NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Please do not let the Semi-Open tag fool you. In my eyes, semi-open means that I will simply close it to further participation at a point when too many folks enter the thread. It does not mean 'by invite only', but it would be nice if folks ask first before popping in. That being said, please don't be shy.

Despite the vastness and hostility of space, there are some who would say that the universe is full of strange and wonderful things. Even the smallest chunk of an ancient alien artifact would be sufficient to establish the career of even the most mediocre xenoarchaeologist. Hunks of detritus, debris from past battles between great starfaring empires battling it out for supremacy or survival or both, drift between the stars, undisturbed for the simple fact that nobody wants to travel so far out to find them. And undiscovered worlds circle stars yet unexplored by mortal minds. Even in the Milky Way Galaxy, the realm is largely uncharted, and it would take centuries to explore every single nook and cranny of the galaxy.

Yet for all these things that drift around, unknown or uncared for, it all pales in comparison to the communications traffic being churned out by civilizations still relying on speed-of-light communications. The Milky Way is heavily settled in many areas, and a great roar of broadcasted signals places emphasis on the sheer exuberance of life and technology. Indeed, if a civilization were to note that one of its colonies suddenly ceased their transmissions, it would be seen as evidence of something wrong.

Consider a stellar nation of humans, far displaced from their ancestral home by vagaries of circumstance and design, just recovering from a war against another of their kind, warlike and brutal. Through their higher technology and tactical expertise, the warlike brigands were repulsed and eliminated with much loss on the side of the defenders. Some years after their pyrrhic victory, a strange envoy arrived, spreading word of 'Enlightenment' and 'Freedom From Oppression'. Some years after the arrival of this envoy, communications signals suddenly ceased, save for one final transmission...

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He sat in front of the camera, his eyes wide with terror and red with exhaustion, breathing heavily and twitching at the smallest sound. Dust and blood spattered his uniform, and the emblems on his collar, signifying his eminent military rank, were tarnished with blood and mud. His hair was matted and dirty, though he had apparently had an opportunity to shave only recently, though one might not notice such through the fact that he was covered in detritus and gore. He bore the weight of the world on his shoulders, and by his demeanor it was obvious that he was more surprised by how suddenly such a weight had been thrust upon him.

"This is Secondary General Marchand, transmitting to anybody, anybody nearby who can hear us and, Gods willing, help us. I don't know what else to do. The council is dead, my commanders are dead, I'm the highest ranking commander left, and I only have a company under my command. We're hiding in a bunker, hoping they won't be able to find us until help arrives. Please... is there anybody out there? Even a cargo ship would be able to get us some kind of assistance!"

He put his face in his hands and leaned on the desk in front of the camera. "Oh gods... even if nobody can respond now, maybe I can get out a warning. You must not let them in! They came to us, with soft words and some religious message about the 'Enlightenment of the True Way'. They were human and they were unarmed, so we didn't pay them much mind."

He brought his face up and leaned in. "That's how they get in. They come with their message and they start up some sort of grassroots movement or something. The first just started roaming around, preaching about their 'Enlightenment of the True Way' to any who would listen. We didn't pay them much mind since they said that to truly embrace the True Way was to 'Liberate Ourselves From the Oppression of Technology'. Bloody crackheaded nonsense! Technology saved us from the Minori Marauders! We thank our scientists for their contributions to our very existence every day!

"They did magic tricks or something. Made apples float around, changed the color of people's clothes, even levitated themselves about. They said that all could do such things with the might of the True Way in them. People were amused by the displays, but that's all we thought of them. Magic tricks. Parlor tricks. But then they apparently stepped things up a bit. Some of their higher ranking envoys came in to 'enhance the message', or some shit."

The video shifted to a recording of a man in a modest robe, standing amongst a crowd of onlookers as he seemed to be arguing with an armed soldier nearby.

"You're insane!" the soldier yelled, but the man continued to advance.

"I said shoot me! Bring me down with your weapon! These people must know the power of the true way! It is demanded!"

"I'm not going to shoot an unarmed man!"

The robed man paused for a moment, then snarled in rage. "If you do not shoot me, I will kill you where you stand. SHOOT ME." He brought his hand out, and it was humming with some kind of contained power. The soldier must have seen something the camera did not, for the Soldier immediately took aim and fired.

The robed man staggered at the impact, but stayed up. The Soldier seemed to contemplate another shot, but something kept him back... judging by the gasps of surprise as he came back to a normal stance, it was evident that his pause was due to shock at the man somehow managing to not die despite taking a blast of plasma to the face at point blank. The robed man stepped up, with a comforting smile on his unblemished face, and patted the soldier on the shoulder.

"Now do you understand?"

He was looking at the soldier, who had shrunk from the robed man's touch and had his head down, but the question was directed to all those around him.

"With the True Way by our side, we are of eternity. Accept the words of Kir'Shissar the Prophet and cast aside your trinkets and artifacts. We can show you a better path... a path of true freedom and self-understanding."

Several bystanders stepped forward. "Can you show me how you did that?"

The man did not hesitate. "Yes. The True Way gives all of those who follow the strength to do things many would find impossible."

"I want to understand."

"Deny technology. Free yourselves from the oppression and addiction of technology. The way is hard, yes, but not without reward..."

The replay cut off, to once again show the haggard General Marchand.

"That was caught by a journalist passing by. That was when things began to get out of hand. People realized that they weren't just parlor tricks, and they got real interest. We thought things weren't a problem until two years later, when several 'acolytes' began to incite riots against 'crimes of technology'. We were able to keep some contained, but things kept getting worse. Eventually they had the gall to say we had no authority over them! That we were wrong for trying to keep them from burning down buildings and destroying vehicles!

"We tried to cut things off at the head. We told the cult's leadership that they would either follow our rules or they would get the hell out. They said they would not leave, but the time had come for a decision, a decision for us all to make. Submit or Resist."

The General's face fell into his hands again. "We resisted."

The transmission switched to another clip, showing the arrival of a strange fleet of what looked like elegantly sculpted alabaster emerged to confront a fleet of battleships. Gunfire immediately lanced out from the battleships, lashing forth to strike at the invaders, but the great batteries either dispersed or went wide before striking the enemy.

"We resisted, and they came."

One ship shifted itself, orienting its top towards a defending ship, revealing a great ring with a glimmering light in the center. With a shimmer of brilliance, a great plume of fire blossomed from the hole in the invading ship, reaching out with almost loving slowness to intercept an advancing battlecruiser. The shields around the battleship shimmered into existence as the fire slammed into it, but the fire did not abate. It continued to burn and thrash against the shields until, all too swiftly, the ship's defenses failed. The fire poured into the battleship, flowing over it like some kind of parasite, tearing the ship apart and leaving it an expanding cloud of ashes.

"They don't shoot lasers... its like they bring the essence of fire itself to bear. Fire doesn't burn in space, but the stuff... it turned our ships into ash, and it followed us around! We would try to dodge the fire, but it would just turn to meet us anyway, and when it finished with one vessel, the fire would just travel to another ship and bring that one down. We sent out fighters. If our weapons couldn't damage their ships from afar, we might be able to do better at close range."

The footage advanced further into the battle, with battleships aflame throughout the view. Several ships were making a close run on one of the invading vessels, and launching clouds of fighters to attack. In response, clouds of similar size began to pour forth from the portal, rushing out to engage the defenders' fighters at point-blank.

"They met our damn fighters with... angels! They would fly in with a flaming sword and knock our fighters out with shafts of fire! Angels! We didn't think it possible! They were every bit as fast as we were, and our shots kept going wild. When they sent their wrath against us we had no defense... our forces were completely annihilated. What footage we have is from their last distress signal."

The footage then shifted to a view of a city. Whoever held the camera was aiming it up, and working the focus until several shafts of fire reaching down from the sky were readily apparent.

"With our space forces knocked out, they were free to assault the planet itself. We had planetary shields, we had withstood bombardments before..."

The shafts of fire hit an invisible wall, pooling against it like some kind of ooze as more shafts joined them. The footage advanced, the data indicating ten minutes had advanced, and the sky was on fire. People were running for shelter in the heat, and a voice could be heard in the distance yelling for the cameraperson to take cover. Just then, with a crackle of electricity, the shields failed, and the covering dissipated almost immediately as the fiery blobs recondensed into shafts of destructive fire and began to rain down once again. The cameraperson could be heard saying "By the gods..." before the roar of the incoming fires got too loud.

General Marchand put his hands before his face and leaned back, looking around as though lost. "We only got that because it was a live transmission. Our shields held for ten minutes. They had weathered the marauders' onslaught for a month without showing any signs of being taxed at all, and these invaders brought it down in minutes! Their wrath fell on our military and political centers first, what they claimed were the 'sources of our oppression', and when the fire subsided, our military was decimated. But we fought! We fought them! They brought in their own troops and we stood to challenge them. They wore chainmail. CHAINMAIL! We thought it was all some kind of joke as our armored marines ran in to meet them."

He leaned in close to the camera. "They're fast. Too damn fast. Their swords opened up our powered armor like can openers and they ripped our troops out, leaving their limbs behind. If we engaged them from a distance they threw spears that... I don't know how... dammit I don't know HOW they did what they did but those damn things went around corners and hit with the power of heavy assault guns! Our weapons were stopped by their CHAINMAIL! It wasn't natural! It wasn't FAIR!

He slammed his fist on the desk in anger, then cradled his hand for a moment as he continued.

"We lost, and we lost, and we lost. City after city fell and we couldn't mount any kind of effective resistance against them. So now we're all that remains. Maybe there's another company or two out there, but we've gotten no response on any channels. I just... our space forces died this morning, our shields failed in minutes, and our forces were obliterated in hours. If I'm all that's left... they've conducted a total conquest of our world in less than a day. Its not... its not right."

A loud thump sounded somewhere off camera, and the General stood up in surprise. A distant voice shrieked "THEY'RE HERE! BY THE GODS THEY'RE HE--" before cutting off in a gurgling squeal that seemed to warp and twist in on itself, losing any semblance of humanity before fading away into nothing. Gunfire broke out, and more warped screams began to erupt.

"No... what... no..." The General reached for his rifle and ran off-camera. More gunfire and shouted orders emanated, but the fire was beginning to slacken as the number of warped screams crescendoed. Amidst it all, a great booming voice bellowed with such strength that the visual feed vibrated noticeably.

"YOU CANNOT END ME! I AM OF ETERNITY! YOU WILL SUBMIT! IT IS DEMANDED! SUBMIT NOW, OR KNOW DEMISE!"

More gunfire, much lessened now against the warping screams, until finally there was silence. Then, a shout of "We surrender! We submit! Please! No more!"

"You will cast aside your weapons now, and kneel. Secondary General Marchand, we recognize you. You have slain three of our acolytes in past interactions. This cannot go unpunished."

"But... wait! No! We surrendered! We--"

One more warping scream. Then silence.

"The rest of you will be allowed to live, despite whatever transgressions you might have conducted against us. Am I not merciful? AM I NOT MERCIFUL?"

Whatever was said in the distance must have satisfied the owner of the voice, for it immediately turned softer in tone, becoming more like the soothing song of a loving father than of a wrathful god.

"Then let us mourn the passing of so many who could have aided in the enlightenment of the true way. Let us honor their passing and bid them farewell, for though they have been deprived of their lives, they have been freed from the oppression of the universe. Fly, wayward souls, know freedom."

The camera jostled as footsteps came towards the camera, and the sermon continued in the distance. The view jerked and shifted as something grabbed it, and soon a human face with glowing red eyes and a look of pure hatred was revealed. He said only one word before smashing the camera and ending the transmission:

"Disgusting."

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OOC: This is the intro thread to an alternate race that I've been wanting to start up as a sort of playtest for some other folks I'm working with. Any who wish to 'investigate' what happened to the world that just got rather handily thrashed are welcome to do so, but the actions should be kept strictly peaceful... or at least non-hostile.

Glorified Bump

OOC:Its also important to note that this signal has been drifting through space for about 10-years. Just a little point for anybody seeking to investigate the signal and 'what happened'

Lord Karshax stared at the three wretched beings before him in disbelief. What little the Minori knew of what befell their enemy told a tale of swift conquest followed by strange silence. General Marchand's transmission had come and gone, but his people had been both unable and unwilling to assist due to the previous hostilities. Karshax's father had been rash in attacking when he did, thinking his target easy prey. But the planetary shields were too strong for their weapons to penetrate, and they expended themselves against the bulwark until at last their own prey had struck back. While the Minori found themselves beset by strange weapons, they would have given a better fight had they not driven themselves to near madness against that blasted shield. By that point, even the berserkers were getting tired of waiting.

But now, here before him stood three hunched figures in robes, each carrying a strange staff and claiming that they were the ones behind the shield and the devices that had driven the Minori back. And they were asking him for help?

"If what you say is true," he said, leaning forward in his steel throne, driven to divert his attentions from the concubine at his side, which irked him even further, "then why should I not have my guards kill you where you stand? Do you even know how much suffering my people have endured because of the weapons you gave... them?"

One of the robed figures could be heard snickering.

"Are you to be a representative sssampling? Both you and your sssupply of whores ssseem to be quite fattened and content."

Another pointed his staff at Karshax, whose eyes had latched onto the speaker with baleful intent. That he hadn't told his guards to open fire on 'the impertinent dogs' was a surprise to his guards. Still, Karshax sensed that there was something not quite right about these wretches. Something prickled along his spine that there was more at work here than three old men demanding asylum. "You know nothing of sssuffering."

"What befell the others was not sssome divine retribution for what they did to you, but the glimpssse of more to come. We tried to prepare them for the eventual attack but when the Criers came we knew they were lossst."

Karshax's brow furrowed. "You make it sound like you've done this before."

The other speaker stepped forward. "The Shirassi do not ssstop at one mere world. It is everything we can do to ssstay ahead of the onssslaught."

"Shirassi? What are the Shirassi? Nothing in the transmission said anything about them."

The three hunched figures spoke in unison, their voices taking on a strangely powerful tinge:

"They are death!"

"They are hate!"

"They are the end!"

Karshax was rocked back by the suddenness of their reply, and the guards around the room tensed. Their guns were out and aimed at the three in the center of the room. All the ruler had to do was give the word and these three would be dealt with. Still, something seemed strange.

"So you come to me asking for asylum. In exchange for the same technologies you killed our women and children with?"

An ironic laugh emerged from the foremost of the hunched forms. "You make it sssound as though there is lingering resentment. We all know your father intended to ransssack the others for ssslaves and resssources. If you want to feel put upon for the aftermath, at leassst be honesst. You are more angry that we did not come to you firssst. Now that we are here, you ssseem to be under the impression that you hold all the cards."

Another one spoke: "Thisss is incorrect."

And the third finished: "The Shirassi hold the cards. You sssimply need to accept that and move on."

The first began again: "We come with an offer to bolssster your forces with weapons and defenssses with which to fight against the Shirassi. All we asssk for in return is sssafe haven and..."

The second waved the staff around the room: "Comfortable sssurroundings."

The third finished again: "Only the bessst for individuals of our ssstature."

Karshax chuckled at the comment about stature and leaned forward again, a shade of hate emerging in his growing smile. These people were being remarkably rude, considering the fact that they had guns pointed at them. He would have expected them to fall to their knees before him and beg forgiveness and mercy for the crimes against the Minori, but here they stood, acting as though they were instructing a child that the roof over his head was a luxury, not a given. The sheer audacity of their actions galled him, and now he felt he had to make something of a point.

"Even if I accepted, I only need one of you for the technologies, don't I?"

The Guards knew their cue before Karshax had even finished his sentence. Two of the hunched figures were immediately beset upon by several of the guards... or at least would have been had not the first person to get within arm's reach of the hunched figures been torn apart by some form of distortion field. The foremost speaker pointed his staff at a pair of other guards. With a thump, some portal appeared at the tip of the staff, and a great maelstrom of swirling energy pulled the guards in, their screams warping and twisting upon themselves as the two men got sucked into oblivion. Another guard stopped just shy of arm's reach and brought his rifle to bear, thinking to bring the old figure down from range, but squawked in surprise as a massive reptilian hand burst from the robe, grasped him by the torso, and proceeded to grind him into the floor. Even as others stopped and opened fire, the blasts of plasma and the metal slugs only dissipated before some strange field around the hermits.

The other guards stopped, shocked at the sheer power of these three beings, though more at the fact that one of their comrades was presently shrieking in agony as his ribcage was ground into powder against the fine marble of the floor under the remarkable strength of a decidedly inhuman hand.

The foremost speaker thumped his staff back into place and stepped once again towards Karshax.

"Typical humans. Always trying to push your will on others. It would not be ssso bad if you weren't ssso amateurish about it."

The second stepped forward as well: "Now we feel that a point has arrived where we can demand... more concessions in return for the technologies we can provide for your ongoing survival... and for your more immediate welfare as well."

The third tossed the smashed corpse towards the other guards and stepped forward as well: "We are the An'Kazar. You will pay us homage, as is only right. And in our mercy, we shall aid you against the Shirassi. Are we not graciousss?"

Karshax's shoulders slumped in defeat.

The third stepped forward again, his staff pointing at the Minori leader. "ARE WE NOT GRACIOUS?!"

Iris, Delta System, 9.8 light years away from original planet
Jxero scratched a scaly bump on his solider, rewinding the recorded transmission and playing it back again.
"Are you sure that is wise, Captain? What can the twelfth time tell you that the previous eleven didn't?"
Jxero rubbed his eyes, had he really watched it eleven times?
"Just trying to detect a pattern HAL and learn from the mistakes of others."
"True, but it is unwise to withdrawal from the crew for such a long time specially on a mission such as ours."
Jxero again yearned to jump to the unknown system and figure out what had happened to the preachers and the preached. But the Iris mission was to important for such petty exploration, she was to deliver a much needed shipment to one of the F&D far flown military outposts and since they had intercepted the signal only days before, he knew that the preachers were likely well gone and they would have found abounded and desolate cities if they had gone. Squaring his shoulders as best a Fiduse could, the captain rose up from his chair and began the short journey from his quarters to the main bridge...

"How far are we from the Delta 1-02 Station?"
"Approximately 12 light minutes, they have already sent primarily hails and docking information and there was something else captain."
"O?"
"Never mind, its gone again."
"What do you mean?"
"Just a ghost signal, nothing important."

"Captain on the bridge!"
His tail twitching, the captain acknowledged his Disuse XO and sat down. Causing a slight creak, cursing alittle, Jxero looked up and gruffly said
"You have your coordinates now take us in."
"Aye Aye Captain." muffling a smile replied the Navigator.
As the docking procedures played out, Jxero thought back to the message, the desperation in the sender's face and the off camera sounds. "Bah" Jxero tried to put it behind him and directed his attention back to the docking procedures...

OOC: Yar. better to remove the bit about the survivor. In this thread's timeline, its been about 10 years since the events in the first post. That signal was traveling at light speed. Nobody managed to get away... well... save the 'three old men'...

OOC: It is also important to note that due to certain... aspects of how the Shirassi operate, if anybody else wishes to investigate the signal then I will not have anything to respond to or detail until somebody actually arrives in the Now-Shirassi system.

Bump for views / responses.

OOC: This looks familiar... <.< Should be fun to watch. Maybe I'll play, too.

Bump for views/responses. Don't be shy folks. I want folks to investigate this thing so I can flesh these guys out further.

ooc two words
time dilation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation), but edited. As for the survivor part, its very very rare for fleets to ever be totally annihilated, a few of those on the flanks/outer sides of the battle have a decent chance of escaping when worst come to worst...

IC
Jxero flopped back in the chair and sighed.
"I'm afraid, we can't spare her or you for this wild Tugo chase, the spheres have been pressing us in the Alpha Quadrant and we're hurting for all kinds of ships, the Iris included. By the tone in the message its doubtful theres anything left to discover anyway. A colony got in deep and couldn't pull it self out, its not our proble..."
Jexero shut off the transmission.
"I am sorry captain but control is right we are needed in the federation maybe in a few years.."
"By then it will be too late!"
"To late for what?"
"I don't know, it will just be to late, call it a feeling."
"A feeling? Maybe you should contact control again?"
"Please HAL, you know what this bigwigs at control think of preconceived messages and the like.*changes voice into a mocking tone* "If these visions that you and your kind receive were true whats the point in following them, either way it will happen."*back to normal* sighs, "How goes the unloading?"
"86% finished just have to offload the frakking fishes."
"HAL!"
"What? Thats what they are called."
looks at manifest
"True, well wake me when its time to go."
"Aye, captain."

Jxero dreamt..
He was in an endless dessert, twin suns shone upon his scalp, one was blue, one was red. Turning his face away from them, he gazed towards the north where he could see three lonely figures in the distance, each equally spaced from the other. The first was the General from the transmission, a giant hole where his stomach should have been(its a dream and doesn't have to have any base on actual events but...), the third was the hate filled red eyed human that ended the transmission and the middle, Jxero couldn't tell he had never meant her but could feel that she was precious. Jxero gazed onto her the longest before finally ripping his eyes off to see how far they where, suddenly he began to start towards them, first at a slow walk then to fast jog and finally to a super fast run, it took three anguishing minutes before he arrived panting he signaled them to stop, he gazed at the hatred filled man, the hole in the stomach General and lastly the female. He tried to talk but found that every time he tried that he was racked with a dry heaving cough, finally the hatred filled red eye man talked.
"Quite, we must talk. You have strayed from the path and you must find it again."
The General spoke up, "Your whole race has strayed from the path Jxero you must bring them back onto it."
The female also spoke up, "We know that you have questions and we will try to answer the most pressing but we have a limited time, Captain you must return to (lost colony in op), any other questions will be answered there. But first do you have any questions?"
"Yes, Who are you?"
The female smiled, "Ah always the curious ones your race is, I am Mako my child." her eyes darkened somewhat. "No, he has not been informed enough."
The hatred filled red eyed man looked at her. "Indeed, but Fate works against us as we knew he would."
Turning to the captain, the hate filled man face softened abit. "Now awake Jxero..."
"Captain?"
Jxero sat up, trying to clear his head.
"Damn it, Yes HAL?"
"We have been unloaded and given our next assignment."
"Well what is it?"
"We are to investigate the signal after all, seems someone even higher up than control heard about it and was curious, we leave immediately, and I don't know why the rush captain."
"Well then HAL prepare for immediate ftl travel, we have a signal to track..."

OOC: Well, there's time dilation... and there's what the Shirassi can do... and they don't like loose ends. No biggie tho.

IC:

The ship would emerge to find a system completely silent and undisturbed. If one were to search for comm signals, all wavelengths would be dead silent, not even the static of lingering signals overlapping each other from beyond the bounds of the system would be discernible. Beyond this particular irregularity, it would seem as though the system were in its pristine natural state.

Such things would be a keyword as any ships approached the world from whence the initial transmission had been sent. The world was for all intents and purposes pristine and idyllic to all scanners. Its atmosphere was the perfect molecular mix to suit human habitability, the blue seas teemed with life, and the ground would show a chemical signature suggesting immensely fertile soil. Such scans would also reveal a surprisingly large human presence in the form of several vast cities surrounded by expansive areas of farmland. These cities bustle with activity, a multitude of flying transportation vehicles wending their way through massive spires from one place to another. Despite such activity and apparent evidence of industry, no power signature would be noted, nor would any signs of pollution be evident. Either whatever was presently in control of this world was expert at dampening signals, or something is... just plain wierd.

Scans of the planet from a distance would potentially note several rocks in oddly stable orbits of various heights over the planet. Natural rocks in similar orbits would have long ago been dragged into the planet proper, but something was keeping these in place...

Jxero gazed at the projected viewscreen of the planet's surface. The Iris had arrived in the system only four hours before, launching probes to each of the larger bodies in the system, his caution had been proven multiple times, first with the absolute lack of any signals, not even noise from the background radiation had exclaimed the HAL unit. Then with the unusual sites the Delta one hundred and three probe had found, a very much prosperous looking planet yet no signs of outwards industrialization, the Federation had run into these types before of course either space hippies or species that had yet to advance past an earthen seventeenth century level yet the initial scans had shown neither of the tell tale signs of those types.

"A bloody enigma" growled Jxero, "I hate enigmas". He reached over and activated the internal comm signally for sub-captain Ted, showing his impatient he tapped his left claws on the chair as HAL searched for her before she finally appeared before him.

"Ted I have a mission for you."
"Captain?"
"Probe Delta one hundred and three has detached some unusual readings from the only planet that can support humans, you are to take two teams and a shuttle (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lambda-class_T-4a_shuttle) to establish contact, bring the heavier armored one but try and keep it peaceful we're a freighter not a frigate."
"Aye captain, can I take a HAL unit along?"
"Negative, one of the unusual things we detected was a lack of electronic signals, best to only offend them once if you catch my meaning."
"Of course captain, can I take a Protonic (http://z13.invisionfree.com/Chazakain_Storefront/index.php?showtopic=65) then?"
"hmm, might as well but make sure Yelta covers up."
"I will captain, we'll be ready in ten."
"HAL dump our initial data pods and prepare a micro jump, I want our shuttle to come in from a different side than where we are currently hiding."
"Aye captain, jump will be ready in ten point two minutes."
Jxero leaned back into his chair and scratch a scale on his shoulder, his and the crew's fate was now in Mako's hands...

OOC: Might wanna RP what ya actually do after making decisions. I don't know where yer trying to land. Makes me feel like I'm railroading things a bit.

As the shuttle entered the atmosphere, it appeared at first that its descent towards the planet would go unnoticed inasmuch as one might expect from a world where there was no discernible sign of sensors or ongoing communications. As the shuttle began to descend into the clouds however, things began to get 'interesting'.

It was hardly notable at first, but the further down the shuttle got, the more its occupants felt as though they were being watched by some unknown presence, and also that the sensation bore a semblance to some form of familiarity, as though the watched feeling had been with them for longer than they realized. Further down, it began to reach a level where the urge to look over one's shoulder was almost too much too ignore.

Then, flashing ahead with wings outspread, two strangely angelic humans surged forward into view, as though materializing in close proximity to the shuttle. The winged humans were somehow keeping up with the shuttle, and not showing any signs of exertion in doing so. Both were quite tall, if perspective had anything to say on the matter, and superbly muscled, evidenced by the fact that they only wore what looked like a kilt and several pieces of rudimentary armor over their arms and legs. Their hair shimmered like fire in the sunlight, and was oddly calm despite the fact that they were moving so fast. Over various other parts of their bodies, small crystalline growths sparkled in the light. In all, the appearance was of some otherworldly angel flying forward to intercept the shuttle.

One of them turned to look directly at the pilot of the shuttle, his red glowing eyes sending a gaze penetrating deep into the fibers of his being. After a moment of this stare, he pointed down and moved forward, taking up an escort position with his partner and leading them down to a small clearing some distance away from a nearby city.

Bump for more views and a hope for more participants...

Sub-captain Ted looked out the viewscreen.
"Your sure?"
"Yes, the atmosphere has less pressure than what we're use to but you'll still beable to breathe just don't overdo it at first."
"Hobbins, Jekins, I want you two to grab the scanners and start taking samples to the south, avoid the city whenever possible. Yelta and I will talk with our escorts, Leroy you guard the ship and keep her warmed up incase we need to leave."
"Aye Aye sub-captain!"
Opening the door, Ted walked down the shuttle's ramp, taking deep breathes, letting the odors hit her, trying to detect any scents of fear or anxiety or anything from their escorts. Their scents were as confusing as their appearance as they walked towards the escorts she signaled for Yelta to begin his state, they needed to learn as much as they could about them and what had happened since the signal had first been sent out all those years ago.
When they were within 10 meters of the escorts, Ted switched on her universal translator, praying to Sagre for wisdom and hoping their translators were really universal.
"Greetings, can you tell us this planet's name and holders?"

The two angels turned their glowing eyes upon Ted with an intensity that was almost palpable, as if the sub-commander could feel her very component molecules being dissected and scrutinized at the most fundamental level. They stared at her, into her, and through her all at once, and silence was their initial response to her question. Scowls adorned their faces, giving a malevolent air to their attentions upon her, but they paid no attention whatsoever to her companion. Eventually satisfied with whatever it was they were paying attention to, one angel cocked his head inquisitively at Ted, while the other turned his attentions to the shuttle behind the newcomers. Neither of their expressions changed, though Ted would feel a certain lifting of whatever oppressive sensation it was that their glare was causing.

"The planet's name?" The inquisitive angel asked in a strange accent of english, looking around at their surroundings in some confusion. "A planet is an object. An unthinking entity of inert matter save for those that dwell upon it. What use would it have for a name?

"Would you give your house a name? Or your clothing? Does an animal care whether its cave has a sufficiently dignified title? This world is our home. We reside upon it. We feel no need to anthropomorphize an object that is not capable of appreciating the comparison were it possessed of the inclination to do so.

"Once, a long time ago, we knew this world as 'Alecto Prime'. That name is gone now, faded away as we no longer have a use for it. Know that you have entered upon the Domain of Ssien'Ko'Warr, The Far Reacher. He is the tutelary of this domain, our guardian, our teacher, and our lord. He bids you welcome to his realm, and to the realm of the Shirassi, The Lords of The True Way. May Kir'Shissar, the Prophet on High, guide you to true understanding."

OOC: TAG while deciding between this nation and its evil alternate. Decisions, decisions...

Yelta turned to the sub-captain.
"Sagen Sie es nicht. Sie sind retikuläre Fragen."
"But we do."
"Reagieren Sie nicht und geben Sie nicht mehr Informationen, als Sie müssen. Erinnern Sie sich, dass wir nicht hier sind, in eine philosophische Debatte zu kommen."
"Fine."
Switching her translator back on, Ted turned towards the escorts.
"Thank you for your information, do you know where we can meet your lord or one of his representatives?"

OOC: Yelta's an android, right?

Listening to Yelta's comments, one of the Angels began to scowl, and made as if to reach out towards the droid after its second comment. "Speak not, Trinket! The True Path is no mere philosoph--"

His hand was staid by that of the other angel who, also grim-faced, looked his partner in the eye and shook his head. "Contain your zeal, brother. They are ignorant and uncertain. They shall learn their way in time."

"But that device! It spoke derision of the True Path!"

"They will understand that we do not trust such entities. They will learn."

The first angel considered the second angel's words for a moment, then backed off with a snarl. His red eyes glimmered in an all-too-familiar manner as he glared at the android.

The second angel turned towards Ted and spoke with a lighter tone. "Know that Ssien'Ko'Warr wishes upon you the honor of a personal audience. This is a singular occurrence indeed, for only petitioners presenting issues of utmost import are ever truly brought before the Tutelary. We shall escort you to this audience. It is not far."

The two angels turned and beckoned the others to follow, but the other angel also stated: "You may not send your companions to employ their instruments of detection outside of our supervision. Consider this a warning and a lesson. If your companions violate this caveat there will be consequences."

ooc
Depends on your definition of android but no. Protonics could/would be called cyborgs(if just barely since the only real mechanical part of them would be their brain implants the rest of them would be (nearly) organic.) and the fact that they been trained since hatching to think like computers. I used that picture because I like Data in the Sherlock getup:$.
I'd bet your people would hate cyborgs even more than androids though. :)

IC
"As you wish. Hobbins, Jekins drop it and head back to the shuttle, we're going to meet the holder's leader."
After yelling at the two she frowned as she looked back at the escorts.
"How far is far? As you may notice, we do not have wings nor anyway to fly besides our vessel and that may cause a reaction and impression that we'd rather not happen."

As the sub-captain questioned and talked and forth with their escorts, Hobbins walked into the shuttle and switched on their transmitter.
"Standard frequency, medium encryption, two second interval HAL."
"Qualities set. Whom do you wish to speak to?"
"The Captain."
"One Second... Signal found, power boosted as the ship is currently orbiting a moon in the outer gas giant. You may speak and he will hear."
"Captain, our initial scannings were mostly complete but our hosts told us to knock it off, as we suspected their is no power,nor technological readouts on this side of the planet at least 1,000 km from this spot. Though we could have missed something beyond our abilities or quite below them. Message end, transmit HAL."
"Thank your for using the HAL communication hub 01021010201220111..."
"System override, shutdown sequence started."
Hobbins sat back and thought of the possibilities. If their escorts were anything to judge by the planet's holders likely had a technology level quite advanced or at least some kind of shielding.
Jekins had also thought it over but had arrived at the opposite conclusion thinking the people were technology degraded to a level they couldn't detect. Neither one voiced their observations and hypotheses...

The two angels looked at each other for a moment, then chuckled knowingly. While the surly one turned to walk away, the calmer one smiled merrily and replied: "You are ignorant of our ways, so you can be forgiven your assumption. You seem to be under the impression that traveling to the halls of our Tutelary is a feat that can be completed with something so simple as flight. There is a small village near here, a walk of a duration less than one of your standard 'hours'. We shall make our way there and you will understand."

And with that, the second angel turned and made his own way off, indicating for the others to follow.

Ted cursed, they hadn't mentioned whether they all should come whether Yelta should stay behind, how difficult the trail was or anyother of thousands of questions she had. She quickly mentally calculated what they already had on their person and how much offense grabbing extra would entail. The universal transaltor... 1 liter worth of water... food sniffer..
"Bah, Hobbins, Jekins guard the ship and don't go wondering off. Yelta come on." yelled Fred as she spirited after their two escorts who had already disappeared in a bend in the trail.
"Dieses ist der meiste unkluge sub-captain."
"Ya, I know. We just have to hope Mako will guide us today..."

5 minutes later, clearing.

Jekins drummed his fingers. "Are they back yet?"
"No, they are not back yet. Its only been 5 minutes and you've asked 31 times!" screamed Hobbins.
"Yesh, no need to yell. Are they back yet?"
"Jekins just shut up..."

They walked for some time through knee high grasses that felt remarkably soft to the touch, until they came to a small cobblestone path with a stone bench and what appeared to be some form of lightpost nearby. Turning north, the Angels moved to follow the cobblestone path, one of them motioning for the others to do the same.

"Hiking trail. We are not far from the village."

Traveling through several small clumps of trees, past more bench-and-lightpost rest spots, and cresting a low hill, the small village finally came into view. It was remarkably well-appointed for a village that did not seem to surpass medieval technology, with homes made out of some form of shaped stone. They appeared from a distance to be arranged in a roughly grid-like pattern, surrounding a small cluster of larger buildings that appeared from a distance to resemble a modest keep, a church of some form, and a tavern or dining hall. Several other buildings defied attempts at identification, but one bore a vague resemblance to a broadcasting tower.

Entering the village itself presented an image of surprising cleanliness and serenity. The streets were perfectly kept up, and constructed in a manner that suggested more modern techniques in use. A small group of children trotted past, then stopped to gaze in wonder at the pair of angels and snicker amongst themselves when they saw who the angels were escorting. A couple men bearing long spears stood at a street corner, chatting amongst themselves until they noticed the approach of the angels and their charges. They immediately stepped out to meet the two angels.

"Ho, there!" one of them said, stepping forward to bow towards the two angels. "It is not often that we witness an Avenger passing through our humble burg. We are honored by your presence."

The surly angel waved dismissively and smiled at the two armed men. "We come only when we are needed, honored guardians. You do fine work here, and are a credit to your families. Perhaps you could yet aid us. We have need of the town square."

The guardians turned as one to stare at the two people being escorted by the angels, then back. Their gaze immediately took on an impression of shock and surprise, and one immediately bolted further into the town yelling something about how it was a glorious day indeed. The other guardian shook his head slightly and nodded. "Of course. An Avenger always has our cooperation. You do us a great honor indeed."

The two avengers nodded, and the guardian led them further into the town. By the time they reached the town center, a small crowd had gathered. Simply dressed but healthy and remarkably fit, it was apparent that the 'common folk' were possessed of somewhat uncommon strength. Though they seemed awestruck at whatever it was that was about to transpire, they all acted as though they had complete confidence in themselves, and stood with a regal bearing that was a little out of place for the circumstances. The other guardian was talking with a larger man that could have been a professional weightlifter, but wore the heavy leather apron and gloves of a blacksmith. In the center of the town square was a great fountain with a great stone gate of awe-inspiring quality standing just above the water's surface.

"See? Avengers! And they want to use our portal! The Tutelary's blessing will be on us all this day!"

The blacksmith immediately waved for the crowd to back up and give the 'avengers' some room, and stepped away from the massive fountain in the center. Bowing to the Avengers as they stepped towards the edge of the fountain, hopped onto the rim, and walked onto the water. As their charges attempted to do the same, they discovered the hard way that the Avengers were in fact walking on water, as they sloshed in up to the knees.

The two Avengers took places beside the alabaster archway, and spoke as one: "Ssien'Ko'Warr, The Far Reacher! Your guests have arrived! Bless this village with your presence and allow us passage!"

As if on cue, the gleaming gateway burst into activity, the formerly empty archway now filled with a blinding white light, fading slowly to reveal a passageway beyond. As it did so, an ecstatic sigh seemed to escape the entire audience, and a quick look would reveal that they were all standing with eyes closed and hands spread, as though reveling in some unknown sensation.

The two avengers stepped through, motioning for their now-slightly-wet charges to follow...

Ted and Yelta walked through the portal trying to ignore the faces surrounding them. Humans each of them thought with a mixture of pity and disgust.

"Are they back yet?"
Starting through blood shot eyes Hobbins looked at Jekins, a semi crazed grin flashed across his face.
"Thats it. No they aren't back, and aren't likely to be for several more hours, if you need me I'll be exploring sub-captains orders be damn, your stupid chatter is ten times worst than anything out there, crazed flying demons be damned!" Huffed Hobbins as he flew out of the shuttle door way and headed into the woods away from the shuttle and the trail that the previous took...

He didn't mean to go far, but Hobbins had found himself hopelessly lost a few minutes after storming out of the shuttle.
"I don't even know which direction the star sets and raises" he breathed "or if it even does either of those but just hangs there."
Picking a random direction he crashed away from the shuttle and deeper into the woods..

As they stepped through the portal to the sounds of one ongoing sigh by a massive throng of disturbingly ecstatic people, they appeared in a dark corridor of almost gothic architecture. Though it seemed dark at first, when the portal closed shut behind them, the two visitors discovered the hallway was actually well lit by wall sconces, and paintings studded the walls, so vivid and realistic that they almost seemed to move as one watched them. A plush carpet and vaulted ceiling completed the appearance of a simple corridor of a great mansion. At the end of the corridor, they could hear a great cacophony of chirps and twitters.

Continuing down the hallway, they finally came to what appeared to be a greatroom of sorts, and the strange birdlike chatter increased tenfold. In the front of the room a great crowd was gathered, more humans watching in awe as some strange reptilian figure walked around in what looked like a priestly vest combined with a well-made padded vest. The room was truly massive, seeming at first to be the interior of some great pyramid until it was realized that there was no possible way for a structure such as this to stand on its own without some form of internal support. Feats of architecture notwithstanding, the room was large and warmly appointed, with great tapestries adorning the walls and intricate patterns woven into the carpet. A short distance from their entrance, a small series of steps caused the room to dip down a bit, enabling those within the crowd to get a clear view of any entrants emerging behind them. Before the crowd stood the curious reptilian figure, and behind him rested a great throne, approximately the size of a small house, with a great statue of what appeared to be a brilliant white marble akin to alabaster. Its features were vague and roughly undefined, but what could be seen was that the statue seemed to depict a rough humanoid form similar to an avenger, with great wings folded up, though at that point similarities ended. The statue's hands were too large to be human, and ended in wicked claws, and its feet were a strange combination of a bird's feet and hooves. Its form was unnaturally gaunt, but smooth, and it seemed as though whoever had built the statue had intended for it to be slumped into the throne like a king with the weight of ages upon his brow. If this was the intent, it was a remarkably fine job, as getting any clues from the statue's expression was impossible due to the lack of the statue having no face, as the head was a smooth surface of the strange alabaster save for a pair of wickedly sharp horns jutting from the statue's temples. The curious reptilian speaker strode back and forth before the statue, waving about with remarkable enthusiasm as he held the audience's rapt attention.

The strange figure bore a great wooden staff, studded with crystals that shined with some inner power, and as they stepped into the room, Ted would realize that she could make sense of the chirping and twittering... not because she could understand the noises themselves, but because something automatically translated the gibberish in her mind.

Look not upon the wielders of technology not as the enemy, but as one to be pitied, for they serve under the yoke of an entity they do not even understand, let alone recognize as their slavedriver. If they knew, would they care? Technology is both a tyrant and a drug! It rules you! It tells you how to do things! It tells you what you can or cannot do! You are held in thrall, losing yourself to such extravagances as computers and artificial limbs. You are held in thrall and you enjoy it! You enjoy it because you think that these technologies give you so much more!

But with the power of the Will, and the enlightenment of the true way, you are strengthened. You can discard technology and perform tasks that the slaves of the universe cannot hope to achieve! You can manage feats that the thralls of the techno tyrants can only look upon with awe and wonder, and it is through this that we seek to liberate them. We wish only to free them from their burden.

The creature suddenly pointed at the two visitors and squawked loudly.

See there! Slaves of the Universe come to witness our power! They believe the Enlightenment of the True Way to be a mere philosophy! So ingrained are they to the idea that technology is the one and only path! Do not hate them! Do not fear them! Pity them, and desire to help them! Desire to liberate them from their bondage and bring them to the light of the true way! It may take time, for some are truly dependent on their trinkets and baubles, but with patience and fortitude, enlightenment will shine through! Nobody is beyond saving! Nobody! We can make the universe bow to us, while technology makes them bow to the universe! They will learn in time.

Then he waved his staff to indicate the great audience before him, and warbled pleasantly. Think upon these things, hone your body and your mind, strengthen your resolve! With a strong body and strong mind, your powers with the will increase ten fold! Go now! Learn! Learn of the universe so that you can bend it to your will. It is your subject! It is your beast of burden! Go now, masters of the universe, and sharpen your powers!

And with that final flourish, the great audience cheered loudly for a surprisingly long time before fading away into other hallways surrounding the greatroom. Several that passed by Ted and Yelta shook their heads in pity. One even said "May Kir'Shissar guide them from their servitude," as he passed. In mere moments, the room was empty save for Ted, Yelta, the two avengers, and the strange reptilian bird priest at the foot of the massive statue. It waved its hands for the visitors to step forward and then indicated the massive room.

Greetings! Ssien'Ko'Warr, the Far Reacher, welcomes you to his humble domain! To what do we owe the pleasure of such a visit?

Ted weighed in her mind how much information to give out and how much she even knew herself. She quickly disregarded the motion of telling them of the transmission or of the captain's dreams. She had noted the awed expression on Yelta's face and wished to correct it, whatever the holder was it was not of the tribe of Fiduse though they may have absorbed a few of the outer tribes teachings.

Stilling her breath and trying to calm her nerves, Ted talked at first in half truths, claiming that they were a delegation from a trader vessel that had been sent to observe and learn about life forms detected on the planet as she continued to talk more and more information seemed to flowed out of her, at first it was innocent things such as her actual batch name of Ted'Noual'Zoud but then she told the priestly thing of the captain's dreams and his fervor of seeing the planet that Mako had pointed out, eventually she had drained herself of all information pertaining of their mission; she still had enough presence of mind to avoid the subject of their federation. Yet she felt stripped after her monologue and slightly betrayed as the last sentence fell out of her.
Why did I revel so much she thought as she awaited the response...

The priest paced from one side of the dais to the other, taking in every word to the gentle rhythm of its staff thumping into the floor. Its small black dots of eyes were incrutable and the motions of its long neck and colorful crest were indecipherable as the visitor spoke at length about both seeming trivialities and surprisingly important information. Whether any specific revelation surprised it, it did not reveal as such, instead electing to allow the female to continue her lengthy explanation. As Ted finished, the priest returned to the middle of the dais, and gave a hearty warble.

You have traveled far, with many questions to be answered. We are afraid that we cannot answer some of them. However, we recognize the vile General Marchand. He paid for his crimes, as did all who sought to follow him. We know not why an Avenger would be involved in the dream, nor who the woman might be, nor do we truthfully care on the latter. Entities preaching fate and destiny are misguided at best. The concepts of fate and destiny are the considered in the same way as we deem technology: anathema.

We watched your ship arrive from the edges of the system. We watched your ship reach orbit and launch the shuttle, which then proceeded to initiate a close-proximity short range superluminary transit. We believe that such close range transits are considered hostile actions in the eyes of many, even among those not versed in the enlightenment of the true way. But you are ignorant of our customs and can be forgiven... once. Incidentally, we are also watching one of your compatriots from the landing vessel as he runs through a forest. We know not why he does this thing, but he will run for a very long time before he finds anything or anyone of interest.

Ssien'Ko'Warr wishes to inquire, from whence do you come?

Ted let out a small chuckle before quickly regaining her composure.
"I don't suppose you have a map of the stars? Our names for groups of stars is likely to be quite different than your own and simply pointing out the star cluster would be easier. As for that transmission it is simple decorum for our faster than light ships to send a message back to control detailing that they survived the jump and any errors that occurred while accidents are not as common as they use to be, it always better to be safe than sorry.
*map is brought/boots up*
That is (http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj31/chazsapphire/Ted.jpg) my batch system, it was the 20th system colonized by the federation, it has a red giant star, two rocky inner planets, and three outer gas giants, along with two small asteroid belts between the inner most planet and the star and the outermost rocky planet and innermost gas giant, the average surface temperature of my batch planet was 32 C, Ted continued to drone on at an almost panic state, stating key historic events of her planet and her own personnel experiences on it. But it does not matter my batch planet is destroyed along with 100 million of my brothers and sisters, the official story is that the star suddenly went nova destroying the system and disturbing all way points linking to the outside though there of course more distressing tales of invasions and forbidden experiments that caused the changes, the seven thousand of us that were off planet at its destruction are unsure of what really happened..."

"Now if you mean of my race and my government. I am Ted'Noual'Zoud, twenty third daughter of Jxero'Noual, sub-captain of X-01012 or Iris of the Fiduse and Disuse Federation, we do not fully understand where we came but we do now that our claimed homeworld was not were we evolved we either came there due to the destruction of our old homeworld or were enslaved and brought there, we do not if any of our brethren survived on the old world(s), Ted stared hard at the priest and barely whispered though there have been rumors of other tribes, before again returning to her original voice level, either way our federation was founded 400 galactic standard years ago after the Disuse Insurrection, we have established outposts, colonies and stations throughout our sector of the galaxy, meeting a few holders but mostly stumbling upon the unholders. I am Fiduse, we are the sailors and the soldiers, the priests and the layman, the glue and the motar of the Federation. Now if there is something specific that you wish to ask of us do not be afraid to..."

The priest listened intently to Ted's somewhat rambling response, its small black eyes unblinking and unflinching. When the visitor pulled up an image of the galaxy, it cocked its head in consideration, clucking its beak and giving a small hoot that went untranslated by whatever force was doing so. As the woman's reply came to an end, it chittered for a moment then paced a small circle upon the dais before returning its piercing but simple gaze upon Ted and emitting another warble.

Ssien'Ko'Warr wishes to know more about your people. Their culture, their likes and their dislikes, their patterns of dress, their sociological norms, and political interactions. These things are of interest to us. More information about your history would also be welcome, to say nothing of the location of this federation, which you have distinctly failed to provide in your most wordy of evasions.

Bump for views and potential new participants. Don't be shy folks.

Bump again for views and potential entrants. If anybody's looking for a good character driven RP with a potential 'threat to lots of folks' for reasons other than 'they have lots and lots of guns and for some reason everybody else's guns don't work right', this would be a good spot to try things out.

I remember there were some folks that were thinking about popping in... don't hesitate on my account. I want to see how these folks will actually interact with races of different culture and outlook.

ooc
sorry about not posting sooner...

IC
Ted looked up at the holder, trying to decide if it was a dumb or very good idea. Deciding to throw caution to the wind. "If you wish so, then I will need 20 liters of Dihydrogen monoxide and a 1 meter radius or so bowl or platter and if possible some natural star light though that is not required it will greatly speed up the process..."

Hobbins continued to run through the woods in ever increasing counter clockwise circles he was presently about 2.10 km away from the shuttle in a mostly northern direction.
"Trees Trees! Is there anything else on this planet!.."

The bird-priest cocked its head to the right, and it made a chirp-squawk that went untranslated before chuckling to itself about some joke that was known only to itself. It stepped forward on the dais, planting its staff square on the edge, and leaned forward with one hand outstretched, its index finger pointing at Ted's feet. It cawed at her, its black eyes as yet inscrutable but its posture showing a semblance of joviality.

Do you mean that well of water at your feet?

He pointed at a 1-meter diameter platter full of water that had, until a few moments ago, not existed. Its appearance was as silent as it was sudden, offering no punctuation to its arrival whether by flash or puff of displaced air.

And the light of the heavens shines upon us all, outworlder. You have only to look up and see.

Somehow, within some instant of distraction, the entire gargantuan ceiling had shifted to an expansive view of the night sky surrounding the planet. The bird-priest tittered merrily to itself as it hopped down from the dais, approaching the two visitors and pointing its staff.

A mere philosophy, the True Way is most definitely NOT.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Hobbins rambled through the forest, he finally came upon something other than the endless expanse of trees.

What appeared to be the remains of a lone human soldier sat against a tree. The only sign that it was a soldier at all was the mostly-eaten-away scraps combat dress and not-so-eaten-away-but-thoroughly-penetrated body armor. Its flesh was stripped away, leaving blackened bone behind and a skeleton of somebody who had very apparently died while on fire.

The haft of a great spear protruded from the skeleton's chest, still eerily warm to the touch despite what seemed like years of solitude and decay. Vines covered most of the skeleton, eventually reaching up into the tree itself.

The image presented itself the tale of a soldier impaled long ago on a great lance of fire, and being left to molder in solitude for many years...

Nodding her thanks, Ted taking out a small cylinder there were no markings in the normal range of human vision though Ted could see clearly the markings and the warnings that they contained ignoring them she walked the few steps to the platter, flicking off the lid she mentioned to the holder to view them. A single red dime sized crystal popped onto her hand as she turned the container over.
"This is Trinno, we use the much more common green variety to power our ships and other advanced technologies, blue is for our FTL drives and pink is for our certain medical devices and drugs. While normally even this small amount of Trinno would kill me and anyone else that was not probably shielded." Pausing briefly to catch her breath and drop the crystal into the water she continued as it slowly descended. "The red variety is different it emits no radiation, lethal or otherwise in most atmospheric environments or really any environments expect for one, a meters worth of water is enough to start its own chain reaction. The crystal hit the water, a brief pulse was shot out in the ultraviolet electromagnetic range of the spectrum as its energy levels lowered and it started to glow a bright cherry red it started to expand as Ted continued to talk.

"Once the Red Trinno or R-T is submerged it begins to glow and grow, this is why I needed the platter this trinno is very thirsty for water and any more than a meters worth and well you don't really want to know, its significant to say that really bad things have happened to people that don't heed that warning. We found that the R-T does not necessary grow in a random direction it can be directed and information can be encoded, if a pulse of gamma rays are directed in a correctly timed manner and place on the mother crystal all kinds of things can be encoded, this particular crystal is coded with a map." As Ted continued to talk about the crystals relating such facts as the discover a young Fiduse named Dxero, the complex methods behind it and its general rareness throughout the galaxy the Red Trinno continued to glow and grow in all directions forming spheres in some places and flat plains in others. Some spheres were nearly perfectly smoothed while others were jagged and hap hazard as Ted detailed how she had come in contact and bought the crystal it finished."

"You wished to see our Federation? Here our current worlds, Prime II and Motiana, Serago and Juan while the scaling is abit off, the limits of having only a meter to work with. The thirty colonized worlds are shown." Pointing to one of the spheres hanging from a crystal tower towards the center Ted frowned. "That was my home world and that larger sphere is Hades was our primary star, its twin has not formed yet as you may note there are over thirty stars and systems on that map, the remainder are dead worlds and systems destroyed by disasters or war, our race did not fare well before the formation of the Federation and have only recently recolonized those thirty. As we have not found a way to reverse the progress of the Red Trinno you are welcome to keep it and study it in your spare time if you so wish though we are not fully certain why, any new planets that we colonize or find will appear on that map, you will only have to show it the starlight for one hour each day and give it a dm worth of water per week, the light is for the hardening of the crystals if they do not receive it they will surely start to fall apart, to much and the opposite is likely to occur they will harden so much that no new spheres will be added, the water of course is for the additional adding of spheres, if like some do you wish to keep the R-T in its current then cut off most of its water supply, it will still need a cm worth of water per month."

Noting the decreasing amount of light and the increasing length of shadows, Ted questioned the holder. "May we have a short break to eat and refresh ourselves? I have talked many hours already and I feel you will likely wish for me to continue but we grow hungry and tired..."

The crystal is not needed. We have already memorized and catalogued the cartographical information you have provided. If you wish to leave it with us we shall cleanse it as proper for any construct of technology.

The bird priest returned to its dais and waved at the crystal, which vanished as quickly as the well had appeared. The walls returned, and once again the room was cast in the wan light of the wall-mounted torches.

Ssien'Ko'Warr sees all on this world, and the Crusade sees further still. The others now know of your realm, and perhaps we might establish contacts. Zin'Rojn'An'Savvos, The Enlightened One, wishes this thing.

"We would have to ask our own holders but we are sure they would listen. Should we eat here or return to our shuttle?..."

It has not been many hours, as you say. Has the nature of the temple of Ssien'Ko'Warr disrupted your perceptions on time's passage throughout our conversation? You have only been in the presence of the Tutelary for approximately forty-five of standard minutes, to employ humanity's system of measurement, and your travels to the portal that brought you here only took one and a half standard hours. Do your kind require more sustenance intake than other races?

The reptilian bird-priest waved dismissively. Before issuing a warbling trill that once again went untranslated. In some moment of distraction, a large table materialized before the visitors, upon which a great feast was set forth with a remarkable amount of variety. A roast pig dominated the arrangement, with spices set all around and other dishes that made the whole thing look like a veritable smorgasboard of mouth-watering deliciousness.

We think you will find the meal palatable. While you were seeking to learn of us, we have ascertained aspects of your physiology for which we could tailor this meal. A sentient species might react differently to such things as oregano or ginger than a human might, and some creatures subsist on entirely different fare, such as another of our favored sons, the Orn. Your physiology is not so different from that of my species or humankind. feel free to indulge yourself.

"Yelta ist noch, der Halter bedeutete keine Respektlosigkeit."
"Möglicherweise aber uns mit Menschen vergleichen."
"Der Halter kennt nicht unsere Weisen oder unsere volle Geschichte. Seien Sie jetzt noch und essen Sie."
Growling Yelta turned towards the first fruit looking thing Yelta could find and started to dig in. Inbetween mouth fulls of food and other pauses Gopher tried to continue to talk.

"While normally you would be correct in thinking that we do not require substance at such short ventures, our FTL travels have always had weird effects on our species, generally it is only causes us to be very hungry when ever we finely reach a planet, though time from time we lose ourselves in more ways than one due to it. Also our species is from a world in which the stars never rise nor set while we have settled on worlds from which this does occur we still do not have the what was it? Sense of time that you speak of. We also wish that you would stop comparing us to humans, our species. Our species has just recently ended our decades long wars,destruction and general isolation upon their kind and wounds often do not fully heal quickly nor without much pain. I probably should teach you some other protocols and rules among our kind but I think that would be getting ahead of ourselves, though I must again stress that you do not compare a Fiduse or a Disuse to a human."

"Now I believed you wished to know more about our history? I think a simple time line of important dates would best be our first gift.

The History of Dius Fidus Prime II and The F&D Federation
BE= Before creation of Earth from its plantery nebula and mostly used for planets history, AE is after the creation of Earth...
BF: Before Federation: Before the Creation of the Federation of the two species.
AF: After Federation: After the Creation of...
Note all years are earth years not DF Prime years.


.2 billion years BE: Gravity wave starts the collapse of the cloud that would become the DF system.
.75 million years AE: Star first starts fusing hydrogen together.
.6 billion years AE: Creation of Dius Fidus Prime I
.8 billion years AE: Orbital Bombardment of DF Prime I is mostly over.
.9 billion years AE: Foal collision of a larger DF Prime I with a slightly smaller venus sized object, creation of its two larger moons.
1.55 billion years AA: Life first raises its head(figuratively of course)
1.75 billion years AE: Life first develops into multicell forms.
2 billion years AE: First Sentient life develops or Ancients visit and settle DF Prime II( so named because Prime I was destroyed in the collision with the Venus sized object)
3 billion years AE: Ancients leave or die off because DF Prime II becomes increasingly Tidally Locked and the star starts to brighten up, producing more dangerous(to the Ancients at least) wavelengths.
3.12 billion AE: Sentient life(s) develops again or for the first and second time in two different corners of DF Prime II, or in alternate theories our exodus finally ends and we colonize the Ancient ruins.
3.1200008 billion years AE: Fiduses start enslavement of the Diuses
3.75000000 billion years AE: Fiduses complete enslavement of the last free Diuses
3.756 billion years AE: Diuses start a revolt against the Fiduses overlords.

1000 years BF: Diuses' Revolt starts.
1000-100 years BF: Diuses' Revolt is fought, both sides commit atrocious on each other, tech development expect for larger/better weapons is stopped, infrastructure collapses,etc.
99 years BF: Diuses' Win important battle, Fiduses sue for peace.
97 years BF: Fiduses issue verdict that all Diuses are hereby released from slavery, and allowed to do whatever they want.
97-6 years BF: Diuses do whatever they want, smarter Diuses figure out that its best to start a combined government with the Fiduses to make sure they are never enslaved again.
6-0 years BF: Diuses and Fiduses negotiate the D&F Federation Treaty.
0 years AF: D&F Federation Treaty is voted into law by both sides.
1-100 years AF: General mixing of both species, government figures out how to rule two separate species,etc.
(roughly)360 years AF: Present time
4.6511 billion years AE: The Present

We divide our history into several major parts, including the dark times or the time before we arrived/evolved on Prime II, the Hzero period or the time before the federation and the Federation period each of these periods are of course further divided but that is not needed for a general overview so we will largely ignore them.
As you can probably guess, we know very very little of the Hzero peroid infact we are still not sure if we evolved on Prime II or found it after our original home world was destroyed, infact we are not even fully sure if the Disuse and the Fiduse evolved at the same place, DNA and other studies seem to suggest that we did but other evidence. Anyway a whole lot is unknown but a lot of theories have cropped up over the years. We have firmer evidence though once our peoples arrived or evolved at Prime II, we do know that either the Disuse were enslaved upon the arrival of the Fiduse or that they had always been enslaved, a number of voyages were started and later abounded during this time and our races spread throughout the solar system, if there was an original exodus ship it was soon destroyed while exploring the system after the last planet was colonized insystem the Fiduse turned to matter closer at home, inventing a number of technologies and ideas during this time, near the end of this period, depending on whom you ask a Fiduse or Disuse rose up that was different from the rest, either wishing to spread language and knowledge among the Disuse or wishing to throw off the shackles that were on his/her people, either way 60 standard years after this person's birth the Disuse finally openly revolted. They had always resisted in small amounts during their enslavement but this was different, multiple groups rose up and seized the weapons of their oppressors, something happened either the Fiduse or Disuse was killed or gravely injured and the Disuse went crazy, they started to kill any Fiduse that they could fine, the young and the old, the sick and the strong, oppressors and ones that wished them better and even tried to help them. The Fiduse population finally and absolutely turned against the Disuse at this point, critics were silenced and a counteroffensive was began. They struck first at a free Disuse planet, glassing its surface killing all that were there, 100 million Disuse died during those weeks of bombardments, if it was even possible the Disuse threw themselves upon the Fiduse with even more force, knowing that they must win the war or surely be driven to extinction. At first it seemed that the Fiduse may very well do it but on one of their outer planets something changed the outcome of the war, the Disuse had come in contact with a subsection of the humans, we do not fully know what the Diuse traded for*, but the humans gave them technologies and warships while it was not enough to beat back the entire fleet of the Fiduse it was even to start to win small battles. This of course surprised the higher ups in the Fiduse Council, they had already been doing so well then to have their victory snatched from them. Eventually after the Disuse were able to attack and glass enough planets on the Fiduse side, both sides sued for peace, billions if not trillions had been killed in the wars, whole planets were glassed and uninhabitable but from these scenes of destruction a new Federation was formed and just as quickly nearly snuffed out. Now if you'd excuse me, I need to relieve myself of some excess fluids, you wouldn't happen to have such a place would you?"

*
ooc
I'm trying to decide if it should be FTL drives or something more serious.

I compare you to humans as a measure to explain the conversion factors we employed in tailoring things to your specific physiology. If there is some form of offense taken because of old hatreds, I feel it necessary to apologize, as no slight is intended, but at the same time I feel it important to express regret and sadness that your people have not yet reached the stage where prejudicial perspectives are but a thing of the past.

The bird-priest listened to the massive historical dissertation without further comment, instead seeming to decipher the rapid fire fact-launching coming from the feast table and cataloguing data for further use. At the end, it made one query:

If I read this correctly, and I must say that your timeline could use some work as it would be more polite to incorporate only one system of reckoning rather than three, your Diuses endured... six hundred MILLION years of slavery? You will have to pardon me if I find myself somewhat disbelieving. We have seen civilizations that enslave others, and the rule about living by the sword generally applies in swift measure...

Relieve yourself of excess fluids? We have not needed such contrivances in years... we have places for children who are not yet fully versed in the True Way to void themselves, but children are not allowed in this temple, and thus we do not have any 'facilities' to accomodate such needs.

Yelta turned towards Ted, ted nodded and Yelta began
"As Ted said, our time lines and knowledge of the olden times has been distorted since those dark days. The Disuse Revolt fried many historical works and databases and corrupted others, while 6 million years is likely off by a magnitude or two, the Diuse were enslaved for many many years. As for our prejudices they are well warranted at least against the group that gave the Disuse their technology, after the revolts were finally ending after hundred years of nearly continuous war and back and forthness, our president of the time agreed to a signing of a treaty with the Disuse leadership on a neutral planetoid, the exact terms are currently unknown though we guess it would entail the immediate release of all still enslaved Disuse, their own planets and agreements not to attack each other for the foreseeable future.

But something happened, we now believe that a human saboteur was able to smuggle a bomb or some other explosive device into the meeting blowing it up right before our leader was to sign the agreement, As can be imaged both parties pointed fingers at each other until a distress signal was received from the outer planets, both a Fiduse and a Disuse one to be correct, we don't know why they attack them instead of attacking only one sides planets to drive further wedges, maybe their intelligence wasn't up to date as the planets had been flip flopping quite a bit during the war, anyway they attacked quickly overrunning the defenses that had been set up, the surviving members of the Disuse council sent a fleet and the Fiduse vice president also sent a fleet to their respective planets. All they found was death, the enemy as they did not know at this point whom it was had glassed the surface, poisoned the atmosphere and otherwise made the planet uninhabitable, for whatever reason outright war still did not grip the two powers, they had known what each other would do to planet if they were able to conquer or even they weren't able to and the destruction patterns did not fit. Each race separately went through their list of enemies and allies, none matched up at this point, there were then a few weeks of relative calm as both sides tried to figure out the puzzle, then a remote outpost went out at the edge of our system(s), then another.

One was an accident or neglect, two was concerning but when twelve suddenly went silent, the Disuse and Fiduse both knew that something major was coming, the outlying planets were largely evacuated of any remaining civilians and the two militaries agreed to share information and patrol duties, both had seen their largest members destroyed prior to the before mentioned treaty negations and signing, the Fiduse had 130% of their strength from the start of the war but only 40% of its maximum during the war, the Diuse were largely the same, though this was mostly due to their lack of a true military at the start, anyway the Disuse still had 400% of their strength from the start but only 42% of its maximum, both fleets were largely comprised of frigates(ships greater than 300 meters but less than 550 meters) and fighters(one or two person craft on the Disuse side and AI controlled on the Fiduse) a small number of destroyers(greater than 551 meters but less than a 800 meters) about 5 destroyers per side, most of these destroyers were patrolling the core worlds so they were unable to help in the initial wave.

As the last of the civilians on Xevro were being evacuated the enemy struck again, destroying the few defenders before they had time to send out any distress call then picking off civilian ships at their leisure, ten frigates with a crew averaging of three members were destroyed that day along with one hundred vessels which ranged from a couple dozen to thousands, exact totals are hard to come by, a proper census hadn't been conducted since the war started, but we believe at least one million were killed in those ships and an additional twelve million on the surface, the planet was again glassed, gassed and the enemy left only pausing long enough to destroy any escape pods it came across, the enemy had remained anonymous through its attacks on the two worlds, the destruction of the outposts but it was finally reviled on this attack, they missed a small polar moon base, it had only twelve members but they were able to capture holos of the enemy fleet and its attack through which the Diuse identified as their sources of technology, as can be imaged they were aghast, the ones that had given them a chance of surviving and winning their revolt had attacked them, eliminating two of their worlds and several stations in the process, the first thing some wondered was if their technology would be their outdoing as they had seen that the enemy had disabled several of their ships without even having to fire a shot, only the ones that hadn't had the human technology integrated were able to still fight, they quickly warned the Fiduse, as the war had gone on they had also integrated some of the tech into their own ships generally not as much as the Disuse but still a worrying amount, orders were rushed to disable that part of the ship and cut it off from the non tech parts so that the override signal would not disable their own ships, unfortunately they were unable to warn everyone quickly enough..."

post'll be coming. I've been busy with stuff that needs a lot of reading things...

Unable to cock an eyebrow in curiosity, the strange bird-priest cocked its entire head to this side and that throughout the entirety of the dissertation provided by the two visitors, and chirped quizzically to itself every so often. After the two finished, it paced a moment on the dais before returning its gaze to them both and letting loose a quavering warble that seemed to echo across the room and amplify itself over and over again.

So noted. While the information is most enlightening, you speak in a manner that seems to imply that our point about prejudicial outlooks has been countered. We are still curious as to why an attack by what was merely a single group of humans, for humanity is a widespread and varied species, prone to variation both in terms of physical characteristics and sociopolitical outlook, is grounds to refer to them in such general terms and distaste.

You have witnessed the humans here. Former pawns of the techno tyrants, we liberated them from their addiction and subservience to technology. These humans have not sought your demise or subjugation. Quite the opposite in fact, as the Avenging Angels brought you here and save for the occasional pitying glance you were not accosted by the civilians. We have offered you our hospitality despite several glaring errors that you and your people made upon their arrival that other bands of humans would have taken as reason to shoot you out of the sky without warning.

The humans under our tutelage are an enlightened people, versed in the True Way of Kir'Shissar The Prophet. We have given them their freedom, freedom from technology, and freedom from the need to conform to the whims of the universe. We do not allow such petty things as simple biases and old hates to cloud our judgement. We have... other things to concern ourselves.

The destruction and loss of another human empire would have meant little to the Kindai Empire, but something about the message and the energy sensed from the conflict disturbed them. They had threats of their own to deal with; the Akkishu (Demon Lords in Kindai) still remained a viable threat, having spread throughout worlds and systems close to their own, and continuing the countless centuries of wars fought between human and youkai. They had made friends with some, enemies of others, and even some who they had strained relationships with. However, outside the cluster of nations they interacted with, they had yet to become part of the full galactic stage, being focused on the situation around them. One which remained full of danger and conflict, and so long distance exploration missions were not normal. However, this situation was different.

The Four Butaishu (Elemental Lords) of the Empire were summoned from the campaigns or posts they currently were engaged in and brought to Seidou, the home planet and capital of the Empire. There, they went into the Imperial Palace to meet with the ruler of the Kindai, the being simply known as the Emperor of All. Kasai, wielder of Fire and an impetuous general who had a habit of biting off more than he could chew but was the strongest of the four Butaishu, Kazei, wielder of Wind, and the most normal of the four, he seeks a balanced way of life, even into combat, and is always moving to the next objective, Mizal, the wielder of Water, he is the peacekeeper and diplomat of the group but in combat, he is a master of deception and trickery, and finally Tsuchi, the wise and powerful wielder of Earth, who leads the four and seeks a slow buildup and a powerful blow to enemy forces. All four had risen to prominence as Awakened, serving Rantai, the goddess of light who had empowered them to end the war with the youkai. Together with the Emperor of All, they had destroyed them and driven them from Seidou. And peace unlike ever before began and a new era of prosperity began, with the formation of the Kindai Empire.

In the throne room of the Palace, a large oak table had been set up, so the meeting could take place. The Four Butaishu were there, along with the messenger who had brought them news of the incident. The Emperor of All was to arrive soon, having finished negotiations with a neighboring nation. Kasai was seated in his chair, pushing it back a little too much for the balance to take but never falling, with his arms behind his back, looking bored. Kazei sat in her seat, looking at a holopad that was displaying a report from her campaign in the Eastern Sector, investigating the reports of demonic presence in that area. Mizal was calmly sitting in her chair, eyes closed and resting her mind before the meeting, and Tsuchi was in her seat, gazing out the window, waiting for her emperor to arrive. The messenger sat on the other side of the table, fidgeting in the presence of the Four. Those in the Kindai Empire had what was known, ironically as "kindai", which was what they called spiritual force. This force came from the strength of their own souls, which were tempered by experience, training, and essentially what could be called 'fate'.

Each person radiated an aura of kindai, which reflected their strength, and if it could be seen, than that person was able to perform some kind of ability. Some however, like the Four, were so strong that they had to hold back their kindai, so they did not force everyone around them to their knees from the sheer force. It is even rumored that the Emperor is capable of flattening the whole capital if he let his control slip but for a moment. Restrained as they were, he could still feel their auras and with all four, he felt a large weight on his shoulders, making it difficult for him to breathe and relax. Not to mention being near such heroes was not something he was used to. Suddenly the pressure escalated and he saw the Emperor of All walk into the room, surrounded by four of the Silver Guard. Personal bodyguards of the Emperor and his family, they were fanatically loyal, as strong as normal humans could get in the arts of kindai and few in number, they kept most threats from the Emperor, although he was capable of protecting himself and others. The Emperor, hidden by his large robe and cloak, in the royal blue and crimson of his title, moved to sit at the head of the table and nodded, the hood moving in accordance to his movements.

"It is good to see you all again. I wish it was for more celebratory circumstances, however. We have come to deal with a solemn situation. Nekal, you may begin." The messenger nodded and proceeded to plug in his holopad, which began to play the message they had intercepted. When it was over, the mood of the room was grim. Tsuchi turned towards the Emperor. "Your Majesty...this is grave indeed. Some kind of beings who have forcefully conquered a nation, which we could have done but not as quickly, and also wield abilities similar to our own. This a viable threat to the Empire." Kasai slammed his fist down on the table.

"Damn straight. We don't know how long it will be until they come for us next! We should hit them now, before they can gather their forces." Kazei snorted and shook her head.

"Don't be ridiculous, Kas. You saw what they could do. While we may be able to win or at least force a stalemate, we'd lose countless thousands if not hundreds of thousands fighting them. There has to be a better way."

"I concur with her, Your Majesty." The soft voice of Mikal sounded next, her soothing words seeking to prevent conflict. "I am sure we can find out what happened and talk to these beings. Reason needs to be attempted before force is brought to bear." They all turned to look at the Emperor, seeking his advice. There was a long silence as he neither moved nor spoke, as he thought of what to do. Then he stirred and turned to gaze at Mikal.

"Very well. I shall send you, along with an escort, to this world and speak to these beings. They should have a presence there. If so, open dialogue with them, see what they want and try to get them to leave us alone. If they are not there, find clues as to what happened and how it was done." Mikal nodded.

"As you wish."

"The rest of you are dismissed. Return to your duties but be on alert; we may need your might if things go sour during Mikal's mission." They all stood up and bowed to the Emperor and then left the room, going back to their duties. The Emperor remained, tilting his head to gaze at the beautiful morning outside. "I wonder sometimes....will we ever know peace?"

*******

Two days later, a large rip in space appeared, a light blue portal of energy that constantly roiled and shifted as it discharged a Jinsoku-class frigate into the system. The Empire had a powerful if slightly small fleet, and it prided itself on being adaptible. So the ship was armed with a variety of projectile, energy and other weapons, with squadrons of drone fighters to bear as well. On board with Mikal, with a select guard of five Meian, the elite warriors of the Empire. She sat in her chair, communing with Rantai as she came to the world. The ship came into range of the planet, but stayed far out enough to be out of expected weapons ranges. A communication channel was opened and a message sent down to the planet.

"Greetings, unknown nation. I am Mikal of the Kindai Empire, sent here by the Emperor of All, may he protect us from evil. We have come to open dialogue and discuss relations between our peoples. I wish to come down and speak with your leader, if this is possible. I await your reply."

Three ships appeared in flashes of purple black light. A destroyer and two frigates, which coasted lazily into the system, scanning for any life. They picked up ships orbiting one of the planets. "Sir, contacts. Looks like we're not the only ones here..." The captain nodded. "Looks like a first contact situation..." He sighed, noting the ships weren't doing much besides sitting around. "Prep our ambassadow with a shuttle and have him be ready to head down. Bring us into high orbit."

OOC: Port-fu? so i cant teleport when you can rain down god-fire of doomy-insta-god-death? something about that doesn't seem fair to me.... but whatever.

ooc
his/her thread, his/her rules.

"Possibly, but it is not old prejudices, we are still very much at war. Our planet was very likely scarified by our leaders and we have a very long memory and carry very powerful and long grudges. This is probably why the captain was less than happy that we did report to our central control. That one group of humans has and had radically changed our views on quite a number of fronts mostly for the bad, there are reasons for my employment and employer. And... But I believe Yelta wishes to continue his history lesson and it does pertain to my own story so he should continue."

"After the defeat and destruction at Xevro, the humans again stopped attacking for a time. Some hoped that they had been damaged and were licking their wounds, days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Nearly six months after its destruction they again attacked, this time it was not a small fleet or a small planet, it was the Fiduse Garden World of Nirn, its fleet was one of the most impressive that had survived the destruction of the revolts, not that meant much at that time nor now, it was also rather near our home world, it was home to 32 million Fiduse and several hundred unique and quite rare species brought in from many different worlds, the world was unique in that if you could think of an environment it was likely represent on one of its many islands, from the coldness of the tundra of Ipex to the deserts of Prime II, it had its own local fauna that never seemed to colonize anything but the largest continent in the southern hemisphere. Most of the Fiduse on the planet's surface worked to preserve and monitor the different environments and species making sure that none left their island, at least not for long. The first ship to detect the incoming fleet was quickly destroyed, yet it still had enough time to send back a warning and it initial sensor scans. It was troubling to stay the least, their fleet was five times larger than the one that destroyed Xevro and twice the size of the Fiduse fleet stationed there, messages were sent out to nearby worlds asking for assistance, for some reason none ever reached their targets. Maybe the humans had seeded our worlds with something that blocked our transmissions on that specific frequency, maybe it was just bad luck, either way they received no reply back and knew that no help was likely. The older ships of the fleet were evacuated of unnecessary crew members and shuttles began to transport the civilians to them and when they were nearly full to bursting off they went, this went slowly to slowly. We are still not fully sure why the commander of that day, Admiral Adama didn't keep those ships in reserve or order them to ram the enemy ships or something. Its likely she knew that they were doomed either way and wanted to save as many civilians as possible, reports stolen after the fact showed that the human fleet looked much more impressive than it really was, quite a few of its ships were crewed at half or even less, a major epidemic had hit it a few days before the battle, and if Adama had all her ships available maybe she could have won or maybe not, she did what she thought best and we can't nor could they really fault her for it, she was awarded one of the highest civilian and military honors after the battle, the golden crescent...

A brief chirp could be heard as Yelta stopped in mid sentence.
"What?"
"The Captain has just let us know that they have detected two different fleets jump in, and that we have no records of either civilizations and we do not know their intent nor designs. We've withdrawn to the shuttle to await further actions, can you ask the holders if we can use our shuttles scanners?"
Yelta turned towards the holder while slipping the commutation device back into his pocket.
"Can our crew members back at the shuttle, start to use their scanners to scan the two fleets you've likely just received word about?"

_____________________________
Hobbins couldn't decided whether to cry or scream when he found the body a second time after racing away the first time. Deciding to do neither he approached the body, almost drawn to the spear, deciding it would probably be safer not to touch it directly he looked around for a few branches, finding some the correct height and weight he began to try and knock the spear out of the corpse.

In actuality, as the Fiduse transmission came through, it would have been almost unintelligible as a result of some strange static interference that also had an added effect of preventing any triangulation of the pair's location by their vessel. For the vessel itself, any attempt at discerning the location of their impromptu ambassadors would reveal that their location seemed to be ever-shifting, but never once appearing on the planet's surface. Though the ship's report about other vessels emerging would have come through, the need to announce anything regarding the matter was somewhat moot as the ceiling shifted again to a clear black sky, and the reptilian bird-priest looked up and clacked its beak twice before giving off a lilting tune.

More visitors. Interesting.

As he spoke, the ceiling seemed to fracture into several separate views, two of which revealed the two separate groups of newcomers, while the rest gave a close representation of what appeared to be a strange object made of a stone much like that of the statue behind the priest. Each vessel was shaped like a three-pointed shuriken of sorts, with a large central ring within which shimmered a small point of light. Exquisite patterns etched in gold showed that the object was no mere 'debris'.

With a resounding thump, the priest rapped its staff upon the dais and then pointed at two of the representations of the strange objects, the borders of the representations shimmered to life, and voices came from each:

"We hear the call of Ssien'Ko'Warr!"

"What is thy command, Tutelary?"

The priest pointed to one of the representations, than to that of the single small vessel, then repeated the process between the second representation and the trio of unrelated vessels. It finished with a trio of breep-caw type sounds. Greet them. Cautious Non-hostile. Send Avengers and bring representatives to me.

Both representations replied in unison: "Executing thy will!"

The two objects burst into action, their representations panning back to show recognized movement as the two now-recognized-as-vessels immediately jumped into some form of strange faster than light travel that did not seem to leave realspace. The view de-fractured and showed the area around the planet and the three groups of newcomers, with the two ships leaving their curious superluminary transit at a 'respectful' distance and vectoring in to intercept two of the groups. Slowing to a non-hostile stance, the ships came to an eventual stop and each seemed to 'spawn' a pair of Avengers that moved further in to guide any shuttles or other vessels in closer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the Kindai vessel, there was no response to their transmission, but it would have easily been noted that something seemed to be causing a general lack of signals in general from within the system itself. No ambient static was going through the comm filters at all, and though they knew their transmission went off without a hitch, the only response on any comm channel was the continuing silence.

However... as one of the entities aboard the Kindai vessel happened to have the gift of aurasight, she would have noticed a strange flaring throughout the system as what appeared on scanners at first to be lumps of rocks situated throughout the system flared up with a strange aura that did not seem to reflect malevolence or benevolence so much as a supremely focused sense of intent. A few seconds later, two of the strange anomalies began to move. Strangely, the ships broke into faster than light travel but the sensors seemed to be able to keep up with their approach, showing their travel with remarkable clarity despite the fact that they were roaring in at what appeared to be many times the speed of light. The curious jump ended just as soon as it began, however, as one vessel blasted past to approach a group of three vessels that had just arrived in-system, while the second stopped outside of weapons range and coasted in a bit further.

For both of the newcomer groups, the two vessels followed up by seeming to 'create' a pair curiously angelic figures that shot in at a remarkably fast but cautious speed to intercept each group. Once they knew that attention had been acquired from each party, the Angels began to make curious gestures that seemed to indicate a 'Follow Us' message.

"Roza, prideno k nam, ne prepjatstvujjte im derzhat' vas kak bezotvetnaja kholopka." whispers from nowhere, intermittent with laughters, grunts and cackles, softly suggested, as if piercing deep into the soul. Their voices evoking madness and malice, and despite such fact, being seductive, trying to bring her soul to themselves, and thus they attempted to distract her from another sense, a beacon, a guidance outside of such strange hell their faith shielded them from, for now.

Their voices were not said through a physical body, they were ever-present, influencing and corrupting men, but very few could hear to their hatred, see their abominable forms and dark souls. Roza was one of them, of those who were called by many names across the universes. Psions, psychics, paranormals, psykers, mediums, but she was called simply an inheritor of beatitude, a prophetess, who had a more strong link with both the kingdom of Heaven and the lost souls, an intercessor, whose choice of which side to take has already been made. Whose only shield against the torments was her utmost faith and devotion to the message of Jesus Christ.

Onboard of the Иоанн Патмос, moved only by their faith amidst a real of pure Chaos and malice, everyone prayed against the demonic attempts to break their shield, trying to ignore the burden over their shoulders, the constricting grasp and flickering shadows which attempted to distract them from them divine link. Roza Allochka, knelt next to one of the chapels of the humbling inside of the vessel, remained between sensing the beacon that could be a way outside and praying, for she could feel that somehow, if she faltered, everyone would be doomed. There was no way to account the time. Perhaps she has prayed for dozens of hours, if not days, yet she could not feel exhausted and sore, and for hours after hours, the daemons tried to corrupt her, to convince her that she had "powers being wasted" that she should kneel to nothing, and sometimes their soft voices came very close to make her question the purpose of it all, to bring her to them.

"Pride is the mark of the heathens. I was not born with this gift to use it for acquiring wealth and power, but to help the lost finding salvation. Begone foul spirits! Begone from this house of the Lord!" A burst of telepathy echoed outside, challenging even more of the enemies to swarm at them, their lust and hunger augmented by their inability to reach such mind they wished to ravish and destroy at the moment, such innocent mind blinded by the fanaticism of those who did not know chaos, of slaves to an order of worshiping and servitude, their innocent minds were extremely alluring to the enemies, and although such enemies were other types of demons rather than the allies of the Antichrist, they were still as willing to destroy the Holy Kingdom of Man as the devils who fled Earth.

Sister Roza would not allow them to become astray in the Warp, and despite their insistence, the shielding against chaos, powered only by the faith of every man and woman inside the vessel, and thus prone to failure should they wane in their devotion falter, will not be downed. The beacon was coming closer at every moment, but it seemed to distance as well. Patience and self-discipline were the difference between damnation and success in such place.

But it was difficult sometimes, for the human mind was not made to wait eons... because it never seemed to end, and the closer they came, the farther it seemed to be for her, like if they were taunting, challenging their resolve. Their prayers however made their very perception of time blurred as well, and if necessary, most of them were willing to pray for eons so God would protect them from the horrors of this unknown realm the minions of Satan traveled through in their seeking of Gog and Magog. The sensing of the beacon and prayers were so constant, and eventually the whispers silenced, that the experience began to feel like a sensory deprivation for Roza, something which perhaps was far more maddening than to hear the cries of the maleficent, and perhaps they knew that.

A very strong combination of positive feelings, faith and hope engulfed the entire spacecraft, and channeled into Roza, as she could sense their constant prayers as well during the timeless journey. The beacon seemed to be at last coming close... very close, but she could not measure how long it took, for like if it never happened, they left.

---------------

Her eyes opened, staring at the white wooden cross inside the wooden chapel built over the cold metallic frame of the large teardrop-shaped spacecraft, a battleship. Much of its interiors were decorated with the architecture of the old city of Jerusalem, with adobe walls covering everywhere, and the strange blend of advanced interfaces and devices with such anachronistic interior design. As the woman arose from her knees, she was curious about seeing personally where they have arrived, ignoring with discipline the sores left on her knees, and thus she began to walk down the wooden door of the chapel, and opening it, saw herself next to a wide, circular hallway, where next to each door, the Star Crusaders stood in their large powered suits, painted in black except for the white crosses at the whipple shield exterior of their shoulder plates, and some still remained praying for the Lord. Strangely, the metallic floor was filled with dirt, like if it was the unpaved ground from an old Israeli town, and she could feel some of the dirt into her feet as her sandals stepped through the way.

Her eyes paid attention to the placards with Slavic letters indicate where each door and passageway led to, but she knew where to move through move to. Many men acknowledged her in thanks for her strength of spirit and will, as they knew that were it not for her, they would be lost in the Warp forever. Amidst the hallway, in the inner circular wall, also covered by adobe, four doors lied symmetrically, and thus she went to the nearest one, where a placard was written Лифт, and as soon as she approached it, the stone doors opened unnaturally quick, revealing the elevator inside.

She did not speak any word, only thinking about the Synedrion, which was the name they gave to their bridge, but it began to ascend immediately, while she threw the dust off her brown, monastic robe and sandals, and began to feel revitalized by the hopes of every men around during the long ascent. Thirty seconds have passed as a door to the opposite side she came from opened, and she witnessed again the massive dome-like hall of stone and adobe, reminiscent of a Sanhedrin, but littered with holographic imagery of the system they came through, where there was still a single vacant seat in the circular layout of the place, and central holograms showed a totality of important information.

"Come in, sister Roza," a man said, "we must stay together and believe in the Lord blessed works, if we are to discover where we came from."

Nodding, she walked through the center of the room, and amidst the small crowd of people sitting together, she took a seat to the left of the man who called for her. Most of them were dressed in tight-fitting mechanical counter-pressure space suits, with their holy flag emblazoned, while a few wore the power armors of the Crusaders, and three people were different from the rest, not through luxury, but through the extreme anachronism and humility of their clothing. The man who spoke with Roza, an old Russian of blue eyes and mostly whitened hair, wore a plain white cotton shirt, while the others seemed to have come from a set of extras for a biblical movie.

"Brother Yuri," Roza pointed her finger to the hologram, as she began to sense something wrong, an ill omen about the strange place, she saw as having no signs of any advanced civilization inside, and suddenly she closed her eyes and ushered, as slowly the crowd began to observe her in curiousity and fear:

"Heretics and fallen angels, wizards and false prophets, devil spawn!" she said in a dramatic manner, interrupting for a while as she caught her breath, "we are going to Heaven today if we do not turn back, we are going to damnation of oblivion if we fall to the tongue of the dragon."

Visions of angels who betrayed God, their eyes flashing red, began to flow through her mind, as their legions stared at her, and visions of damned souls who were cast into the lies of such demons, whispering and suffering... and then they turned their backs to her, and began to move. She could see the former heathens, men who traded their faith in God for science meeting their fate at the hands of devils who mocked the laws of Lord's creation with satanic magic and occult powers of their masters, forcing the worshipers of the false gods of Science and thinking machines to worship the bearer of no light, his fallen angels swarming and causing pain to those who refused to accept the mark of the Beast in such world.

"So many damned, this world is suffering its very tribulation!" she began to speak in a more erratic pace, "There is no escape from it, and now we stand next to another kingdom of yet another Antichrist... alone, but we must not..."

"Fear not death nor the temptations and lies of the devil!" with a fanatical glory she shouted, "for it was written: when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations."

And thus she began to recite some excerpts from Deuteronomy with extreme certainty that she was speaking the truth, as she could sense them as much as they could sense their presence:

"There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or a necromancer," she paused again to take a breath as her tone intensified, "For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord! And because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you!"

Stepping in the middle of the Synedrion, Roza then began to preach the final excerpts of such part of the Holy Bible:

"You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you."

Her eyes suddenly opened as she fell over the stony floor, with her hands protecting her face from hitting it, a large commotion began as people stared at the event, and although she tried to, she could not get up. Looking at the floor, she began to feel the pain of such world, of countless people forced to follow a lie through violence and oppression of demons, that were left to choose between losing their lives or their souls. The echoes of the agonizing last moments of those who fought to the bitter end reverberated through her mind, as their tribulations for a moment came to her.

A friendly hand pulled her up from the ground, as brother Yuri, looked at everyone around and said:

"Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke that we must love our enemies. We will never save these souls through violence, let us wait and remain vigilant for the lies that may come. Foreman, prepare a spaceplane for launch, I am going down through this world. Fear not whatever may come, for God is with us"

And thus in its continual 1G acceleration, the torcship began to approach the orbit of the planet. A wet cloth was pressed over Roza's head as she was tended from the pain she could feel.

"We must do something for these lost souls," she muttered, "it is the mission the Lord has given to us, and if we must suffer and die as martyrs for his holy cause, we shall... I have seen the outcomes... and I don't want for anyone of us to be tricked into following the lies of these angels of darkness and their false prophets."

"Do not let them trick you Roza," a medic tending to her said, "those are not visions of the future, but tricks of demons to weaken you, lies you should not listen to. We were not made to see the future, sister."

"Thank you, Bulgacov," she smiled weakly, "I feel better now, did anything happen?"

"No contact has been made with us yet... except for the way they contacted you, but I believe that is going to change soon."

"Best to warn the shuttle that we're pulling back boys."
"Captain?"
"Three new parties, its highly doubtful they're all here for peace and love, and we're a merchant vessel not a warship, not that I'd trust our luck even with the entire Alpha Fleet."
"Shouldn't the gas giant provide.."
"No way to tell, and if they decide to start actively scanning the system we're screwed."
"Where were we go? We can't leave the shadow of the giant without being picked up and there are no nearby wormholes for even a small jump..."
"We'll orbit to the side of the planet away from the ships and do a small burn, if we time it right we should be slingshot out with only a minimal amount of extra thermal energy, once we find a suitable wormhole we then jump to one of the other outer planets and see if we were detected and go from there.."

Low power transmission to planetside, wide frequencies to aid in desperation of signal and making it hard to track.
"Another ship has jumped in, you know the probabilities. We're initializing the Cole Protocols, we recommend you account for all the crew and prepare for immediate evac incase things turn ugly.
____________

Ted turned towards Yelta
"Erkennen Sie irgendwelche von ihnen?"
"Nein."
"Ich hatte vor dem, ich tue nicht auch nicht Angst."
"Zwei verschiedene Rennen, wenn ein Drittel."
"Yah, weiß ich. Hoffnungsvoll kommt es nicht zu dem."
While they continued to talk about the possible identities of the unknown vessels and the possibilities if a third showed up, both kept an eye among other things on their host.

The bird-priest kept its attention to the ceiling, shimmering as it was with the image of the star system and the vessels situated within it. With a tap of his staff, the priest brought up the representation of another of the shuriken-shaped vessels. It responded to the scrutiny enthusiastically.

"We await thy command, excellency!"

Cautious non-hostile. Intercept the third party on approach and provide escort to any landing craft they choose to send.

The vessel immediately burst into motion, jumping into their strange form of travel without showing signs of needing to accelerate into it. "For the glory of the Far Reacher!" was the vessel's cry as it traversed the distance to the latest newcomer in an eyeblink, reverting to real-speed just outside of their weapon's range and coasting to shadow the teardrop-shaped vessel. A pair of Avengers leapt forth from the ship and came to the fore of the newly-arrived vessel, seeking some sign of being noticed before signing a directive to follow.

OOC: At this point, its gonna be a standard escorted landing, so if y'all just wanna RP being brought down into a random clearing well away from any of the cities but decently close to a little village, that's fine with me.

Mikal stood on the bridge with the captain and the bridge crew, waiting for a reply. They had seen the other ship that was currently in orbit, obviously someone else who had received the desperate transmission as well. It was worrying; usually in these situations, many ships came onto the scene andit was inevitable some kind of conflict would arise. However, the silence of the other side of the transmission was deafening. There wasn't even static or anything to show some kind of electronics or technology; this made the crew feel like they were being watched and tension began to rise. It went on until Mikal noticed something. Her abilities, honed by her Kindai ability, allowed her to sense supernatura beings, abilities, etc and she was currently sensing some kind of disturbance in the system. It had no feeling of good or evil, but just a solid sense of power and intent.

Without warning, both Mikal and the ship's sensors detected a large spike in movement and strange, shuriken-shaped ships coming towards them. The crew let out cries of shock when they saw it was moving faster than light but could still be seen coming toward them. Eventually it stopped, and then two beings appeared. They all stared at what looked to be to be a pair of angels, flying in space. The crew and captain had no idea what was going on, but Mikal noticed a strange aura about them, a power that was incredible yet gentle, for the moment. She turned to the captain once they motioned for them to follow. "Ready a shuttle, Captain. No guards, I can handle myself." The Captain seemed about to protest but then nodded. Within minutes, Mikal was piloting a shuttle down to the planet, angel escort in tow. After a short flight down, she exited the shuttle alone and bowed to the angels once they landed, indicating that she would follow them. And so she began to follow them, walking along the way, which seemed strange to her. They continued until they began to come close to a village.....

*not done yet. Post still coming.

Bump for more responses / possibly more participants... think I'll allow one or two more to pop in afore I slap a note in the OP that it'll be closed to further participants.

OOC: F&D, I'm kinda curious how your wandering guy's handling the skeleton in the forest. Anyway, moving on with the one post since m'last...

_________________________________________________________________

The two angels stood stoically watching as Mikal exited her shuttle. Having just landed themselves from a foray through the dark void of space, and the subsequent shuttle escort, one would have thought them to be somewhat winded from their travel, but they showed no signs of having undergone any physical exertion whatsoever. Their rudimentary armor glistened in the sun, polished almost to a mirror sheen, and their bodies were uncovered enough to reveal the disturbingly perfect musculature and crystalline growths poking out here and there from beneath the skin.

When she bowed wordlessly to them, they cocked their heads in curiosity and backed up a single step, grim expressions unchanged. After what seemed like an eternity of approximately three seconds, one of them quirked a smile and both bowed in return, snapping to attention and completing the maneuver with mechanical precision.

"We are pleased that you have shown deference in our house," The rightmost angel stated as the two rose back to their full height, "as we would in the house of another. The universe is hostile enough to those who dwell within, there should be no excuse to dispense with common courtesy when faced with the rigors of the savage dark."

The other spoke up now, his grim expression also replaced with one that was significantly softer in nature. "Welcome to the domain of Tutelary Ssien'Ko'Warr, The Far Reacher. He is Lord and Protector of this realm, and we are but his humble servants. May Kir'Shissar, the Prophet of the True Way, guide your way to true understanding."

"As you have no doubt recognized, there are several other vessels approaching our domain. Not all have dispatched landing craft, but we expect such from them. Know that you are the second civilization to have done such a thing this day. As has been for them, Ssien'Ko'Warr, in his infinite hospitality, has invited you into his house so that you might interact personally."

"Three and a half of your miles away, there is a small village to which we shall travel. We sense a certain strength within you, and we suspect that a short walk through the wilderness would not be too great of an imposition."

She could tell by looking at the Angels that in the same way she could sense their aura, the way they looked at her showed signs that they could also see hers. They turned and motioned for her to follow before moving off themselves, walking through the pasture without further comment.

Travel to the village was wholly uneventful, proceeding as they did towards what appeared to be some small cobblestone parkway before making their way towards the village proper. The village itself was much in line with what one might expect of a medieval village, save for one that employed significantly more 'enlightened' means. There was no sign of garbage or refuse on the road, and those who walked the streets were both clean and healthy, to say nothing of eminently curious about the visitor walking into their midst with two angels escorting. As a pair of guardians came up, a small group of children approached Mikal and cocked their heads with curiosity. She could tell that they seemed to be interested in the strange armor she sported. After looking at each other for a moment, they turned back to her and one spoke:

"You are strong. What need have you for that kind of armor?"

ooc
I did
Hobbins couldn't decided whether to cry or scream when he found the body a second time after racing away the first time. Deciding to do neither he approached the body, almost drawn to the spear, deciding it would probably be safer not to touch it directly he looked around for a few branches, finding some the correct height and weight he began to try and knock the spear out of the corpse.

OOC: Ah... found it. For some reason I thought that was a signature.

For all the effort he put into knocking it free, Hobbins might as well have attempted to cut down the tree to which the spear was attached. It was burrowed deep into the tree after its passage through the unknown soldier, and vines curled around the spear, holding it in place with a remarkably certain grip.

After the third hit, the skeleton's skull turned slightly towards hobbins as a result of the jostling, and its jaw fell off, bouncing to the ground at the interloper's feet.

ooc
Yeah took me awhile to find it too.

IC
Deciding he wasn't going to get it out that way, Hobbins dropped the branch, spat some bodily fluids/spit onto his claws, tensed his muscles counted down to three then grabbed the spear (and began to pull if nothing happens immediately)…

Despite the fact that the tree had effectively grown onto the spear since the time of its impalement, the spear came free with remarkable ease, slicing through the intervening bark, vines, and skeleton without even a hint of resistance.

Though the spear had proven so durable in the face of long years of neglect and a sudden assault by tree-branch, the spear itself was disturbingly light. The metallic haft of the spear glinted in the disrupted sunlight as its new wielder examined it, and the blade, while simple in shape, was ornately etched with strange patterns that seemed to flow about the surface.

As he studied it, a portion of his mind would have begun to register a subtle voice in the back of his mind. No, the spear was warm because it was supposed to be on fire. It was not a 'spear', but a 'flame lance', its purpose was to smite those who challenged the true way, and to be held in the hands of one ignorant to the crusade was a heinous crime!

The voice screamed in his mind. Throw the spear! Throw it away! As the voice screamed, he would have found that his muscles were tensing up, as though whatever produced the voice was working its way into his mind, demanding that he send the spear sailing away into the forest...

OOC: Bump for people to get to postin'. Red Talons and Prazinia I'm lookin' at you.

Mysteria (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh04j_NPx0s)

"The demons are right next to us!" Sister Roza leaped from her seat in the spaceplane when she sensed their approach, for she needed not to verify her handheld display to know they were nearby. Although immobile and hidden beneath ice and seamless closures into the hull of the larger spacecraft, their weapons actively tracked the incoming threats. The beings seemingly went to the extremely streamlined front of the conical and windowless vessel, as if accostumed to other forms of being spotted. They knew... their all-around astrogation deck has capture their presence nearby, and yet they have not fired a shot. They knew that some strange beings were shadowing them, and somehow withstanding the massive exhaust heat from their main fusion torch drive, enough to vaporize any spaceship foolish enough to stay very close to their rear. It was like if they were not physical beings, but ghosts and evil spirits.

"Steady, Roza." Yuri intervened as he held her hand, "we are the children of the Lord, and He will protect us all from harm. We must first discover what evils lurk in this world," he pulled a microphone from his ear set, "maintain our course brothers, and open flight deck four."

The inside of the spaceplane had no visible windows, like in the larger spacecraft, although simulated window panels taking feed from external sensors were located inside, from where the metal frame of the flight deck could be seen. Roza stared at them, but she could still feel an uneasy, alien presence nearby seeing as the metal clinged and opened, as the massive sound of cracking ice echoed through the chambers, until the very, pristine sight of the planet emerged ahead of them.

"Acceleration stopped. Docking clamps released" the spaceplane did not fall due to the lack of gravity as it was rotated ninety degrees towards the exit port, but now hovered amidst the flight deck as it started its launch sequence. Roza, Yuri and the two crusaders sitting in the command deck of the spaceplane would float freely now, had they not already fastened their seatbelts.

"Yuri..." Roza stared at the planet, which from afar seemed beautiful and innocent, "why is such a place plagued and cursed? It seems so beautiful. It almost looks like a paradise, like if the sin of greed which led men of the past to sell their souls for money and nearly destroy our world never existed."

"Roza, do you think people would fall to the hands of Satan if he was ugly?" Yuri replied to her. There was a thrust, and their backs began to hug the seats as the spaceplane began its travel towards the planet. The pilot stood in the center of the place, to help his control over the vessel, and although there were much less displays, he wore a goggle covering his whole face and pressed invisible things over the air. The plane began to incline its nose in a very deep angle as it approached the atmosphere for entry, with its heat-ablated bottom facing the planet. One of those supernatural means stood ahead, following them, like if guiding them to a landing zone.

"But this place has no..." a heavy turbulence occurred, shaking everyone inside as they crossed the Karmán line of such alien atmosphere. They began a descent, until eventually they were seeing the clouds they passed through, following the evil spirit into the disguised darkness.

"But this place has no signs of death and suffering," Roza looked at the pristine green woods, "no signs of the actions of men from modern times. Why should we judge this place evil, rather than the foes that inhabit it? If that is how we judge a world, our own has been a stronghold of demons for eons!"

The vertical take-off and landing thrusters were activated, releasing a very heated exhaust byproduct. The vessel began to land vertically from a high altitude, above a clearing large enough for them to land.

"Do you think evil lurks is places of despair rather than in places of temptation? Roza. There is more to this than what you want to see. Stay on your guard, for these demons and angels who betrayed God will not hesitate into throwing lies to weaken us. Look... you can feel their evil, your skin is crawling, you can sense their evil minds."

"I sense only a blank, brother Yuri, a blank mind without either good or evil superficial thoughts." Roza replied back, "they are either hiding very well their nature, or they are... not truly gifted with free will to be judged good or evil."

"I will stay here sister. Be wary about what you tell and listen from these demons." whether Yuri was giving her a test or had another reason to let her deal with the situation was unknown. Their spaceplane began to exhale its heat over the clearing, burning and killing all natural life below them. Luckily no sentient being was below, or otherwise the heat from the exhausts would melt him, as they touched the scorched clearing, a ramp lowered, and after walking through its insides, Roza began to walk from the ramp, two crusaders in large black power armors standing behind, with their gauss rifles steady, to escort her.

As she looked into the avengers red eyes, it was clear that her mind and theirs were somehow probing each other regarding their superficiality. She did not say a word, and simply looked at one of them with fear and faith at the same time. Roza tried to convey a form of addressing them, until she decided to extend one of her hands, which were before hidden inside her dusty brown monastic robe, and offered to the a handshake to the fallen angel just before she began to follow them with the two crusaders escorting her from behind.

"I was expecting for the sight of this world to be a lie, a trickery, and that now the illusion would fade away and I would find myself in a Hell of fire and brimstone where demons lurked and would rush to attempt tormenting me. I was wrong... you don't seem to behave like minions from Satan. My name is Roza Allochka. I am an inheritor of beatitude from the Holy Empire of Man, nice to meet you." Roza did not know their language, but she never spoke to them, instead, she talked to them through her mind, at first without even being aware she wasn't truly speaking, as her voice came to both fallen angels by telepathy rather than by her own mouth, for she did not want for those escorting her to listen. She could no longer stop doing it, like if such place somehow made her gift more evident, perhaps more powerful, and certainly more tempting into the grave sins of witchcraft and divination.

When the voice had first entered Hobbin's thoughts he had ignored it thinking his fatigue had finally caught up with him. When it did not go awhile and instead increased in volume he barely registered it as he tried to drop into his training, all Fiduse that had been allowed off the primary worlds had been trained to shield their thoughts from outside influences and how to resist outside commands. Hobbins focused on the nearest tree staring at it, clearing his thoughts of everything but the single knock on the tree, barely allowing himself to breath he continued to fight the command, his body also relaxed yet his hands remained stiff allowing the sphere to stay in. If it did decrease in volume he would practice Traquel or search and destroy, his mind would send a small mental probe to find and destroy either the connection to the outside influence or wrest the outside influences own mind. As hobbins training had been taken decades before and he had to use it only once before against a much weaker opponent he doubted he could do much more than resist in his state...

As Roza and her two guardians stepped from their landing craft, the devastation wrought in the wake of their landing had already begun to mend. With remarkable swiftness new life sprang forth to replace that which had been eliminated, the ashes of the old dissolving away until nothing remained while the new burst forth with shocking vibrance. The Avengers did not seem perturbed by this surprising rate of growth at all, lending to the notion that something about the world here seemed to enable a startling rate of recovery from harm.

The Avengers listened intently to the words that began to appear in their mind, showing no sign that it was an uncommon occurrence to them. As she sent her words to them, however, Roza would feel an almost imperceptible contact with a strange 'something' that was impossible to define with such an infinitesimal exposure, but whatever it was, its power was truly immense. There was neither a benevolent or malevolent nature to the strange force, but just a sense of... superiority.

When Roza extended her hand, the Avengers cocked their heads for a moment in curiosity, regarding the gesture as though foreign to them, until one of the angels stepped forward and shook it in a manner that suggested unfamiliarity with the concept. Then, returning to its original position, it joined its companion in bowing before the newcomers. One angel then began to speak, but the other provided a sort of telepathic overlay that Rosa alone could percieve.

"Salutations, and welcome to our home!" We find that one question has thus been answered by course of action. "You stand upon the domain of Ssien'Ko'Warr, the Far Reacher. He is our Tutelary, our lord, protector, and our teacher." Without him we would be blind and ignorant of the truth of things, victims of our own reliance upon trifling things that serve only to reinforce our sense of limitation. "My he and Kir'Shissar, the prophet of the True Way, lead you to true understanding." And freedom from the prison of our own construction.

The overlay ceased as the other angel continued to speak: "In his hospitality, you have been invited to an audience in the House of Ssien'Ko'Warr. There is a village near here, a walk of a duration slightly longer than one of your hours. We shall guide you to this village and on from there."

And with that, the two Avengers turned and gestured for the visitors to follow before marching off.

They eventually reached the village after a long walk through what seemed like undisturbed wilderness, and their passage towards the town square went undisturbed save for the occasional sideways glance by various citizens and the occasional child pausing for long enough to look at the patterns engraved onto the armor of Roza's escorts before skipping off and humming a little tune. A pair of Guardians walked up and bowed before the Avengers and their charges.

"Greetings, honored executors of Ssien'Ko'Warr's will. We have recieved word that you wish to utilize the town square. You will find the way already prepared for your arrival."

The Avengers bowed to the Guardians in return before one of them responded. "You have our thanks, honored guardians. Will there be an assembly? We note that there are still citizens traveling throughout the byways."

The Guardian nodded for a moment before answering. "The priests decided to hold mass in the square, and as you know, not all follow that particular path. We were given assurances that all would recieve the blessing of the portal upon its opening regardless of their attendance, due to the... how was it termed? High traffic? There appear to be a great number of visitors to our humble world this day, and calling an assembly every single time one should pass through begins to interfere with daily business."

The Avenger nodded in understanding.

"Which is not to say that we are dispensing with the community feast afterward, however. We have never recieved complaints about that particular tradition."

Both Avengers and Guardians laughed for a moment then parted ways with a wave.

Upon entering the town square, it was easy to note that a large crowd was gathered around a building which for all intents and purposes looked like a small cathedral. Upon the highest steeple of this cathedral rested a simple but well maintained cross. A priest strode back and forth across the entrance of the cathedral, looking out upon the assembled faithful. Despite the large crowd, the square was silent save for the babbling of the central fountain and the priest's voice. He spoke of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden for their trespass in relation to the 'tree of knowledge', and how it was not to be considered a punishment, but a chance for humanity to grow on its own, gifted as they were with the blessing of knowledge. But with the rigors of time and the advent of high technology, humanity lost their way, falling away from perfection by placing themselves at the mercy of their own machines. But with the true way, a new path showed itself to humanity, a way to return to its roots and forge their own path to achieving a power similar to that of their creator, for if God created humanity in his own image, it would be illogical for him to expect that they would not one day rise to mirror his own capacities. After all, the priest concluded, is it not the way of a parent to wish greatness for their children? After a few final words, the priest turned to the Avengers and waved pleasantly.

"Hail and salutations! We took the liberty of preparing the way for you already. The portal is ready for your passage, you have but to activate it."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, in a forest far far away, a certain individual struggled with the strange voice rising to crescendo in his head, a product of the very spear he held and was most unwilling to discard. As he focused on a nearby tree in an attempt to wall his mind off from outside incursion by concentrating on a single object, the spear embraced the attempt, surging its will forward to use the tree as his target. To make the tree the subject of his wrath.

Throw it. Throw the spear at the tree! Throw it away! You were not meant to hold this weapon! You do not understand its power! Divest yourself of it!

Throw it.

Throw it.

Throw it.

Throw it.

THROW IT!

I've seen this before...

OOC: Yes, I know they seem a lot like the Ori. In some ways they are similar, in most ways they're so utterly not.

Glorified bump for certain folks to get to posting. Red Talons, I've seen you on several times. Not enough has happened for you to be left behind as you said, so there's plenty of room for you to keep going. But that window is kinda closing fast.

Not that there's a time limit, but there's this point where being fashionably late begins to have the opposite effect.

"Denken Sie uns sollten unsere Geschichte fortsetzen?"
"Verbessern Sie, um die anderen, keinen Punkt zu warten, wenn Sie später es erneut darstellen."
"Das ist zutreffend."
"Wir warten dann?"
"Do'h"

____
Hobbins nearly lost it when the voice suddenly commanded him to let fly the spear into the tree, only stopping himself as the end of the spear started to leave his hand, grabbing it he decided to try a new tactic instead of focusing on one specific thing. He began to mediate on everything nearby, the slight wind from the north that was just now rustling the branches above his head, the bird like sounds coming from his left and the main star above his left shoulder. He let the universe flow in and tried to reach an inner peace...

The voice continued its mental assault unperturbed, strengthening its voice to a degree far beyond anything a font on this forum could possibly represent. In Hobbins' own effort to stray his attention between everything in sight, he no longer wielded consolidated control over the arm which possessed the spear. In the shifts of attention between all things around, with each transfer an image of bloodcurdling carnage threw itself in, demanding recognition. Glimpses of the spear's previous moments of combat, an image of a man clad in chainmail rushing through the trees amidst a spray of plasma bolts and other gunfire, the sense of sailing through the air, trees flashing past in a dazziling blur, and a sudden direction change to take a surprised trooper in the chest, pinning him to the tree. In that moment, an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction erupted from the spear, a sense of its purpose completed and the wish to be recovered and sent upon its bloody journey once again.

At this point, the spear's intent surged again, lashing out with phenomenal speed, seizing control of the arm and sending the spear flashing into the distance far faster than Hobbins' throw should've been. As it left his fingers, he would feel physically drained, as if something had taken a small chunk of his life force and burned it away. In fact it was the spear itself employing the reserves of its wielder to enhance the power of its throw. How such would have been of use to frontline troopers could be anyone's guess, as it must have been a severe liability. Its presence away from his body now, the voice was replaced by deafening silence.

In any event, the spear sailed into the distance, though before it could travel out of sight, a hand snaked out and caught the haft of the spear midflight, the hand and its accompanying arm belonging to another of the strange angels that had escorted their ship down. The Avenger turned the spear about and inspected it, then with a visible flex it shifted its grip on the weapon just so, and it burst into flame. Then, the angel shifted its grip again, and with an expression of concentration one might expect of someone trying to memorize a long sequence of numbers, the weapon seemed to meld into his hand and sink, vanishing from existence inside the palm of his hand.

"Fly wayward soul, know freedom," The angel said, head down as though in mourning.

He turned to Hobbins, his red glowing eyes staring balefully and a grim expression on its face.

"Fool!" he barked, stepping forward purposefully. "You were not meant to wield a flame lance! It could have killed you! Our weapons are not like yours. They are not mere trinkets and baubles, but manifestations of intent. You are not meant for this path."

OOC: There was a rather hefty sub-plot point I was guiding towards. Seeing as how it would have killed your guy if you'd held onto it much longer, I decided to enact the eminently more preferable alternative. Hope ya don't mind.

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The view on the ceiling had shifted somewhat, revealing the continuing progress of the strange priest woman and the strange spellcaster towards their respective portals, and one lone vessel hovering in low orbit, flanked now by several Avengers.

The bird-priest kept its eyes on this last representation, chirping to itself in confusion. Despite its preoccupation, it waved a hand towards the two other people in the room and churbled warmly.

Do go on. Military history is fascinating. It provides us with yet another insight into culture and cognitive processes. Please, elucidate at your leisure. Do not allow the present situation to curb your remarkable loquaciousness.

"loquaciousness?"
"Fantastisches Wort für Haben der Qualität des Seins wordy und gesprächig."
"Das ein bisschen beleidigt besonders, wenn man ihre eigene Geschichte bespricht."
"Das stimmt, aber bringen ihre Richtlinien unter."
"Richten Sie auch aus, wenn Sie fortfahren würden."
"Umm, woher stoppte ich?"
"Sie erinnern sich nicht?"
"Korrekt."
"Ich glaube, dass Sie über die Menschen sprachen."
"Nützlich, dass nicht ist."
"Yodex you are not either, zählen Sie die Grausamkeiten nach und gehen Sie von dort."

Meanwhile!

Hobbins looked at the new arrival for a moment before bursting out laughing, the laughs came from deep within in him and were broken every fifth one by a small sob, this continued for a few more minutes before Hobbins could regain his composure and speak
"Geben Sie schließlich frei! Ich bin von diesem Dämon frei!"
Hobbins moaned then flipped on his translator, "You are most correct dear sir we are fools, the greatest fools in this whole damn galaxy. If Mako wished us to travel the stars we would have been born in a rocketship wait I was born in a rocketship. *sob haha* I am most sorry that weapon had a most profound impact on me along with being trapped in these woods for many maxos. Say you look alot like the fellows that took my captain, have you seen a small shuttle, kind of looks like this *takes a branch and draws a very crude drawing* or my captain about six feet tall, female kind of cranky when she been cooped up to long, green scales I think or was it purple. Anywho have you seen her?..

"At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. . . . For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect –- if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time" (Matthew 24:10-13;24 NIV).

As the hand of the stranger touched hers, Roza felt a strange shiver, and immediately looked behind to hide the scowl she reacted with from these strange angels, a sensation of something prideful had already come into her, and her mind was immediately concluding what sort of wicked presence cursed such world, a world of lies and deceit. The Holy Book was right on the works of devils who disguised as angels or who hid their own nature. The prideful, powerful presence could only be of one entity, an entity whose evil could be disguised, but whose pride could not: Satan.

Looking again forward, Roza said no words, and simply stared at the twisted eyes of those creatures for a while... their message, their blasphemy, like demons, fallen angels trying to make them question their utmost belief, they answered both through their dry voices and thoughts:


"Salutations, and welcome to our home!" We find that one question has thus been answered by course of action. "You stand upon the domain of Ssien'Ko'Warr, the Far Reacher. He is our Tutelary, our lord, protector, and our teacher." Without him we would be blind and ignorant of the truth of things, victims of our own reliance upon trifling things that serve only to reinforce our sense of limitation. "My he and Kir'Shissar, the prophet of the True Way, lead you to true understanding." And freedom from the prison of our own construction.

"Sathanas, the Far Reacher? We will not listen to your carefully disguised lies, demon." one of the crusaders escorting Roza said in a neutral tone, with an obvious Russian accent, as he seemingly raised his alertness, mishearing what the avenger has said, immediately asked as he raised a wooden cross to the height of his face, but suddenly he ended the gesture, and simply ignored the blasphemies, for demons should not be given a chance to corrupt them. Even the smallest hesitation could mean damnation, and with the major victory of the righteous in Earth, the Evil would be far more insidious and dangerous than they have ever been in the past of human history.

"Wait," Roza looked at the crusader, touching his arm, "let us see through everything before taking conclusions." she was lying... sinning, for in truth she already knew what such planet was: a demon world, built of lies and pleasure, built of false joy and blasphemy. The strange angels seemed to react well with her act of keeping the crusader at bay, or to hold their reaction of being annoyed, and instead decided to continue with what they wished to say before they were interrupted:

"In his hospitality, you have been invited to an audience in the House of Ssien'Ko'Warr. There is a village near here, a walk of a duration slightly longer than one of your hours. We shall guide you to this village and on from there."

"Thank you, our brothers have many questions still unanswered," Roza bowed to the fallen angel, demonstrating her humility, for she knew any pride would be used against them, and continued to follow them, wondering when the lie would vanish, when they would be killed by such demons, as they realize they would not be able to corrupt them, "and I am eager to understand what exactly is this Far Reacher."

They followed through the long way of undisturbed nature. The place seemed far too much of a paradise, far too perfect to not hide any dark secrets, or perhaps such was the way of their thoughts, as they have for generations been subjected to near perfect lies and attempts of deception, to demons disguised as angels and false prophets who once damned billions of soul. The Global State attempted to create a world where a great lie hid the sadness of their slaves, but also a world without God and without freedom, not even free will, for every man who accepted the Mark of the Beast became little more than a living zombie, a body without soul, a puppet of the devil. Such was the terrible truth, that despite how superficially Earth would look like perfect and peaceful had they succeeded, in truth mankind would be long gone, and instead their animated corpses would exist in service of the Antichrist, to live and die without free will, without soul, like the vegetative men whose spirits long left their brain-dead bodies. Superficially, the kingdom of the Antichrist would look as peaceful and perfect as this world they treaded on.

The walk was long, and Roza, not being a physically strong woman, could feel a slight soreness on her legs and on her feet due to such walk, yet she never complained, not due to pride, but due to the realization there was something far important ahead, and the soreness was anything but extreme, for she still had a youth ahead. Eventually they saw young children in the village, as Roza sighed heavily and whispered something about innocence, her thoughts far more focused on another matter at the moment:

"Children taught to worship demons, they don't deserve to be damned, and they will not, but should I simply let this continue? Let these winged devils corrupt men with lies and deceit? Was I not sent here for a greater purpose?"

The so called "guardians", a name Roza was not aware of, seemed like bizarre abominations, demonic hosts whose disguised evil has not yet become evident. They exchanged pleasantries with the fallen angels, as they led them slowly to a town square, where strangely, a Church stood, and as they moved inside the Church, Roza began to listen to their false priest, and immediately looked, shocked, at how they blasphemed against a sacred symbol, trying to call upon the very like Satan have tempted mankind with since the beginning of times, that men could become gods, and as such false preacher ended spewing his lies, to which Roza spoke no words against, he waved to the fallen angels and saying:

""Hail and salutations! We took the liberty of preparing the way for you already. The portal is ready for your passage, you have but to activate it.""

Roza immediately tilted her head to the false priest's direction and looked at him with pity rather than hatred, as she answered to him, in a way that implied forgiveness and lack of fear:

"I have seen enough now to know this is the work of demons! I am not afraid of speaking through my heart, for my faith: you have been taught to worship demons because you have never been visited by the Son of God!" her voice demonstrated an unwavering belief in what she was saying, "to think their blatant lies are truth. I may be crushed, my body may be maimed by these fallen angels who invited me, so they could try to corrupt and feed over my soul. I will not fear death for speaking the true word of God, for challenging their deceit, but the truth will eventually surface," suddenly the cross turned upside down, and Roza also demonstrated clear surprise from seeing it, even though she was unconsciously responsible for such happening, "for lies cannot last forever! And one day, one day you will all see the great machination of trickery this world ails."

Suddenly she made a gesture as both crusaders stood ahead and behind her, with their weapons still holstered, but still ready to fight to the bitter end, or to die as martyrs. Her voice was not too loud, but clearly demonstrated a fanatical belief.

"I refuse to walk into this web for trapping lost souls, into this portal of demonic works. I will not let you devour my soul through it, I refuse your invitation to join this blasphemy and great lie, I refuse this invitation to let my will be taken by devils, to become a slave to their workings... and if my body must perish because I did not fear spreading the word... I will be ready." she took a deep breath, measuring the likely surprised reaction of the crowd around them. There was a strange serenity in her, despite her loud voice, a peace of spirit, as she made a simple gesture, and the two crusaders dropped their gauss rifles into the ground.

"God, forgive them, they don't know the truth." Roza prayed in her mind, which could perhaps be the last thought of her in the material realm.

The angel stared at Hobbins for a moment, and if such had been possible to see even through the crimson glow of his eyes, it would have been noted that the Angel rolled his eyes in annoyance before pointing towards the exact location of the F&D vessel. "Your companions reside in that direction. Your captain, if it is who I think you are describing, is still visiting with Ssien'Ko'Warr. You should not be out here. Without a proper understanding of the topography, you could very easily have fallen into a crevasse or other hazard that it would have proven impossible to extricate yourself from. Please return to your conveyance. I shall guide you."

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In town, silence reigned with the exception of the two Avengers walking upon the surface of the water to reach the portal, fundamentally ignoring the diatribe offered forth by the leader of the visiting 'crusaders'. Several guardians stood at the edge of the square, cocking eyebrows at the surprising display and looking at each other in confusion.

Eventually, off in the distance a voice from some of the guardians could be heard:

"Did they crash land or something, and smack their heads a few times?"

"Apparently they smoke a lot of wacky-tabacky."

"If you put one of their heads to your ear will you hear the ocean?"

As the babbling of the fountain continued to prove the loudest sound in the square, the combined curious/confused/surprised expressions proved the only reply the Roza's diatribe, the silence lingering for approximately half a minute before suddenly, a man of substantial height and muscle jumped up and yelled:

"HA HA! A whole month off from sentry duty, chumps! That'll teach you to think optimistic! Nyah-haha!"

The priest sighed at the demonstration of one of his congregation and snapped his fingers. "A shame. I was certain they would just try to act superior."

"Yeah, well you should've known better!" The other man waved his finger reprovingly. "Its always how it works with these folks. 'My god has a bigger dick than your god!' Even between different interpretations of the same durn book! Sure, WE left that behind, but you honestly thought they'd go 'how could we be so wrong' when they've been spoon-fed their specific brand of bull-shit for so long? PFAH! OF COURSE they'd call us demon worshippers!"

Another of them spoke up. "Yeah, he called it all right. If they'd started shooting right off though, I'd've won that bet."

And another: "Did you hear the inherent hypocrisy in that stuff though? Its everything I can do to not die laughing at the sheer irony!"

The priest waved his hands and called the congregation's attention to him once again, getting their gazes back slowly but certainly. "Now now, I know we made that wager to test our own expectations, but there is no need to continue speaking of it. Jouachin won, fair and square, but we must all remember the chief lesson to be learned here: Judge not, lest ye be judged in kind. These folks might be misguided, but it is not our lot to deride them for their unfortunate situation. As we have been told both by scripture and the words of Kir'Shissar, we should not fear or hate those who are not enlightened, but we should pity them, and wish to aid them. They have been born and educated into their culture, a thing which cannot be helped. All that we can do is hope at least to show them the true path, and if they wish to continue living in a state of ignorant bondage, such is their choice."

The Avengers went about activating the portal, and the congregation turned as one towards it, all crossing themselves and bowing before the priest ushered them back into the church. Having finished the activation of the portal, the two angels took several steps back towards the 'Crusaders' and stopped.

"We have opened the path to the House of Ssien'Ko'Warr, the Far Reacher. Another group has already been speaking with him for some time about their domain and culture. Do you wish to travel through and convey information of your own realm, or shall we provide the basic overview as has been presented thus far, while you return to your vessel and depart the system?"

"After all, if you won't come into the house..."

"Get off our lawn."

Hobbins thought it over for a few seconds, he didn't like the holder's warriors but he didn't know how to get back and it was getting dark and who knew what kind of extreme weather or animals this planet might have at night. Eventually his concern for getting back to the shuttle before nightfall overrid his dislike of the holder's warriors.
"Would you kindly, I am rather tired of these woods..."

The Angel turned and gestured for Hobbins to follow, then set off without another word. He guided his charge back to the shuttle, as he said he would, but did not leave the forest proper, instead indicating the shuttle and saying that the man could make his way from there before beating his wings and flying off into the evening sky.