[Story] Tales of Annihilation -- Latest episode: #29 Blood and Fire IV

Wow, that Nyl guy really has some violent followers...

Catch likes for your great job!

I like likes!



I'm glad you liked it so far!

it was nice to read in bus returning from work ;-) what do you think, when there will be subforum about such fanart?

A fan-art subforum would be a great thing, and it was requested many times in the past, but I believe the reasoning behind its non-existance was that it would add too much work for moderators at the moment.

It might also be a bit overkill at this point in time, but perhaps after the official release when the playerbase, as well as the number of artist is boosted greatly... hmm...

It would also be great if there was a stickied post for a list of fan-fiction stories, but then again, there aren't really enough different fan-fictions to justify a spot on the sticky part.

Until then, there is a list of other authors in my first post in this thread, right below the episode list, and also @squishypon3 has another list of fan-fic, but that one is mostly buried in the forum and I don't have the link for it at the moment. The last time I checked both lists enlisted the same authors and fanfics.

little girl or little lady? make up your mind!

Little lady is what the old guy calls Eldora. Eldora is a fourteen years old girl.

Fixed the part where I accidentally wrote "little girl" instead of "little lady".

thanks. it seemed weird that the same guy was calling her something different all of a sudden.

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A Secret Plan

Twenty days had passed since the end of the siege. Aurora and Derrick spent most of that time alone together, under the statue's effect; it filled them with a certain bliss, that is normally not experienced by machines. It was nothing special, but for them, it meant the world; the feeling as the illusion of their touched, the embrace of wind, the smell of the air... it was beautiful.


[…]


They met up with Odin at the square where he and thirty fabricators struggled to repair the mortal wounds of Raegon. His courageous deed to hold the enemy onslaught back took its toll gravely.

Most of the infrastructure on the sanctuary planet was destroyed in battle by Legonis Machina and Synchronous forces; Odin feared that with the lack of resources, they won't be able to restore Raegon's vital functions in time.

Odin had hundreds of fabricators out on the fields, reclaiming whatever metal they could from the countless piles of wreckage all over the planet. The planet, which once looked like paradise with flourishing flora and wildlife everywhere, was reduced to a wasteland without anything to survive, anything to live. Aurora felt depressed as she looked across the land, where once stood hundred meter tall trees, there remained nothing, but ash, left behind by the napalm that consumed machine and bionic alike. Nothing remained, only wreckage and some of the ancient ruins.

After the battle was over, the alliance took efforts to uncover the last unexplored catacombs that they'd stumbled across during the siege, left behind by the ancient civilization of giants. Most of the complex had been uncovered during the past days; they analyzed several tens of thousands of words worth of writing scattered across the walls, telling about the glorious past of the planet and the giant nation.

One of those stories mentioned a sacred place beneath the depths of the catacombs, which they found... only that it was protected by a massive barrier, which did not look like anything they'd found prior to its discovery; it was so out of place. A strange feeling filled Aurora about it; for some reason, she feared that opening it would unveil something sinister. However, the hope of uncovering the secrets of the statue had destroyed any and all fragments of fear within her.

The barrier withstood quite a beating, even direct fire from the Uber Cannon several times, leaving not a scratch on its perfectly smooth surface if silverish metal. The only option was to rip it to shreds, from particle to particle; twenty fabricators worked day and night without stop to siphon the metal content of the massive barrier, but the progress was painfully slow, and required enormous amounts of energy. The material, which the wall was made of was never seen before.

Many of the writings across the City of Giants referred to the so called “Spirits beneath the wall”. Aurora wondered whether those writings talked about this wall, and the spirits were hiding behind it.

Commander Hepitus was given the task to overlook the task at the wall, and to call the others if anything was discovered, but so far, he did not report anything interesting, only that the wall was extremely thick.

They also tried to get around the walls by demolishing the useless brick walls around it, trying to find an entrance, but they discovered quickly that there was the entire building was made out of the durable material, hidden underground... a building that was not detected by any of their sensors. Digging the entire area, searching for a gate would have taken many more months; time, which even for machines was a valuable resource.

There was another ominous issue, however; the mighty Valhalla was still not confirmed to be destroyed, and Nero may still be around in the depths of the ocean. Jesper had sent plenty of submarines and scout ships, all armed with their most advanced sonars, but so far, they'd no luck gathering any signals. They surveyed the area where it had fallen, but it was drifted away by the strong currents of the ocean. If Nero was still alive, and somehow managed to repair the Valhalla, the nameless alliance would face a powerful enemy whom they can't defeat. Their only hope was to confirm the destruction of the ship while it's still underwater and vulnerable.

Shortly after meeting up with Odin, Aurora and Derrick both touched the statue to take on their bionic appearances. Sadly, the effect was still just an illusion, like it always was; the others, whom they saw as dark, shadowy figures, who at the time were not under its effect, could only see their true forms. They could only see their metal armors, the weapons of mass destruction, attached to their arms... not the soft skin, nor the vulnerable, yet cheerful faces full of happiness, nor the way how they'd looked at each-other.

The statue's purpose was still shrouded in mystery, and they hoped that whatever they would find behind the wall would reveal it.


[…]


Ten days later, Odin broke the enduring silence by using the communication channel. Raegon's core melted down, and his body was rendered useless, beyond repairable. Odin transferred his personality to one of their data banks, hoping that one day they'd find a new body for him. Lacking the technology to create new commanders, there was nothing else, but hope.

The valuable materials, which once made his body, his armor, his weapons, were all reclaimed by the same fabricators which for weeks struggled to save him.

It was a sad moment for everyone. “Damn this curse that we must carry,” Iywin said. “Why must we have emotions? Curse the one who'd unleashed this abomination on us.”

“You'd rather serve as a mindless killing machine among the lines of one of the four factions?” Odin said. Iywin did not respond to that.

Though, they were many miles away from each-other, scattered across the planet, the communication channel allowed them to mourn their fallen friend together.


[…]


Two months later, Hepitus' crew finally breached the barrier, revealing a complex that surpassed the technological level of the giants. In fact, it did not belong to the giants at all; it was human architecture. A laboratory left behind many years ago.

Hepitus, Derrick, Odin and Aurora gathered at the breaching, but they were all too large to fit into the narrow hallways inside, as they were designed for humans, so they fabricated a tiny robot to explore the place.

As it entered through the breach, every commander across the planet connected to its sensors to see what was hidden deep down in there. The gaze of almost thirty commanders watched every step of the little scout.

A dark corridor it was, but it was not a problem for the drone's advanced sensors – in fact, it was no different than if the sun shone in there, it could see just as if there was daylight.

After a few meters, the hallway branched to two directions. The commanders all agreed within nanoseconds to turn left, but after taking a few steps, out of nowhere a bright light, that appeared to be a projectile raced towards the bot, and moments later, the signal disappeared.

“So the complex has self-defenses,” said Hepitus.

“Let us build something that is more sturdy,” Odin responded.


[…]


(Continued in next post due to character limit)

The next scout robot was much better armored than the last one, and was armed with two tiny guns to eliminate the self-defenses that the humans had left behind. “This one should be enough,” Aurora said. Hopefully.

This one managed to get past the wreckage of its predecessor, but this time the self-defenses did not respond. “Perhaps it malfunctioned,” said Derrick.

“Or it only had power left for one shot,” Hepitus added.

The bot's visual sensors were able to locate and distinguish the source of the projectile, and just in case, it fired a well-aimed shot to disarm it completely.

Shortly, they reached an area that appeared to be some sort of storage. There were many crates of food that degraded many years back.

As the scout moved further in, it ran into a dead end; a room which was most likely a laboratory, but with very little equipment left behind. There were also some control panels, but they were no longer functional. It was clear to every commander that the humans evacuated some time in the past for some reason, and had done it rather quickly, over the coarse of a few hours, judging by all the things they'd left behind.

The laboratory revealed little clues as for what was being done in the complex, so they turned back, and went to the other direction.

Soon they stumbled into a metal door. It was locked, but they had to get past it; the bot took its plasma cutters, and sliced through the thick metal door with no problem, as it was a lot less sturdy than the outer walls. As it walked through the hallway, it passed several skeletons that once belonged to humans. “Judging by the architecture, the place was built by humans, judging by the skeletons, the place was lived by humans.” Iywin said.

“What killed these ones?” Aurora wondered. “We should analyze them.”

“We have time for that later. We must know what was the purpose of this place.” Odin responded.

More skeletons revealed as the bot had to take a turn at a corner, one of them had its skull pierced by something. Aurora convinced the others to investigate what it could have been, so the bot walked closer to the remnants of the once living human, and picked the skull up, and as its metal hand carefully lifted the hollow head, a bullet fell out of it, clattering against the floor. “What happened here?” Aurora wondered.

“The humans? Why would they turn against one-another?” Odin said.

“What if the attackers were not humans?” Iywin suggested.

“What if there was only one attacker?” Hepitus added.

“What if that one attacker was not human?” said Iywin.

“Then what it was, if not human?” Hepitus asked.

The scout soon reached a control room, where many more corpses lied all over the dust-covered white tiles of the floor.

The robot moved to the control panels, and shorty, they were able to activate the computers by connecting it to the bot's battery, and then, it connected itself to the system. Using the system's interface proved rather trivial, as everything was written in the human language, which they were able to translate without problems.

According to the files they'd found, the complex served to observe the giants during the progenitors' war against machines.

“Why would they study them?” Derrick said.

“Wait... there's more here... They not only studied them...” Odin replied. “They created them. They brought them to existence, by manipulating their own DNA.”

Aurora was surprised and somehow shocked by that statement. Why would the humans give life to these creatures in the midst of a war?

However, the answer had struck her rather quick. “They wanted to use them against us in combat,” she said.

“Indeed,” said Odin. “That's the only likely explanation, seeing that among the files there was no mention of their reasons.”

“They trained them, they taught them. However, the giants never knew of the humans as the tiny creatures they were. They knew them as their gods; 'The spirits beneath the walls'.” Odin said.

“As it seems, their experiment was never finished. They evacuated, and then left the giants to live on their own.” Hepitus said. “... and die on their own,” he added.

“Let us see what happened here,” Odin said. He found some visual recordings of the last few days before the evacuation happened.

One of these recordings showed the control room where their scout bot was then. Seventeen people in white coats worked by the dashboards for several hours, but then, all of a sudden, a man stormed in to the room with two guns, and shot them down, one by one as they tried to run for their lives. He got nine of them inside the room, but the others managed to escape into the hallways, and the man chased them.

Odin switched to another camera's view; the man killed another six before the last two survivors reached the door, and closed it from the other side, locking the man in.

“Why would he do that?” Aurora wondered.

Odin switched to another view, from several hours before the incident. The recording showed two humans, a man and a woman, in a room from another floor, below the control room. They seemed to be in a heated argument; the man waved and shouted, angrily and walked nervous circles, while the woman seemed to yell back at him. Eventually, the man seemed to calm down, and approached to woman, leaned closer to her, most likely trying to kiss her, but then she pushed the man away from herself. In response, the man pushed her back also, but then she tripped, and slammed her head against the floor; her red blood trickled down to the clean white tiles.

The man desperately tried to awaken her, but her blood was already all over the floor. He sat by the woman's body, nervously, for hours, gazing at her, then he walked to a drawer, and pulled out two guns...

Another recording was from a floor below, inside another laboratory. This was after the control room incident. The same man entered the room, and killed everyone. The same thing happened everywhere else, on ever floor.

Everywhere, except the laboratory which had most of its equipment removed. There were four humans – two of them were the survivors from the control room – they warned the others in there, who then sounded the alarm, and then sent a message to a spaceship that at time time was in orbit of the planet.

Odin found the message among the files; they reported the incident, and the response they received was an order to pack everything in the lab, and leave.

They packed everything, then climbed a ladder to a level above them, then pulled the ladder up, and sealed the exit. Nobody ever returned again.

The man who'd slaughtered everyone remained alive for two days, wandering aimlessly across the hallways, sometimes sitting down, sobbing, until finally, he ended his own suffering.


[…]


They continued to search through the documents in the humans' database, but the process was hindered slightly, because every single commander who'd established their link with the scout wanted to see different bits of information at the same time. Eventually, they've read everything, but none of the documents even just mentioned their sacred statue.

“If it wasn't the humans, then who?” Iywin said.

“Nothing implies they left the planet behind completely. They could easily have continued their experiment from aboard their spaceship.” Hepitus said.

“We will know one day. But this is not the day.” Odin said.


[…]


Days later, Aurora and Derrick sat by a large tree within a small grove that somehow survived the bombing. They were both in their form granted by the statue.

Aurora gazed at her love; the wind played with the curls of his shorter hair, his thick beard and the fur across his broad shoulders.

The memories of the man and the woman in the recording still haunted her. She gazed into Derrick's eyes, and said “We must be careful, my love... Love is a dangerous thing.”

He looked back at her, and with a calm, soothing voice, said “It could be. Perhaps. But only if it's wielded by humans.”

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Provide some feedback, brothers and sisters! I love feedback.

nice one.

Great job. There are a few grammar mistakes but this chapter was quite interesting just like all the others. I do like how you're filling out the giant's backstory.

I'm glad you both liked it, and also that Mr. Murcanic liked it, too... literally.

Please, do point out where my grammar mistakes are! It's kinda tricky finding them among 2500+ words (2602 to be exact).

I very much enjoy your work, please continue making it as it is an awesome part of this awesome community

Btw... sneaky bump post incoming!

I have this little question for you people...

What do you guys think about me as a writer in general?

I think you have great ideas and do a good job of building a deep and believable universe. Your grammar could use a little work and you do have quite a few flat, minor characters that are easy to forget/confuse but all in all your work is fun and interesting!

I'm interested to see where the unnamed alliance is going, and whether they will find out what happened to Nero...

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Facing the Madman

The orders were simple... get in... get stuff blown up... then get out. It was a piece of cake for Harris Raphani. He'd just done exactly just that; he walked into the generator room, wearing the clothes of the zeelian guard he'd slammed against the wall just minutes before that, then he planted eight charges to various spots across the room. The zeelians only guarded the doors, there were zero guards inside; no patrols, no cameras, nothing, just the soft air and some dashboards. It was the easiest mission for him in his entire life.

He walked out casually, past the two guards at the door, past the patrols in the corridors, without anyone becoming suspicious. Then as he walked out to open air, he looked back at the building to see how enormous it was.

The complex was beneath the mighty walls of New Zeal, but there were only a few guards in the area, as most of the soldiers were busy guarding something else in the country, after all, their army had limited supplies of people to work with.

In fact, each of the telian federations had very small armies; the strongest were the Demian Federation and Madara, each with their own, counting nearly sixty-thousand men and women ready to die for the homeland. The Republic of Zeel only had about thirty-thousand, according to the spies' reports.

But what homeland was it? Some still called the old homeworld, the beautiful planet of Telia their home, but as new generations were born, the past had become more and more forgotten, especially with the various propaganda all around, where ever people walked.

As he walked into the market, he stumbled into several posts on the walls about how wondrous Zeel's economy was running, yet, everywhere Harris looked he only saw poor people starving and begging and orphans waiting for the opportunity to steal some fruit or bread, yet the economy was doing well. Harris knew it was a lie, though, after all, he was well informed with the reports of a dozen spies; it was only a matter of time until the zeelian government jumped into a series of desperate decisions, and then, the neighbors would act.

Yes, Madara and Rodhoros would wage war right away against the dying country to claim the remnants of its resources and redraw the borders of New Telia.

However, time was too valuable to sit back and wait for the years to do the job. Something was needed to quicken the process, something was needed to trigger the war between Zeel, Madara and Rodhoros. The trigger was in Harris Raphani's hands, a small device that could blow the entire power supply of New Zeel away, and cripple the dying economy for good.

The orders were clear... “Plant the charges, get out, then blow things up,” yet so simple, it was the hardest thing for him to force himself to do. All he could think of was the thousands of innocents who would die in the war. He wanted to smash the device and throw it away, but the pain in his chest was agonizing. He'd felt as the thing that forced itself inside him straitened his heart and heard the voices it had whispered into his mind, “Do it, or you shall die a horrid death,” the voice said.

More and more faces looked at him as he struggled against the pain, and a man walked up to him, “Are you all right?” he said.

“I'm fine,” Harris forced himself to say.

“You sure?” the man said, “You sure seem to be in pain. I know a good herbalist, she'll surely find something for your pain!”

“No, not needed, I'm fine,” Harris replied, then the man nodded and walked back to his business.

“Do it!” the whispering voice within his mind commanded. “Do it! Do it! DO IT!”

Harris finally found his way out of the marketplace, and found himself in a narrow street that led towards the main gate where the guards checked anyone to enter or leave the city.

“DO IT!” the voice repeated.

He overcame his pain, and walked confidently towards the dozens of guards at the gate while holding the device with a firm grip. He was certain the guards would let him past, as he was wearing the same uniform as them, but then, one of the stepped up to him.

“Halt! State your commands and identify yourself!” he said.

“Don't hesitate! DO IT!” the voice screamed inside his head.

Harris then pushed the only button on the device.

The massive noise of the explosion was overwhelming, even the ground trembled below him. Everyone at the gate square panicked and screamed and ran towards every direction. The guards were startled for some moments, then they ran towards the place where the sound came from. From behind the houses, a massive column of black smoke crawled towards the clear sky.

Harris walked across the unguarded gate like nothing happened, and the pain inside his chest eased. “Good,” the voice whispered.


[…]


Traversing across the borders was easy with the use of his spaceship. A rare vehicle to just come by, and only the privileged could get any close to them. Harris was not very privileged, though; he stole it from some unaware crew back in Teobolos before the mission that led him to Gelidus Retreat.

The leadership of the Demian Federation was from where he'd once accepted his orders. Harris was a trueborn demian who had came to the world back in the ancient lands of Demia, the sacred peninsula back in the old homeworld. Sixty-four years earlier, he grasped the light in an old townhouse in a small town named Beris. The day he'd heard that Beris was crushed by the machines he'd sworn vengeance against all that is machine, as that was the day when he'd lost all of his family. He was young and filled with rage, and as an officer he cheated his way up to the escaping spaceship in hopes of once returning and destroying the invaders.

When the machines attacked the spaceship, he was drifted by the panicking crowd across the corridors and quickly found himself inside another spaceship that was about to take off. He wore a uniform, so the people assumed he could navigate the spaceship, and rather soon he was sitting in the co-pilot's seat with another man to his side whom he'd never seen before.

Harris had absolutely no idea what to do, but the other man seemed confident. He'd sent the other people out of the cockpit, then he looked at Harris, and said “Don't worry, I don't know what to do either. I was just told to push this and that and some others I don't remember.” and as soon as he finished the sentence, he pulled a tiny lever on the dashboard, and the hangar doors opened. Harris saw as hundreds of men and women and children were pulled out into the abyss by the vacuum, those unfortunate souls who did not find their way on board in time. “Don't worry about those; they'd die either way,” the man said, then he proceeded to start the engines, then half a minute later, they were floating in space.

They wandered in the abyss for weeks with very little supplies left, following the thousands of other spaceships, watching as some of them depart to other directions. Harris and the other man discussed about joining them, but they decided it was safest to follow the crowd. During this time, they got to know the controls a bit better, and that was when Harris learned how to drive a spaceship, but the other man had still no idea, even after weeks of traveling.

Eventually, the crowd settled down at a planet that later became known as New Telia. It had similar conditions to their old home, but it had a lot less dry surface; it was a single continent, surrounded by a single massive ocean and some tiny islands, not the perfect home for the conflicted population of telians and their countless nationalities.

They crash landed near a human fortress that later became the capital city of the re-founded Rodhoros, named as Fort Steel. For some months he tried to live along with the rodhors, but they spat on him for having demian roots. Soon he found his way to Ingenti, the capital city of the Demian Federation of New Telia, where he was offered the office of secret agent, and he accepted without hesitation. Since then, he wandered across planets, hoarding successful missions up until they captured him in Fort Chillbeak, the frozen fortress of Gelidus Retreat where they tortured him, and ultimately planted a monstrous machine next to his heart, then they just released him...


[…]


(Continued in next post due to character limit)

The evening was a little chilly in Fort Steel where his next mission had led Harris. The task was to intercept one of the seven advisors and kill him. In Rodhoros, the advisors were the leaders of the government, and Advisor Jaros Mawrick was one of the few who could prevent a war against Zeel, as his personal propaganda was about maintaining peace within the area. Once he was eliminated from the equation, the war was a given.

The intel was correct, and he showed up in time to his office at the governmental building. Harris had some fake papers, so he was easily able to follow Jaros into the building, all the way to his office. He was waiting for some minutes in front Jaros' closed office to ensure nobody was watching, the he knocked at the door, and the voice from inside said “Come in!” not suspecting that he called in his future murderer.

Jaros was sitting at his desk, opposing the door, peacefully signing some documents. He had deep brown eyes and grayish skin and his scales were worn by age. He looked so peaceful, Harris felt sorry for what he had to do in a few moments.

Jaros looked up at him, “So, what do you want?” he said.

“The guy on the third floor told me to seek for you for some documents,” Harris said, and Jaros looked back at him with a face that said What are you talking about? Yet, he did not suspect at all, he just casually asked “What documents?”

“Stop fooling around... DO IT!” the voice inside Harris' head commanded.

Harris stepped closer to the desk, “The ones you promised to him yesterday,” he replied.

“Who are you?” said Jaros. That was the moment when Harris reached for his silenced gun, pointed it towards the politician’s face, and pulled the trigger without hesitation. His blood splashed against the perfectly white wall behind his seat and painted it red. His body slowly slided towards the floor, then it dropped off the chair and slammed to the carpet which soaked his blood.

As he walked out of the office, he carefully gazed across the corridor to see if there was someone around, but nobody was out there.

He walked down the stairs, and heard the steps of another person down the stairwell. The steps came closer and closer with every step Harris made towards the ground floor. Eventually, he could see the other person as they passed by each other; a woman with mesmerizing purple eyes and soft looking golden scales all over her body, wearing a white dress that absolutely didn't match her complexion. “Evening!” she greeted as she passed by.

“Evening,” Harris casually responded.

He was already out of the building when he'd heard a woman's scream from behind him. Better hurry, he thought to himself.

The spaceship was well hidden in a forest just half a mile away from the city walls. The human technology was far ahead of the telian, so it was able to hide from their radars, as the human made radars that were left behind them no longer functioned, and the scientists had a hard time replicating the technology.

The spaceship was no bigger than the average truck, but inside, it was comfortable and had enough room for two more people. Harris, though, preferred to travel alone.

The voice inside his head had spoken once again, “You've done your job well, for that you may live another day... However, tomorrow you head to Camp Furor, and land your ship just to the east of the encampment.”

Harris feared the voice, and he feared to attempt to remove it, the machine inside his chest. He even feared to have any thoughts about it, as he believed the thing could be able to read his mind. He lived his days in terror and agony as he tirelessly followed the commands inside his head. He could clearly see he was no longer the man he once was... the man who swore vengeance against machines followed the commands of a machine. Sometimes he was not even sure if the thoughts he heard were his own, the thing was slowly driving him insane, and he knew it well, yet he could not do a thing.


[…]


Camp Furor, the headquarters of the Followers of Nyl, a group of fanatics who worship a god called Nyl who is the god of flames. The encampment counted a little over nine-thousand souls, but they also had many worshipers in most of the telian federations. Though, they presented a valid threat against every telian nation, nobody dared to deal with them, as they feared the unknown number of believers would tear them apart from inside. At least, that is what Harris thought.

As he approached the camp, he saw the smoke of a giant campfire – or more like a bonfire – heading towards the sky. In the distance, he saw two people wearing red robes and strange masks heading out to greet him.

“Greetings,” a man said from behind the mask.

“Greetings, Harris Raphani. We were expecting you!” the other person, a woman said.

“You know my name? How?” said Harris shocked.

The man reached up to his mask with his hands, which were covered with gloves made of a fabric that looked like silk, “Of course we know your name,” he said, then he pulled off the mask off his face, revealing a pale face with soft skin, partially covered in fur. The eyes were brown and his lips were pink.

“Wh – what are you?!” Harris asked in horror.

“Have you never seen a human before?” the man replied.

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