NationStates Jolt Archive

Arise, Fortress Breaker. The Lioness's strength and cunning are needed.
“umurr?”
Arise, Pi uph Joulin, for i, Vershin, have a task for you.
“g-wahe”
oh, just Wake Up already!
the goddess had manifested in a semi-physical form, and now kicked Pi hard enough that she fell off the stone slab upon which she had previously been lying.
“argh! What?” the young woman sat up and looked around, cat-green eyes blazing. “you! Didn't we do enough for for you? I DIED for your petty bickering already! Let me rest in peace!”
...why you! Ugh. The universe is about to be destroyed, i gave up half my Immortality just to bring you BACK in such a way as to be able to HELP, and all you can do is BITCH about mistakes made at the Dawn of TIME!
Pi was startled. Vershin had always been slightly on the flighty side, easily distracted by new things, and prone to minor tantrums when things didn't go her way... but for her to become truly Angry like this... “wait.. back up... the universe is about to be destroyed? That is pretty drastic. But... i was dead, why would i care?”
you're not thinking on a large enough scale. When i say universe, i don't just mean the mortal realm. I mean Everything. Including the land of the dead.
“oh.... and, you're not immortal now?”
sort of. If you die again through normal means I'll revert to my original state, but if the thing that is trying to end us gets you.... i die too.
“oh... wow.”
wow indeed. Now, there are things you need to know....


the world of Ivalisan was a fairly peaceful farming world, inhabited primarily by Aurailkien. It had a few cities, a space port, an vast tracts of as yet unclaimed forest and plains, perfect for hunting in. gravity, atmosphere and humidity were all comfortable enough, and it's space born defenses were few, relying more on detection and warning so the magically inclined on the ground could turn their attention to defense rather than their usual more utilitarian tasks. After all, no one had anything to gain by wrecking a farming world. They would either wish to capture it intact, blockade it to prevent supplies being sent out, or ignore it, or so the theory went.

It was ... special... in only two ways, in truth. The first was that the Manui-Ken Thinking One Ger-Shrenar had a compound in the northern ocean.
The second...

was that it was the first wold in the path of Sovereign's fleet.

:Tag:

"Here."

The finger tapped a single winking light on the holomap, and the passive yellow star turned red in an instant.

"You are quite certain, Admiral?"

"Of course. It's perfect. It's an agricultural world, so it can serve as a supply base, rather than stretching out tenuous and expensive supply lines from the Kingdom. Furthermore, it can support enough of a population to ensure our sacrificial altars do not see the blood upon them dry. This way, we can bring the Sovereign's presence here."

"Sashiar, I am not entirely sure this is the wisest course of action, striking at the edges. Would we not do better to strike at their heart, and collapse their realms?"

"These people are not unified as we are, Jaern. It is best to consolidate - if we strike and fail, we could doom this campaign. Rather, ensuring supply means that our superior numbers and weaponry will carry the battles for us."

"Ah."

Servant-Admiral Sashiar looked at the map in front of him. There were many ways to conduct this campaign, yet this seemed the simplest one. He had only a thousand ships-of-war, and it was wise to test the enemy's capabilities first.

"Hierophant Jaern, you are commanded to take up position alongside Servant-Commander Aliar in her initial assault on the enemy position. She will take one hundred ships, Battlegroup Wroth, and secure the system. If no trap has been laid for us, we will divide into another six battlegroups, and reduce the spacefaring capabilities of this system into rubble."

Jaern nodded curtly.

"It is the Sovereign's will."

"For the Sovereign."

It was a simple enough procedure - a battlegroup would enter the system, and remove whatever space-defenses were available. Secondly, an army of almost a million troopers, mostly enlisted, would be dropped on the planet, to secure it for the Kingdom of the Sovereign.

A minute later, Servant-Commander Aliar, aboard the Terror of Reason, a hundred ships surrounding her, jumped in-system.

I am Servant-Commander Aliar, and I bow to the Sovereign. It is the will of the Sovereign that you will bow to him through me. Your world will capitulate immediately, your government will be turned over to me, your military disbanded, and your populace rendered compliant. If you refuse these terms, I will force your obedience.

ships which didn't immediately announce themselves meant trouble, whether it was for the ship it's self or for the system it had arrived in. warships made it more likely to be for the system. large numbers of warships meant it was probably an invasion. the shear size of the ships indicated that this enemy was probably new, as no known entity had the capacity to build so many ships of such size, let alone support them.

as such, it did not take long after the arrival of the Sovereign's battlegroup before defensive preparations, such as they were, were being made. charged artefacts were placed into various equipment, allowing those weaker in magic to wield more powerful forces for longer. what ships were to be found and able to fight were made ready, and the Aurailkien authorities had requested that Ger-Shrenar's ships also participate.

by the time the radio message arrived, and was heard, preparations were well under way. including some preparations even the defenders did not know about.




Mornther, eldest of the fates, and the hero Deehow had completed their preparations. truthfully, most of the time it had taken them had been in deciding quite what needed to be done. an old freight ship, crashed and abandoned, had, within the last half hour or so, been transformed into a single, powerful artifact, charged by a goddess and covered in so many glyphs and runes etched so finely into every single surface that they were, individually, inviable to the naked eye of any known sentient being.



visually the thing still appeared to be a box with engines strapped to it. but for those with any sense of the magical, it radiated power.

you realize this still won't be enough, don't you? any more and the magic starts to place a great strain on reality, weakening our cause.
"it will be enough for what i plan to do with it, my Lady. from what you tell me, no ship in existence has anything approaching so much power without being kilometers in length. which, obviously, this one isn't." he grinned "given an old man the benefit of the doubt, hey?"
heh. not so old in the grand scheme of things. just... don't get killed doing this. remember, the Enemy destroys you with unholy magics, i will fall too.
"indeed. i do not like it, but i will flee and abandon these people if i must. there are more individual mortals. there are not more goddesses"

such were the advantages of having a goddess as an ally. it was the only reason they'd had time to prepare this.

the response to the message came not by radio waves, but in the form of launching Manui-Ken warrior-ships and a projection into the bridge of the command ship. The being who spoke appeared much like a shark who had learned how to function on land

Ger-Shrenar, thinking one of the Manui-Ken, defies you, slave. Prepare those who follow you to meet Lady Death, as many of them shall end this time in her hands.