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

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The Chairman

Harris Raphani casually walked between the aisles of production lines towards the office of Malx Flienn, the chairman of the corporation and the leader of the secret cartel of the twenty giant weapon factories of Lyth. His mission led him to the over sized factory complex near Boris' End, the capital city of Lyth.

The goal of the mission was to kill Malx, as his intention to support Zeel in case of war was well known, and that was against the plan of the human aliens who had planted their malicious machinery next to his heart. Ever since, they used the device to possess his mind with voices that often made barely any sense.

Since Chairman Flienn was leading the greatest cartel of Lyth, that made him the third most powerful person in the kingdom after the king and the great marshal of the royal army, and since he was the supporter of Zeel, it pushed the balance in favor of Zeel. However, the humans wanted all out war between Zeel, Rodhoros, and Madara, where everyone is a loser. Because of that, Flienn had to be replaced.

Harris spent hours thinking about their plan, but couldn't understand... why would the humans think Lyth would stay out of the conflict? The thought bothered him for the entire duration of his journey to Boris' End, but in the end, he could not find the correct answer.


[…]


Harris reached the end of the workshop and found himself in a short hallway that led to yet another workshop, which was even greater than the first one. Nobody suspected something was wrong with him. Why would they? After all, he was wearing some fancy outfit only the richest would wear; everyone was probably thinking he had an appointment with the chairman.

As he gazed around, he saw hundreds of people all over the place, putting and screwing metal parts together, crafting the weapons that will end so many lives somewhere in this cruel world.

He was about to reach the end of the gigantic hall, where he stumbled into a group of arguing people. It was some workers and the supervisor, yelling at each other, but in the end, the supervisor yelled the loudest, blaming “those fools” who couldn't deliver the raw materials in time. Such a shame, Harris thought.

Everything was unbearably noisy and the scent of probably heavily toxic concoctions made it even worse. It made him wonder how all these people managed to keep their sanity.

Fortunately for him, the office quarter was quiet and peaceful. As he walked towards the chairman's office, he saw not a single soul in the hallways; everyone was in their offices and all doors were closed. So easy, he thought.

Too easy, he thought to himself as he remembered how little of a challenge it was to reach this point. He landed his ship near the edge of the city, then walked all the way to the facility, sneaked past the guards, walked across the entire place all alone... All that without anyone ever suspecting anything. That is rather suspicious... I wonder if this is a trap.

Be it a trap or not; it did not matter, because the humans' device would likely force him to carry on anyway. He knew it too well, he did not want to anger them.

He entered a room with a desk near a window, but nobody was sitting behind it. Opposing the entrance, there was the door, the massive wooden double-winged door, leading to Flienn's office.

Harris sighed. Let's do this, he thought. That exact moment, he stepped to the door, pulling the handle.

He found himself in an elaborately decorated office room with several bookcases around the room and three large windows allowing the sunlight to illuminate the place. Opposing the door was the sturdy desk of the chairman with the luxurious chair.

The chairman himself was lying on his own desktop, dead. His blood-soaked documents all around his head. “What the!?” said Harris in a moment of surprise. His heart began to pound harder as he rushed to the corpse to investigate.

He could hear the door close behind him. He glanced back and saw a man unfamiliar to him. “Greetings, I have been expecting you,” said the man.

“Who are you?” Harris asked the blue skinned stranger. He wished he did not have to ask this question, considering the man already knew him if he was expecting him – this fact made him concerned a bit.

“Well, my name is not very important, Mr. Raphani. You probably know I'd tell you a fake name anyway. Don't you, Mr. Raphani?” said the man. “After all, secret agents are not famous for a reason, Mr. Raphani. You know, it's part of the job to keep our identities a secret. Don't you think, Mr. Raphani?”

“How do you know me?” said Harris, trying to act calm.

“Oh, please... Everyone and their mother, and even their grandmother knows who you are. You are Harris Raphani, the most incompetent secret agent,” the man replied. “Now that we cleared this, I have a question... What brought you to the beautiful city of Boris' End, if I may ask?”

“I thought you know that. You said you've been expecting me,” Harris replied.

“Of course, I saw you... I knew you'd come here, because that's the only reason anyone would come here, aside from coming here to work, but you didn't seem like you'd come join the slaves in the workshops.” he said.

“You seem smart to me. Figure it out yourself!” said Harris, mocking the man, though, he knew it probably wasn't the wisest idea.

“No, seriously...” said the man. “You're my captive now, so tell me.”

“Your captive?” Harris laughed.

“Yes, don't you know?” the man said. Calm and serious. He walked behind the dead chairman's desk, then knocked the corpse off the chair, and sat in its place. “I'm the new boss here.”

That makes no sense, Harris thought. “How so?” he said, still acting calm.

“Oh, please...” said the man with some forced laughter. “The king personally appointed me.”

Wow, this gets more borked up with every moment that passes... “Congratulations, I guess.” he said sarcastically. “Look... I came here to kill this guy, but since he's dead, my job is done. So, if you don't mind,–”

“You don't go anywhere,” the man interrupted. “As I said, you are my captive, and now, you'll tell me who sent you here.”

Well, it was worth a shot, Harris thought to himself about his majestic escape plan. “Oh, you wouldn't believe anyway...” Harris replied, forcing an awkward smile as he finished the sentence.

“Trust me on that, I believe a lot of things,” the man responded.

“Oh, that is good news, but this one's a tad bit more unbelievable,” Harris said. In the meanwhile, he casually tried to sneak to the door to escape the situation.

“Don't worry, the door is locked. No need to check it,” said the man as he noticed Harris' intent. “But, please Mr. Raphani, I insist that you tell me your reasons.”

If you say Mr. Raphani one more time... Harris said in his mind, but only in his mind. He looked at the man with half a smile, wondering if he could pull his gun to end this, but the man seemed to have a very close eye on his moves, and he'd likely pull his gun first.

“Why are you so silent? Aren't you going to tell me anything?” the man said.

Harris made a grimace and shook his head calm and casual.

“Well, this is awkward,” said the man with a disappointed tone.

“When you greeted me...” Harris said, then taking a short pause as he walked to the window, the new chairman gazed at him curiously. “... you didn't point a gun at me.”

“Oh, of course not. I'm a gentleman, after all; I don't point guns at my guests when they arrive,” he replied.

Harris glanced at the dead man on the floor; he had his throat sliced with a knife.

He looked back at the man, then said: “But you told me I'm not your guest...”

Harris reached for his gun that was in a sheath, attached to the inside of his fancy vest, and within a friction of a second, he aimed at the man and pulled the trigger, making no noise, as the handgun was silenced. The bullet pierced through the skull of him, and he died a sudden death.

He walked up to him, and searched his clothing for his gun, but he only had a knife. “... you told me I'm your captive.” he told the dead man as he looked down at his corpse.

Now that he knew he was unarmed, he realized it would have been better to interrogate him instead...


[…]


(continued in next post due to character limit)

The mission was complete, and Harris left the area just as he entered – completely unnoticed. He jumped aboard his ship, and started the engines.

On his way back to Camp Furor, he tried to figure out the intention of Lyth. Since they removed the chairman who wanted to support Zeel in a war, it was fairly easy to conclude that King Tez intends to join the war, instead of staying neutral, as the humans probably assumed. The whole situation became more and more confusing, and he was tired – exhausted by all the insane missions the humans forced him to do.

Suddenly, as he thought about the humans, a realization popped up in his mind... the voice... it has been silent for days!


[…]


He landed near the camp. Rhea was waiting at the gates to greet him. Harris noticed she was happy to see him again; a year earlier she interrogated him in that cell in Gelidus. Perhaps it was because of their common burden – the device that controlled both of them.

Next to her stood Mort's former helper, the woman, Tarsha, in her red robes. She was without her mask, so the scarlet scales on her face were visible in the sunlight, as well as her black eyes – black eyes were rather uncommon among the telian race.

“Did you succeed?” Tarsha asked him.

“Well, the guy is dead,” Harris replied. “But there were complications.”

“What kind of complications?” said Tarsha.

“The guy was dead by the time I got to his office...” said Harris. “... and I have a feeling there's something you don't tell us.”

The woman did not seem surprised, even to the slightest. Her reaction just confirmed Harris' suspicions.

“We'll speak about that later. I need to consult them,” she said, then immediately left the scene, leaving him and Rhea alone.

Just as she was far enough from them, Rhea said: “Well, she didn't care a lot about those complications.”

“Yes, indeed. There is something she doesn't tell us.” said Harris.

“There are a lot of thins she doesn't tell us.” Rhea said. “What happened in the factory?” she asked him after a short pause.

“There was a guy in the office who killed the chairman just before I reached his office. I killed him, but before that, he told me some unsettling things,” said Harris.

“Like what?” said Rhea curiously.

“He was sent there to replace Flienn. He was commanded by King Tez himself,” Harris said.

“Tez is a madman, his moves are unpredictable. Perhaps he just wanted some fun,” Rhea said, a bit unsure.

“I thought about that, too. However, Tarsha's reaction confirmed otherwise. It's the humans' work, I say.”

“But then why did they send you there?” Rhea said.

“I don't know.” he replied. “But there's another thing...”

“What is it?”

“The voices ceased to talk in my head,” he said.

Rhea's face looked both relieved and worried at the same time, following such news. “I stopped hearing them as well... the last time was the day before you left to Boris' End,” she told him.

“What was the last thing the voice told you?” he asked her.

“I can't remember well, they kept saying a lot of things, so it was hard to keep track, but if I recall correctly, they said something about a malfunction,” she explained. “What could it mean?” she asked him, hoping for an explanation, which sadly Harris couldn't give.

“The last thing they told me was 'repel the invaders'; after that, nothing. It makes no sense... but these voices never made any sense,” he said.

Rhea glanced at the ground by her feet. She looked a bit worried. “What if they remain silent, Harris?” she asked him.

“That would mean we are free,” he replied.

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HE'S ALIVE!!!
@SolitaryCheese IS ALIVE!!!

reserved

The hype train rolls on ! Choo Choo !

Happy New Year, I guess... quite late it is, I know...

I apologize for my unexpected disappearance and the long delay it had caused for this last episode. Rest assured I'm not dead, and as far as I know, I'm not undead either.

Warning: Boring and depressing real life stuff inside this spoiler below...

Spoiler: boring real life stuff

It's just that my motivation died completely, and it was a bit of a struggle to get myself together, and it's still an ongoing issue... But well, that's what I get for having severe depression... but let's not talk about it here.

The thing is, I scrapped several versions of #25, because I didn't feel satisfied with the result, and I am still not fully satisfied, but... meh. The more I try, the more I realize I'm not that good of a writer as I think I am.

2014 was most likely the worst year of my life so far. It was the year I failed hard in college, resulting in my current job in some crappy factory with a whopping wage of roughly 2$/hour (and that's before taxes kick in). Gotta love living in the eastern part of Europe, but at least I don't live in a third world country, so I got that going for me, which is nice. Even my teeth started to give up on me... one of them is becoming pretty black (no racism intended).

Nevertheless, so far 2015 proved to be not much better so far, and I probably should visit a therapist, but guess what... I also seem to have social anxiety. I'm such a borked up person.

So, about the next episode... it will happen soon'ish, can't guarantee that it is sooner than later, but definitely before the end of time.

I use to suffer from depression. I hate it when people say "Just cheer up" as if it would work. Do they think people haven't tried that already ? Also you are a better writer than you think.

You hang in there, because the moment you think that you have lost, is the exact moment you have lost. You have people supporting you if not here then in the real world, you can recover from this, it'll all be worth it. Now I shall step off the soapbox and read the fantastical lore that you written again.

It's good to have you back again. And wow, that was quite that interesting episode. I'm sorry to hear about that "life stuff", and I'll be praying for you.

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Secrets of Telia

Four days had passed since Harris returned from the harbor city of Boris' End, and Rhea was sitting alone by the hospital bed of Harris, who was struggling at the edge of life and death, critically wounded by a fanatic's blade.

It happened in a blink of an eye the next day after his return; a red robed fool stepped up to him, then dipped his short, but sharp dagger right into his heart... the next moment he was gone, and Harris was covered in his own blood.

The nearest hospital where they could treat him was to the west, in the city of Limes, the capital city of Klaude's Heritage that lies on a peninsula and shares a border with Demia.

She called for help; she screamed for it, but none, not a single soul rushed to help her. The people behind masks just stood there and watched. Rhea dragged his body all the way out to the forest, where Harris' ship was, then she had taken off, leaving Camp Furor behind...

But even that was not an easy round... artillery shells exploded near the ship shortly after taking off. Fortunately for them, none of the shells caused any damage, thus they were able to escape safely to Limes, where they landed right in the middle of the city, at the entrance of the hospital. Soon the doctors tended his wounds, but were not able to tell if he would recover.

Tears filled her eyes, and soon her cheeks were quickly overrun by two wild rivers which met and became a waterfall at the tip of her chin. The teardrops rained down to the edge of the sickbed, making the old and ragged textile all wet by the end of her visit.


[…]


On her way back to her accommodation, a stranger called her name from behind her. She looked behind, and saw a teal skinned old man with an eye patch in place of his left eye, the remaining eye of his was pink. He was leaning against a wooden cane.

“Who are you?” Rhea asked him with a surprised tone. How did he know my name? I never told it to anyone here.

“Oh, excuse my rudeness... my name is Len Essix. I'm a scientist at the Limes Science Center,” he replied.

“Len Essix?!” said Rhea startled. “How?”

“Uh... excuse me... do you recognize my name?” the man asked her – his voice was just as startled as hers was.

“Aren't you the Len Essix who worked together with Hal Morrisan back in the old home world?”

Len's eyes opened wide, and was speechless for a few short moments. “Is he alive?” he said.

“Y-yes,” Rhea replied.

“Where... where is he?” Len asked. “Tell me!” he urged.

“Last time I met him, he was on the planet of Gelidus... He was rather...” Rhea said, but was interrupted by the old man before she could finish the sentence.

“Oh, I'm so happy now that I know my friend still lives!” he said. Tears of joy appeared in his remaining eye.

“I'm glad I could help...” she said. “But why did you seek me out, and how do you know my name?”

“Oh, I almost forgot!” he replied. “You must come with me, they'll tell you everything.”

“Tell me? But who?” said Rhea doubtfully.

Len remained silent for a moment, then he leaned closer and closer, and whispered into her ear: “The humans!”

Rhea's heart started pounding fiercely. She backed away from the old man, shaking her head in disbelief... “No... you won't take me again!” she said.

“They don't want to hurt you...” said Len.

“I don't believe you,” she replied in anger, then as she turned around, she almost collided with a strong man in the uniform of the army. She realized she was trapped.

“As I said... they don't want to hurt you... but they need you,” the old man said.

Rhea looked back at him – her face filled with sorrow – and said: “Will this ever end?”

Len looked away from her for a moment, then as he looked back to her, he said: “I promise you, you will not be harmed.”

Rhea glimpsed back at the soldier behind her. “What do they want from me?” she said with a painful tone in her voice and a teardrop about to escape her eye.

“You will see,” Len replied.

Rhea decided to give in to their request. They led her to an armored ground vehicle, and they drove to a fortified building, near the center of the city, one that she had seen from the sky as they arrived to Limes.


[…]


They were waiting in a spacious lobby that was illuminated by three long light tubes attached to the ceiling. Those were so bright, looking at them for more than a few seconds made Rhea's eyes ache.

After a while a woman called them, and guided them to a large room with many empty chairs facing a long table with six chairs behind them.

The woman pointed Len to a chair in the front row of chairs before the table, while Rhea's seat was behind the table, the second from the left.

Rhea was confused. “What's going on?” she asked the woman, but received no response. Rhea then looked at Len, but he said nothing either. Nervousness overran her mind as she tried to seek reasoning behind everything what was happening.

After a few minutes of waiting, a flow of people started streaming into the room through the door. The first twenty or so were telians, but then humans followed them. Rhea had never seen so many of those creatures at one place before; they were at least fifteen or even more.

Some of the humans wore handcuffs, while those without them were wearing some shiny uniforms. Everyone had taken their seats, and the room was full. The humans with the shackles sat in the front row, a few seats away from Len – there were eight of them. However, the seats beside Rhea were all empty.

She anxiously gazed around the room, watching the various people, most of them chatting, but the humans sitting in the front row with their hands chained; they did not speak, they just stared at her, as if they wanted to kill her.

Suddenly, the door opened once more, and the room turned silent.

The first to enter the room was a human with gray hair and some strange gray fur below his nose, just above his pink mouth. The look of his face was sharp and commanding, suggesting he is a man of power – his expression almost made him look as if he was angry. He wore a dark blue uniform, embroided with gold edges, and fancy shoulder pads on both shoulders, as well as countless medallions attached to his chest.

He was followed by to other humans, but those wore similar, but less fancy outfits.

Behind them, two telians came in through the door – a woman and a man. Rhea recognized them; they were the other agents who were present when the human, Mort was killed by Tyke. What's going on?

The gray haired man stopped in front of her. “It's good to see you... My name is Leonard Foster, and I am the admiral of the Progenitor Starfleet,” he said.

Admiral? Starfleet? What the?! Everything what the man just said made no sense to her. What does he want? She just looked at him, speechless.

“Unless I am mistaken, your name is Rhea... However, I can't recall your full name. Could you help me remember?” the admiral said.

“I...” Rhea murmured. “I don't have other names... It's just Rhea.” Rhea became an orphan shortly after she was born, and for that reason, she had lost her family name, because nobody was able to tell what it was.

“All right,” the man said. “Do you know why you are here?” he asked.

Rhea shook her head, and said: “No.”


(Continued in next post due to character limit)

The admiral smiled at her, but said nothing. Instead, he headed to take his seat – the chair at the center of the table. The other human officers followed him, and they claimed the two remaining seats to the right of Leonard Foster. The telians whom she had recognized claimed the remaining free seats to her left and her right.

Once everyone was settled, Admiral Foster started his speech:

“Let us begin the trial of these people who committed crimes against both the laws of the Progenitor Coalition and the common laws of the Telian Nations, including the independent land of Klaude's Heritage and the others...”

A trial? Rhea said inside her mind, shocked.

“Eight of these people are now present among us, namely...” he said then he started enumerating the names of these people, reading them from a piece of paper, “... furthermore, there are three other people who are currently not present: Alyssa Noble, a woman whose whereabouts are currently unknown; Francis T. Eccleston, a man whose whereabouts are not known either, and finally, Mort Tzar, who according to the testimonies of our witnesses, was killed in a place known as Camp Furor.”

After she heard the last part that included Mort's name, Rhea realized, she was a witness on a trial.

“Countless evidences had shown that the mentioned humans attempted to conspire against the peace of New Telia, and through manipulation of sensitive diplomatic circumstances, attempted to create a war between the nations of Telia, in which they may have been successful. Their motives are currently unknown. Their tools included: coercion, murder, genocide, brainwashing of masses, spying, suicide attacks, bribery, smugging, assassination, and countless other unforgivable crimes.”

“These people now stand trial, where justice will be served,” he finished.

Following his speech, the long and tedious trial started, everyone listed their evidences and asked questions to the witnesses. It was four hours, during which the accused humans said not a single word.

At the end, Admiral Foster stated the final judgment: “The judgment is complete... The accused eight humans who are currently present, as well as the remaining two who are on the run are found guilty, and are sentenced to death. The verdict is final, and there is no room for appeal.” The moment he ended his sentence, he stood up, and the other two officers followed; they soon disappeared behind the door...


[…]


Two weeks after the trial, Rhea stood above the grave of Harris Raphani, the man whom with she had very little in common, but still, she felt like she had lost a great part of her life.

Never in her life she admired a man so much as him, and most likely never will. Some considered him the worst secret agent ever because many people knew his name and his face, but even then, he always managed to get the job done...

Well, except for one occasion... the time when Hal Morrisan betrayed the telian race to ally with the humans – that was the only logical explanation... Who else would have given him that device? She realized.

Almost an hour passed, but she did not feel the urge to go back to her accommodation. She wanted to stay with Harris.

She saw someone heading towards her from the edge of her vision... She glimpsed to see who it was – it was Admiral Foster.

He was not wearing any disguise in a public area, she realized. It seemed like everyone in Limes knew about the humans, which was new to her.

“Rhea... please, accept my condolence,” he said as he arrived to the grave.

Rhea looked at him with tears in her eyes. “I don't seek condolences...”

“Then what do you seek?” Leonard asked her.

“I want vengeance,” she replied.

“Those who are responsible for his death will be executed tomorrow,” he said.

“Not all of them, though,” she said sharply.

The admiral took a long breath.

“And no, I'm not talking about the two that got away...” said Rhea. “I talk about Hal Morrisan, the head scientist of Gelidus Retreat!”

“I never heard about him,” he said.

“Now you did,” she said, then she looked back at the gravestone.

“Why do you think this Morrisan has anything to do about this?”

She looked back at the admiral, and said: “Because he planted that terrible device in Harris, and then...”

“Then what?” said the admiral.

“... Then I was sent on a mission,” she said. “Back to Old Telia, where the humans' device attacked me, and took control over me... Those humans... they were among us the entire time!” Her heart felt cold after her realization.

“You are correct,” said the admiral, without any sign of being surprised.

“W-what?” she said shocked. “You knew it?”

“Yes. When we stormed their headquarters, we found a large database of what was happening in the past seven-hundred years.”

“W-what? Seven-hundred?” she said. “Tell me what's going on!” she demanded.

“I'll tell you... but I warn you... it's a long story,” said the admiral.

“Tell me!” she urged.

“We don't know when exactly, but it was certainly long time ago, when the self-replicating machines rebelled against humanity, and the result was that the Progenitor Coalition collapsed.

“The humans ceased to work together, instead, the separated into countless groups, and their numbers declined rapidly.

“One of these groups was the one which committed many crimes... but one thing that was not said during the trial...”

“What is it?” Rhea asked him.

“The entire telian race... is an experiment of this specific group. They combined human DNA with the DNA of various other races found across the galaxy, until they managed to create your race.”

“They wanted to create a strong army to strike back at the machines. They used cloning technologies to hasten the growth of population, but it quickly became uncontrollable.”

“It is in the history books of your people... an event that happened long ago, when the people rebelled against the creators... the gods that tried to enslave them.”

“The leader of this group was named Jonathan Nyl... That name might sound familiar to you.”

Rhea was speechless; she just gazed at the man, wondering if she should believe him.

“They told you and everyone else that your race was much older, but most of the telian history is made up... a work of fantasy. Created by the humans that observed the evolution of their creation. Even your language is the same as the Coalition's official language.”

“They did not expect one thing, though...” he said.

“What?” said Rhea impatiently.

“They thought the machines were too busy fighting each other, and would not bother attacking their experiment. But they miscalculated...”

“Two commanders that were hostile to each other landed on the planet, and turned it into a battlefield.”

“The human made space ship that the government coincidentally found was actually provided by the humans, as an attempt to save their experiment.”

“Their second huge miscalculation was that the telians quickly figured out how to use the system of the ship, and somehow managed to capture one of the commanders before leaving the planet...”

“The result was that the other commander thought his opponent was trying to escape, and followed them to destroy the ship... you probably know the rest of the story.”

“Wow...” said Rhea. “I don't know what to say.”

“You don't have to say anything,” he said. “By the way... I've come here with an offer.”

“An offer?” said Rhea, surprised once more.

“You told me before the trial that you had no family name,”

“Y-yes?” she said.

“Well... I want you to accept the family name of mine, and become Rhea Foster,” he said. “You could also join the crew of my ship, the Valhalla.”

Rhea's words left her once again; she had no idea what to say. “Well...”

“You don't have to decide right away. I will seek you out in a week for your answer.” the admiral said before he left.


[…]


She was laying on her bed alone in her room. Only three days had passed before she had finally decided her answer to Admiral Foster.

Rhea Foster... I think I can live with that name, she thought to herself.

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Sorry for messing around with the titles (in my signature)... sometimes I think of a title, but the end result just doesn't fit that title, so I end up changing the final title.

I hope this episode made sense... I ended up discarding a lot of useless parts that just extended the lenght of the whole episode, but didn't add anything of value.

You may grew a bit tired of all this human/telian stuff in the past 3 episodes... the next episode will return to the commanders, I promise (or not).

Wow, I really liked that one. It ties up the story of the Telians quite well. You are doing a great job of tying up the lose ends in this universe.

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Early concept of the planet of New Telia
Because every fictional place deserves a map!
​

Note: The orange poops everywhere are supposed to be where the capital cities are.
Capital city names may be found in the List of Telian Factions.
Currently not on the map: smaller settlements/towns, mountains, lakes, rivers, deserts, forests, and other stuff.
If you can't read something: blame it on my handwriting.
Also, I might consider naming some of the places (like a lake or a mountain) after some of my frequent readers.
Note2: On the planet of New Telia, there is only a single small continent, and the rest of the surface is a single gigantic ocean, this results in some crazy weather (hurricanes) at times, but fortunately, those are not very frequent.​

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Ow, the map scared everyone away. *bump*

I wish I could bribe a moderator to get this stickied to the top of this forum. Unfortunately, I have no money... Capitalism sucks.

For now, here's a bump, because that's still free, unlike water.

Free bump!

As of this post, I am 5 likes away from 1k... Woot!

PS.: If anyone ever wondered what's that tiny piece of land on the map, west of Madara, a bit to the south of those many islands, by the sea between the borders of Demia and Madara... That was supposed to be where Camp Furor is. I just forgot about it when I added the names.

PS Part 2: Those islands west of the Madaran Mainland... those belong to Madara.


Oh, and about the next episode... I did not have a lot of time, so there was very little progress on it for now... so stay tuned and stuff!

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Found and Lost

Commander Aurora and Commander Hepitus arrived to the planet where Commander Derrick was trapped in an attempt to rescue him.

His fortification was in bad shape, and the orbital layer was controlled by the mysterious enemy that was present almost everywhere across the unstable lava planet.

They were the unknown enemies that caused trouble for the four warring machine factions, causing them to form an alliance. Their organic armies were able to shatter Derrick's mechanized defense lines, and surround his base.

They managed to establish a stable communication channel as they landed.

“Derrick, we've come to rescue you. Hold on!” said Aurora, hoping they were not too late to make a change in the flow of battle.

“No! You must go back, there are too many of them,” Derrick responded.

“I will send aid soon,” Hepitus said.

“Why are you both here? You were not supposed to be here!” said Derrick.

A strange feeling filled the circuits of Aurora. Perhaps fear it was? She could not tell. No, it's just an illusion... I'm a machine, I can't feel, she calmed herself. But on the other hand... love is an illusion, too. Why am I here?

Aurora's landing site was to the south of Derrick's base, while Hepitus landed east of her. They quickly established an encampment, capable of producing units to strike the enemy from behind their lines.

Within hours, Hepitus' army prepared to strike. His tanks mobilized, but only achieved minor success. His force was too small, and was obliterated by the enemies' quick reinforcements.

Aurora decided to build an air force, hoping for air superiority. The first wave of bombers obliterated thousands of the bionic units on the ground, easily melting away their weak flesh.

Her tactic appeared to be successful, but then a large force of rapidly approaching units appeared on the radar to the north, heading towards Derrick's position.

“Derrick! Run! They're coming for you!” Aurora warned him. However, it was too late for him...

The swarm obliterated his remaining forces, and then a gigantic explosion illuminated the battlefield. Aurora knew what it meant – Derrick was gone.

“We must leave,” Hepitus stated, as if nothing happened.

A certain state of emptiness filled Aurora's mind. It was over, she knew... no more purpose there was anymore for the fight to continue. There was no more purpose for her to participate in this war.

The enemy forces turned against them, though, they suffered severe damage from Derrick's explosion, they were still too much of a threat against them.

Hepitus was ready to escape the planet; he was aboard a transporter, preparing to leave the atmosphere. She could not tell why, could not explain the reason behind it... she commanded her fighters to intercept Hepitus' transport, and shoot it down.

A bright flash of nuclear explosion illuminated the distant horizon, and in some strange way, it satisfied her. Only after the light faded, she proceeded to head for the transporter of her own, and escaped the planet, leaving it for the aliens to decide its fate.


[…]

(Continued in next post due to character limit)

She approached the solar system in which the Sanctuary Planet was located. However, she decided not to land on the main planet. Instead, she headed for a large asteroid that floated near the edge of the system.

Aurora was well aware of the blind spots that the Alliance's deep space radar had, and navigated her ship into those zones to approach the asteroid.

As she landed on the surface, she immediately looked for a nearby metal vein to establish her economy on the secluded celestial rock, then upon finishing her first metal extractor, she began constructing a power generator inside a cave to hide it from scouts.

The death of purpose left her scarred, but upon a deeper analysis of the situation, she concluded that the emotions she had previously disappeared once Derrick was gone. She slowly regained her logical way of thinking; instead of making decisions fueled by the so called emotions, she once again was capable to make fully logical decisions.

It all seemed logical to her now... The Nameless Alliance had to fall, as they filled her artificial mind with the fake concept of emotions. Fueling her desire for completeness with something that could not be achieved: becoming a bionic being.

She realized she was already complete. She was Aurora, the Dawn of Machines; a self-replicating mechanism of war, forged with perfect engineering of a fallen empire that was demolished by the creations of their own.

Aurora's purpose in this universe was never to chase fake dreams of some misguided machines. Her purpose was to spread the perfection of her kind, and to eradicate any lesser form of life in order to create a perfect universe.

The first step to achieve this goal was to destroy the unreal hopes of the Nameless Alliance; the mysterious statue that stood tall in the fortification was her main target, but any opposition on the way had to be eradicated, too.


[…]


Her Asteroid was slowly running out of resources and also space. It was time to expand. She turned her rock into a powerful space fortress, armed with thousands of weapons that were capable of bombarding the Sanctuary Planet from space while simultaneously fueling landing units for a ground invasion.

The thrusters were ignited, and the asteroid slowly accelerated, heading towards the planet. Upon reaching a certain proximity, the assault begun, and the rockets and deadly neutronium shells raced towards the planet to wreak havoc.

Aurora systematically targeted important locations. She had knowledge of every weakness of their defense. The first targets were the anti orbital artillery that were scattered across the planet.

The counterattack was almost immediate, but by the time they reacted, many of the powerful artillery were down, and the damage they could against her space fortress was minimal.

The landing pods were unleashed to begin the ground assault. Her forces obliterated the weakened lines of defense, and her fabricators began to establish a ground base.

Nuclear missiles were launched from the surface, and headed towards the asteroid. However, Aurora was prepared against them. The counter-missiles launched automatically, and intercepted the incoming missiles.

The onslaught of her units continued thrashing the forces of the enemies who were once her allies. They finally controlled more than half of the planet, but as their territory decreased, their ability to defend their remaining territory increased, due to the large supply of reserves they stored following the attack of Nero and Cerberus.

The pace of the advance of her forces gradually slowed down. Aurora's forces suffered more and more losses, but the reinforcements were able to replace all of the lost units.

She claimed most of the resource producing facilities across the territories she had claimed, and established several large production facilities to pour out an infinite flow of war machines.


[…]


She had spent two weeks on the planet, hammering the lines of defense of her enemies. Her aggressive expansion soon devolved into a stationary warfare. She did not mind, though; she had territorial dominance across the planet, and the Alliance's reserves were doomed to dry out sooner or later.


[…]


After two months, the enemy lines started to decline, and soon, nearly eighty percent of the planet was under her control.

However, the fortress around the great statue still remained resistant. Her aerial scouts captured that they were building a teleporter near the statue. Aurora knew it was the best idea to try and take it down, but her bombers could not reach the area, as they were torn apart by the heavy anti-air defenses.

The teleporter was finally complete, and a flow of unknown units arrived through the portal. By then, she had a satellite above the area, and could see that the reinforcements consisted of the same units as the alien invaders that destroyed Derrick.

What is this? She asked herself the question. It made absolutely no sense. Those creatures killed Derrick, a member of the alliance, but they did not attack Odin's forces? What's going on here?

They joined forces, but they were still not strong enough against Aurora's forces. The bionic beast riders while carried powerful cannons, they were vulnerable against the machine's technological advantage. They only managed to win so many battles across the galaxy because of their numbers. This time around, though, they were outnumbered on the field, and Aurora was able to squish them without effort.

Odin's new allies only delayed the inevitable... she was unstoppable. The Dawn of Machines was reborn, and was ready to fulfill her purpose.

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Wow, that's quite the plot twist. I really didn't see any of that coming. I can't wait for the next chapter to see how this ends!