassy ground or rock, not metal.

But this it did, as at the last moment, a sheer surface crystallised out of nothingness with a thrumming boom of air pushed aside, a thunder crack lost in the storm. It splattered and rolled along this surface, the first of many to hit the Monolith as it hovered above the damp ground.

Sullen green light slunk across the damp grass, as if reluctant to spread too far from the pyramidal structure. It brightened as a doorway in the structure opened, thick metal sliding up, steps folding down. A glimmering portal sat therein, protected by fields that repelled even the air from its immediate surface, stopping the air falling through into the barren tomb beneath Venus that it linked to.

A blade emerged, attached to a crackling bar of the same bile-green light, which formed into a long pole arm clutched by a taloned hand of metal skin writ with tiny curving, arcing heiroglpyhs to provide grip surfaces akin to human fingerprints. Rain pattered off the hand of the necron as he squeezed his oversized body through the portal, a little undignified at first, as he was forced to pass through on one side, before righting himself. Normal destroyers could just about fit through the portals on Monoliths, but he could not.

He was massive, six-legged, almost arachnid, with eight limbs in all, and shoulders and wide chest in the fashion of the desiccated remains of a man. On this occasion, his heart shone with an inner fire of green light that lit his leering, elongated, skull-like face. Green crystals shone in his eye sockets as he looked around, settling the very tips of his legs on the floor and de-powering his flight engines, sinking a hand-span into the soft ground before the monolith.

More followed, a small group of infantry, as widely built as their captain, hefting weapons that would be tremendously oversized for any man, but which they moved with a grace that belied their immense weight. The Immortals formed a ring, leaving footprints that were almost as deep as their captain’s as four hovering machines shot from the portal and took up station by the necron lord.

Torrential rain splashed against Arnran’s chest, as he toyed absent-mindedly with a steel orb, one of two – though they had almost diametrically opposite functions – in his right hand, twirling the warscythe in his left with machinelike precision. As the water slid inside him, it hissed to vapour on the hot surfaces of his breast, and rose as a thin steam around the base of his skull.

The scarabs, his ‘pets’ hovered around him like hunting dogs or recorder drones. Wordlessly, for he communicated without words or radio signals, he gestured forth with his warscythe, and two of them shot off into the air, on divergent trajectories that would take them over the city.

The monolith closed them again, and it began to push itself down into the earth beneath it, with incredible force, sinking into the dirt, burying itself by main force alone. Waiting.

The mind inhabiting the immortals considered, and sent two of its number ahead as a vanguard, spreading out, heading for the nearest recorded road. Another two trailed behind a little way, alert for ambush, and two more crept with eerily silent footfalls, made possibly by small counter-sound generators in the legs of the necrons, on either side of the remaining, column consisting of the other four immortals, and their lord, accompanied by two of his pets.

They moved off, switching their weapons to a dimmed mode that shed little light, akin to 'safety' on more conventional guns, spread out over a score of meters in all, towards the ruin of Auckland.

o.o.c. so uh, boris/james/hack...are you going to land any of these guys?

Auckland

Near-absolute silence reigns as the Necrons squelch toward Auckland, even the patter of the rain seeming muted, distant, even thunder sounding faint, faded almost.
A sense of dislocation pervades, the shattered and scorched remains of the city strange when they should not be, the subtly disturbing geometries of Necron construction colliding with a far more alien menace pervading the shadowed edges of what used to be God's Own's largest city, and is now something else.
The inevitably-veteran Necrons may have trod upon the corrupted soils of Daemon worlds, fought the thousand depravities and defilements that are the 'gods' of the Warp and their lesser aspects, but this is is both that and something entirely Other.

Sensation fades more the further the group moves toward the centre of the city, sound, sight, all become hazy and gray.
Inevitably though, this very fadedness heightens perception, the Necrons are almost certain to note the nigh-constant movement in the darkness around them, shapes moving too quickly for detailed analysis, but definitely, tangibly unnatural for all that.
They are being stalked, that much is obvious.
As abruptly as a heart attack, Something steps out of the Unreal.

A small man, balding, chubby and dressed in a disconcertingly bright red tracksuit.
His features are unremarkable, rosy-cheeked and pleasant, but for the shark-black of his eyes and a certain blurredness, as though he'd been rested too close to an open flame and had run like wax.

He smiles, a small, controlled gesture, not showing any teeth.
"Visitors. Splendid. I am Parvulus Caedo."
He gave a short bow with this, a quick grin flashing in the haze.
"What can our esteemed guests be offered in order to enlist their cooperation? There must be something we can offer. Mortals always have something they need of us."
He smiles again, eyes avaricious, the expression seeming both natural, and yet abnormal. He obviously smiles a lot, but there's a feeling that the humour of the gesture would often be missing for those smiled upon.

The movement in the shadows has slowed now, Caedo's presence seemingly calming whatever moves out there, replacing the ominousness of the movement with the subtle unpleasantness of his presence.
As he speaks however, the shadows ripple, fading back yet further, a more tangible menace filing out, warp daemons and mutants filing out like columns of horrid ants, the twisted and ravaged shapes of man and beast flanked by snarling and hissing daemons.
Something roars off in the distance, and the ground begins to tremble softly, as though shaking with fear. The roar comes again, something impossibly large treads its' ponderous way across the earth.

This is the unsubtle face of the enemy, daemon, mutant, known forces manifest upon the unwilling earth. What waits beyond the glowing green light of the Necrons' weaponry is something Else entirely.

He tried to seem interested as the people around him gave him the briefing. He slowly sucked in the smoke from his cigarette and felt the warm air stream between his teeth as he breathed in while getting irritated looks from the rest of the personell. As he breathed out, letting out the smoke through clenched teeth to create a small cloud that he looked at while the mouths of the technicians were moving in an endless stream of blabbering nonsence, his mind spun back to the very short meeting in the ministerium. What the fuck was that all about?

His thoughts were interupted by the technician saying something to him. -"What?" he said with a tired tone. -"Sir, you have to extinguish that now. The technician was holding a glass pane that probably would fit on the cockpit he was sitting in. -"Yeah yeah," he said and put out the cigarette on the side of his seat. "Lets get on with it"

The hatch above him slammed shut and he could feel his descent into the release. He suddenly got irritated on himself for not listening to the briefing about what would happening next. Was the drop now or would they first start a countdown? A feeling of sudden weightlessness removed any doubt he had of what would happen next. He felt his stomach move upwards as blood flowed to his head. Morrinsville. Was that the name of the place? He tried to lift his hand to check his maps but found it to be strapped down. They had mentioned something about this, something about being able to withstand the final impact. He suddenly felt his vessel being jerked up as a roar erupted from somewhere underneath him. He prepared himself for the inevitable crash that would come any time soon and then everything suddenly stopped.

As he stared in front of him, waiting for the crash, he saw his vessel falling apart like an orange being peeled and suddenly he was sitting in the fresh air as his seat slowly let go of its grip of his body. He blinked and then slid down from the seat and picked up his gear. He had different kinds of currency along with gold and a some jewelry sewed in in his long coat. He brushed himself off and started to walk towards the town.

Mortals perhaps, may always want things, the necrons, not so much. Though on this occasion, they wanted one thing. The immortal regarding this Child of Death cocked its head to one side, its weapon held ready, but not yet pointed directly at the being that confronted it.

The mind that controlled the immortals focussed its attention on this one; switching from a ‘video game’ awareness of the whole tactical surroundings, though more encompassing than most any such game, awareness of vision, texture, proximity, heat, everything, dimly, now brought into focus.

She spoke with Arnran wordlessly, no sound nor radio nor hyper-beam passing between their statuesque, ominous forms.

“Mortals. Hah.”

“Analysis?”

“Various warp creatures. Something else. Titan-size walker approaching?”

“Agreed, we seem to be surrounded, primarily in a horse-shoe shape favouring the front.”

“Best ask it anyway.”

The immortal’s white death-mask face leered forth, “How may we aid you?” it asked Parvulus. Simultaneously, the other immortals around the perimeter knelt down on one knee, bringing their weapons up with achingly slow precision, as the others surreptitiously took aim.

Somewhere along the shore

The water parted, soundlessly. Two black shapes – two people in dark diving suits – made their way to the coast – slowly, without a splash. They would not be seen as they crawled ashore – such was the intent, at least. Behind them, they lugged two heavy bags, not unlike those used by tourists. They waited, lying flat on the beach – until they were sure the danger had passed.

First, one of the men had stripped himself naked, and dropped the suit on the sand. He dressed while the other stood guard. Then the other did the same.

The suits were packed into one of the bags. A black knife – coated against the slightest glint – rose and fell, thrice, punching holes in the bag. Then it was thrown in the water, sinking rapidly. The other bag remained, filled with… different items.

They proceeded into the country – dressed like your average local - though a bit scruffier.

Slowly, under cover of night, they began to make way into the country.

There was another team like them, they knew – landed elsewhere. And another yet. Six teams – Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.

They carry weapons – many, and yet hidden. It is amazing that a submachinegun can fold enough to be hidden in one's shirt pocket, an anti-tank grenade be masked inside a thermos, and a sleeping bag be lined with enough explosive to take down a small building. But their task is not to take things down.

Their task is different.

Their job is to find the command headquarters of the effort in the North – and to deliver a message to General Walsleben. The question was… how to get to him?

The teams had different approaches.

One would be tasked to intercept two soldiers – there are bound to be some delivering messages – rob them, and take their uniforms, then begin making their way to the relevant headquarters. Another would simply approach said building via a long journey. There, they would find a way to get the message in.

The third one… would head North.

Their mission was different.

He was but one man. He carried no obvious weapons, merely an oddly carved staff; but this he used to help him over a pronounced limp.
He had no association with any government or corporation.
He had spent the last twenty years riding the edge between good and evil, trying to maintain the balance.
And this time, he fully expected to die.

Alan Gough stepped into a small town somewhere in God's Own. He didn't know that was where he was; all he knew was that, as had happened many times before, he had dreamt; his dreams were horrific, always of what would happen if he failed. But sometimes they led him to his next place of duty, and he emerged somewhere he'd never been before.
Dressed in combat trousers and a leather jacket, with his long, still mostly black hair sweeping around his collar and his eyes shaded by an antique hat, he stepped out for the town. Well, limped out.

As he did so he muttered under his breath; he found it helped him ignore the limp. "Where the hell is this shit-hole? And what happened here?"
Because the town was destroyed; it's buildings wreckage, some gutted by fire. And no-one was moving, anywhere. "Could just be a warzone," he tried to persuade himself, but it wasn't working. Evil was at work here, and his staff began to feel warm under his fingers.
And - there! - a movement in the ruins. He stopped moving, and looked around carefully; then waited for this thing, whatever it was, to show itself.

The Sheep Baaaaaed loudly when he angrily kicked it out of his way. Those bloody technician most have dropped him miles away to avoid detection. He had spotted a major road a while back and compared the road sign with that on his map. It was road 26, the one that went to that other dump, a town called Hamilton. He had also seen a railway running parallell with the road and he now tried to keep on the other side of the road. It was strangely quiet however. He hadn't seen a single car since he started walking so he couldn't even try to hitch a ride even if he wanted.

According to his map Road 26 would become Thames Street when he hit the town and then return to become Road 26 on its way to hit the sea in the north as fast as possible. He couldn't really blame the road, he had been in Gods Own for only a few hours and felt like hitting the sea and get the hell out of here as quick as possible. He had never been in God's Own before and he felt that it most likely was no hit with the tourists. He kicked a stone since the sheep had left his presence and continued his walk towards town.

o.o.c. obviously, this is the new account for the area of the former God's Own under new management.

The Wehrmacht is losing.
Blasphemies walk the earth and the line is forced back. Each man who falls is irreplaceable, a loss without price, no more the endless waves of the old days.
Thus then, does the General abandon the trappings of National Socialism.
God's Own has abandoned them, then no more shall they be God's Ownii.
A new name. A new nation.

How astute a move this is remains to be seen, but for now it puts fresh heart into a defence that finds itself hammered harder every day.
Not so hard that proper discipline fails of course.

Morrinsville

"Hey! You! You there, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing here?"
Sergeant Frank Hyneaman shakes his head. Fucking civilians. Don't know to get out when the getting is good, and then they come back after we drag 'em out.

The sergeant starts toward the startled looking man, scowling ferociously, berating him as he approaches, rifle slung over his shoulder, the weapon as battered as the rest of him.
"This town is still off-limits to civilians you fucking tool, what the hell are you doing back here?"

Perhaps Frank is over-reacting, but Morrinsville's presence as a salient into enemy-held territory has seen it assaulted by wave upon wave of the enemy, in all their horrid shapes and forms, the cigarette Frank had been covertly enjoying had been his first for more than forty eight hours.

He's tired, suffering from tobacco withdrawl and probably combat fatigue so he doesn't bother with any further instructions on reaching the dazed-looking man, just grabbing his collar and preparing to haul him off.
How the Veganan reacts remains to be seen, for it is he that the redoubtable Sergeant Hyneaman has accosted on his cigarette break.

Auckland

Caedo cocks his head.
"Oh you don't need to help me mortal, I have everything I want already."
He smiles, waxy face stretching.
"Yes, everything. Lots of lovely toys here, lots to eat."

As the last word falls from his lips, the circling daemons snarl and take a half, hesitant step forward. Caedo hisses at them and the creatures recoil, tumbling backward. He makes a chopping gesture and a howl rises from the packed daemons, before the warp-creatures turn and lope into the darkness as swiftly and silently as they'd arrived.

The mutants ignore the entire by-play, eyes, or what used to be eyes, fixed upon the Necrontyr. One takes a stumbling step forward, glistening, ruddy pink skin stretched tight over a frame that lacked any sort of clue as to what gender the creature had been. It drops to its' knees, mewling softly at the Immortal it faces, half reaching toward the gauss weapon levelled at it.

Caedo smiles again, face sliding into the expression from the snarling visage that had been aimed at the daemons.
"My poor pets. Sometimes their gifts don't leave them as filled with bliss as one could hope. They long for release just like the others, but for them, they also remember before they were gifted."
An insincere sigh.
"So very sad. But nothing that should discourage you leaving those metal shells behind. We are generous...in our way."

The booming footsteps have continued all the while, the ground vibrating, writhing almost, grow very close now. Something titanic is passing by, and It is close, so close as to make the air heavy with a stench that is sulfur and dead fish and a million other things, but still it is Not.

The footsteps pass by, and Caedo, almost imperceptibly, seems to relax slightly, looking back to the Necrontyr as an other mutant shambles forward, beaked, scaled and awful, a monstrosity that shows no sign of humanity but for one.
Lustrous, shining black hair tumbles from a bony skull ridged with razored horns, the creature is filthy, smeared with ash, dirt, blood and fouler things, but the hair gleams with cleanliness.
It bows to the immortal that had spoken and a voice that is raw to the edge of uselessness tumbles from its' beak.

"Free us. Please, oh please God, free us."

General Von Walsleben's H.Q.

"That's everything for today General. Oh, almost everything."
Von Walsleben, who'd semi-risen at the briefing officer's words, raised an eyebrow at the younger officer, who reddened.
"I'm sorry sir. It was a last minute thing which slipped my mind till now. We caught and shot some spies trying to pass as our men. There wasn't any chance to interview them, they'd stolen some couriers' uniforms and were headed for you, so the apprehending unit felt it better to shoot first, search the corpses later."
The general nods, before asking the obvious question.
"How did they get picked up?"
"No barcodes sir. Strange really. No one would infiltrate a spy into the Reich without knowing we all have them, yet these didn't have any sort."
He shrugs and von Walsleben nods.
"Strange, yes, but these are strange times. No matter anyway, my compliments to the apprehending unit for their alertness. That will be all for now."
He rises fully, then stops.
"Oh, and Joachim?"
His aide, halfway to the door, looks back.
"Yes sir?"
"We're not in the Reich any more. Remember that."
Joachim smiles. Trust the Old Man to be punctilious about that.
"Yes sir."

Shambling figures begged for death; it wasn’t the first time they’d seen it, not even in their conscious memories. And it would doubtless be some time before it was the last.

The immortal facing Caedo tilted its head to one side, skeletal ashen skull-face seeming to be puzzled for a moment, “Perhaps…” it said, “you have everything you want. In that case, we will give you what you need…” the voice became less… human, and the head snapped forward to a more customary, leering pose, and green flames appeared behind it as its compatriots activated their weapons. It wasn’t as swift an attack as it would have liked, but it would have to do.

The immortal kneeled, perhaps for an instant giving the creature before it a misleading sense of gratification.

“Death,” it said without emotion, its arm snapping out with astonishing speed and force towards the head of the kneeling mutant, the force behind its blow enough to punch through solid brick walls, further augmented by the flickering field of green annihilation that surrounded its tapering fingers, capable of clawing through iron armour plate with contemptuous ease.

Simultaneously there was a sudden snap of light as the heavy gun it holds comes on, and it lifts it one handed, inaccurately, towards Caedo.

Not that it’s likely to be needed, as the reason for its prostration becomes obvious, a mere half a second after it did so, four dual-beams of the same annihilator lightning-light tear through the air over its head, aimed at ripping Caedo apart.

Irritatingly, Arnran didn’t have a ranged weapon with him, and so, rather than shooting, he raised his hand, which flickered with a brilliant azure lightning, in the manner of some sorcery, and lightning crackled from his subordinates at the same time, as he leapt into the air; for the leader; his crackling, whickering blade angled downwards, leaving a glittering trail in the air through some strange technology, spiked legs pointed forwards, as he flicked his gravitic suspensors off completely, hurtling down at considerable speed, still accelerating, he’d hit as if he were a small spike-festooned, electrically-live car dropped from a hundred feet.

With a phased-glaive, too.

The other immortals started shooting the mutants nearest them, jogging away from them steadily as they did so, trying, likely without complete sucess, to avoid physical contact with their ambushers. Curiously, they didn't shoot the beaked one that had spoken.

And so, the operatives died.

This was, of course, not surprising. Almost expected. As a matter of fact, this was precisely why you would not be selected for such a mission if you were not a volunteer. And, more surprisingly, none of the troops would be aware of the precise nature of their own mission.

Searches would discover little specific – weapons of various sort as befitting a special operations units, the usual poison tablets (one of the soldiers had likely taken his), and so forth.

What would be more interesting to General Walsleben's staff (if the message got to them, which it might or might not) would be six different-shaped sealed-black packages, ranging from a size of a small grenade to that of a regular postal envelope and a small package designed to be appended to an arrow (and indeed one of the operatives had a bow). They were all unopened and it appeared the Allaneans had no clue as to the message they carried.

It was simple.

The Allaneans were making an offer to provide cargo aircraft to evacuate civilian personnel from the immediate vicinity of the invading… whatever they were. They did not offer military assistance – probably judging that the Gods Ownii (to whom the letter was still addressed,, nobody would be able to know that they would become Everestians) – would not wish to receive it from the very people who destroyed Auckland.