Banduria
03-03-2006, 20:38
The Sentinel watched over them all.
Benevolent, omnipresent, and forever dominating, the Sentinel was the one who never slept, the one for whom death meant nothing, the one who had never lived and would never die. The Sentinel was demigod-like, for those who saw it... it filled all around it with that sense of peace in security, as though the Sentinel would endure forever. And perhaps it would, if one could conceive it as that. Forever at least in the eyes of those that saw it.
Standing fully five hundred and fifty feet tall, the Sentinel, that eternal watcher, stood apart from the face of the cliff that had birthed it, granite and limestone layers interwoven with quartz, veins and currents of marble running through the majestic rock formation. Once it had been another rocky outcropping on the cliff, but over millions of years the icy winds had eroded the layer of chalk separating them, leaving a small pillar of banded limestone between the rock and the cliff.
The Sentinel was in a remote corner of northern Banduria, overlooking the gorge wrought by a now dry river, bare of vegetation due to the freezing winds. It seemed like a frozen, beautiful Hell: the banded, smooth cliffs whipped by winds in excess of one hundred kilometres an hour; the laboriously carved Sentinel itself, resembling some primordial giant; the waters of the sea, lashed into a frenzy, throwing themselves against cliffs and ice floes, the sky an eternal grey.
Carved into the cliffs, beyond the Sentinel, were caves, massive caverns untold millions of years old. Long ago they had been hermetically sealed. But the wind saw strange things coming to the Sentinel: Dynamite, blasting a route into the long-lost caverns. Technicians bearing wires. Engineers and workers installing strange objects in the roof of the small pillar connecting the Sentinel to the cliffs, and more above the cliffs. Then, all outside activity ceased once more.
Inside was different. Row after row of computers and terminals. Controllers for satellites. Advanced hacking equipment. Weapons, uncounted weapons. The Sentinel was rapidly—too rapidly, indeed—becoming the next generation of a military base. It was all run by one man, one who was at the centre of all the upheaval and action quietly undermining the Imperium from below. Shadowfire.
No-one knew his real name. What they did know was that he had money—a great deal of money. Money and something else—a strange fanaticism, a cause he was devoted to, one that nobody seemed to know exactly what it was, but one thing was for sure—it was not going to be favourable to the Imperium.
Shadowfire had his own task. Bandurian Intelligence had learned something about him—not very much; nonetheless, he knew not how much exactly. In reality the information Intelligence had was very little: they knew Shadowfire existed, that he had money and influence, and that he was attempting to undermine Banduria, somehow. Due to the extreme cloudiness over the Sentinel, no satellites had watched the construction, but there was always a danger that the Imperial government would share the information with allies. Shadowfire aimed to prevent that.
Little did he know that he was too late.
On the same day as Banduria sent out a message to several allied nations detailing the information they knew about Shadowfire, all the transmission devices in Banduria were abruptly cut off. It was as though the country had suddenly ceased to exist on all radios and televisions in the world. Nothing could get in or out except by physical means.
The last message from the Imperium floated out across the airwaves. Now Banduria was totally cut off. Now Shadowfire, or his agents, could strike—fulfilling the long-awaited plan.... bringing on a new dynasty and a new era in Bandurian history.
The result could change Banduria forever. Or possibly even the world...
Benevolent, omnipresent, and forever dominating, the Sentinel was the one who never slept, the one for whom death meant nothing, the one who had never lived and would never die. The Sentinel was demigod-like, for those who saw it... it filled all around it with that sense of peace in security, as though the Sentinel would endure forever. And perhaps it would, if one could conceive it as that. Forever at least in the eyes of those that saw it.
Standing fully five hundred and fifty feet tall, the Sentinel, that eternal watcher, stood apart from the face of the cliff that had birthed it, granite and limestone layers interwoven with quartz, veins and currents of marble running through the majestic rock formation. Once it had been another rocky outcropping on the cliff, but over millions of years the icy winds had eroded the layer of chalk separating them, leaving a small pillar of banded limestone between the rock and the cliff.
The Sentinel was in a remote corner of northern Banduria, overlooking the gorge wrought by a now dry river, bare of vegetation due to the freezing winds. It seemed like a frozen, beautiful Hell: the banded, smooth cliffs whipped by winds in excess of one hundred kilometres an hour; the laboriously carved Sentinel itself, resembling some primordial giant; the waters of the sea, lashed into a frenzy, throwing themselves against cliffs and ice floes, the sky an eternal grey.
Carved into the cliffs, beyond the Sentinel, were caves, massive caverns untold millions of years old. Long ago they had been hermetically sealed. But the wind saw strange things coming to the Sentinel: Dynamite, blasting a route into the long-lost caverns. Technicians bearing wires. Engineers and workers installing strange objects in the roof of the small pillar connecting the Sentinel to the cliffs, and more above the cliffs. Then, all outside activity ceased once more.
Inside was different. Row after row of computers and terminals. Controllers for satellites. Advanced hacking equipment. Weapons, uncounted weapons. The Sentinel was rapidly—too rapidly, indeed—becoming the next generation of a military base. It was all run by one man, one who was at the centre of all the upheaval and action quietly undermining the Imperium from below. Shadowfire.
No-one knew his real name. What they did know was that he had money—a great deal of money. Money and something else—a strange fanaticism, a cause he was devoted to, one that nobody seemed to know exactly what it was, but one thing was for sure—it was not going to be favourable to the Imperium.
Shadowfire had his own task. Bandurian Intelligence had learned something about him—not very much; nonetheless, he knew not how much exactly. In reality the information Intelligence had was very little: they knew Shadowfire existed, that he had money and influence, and that he was attempting to undermine Banduria, somehow. Due to the extreme cloudiness over the Sentinel, no satellites had watched the construction, but there was always a danger that the Imperial government would share the information with allies. Shadowfire aimed to prevent that.
Little did he know that he was too late.
On the same day as Banduria sent out a message to several allied nations detailing the information they knew about Shadowfire, all the transmission devices in Banduria were abruptly cut off. It was as though the country had suddenly ceased to exist on all radios and televisions in the world. Nothing could get in or out except by physical means.
The last message from the Imperium floated out across the airwaves. Now Banduria was totally cut off. Now Shadowfire, or his agents, could strike—fulfilling the long-awaited plan.... bringing on a new dynasty and a new era in Bandurian history.
The result could change Banduria forever. Or possibly even the world...