Rascal
Lore Committee
Posts: 120
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Post by Rascal on Jun 17, 2018 8:41:28 GMT
I've been wanting to post this log / short story for a while, but never really got around to it. As written in the State of the Federation Timeline ov events thread, one of the main catalysts to cause the UFP / TF rift, was the exposure of Section 31's mass genocide of the Twissel people, later reversed by the action of USS Bremen, and later leaked throughout known space through the Twissel report.
Timeline entry snippet:
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July 2395
The USS Bremen, following the urging of Tactical Officer Andrew Harlan, investigates Twissel, a planetary disaster site. Its twelve billion inhabitants were wiped out by a nova event of their parent star, several years ago. Harlan reveals his true identity as Cix Jordaïn, an El-Aurian AWOL Starfleet Admiral and former Section 31 operative who explains that Twissel was shifted into subspace as a result of secret weapon tests by Section 31, interacting with a regular coronal castoff by the planet's star. A reclusive, yet highly advanced people, the Twisselians were percieved by Section 31 as a guaranteed future threat to the Federation. After a failed attempt at controlling the planet through political infiltration, Twissel aithorities expel all UFP representatives and declares a state of defense. Section 31, desperate to cover up their failure and intent on preventing escalation, decide to eradicate the Twissel people altogether, covering their genocidal actions under the inherent instability of the system's star. After some debate, Captain Sara Sumner consents with Jordaïn's plan to recreate the incident in order to rescue the people of Twissel. The plan is a success, but the Bremen is heavily damaged in the process.
Captain Sumner allows Jordaïn, technically a fugitive, to escape with a shuttle.
After the rescue, a ceremony is held in the Bremen's honor by Admiral Elsbeth Bantree.
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The following story relates the event of Section 31's genocide itself, taking place in 2389, as seen from the viewpoint of the Twisselian governor for the world's Southern continent, and an idea of how they managed their shifting to the subspace pocket from which they'd be saved later by USS Bremen.
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Rascal
Lore Committee
Posts: 120
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Post by Rascal on Jun 17, 2018 8:43:43 GMT
Preface
This was the official entry for the Noÿs system, home to the planet Twissel, in the UFP central database, up until the exposure of Section 31's genocide, as fabricated by SFI as a coverup.
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Official status on the Noÿs system, situation valid for sd115xx.xx (Earth year 2393):
Noÿs is an unstable blue giant star accompanied by Noÿs A, a variable neutron star drawing mass and thus energy away from the main star. An irregular nova binary, it varies weekly in visual magnitude by a factor 2.2, with irregular outbursts when the dwarf component gets oversaturated by the unstable matter flow from Noÿs proper. On the outer edge of the habitable belt, a single rocky planet orbits the star. The inhabitants called themselves Twisselians, their planet name being Twissel. Population census on sd10812.01: 11 billion. Highly developed technology, warp - possibly transwarp - capable, but the ruling majority was religiously inclined against off-world travel. Their planet was their prime god, whom they were required to touch directly in daily prayer. Turned down invitation to join the UFP on numerous occasions, remaining unaffiliated. On sd10909.30, the photon output of the Noÿs system increased with a factor of two million, making the neutron star visible to the naked eye across the quadrant for the best part of two days. Concurrent cessation of long distance communication lead to scientific missions by several regional powers. Twissel was found devoid of life, it's surface charred to glass and dust, atmospheric pressure halved - rated breathable for maximum three hours. Current consensus among scientists is that Noÿs A exhibited an irregular nova burst, shedding it's own outer layer, affecting the area up to a two light year radius (estimate).
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Rascal
Lore Committee
Posts: 120
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Post by Rascal on Jun 17, 2018 8:49:22 GMT
Fire, part 1.
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Twissel, stardate 10909.30, six years before the arrival of USS Bremen.
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Vikkor got home from his meeting far past sunset, straight into a gulf of reproach from his wife Eris. He sighed, dropped his satchel next to the coat hanger and ruffled his graying hair, then took a Seabeer from the chiller and plopped down in the sofa. He let her ramble on until she had blown off enough steam, before even bothering to look her in the eyes, which sat elegantly in her spotless oval face.
She stood there silent, arms crossed and looking quite cross, too.
Vikkor - the Lambentir family head - took a decent swig from his can of cold beer and seemed to stare beyond his wife's ice blue eyes. After sixteen years of daily discussions, he still loved her dearly. His face didn't show anger, or even annoyance, because he understood why she yelled at him every day. As a devout Noÿsian parishioner she had all the right to be mad. These ideas he and his friends were now discussing again were indeed wholly incompatible with the True Writings. Also, last month's shocking developments had narrowed Twissel's planetwide political playing field by a landslide margin. The Fed puppets filtered out, both PROGRIV and ISOLA alliances beheaded, the new (interim) Unified Central government preached total independance. Yet, with the promise of intermediary elections in the forseeable future, Vikkor saw an opportunity to rally all free minded voters to his otherwise minor party's cause.
"Vik, I.. I" "I know, dear."
She knew what he and his comrades were striving to accomplish, and that it was for the good of everyone. Her faith kept her from admitting it, but offworld trade had the potential to economically reunite the continents, end their nonsensical protectionism, stabilize prices and help lower her nativeSouth Cap continent's insanely high food import tax. The poor and forgotten would get a decent chance to rise off of her parish's rationing roll. But for all of that to happen, many Twisselians would have to forego the daily greeting, being away for more that one day and thus not having Twisselian dirt underneath their knees. In her eyes, they would have to trade the faith for, well, trade, and that was clearly unacceptable.
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The high council had tried attracting foreign traders since pre-Dominion times, but except for the occasional passing ragtag privateer with his pet, no Talarian, Cardassian or Ferengi wanted to venture anywhere near Noÿs and be stuck there for a week while their holds were being unloaded. Not near The Son of Noÿs, to be more specific. He was an erratic kid alright, being a high density variable with regular neurton outbursts. Only the Feds had come to seek alliance, but that had been proven not to be for the benefit of Twissel at all.
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Supper had come and gone before they spoke again.
Eris' hearty root vegetable and beer stew was Vikkor's favourite weeknight dish, and his manner of eating (and his help in clearing the table afterwards) were relaxing to her, so she slipped into a more peaceful state. Ofcourse it was done deliberately, he knew her well. They'd be able to discuss delicate matters without being led by strong emotions now. Sat near the fire, it was him who broke the three hour long silence, in a surprisingly cheerful tone.
"We spoke about the nature of the Morning Greeting today. It was pretty funny at times, actually. At one point, Norik suggested we should just tow the whole planet along, whenever we'd want to visit another world. Ha!"
She smiled briefly but didn't speak.
"Well, we could, obviously, but the rest of us agreed it would be bad manners, showing up for trade meetings like that."
Nothing but a blank stare from Eris, to which Vikkor blinked and sighed before carrying on.
"Anyway. The current consensus among most of our group, and likely across the width of the party, is that reverend R'athara's proposal was sound. The book of Laya, verse ten, ask us to 'Kneel and behold my foundation, recognise my being..' etcetera... Never does it mention Twissel itself, though."
Still not speaking, Eris' face showed a hint of curiosity, or confusion. He couldn't really tell tonight, strangely.
"His proposed interpratation is that we're asked to greet the ground, the turf and sand of our home, not the whole planet underneath it. In this way, it would be sanctioned to offer the Prayer of Respect in a soil room, love. On a space ship! With this backward issue finally resolved, we are confident the public will vote for us en masse and then pass our constitutional reform bill. People who so desire will have open skies at last. Space, Eris, without defying Laya or Noÿs! Even you can see the benifits in that, can't you?"
The governor's wife looked down and shrugged before answering.
“I don’t know, Vik. I really don’t know. My mind recognises the logic, but my heart says it’s wrong. I did economics and all that, so I get the reasons, but you know the temp governement won’t allow such talk all over the air during the Three Hundred Day Campaign. They'd accuse us of being Fed puppets and get you guys scrapped off election lists... It's bad enough as is it now, with ISOLA effectively seizing parliament after what happened last month. Nobody up Central or North will even consider anything interplanetary for the next four or five cycles, not with the way our hospitality has been abused by the Feds. If you push through now with such a progressive set of arguments, we'll get yet another decadium of regret for our party. Another chance to rally for the empoverished communities of the south squandered.
Besides, you know Great Father Mikoryan interprets the scri… Oh!”
A loud clapping sound interrupting their chat, not unlike the cracking of a lightning bolt very near, amplified a dozenfold.
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Rascal
Lore Committee
Posts: 120
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Post by Rascal on Jun 17, 2018 8:51:13 GMT
Fire, part 2. -
As they looked out through the narrow living room windows, there seemed to be an extra light source shimmering high up in the sky, visible through the scattered cloud deck. An alarm sounded behind the door to Vikkor's home office. He quickly made his way over to the console and brought up the alert overview map of the city.
Eris stepped through the front door to gaze upwards, as several people were doing now, despite the hour being a respectable time past midnight.
Provincial governor Vikkor Lambentir dialled up the elevation on his virtual map view and frowed. The usual red circle, on a normal day showing up on the screen around any transmitted police alert, still seemed to encompass his whole city. As the light in the outside sky flared, he could see the scale of whatever was happening on the display before him: the whole planetary map was blinking bright red, white stars dotted all around, evenly spaced above all the lands and seas of Twissel. Then they all blinked away together and his screens turned to static.
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Far away, seemingly in all directions at once, Eris and her fellow onlookers observed a sudden white glow, like a ring light all around the city being turned on. It seemed to keep building brighter, but kept its distance. In place of the shimmering light that hung above them a moment earlier, there was now a dark object, falling slowly and leaving a sputtering trail of sparks and grey smoke, illuminated by the horizon's shine. She didn't notice the outward tug on the higher clouds as they began to disintegrate, since her husband bolted through the open door and passed her with panic written all over his face. She held up her hand and shouted his name, but he only looked over his schoulder without slowing down.
"No time, my love! The parallel gate! I have to try!" Vikkor shouted as he ran off towards Lambent's main square, three blocks away.
Eris lowered her hand, took a deep breath and decided to stay outside while several others were hurrying indoors to put up the storm barricades. Somehow she knew they would not hold anyway.
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This "Federation" had been quite persistant in trying to convince Central that joining their interstellar community would be beneficial for all involved. "Join us, follow our very civilized trade rules, share your very interesting knowledge about all things great and small, and we will try to protect you when anyone who doesn't like you, or us, wants you erased from history."
Right...
Twissel has endured for thousands of Noys cycles in its own peaceful way. The current stellar system had been providing shelter and isolation for nearly ten million of the UFP's standard SOL years, so nobody on the council saw any reason not to continue doing so indefinitely.
"It's very kind of you to offer such services, and we are not necessarily against sharing some knowledge back and forth, or trade some exotic commodities from time to time, but for all other affairs we would rather be left to attend to them in our own, solid ways, thank you."
Three times they had come, the last time with a set of high dignitaries bearing precious gifts from far beyond the core worlds. Again, no treaty was signed. Vikkor was already in office down south when that had happened, and he found the governement foolish in turning away such a chance. He envisioned Twissel as an independent solitary entity, but with a free trade accord with the Federation. Not engage in a full membership, but make a deal. Based on a pledge not to affiliate with other regional or other powers.
Naturally, such proposals were blocked by some clerk not even halfway up the ladder.
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Vikkor Lambentir always had a wandering mind while under intense stress. Not that he wasn't focused, or couldn't prioritise, on the contrary. His mind just got so fired up, it quickly had thinking room to spare. So it always got filled with seemingly random thoughts. Like this reflection on the UPF issue. Useless...
He rounded the left corner at the end of the street and ran on, across the city's main square, and up the stairs of the ornately built governor's palace. In his mad dash for the Gate room, he hadn't noticed the dozens of people out on the cobblestones. They were pointing at the horizon in all directions, its sharp line blurred by what looked like a dark dust storm. To the unaided eye, those clouds were growing. But they weren't, they were speeding across the plains and the sea, whirling up dust and spray as they sped along.
He almost fell while climbing the marble steps, when his shoulder collided with Amares', the janitor. She was less lucky, not finding sure footing on her downward dash and tumbling down the hard rock stairs. He saw her plunging head first, but had already turned forward again, speeding inside. There was no time for stopping.
On through the long corridor, past the triangular meeting halls and up another flight of stairs. He was panting hard while he fumbled with the key on his gold plated titanium necklace, which opened the heavy doors to this continent's Gateway hall. He left the key on the door and bolted through, descending the concentric circular steps down to the ancient polished granite slab, where the dark blue glass control orb hovered about one meter above. A few sparks flickered randomly around a point near the roof. "Good," Vik thought "I'm not the only one to try." He heard a far off rumble seeping in through all those the open doors as he jumped the last step and grabbed the immovable floating object with both hands, feeling its ever soft and peaceful trembles as it made the connection to his thumb rings.
"Please child, don't fail us now..."
A jet of brilliant blue plasma erupted upwards, colliding with the spark point there, blooming out and downward, forming a sphere around the circular floor.
Vikkor squeezed harder, gritted his teeth and hoped enough Linkers had reached their orbs in time.
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Rascal
Lore Committee
Posts: 120
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Post by Rascal on Jun 17, 2018 8:53:57 GMT
Fire, part 3. -
Two years after that last UFP visit, following the crisis caused by their deep infitrarion operation, it had taken less than thirty days for a new set of rulers to assemble into a makeshift cabinet. As soon as SALI sacrified itself and went public to expose two thirds of Central's parliament as the Federation puppets they were, most of the people were outraged and called for total isolation. One forbidden secret service rooting out the other, that was stuff from the movies! A far fetched fantasy, for entertainment only. Except that these offworld infiltrants were very real, and in control of the government as well. Great story for a film, but nobody felt particularly entertained.
A few days later, the remaining representatives from both opposing factions called the nine day meeting that kicked Twissel back to the pre-warp era. Well, that's how Vik saw it anyway.
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Outside near the city's outskirts, just before the skies became gray and brown from the incoming dust clouds, a few hundred people were pointing towards the borough where they thought the gray bulletlike object must have crashed. There hadn't been any crack or boom when it had impacted, not was there light or an explosion to be seen. Only a vertical trail of oily smoke, which dissipated as soon as the dust came rolling in.
Somewhere over the horizon, near sunrise point, another bright light source violently erupted. Different, almost silvery white. The light kept intensifying up to the point where it started to hurt the onlookers' eyes. It filled the skies like Noÿs did every morning, but far brighter now.
They couldn't look at it for long, though. The cloud of sand grains coming in from the other side added to the stinging in their eyes and obscured the sky. The was also something else. A soft vibration. Everyone felt it in their bones and stomac, but none dared to speak of it.
The noise didn't arrive together with the blowing sand. It kept building in volume and harshness, like a shipfull of boulders rolling down a mountainside. Then the ground started trembling as the wall of rock melting heat and darkness reached the city.
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"The roar outside must be deafening", Vikkor thought.
The wide vaulted ceiling of the governate arched high above his head, holding its own for now. A few cracks appeared, but it held.
Around him, the wall colours were changing from their usual splendor of white and gold, swiftly darkening all the way to black with an obsidian shine, reflecting the intensely bright blue flickering of the spacetime distortion that was keeping him alive. He had closed his eyes, but suddenly opened them wide.
Linkers were never alone, there were always two. The tasked one, and one other carrying the backup key. He'd never thought it realistic having to carry out this burden within his life time. Only now, the Governor realized he had doomed his beloved wife, without her knowing.
Back at the house, Eris, now the only soul left in the street, calmly got down on her knees and neatly folded her tunic skirt over her lap, just like she was used to doing each morning. Bowing forward and placing her steady hands together on the warming garden soil, she closed her eyes and began to recite the Laya Laments in a whisper, inaudible to anyone but her and the world godess herself. Then the passing heat front took her atoms apart, fused the ground to her marriage ring.
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Noon had passed before Vikkor dared to let go of the globe. As prescribed, he slid both hands upward until the rings touched. He wachted both of them dissolve into powdery dust, the globe itself following shortly after. Then the energy field winked away and the lower air pressure on the outside caused Vik's ears to pop so hard his drums ruptured. He screamed and bent down, clasping his head and gasping for breath. The pressure difference left him deaf, insecure on his feet and a little nauseous, but he could still feel air in his lungs.
He made his way towards the building's exit, clambering up and down the stairs, over pieces of fallen marble ceiling slabs, to the light that seeped into the broad entrance gate. The granite doors had held, ajar, but were now immovable, frozen in place. Burned, rather. Everything felt the same to his touch: smooth, hard, glassy.
Vikkor stepped through the half open door and felt his eyes, mouth and nostrils burn with each breath. The dust that whirled everywhere seemed to consist of miniature glass splinters, so he pulled up his neck scarf, trying to filter it out. Almost nothing stood upright anymore, only the strongest, olders buidings and monuments hadn't been completely toppled. Nothing remained of the scarce southern vegetation. All the shrubs were gone, so was the grass, and the soil they grew on.Everything he saw was black and glistened in Noÿs' glare. He felt her rays burn sharper than before, another sure sign that an important slice of the planet's atmosphere was gone. He knew that looking for Eris was futile and would only add to his already immesureable grief, so he frowned and headed for where he though the object from the sky had fallen.
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He felt unusually warm in his thermal underwear, synthetic shirt and bark-wool sweater. This far south, the climate had never allowed for the single layer clothing style of the equatorial continent, where the sun always rose straight up. Vik's sweating only increased, soaking his already damp shirt until it stuck to his frightened and goosebumped skin. The thin air was causing his blood cells to slowly desaturate as the inevitable hypoxia took hold. Glass dust stung his skin and eyes. The skin on the hand that held his scarf felt more and more raw with every step he took.
Once he was close enough, Vikkor spotted some sort of crater rim, albeit only a few dozen meters across. It stood out from the flat suburb this area used to be, since there was nothing else left standing to obscure it. Once there, he peered over the pit edge and saw the object. It had crashed onto soft soil, so it's metallic casing seemed virtually intact, albeit buried underneath a layer of darkly stained transparent glass. Through the shimmering surface, parts of a line of words were vaguely readable: '...eration of plan...'.
Vikkor fell to his knees, both from the buildup of lactic acid in his cramping muscles and from the emotional defeat he felt. He could only wait. Sit and wait until he'd run out of air. Wait to meet the Godesses. And Eris. Maybe. The only positive element he felt, far away in the background of his being, was a shard of hope that the Linkers' sacrifice might not have been in vain.
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Less than two hundred million kilometers farther out, the Defiant class starship USS Lítost made an emergency turn at high impulse, trying to outrun the unexpected neutron bombardment from the Noÿs binary star system's dwarf companion.
The obliterators had been set to detonate coinciding with the peak of that collapsed neutron ball's mid term, aimed at sealing the redundant transwarp entry gate in stellar orbit. Yet, the viewscreen had remained still at the instant Jordaïn pushed the button, those hellish devices having been shifted into Twisselian low orbit overnight by The Section itself.
When the neutron star's clock-regular nova point spiked way off the scale, the immense photon overload had actually fried the viewscreen itself and had pushed the Lítost out of stable stellar orbit. Not long before the gravitational shock wave would catch up, the skeleton crew's science officer called out a mark for clearing this warp unfriendly subspace region, and the vessel jumped away at its navigator's touch. In the back of the bridge, behind the captain's chair, a Starfleet Admiral sagged to his knees, buried his face in his hands.
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Rascal
Lore Committee
Posts: 120
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Post by Rascal on Feb 6, 2019 18:58:30 GMT
Three years ago, two months after Stardate 11602.11
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E5.C1.D1
District Five, Salosar city Seat of the Governate, the Faith, Global Banking and the Regulations office Capital of Twissel
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KNOCK!
"Today, on the the sixty second day After Rebirth, the council presents the New Statement to the population, whereby, abiding the book of Noys, the population shall live. Foundation Law is passed, all notions accepted."
KNOCK!
"Let it be known."
KOCK!
"Thus we enter the Fifth Era of Twissel, may it last as long as the First."
KNOCK!
The crowded room echoed in chorus: "Let it be known!"
Outside, on the freshly paved Fifth Square of Solace, in front of the building site for the new Grand Governate palace, twenty two million voices erupted.
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Halfway across the globe, watching the live broadcast next to the gentle fire in her parents' front sitting room, five year old Naissa set her hebitual inquisitive frown and turned around to shout across the hall into the kitchen, where the house's only other TV set was playing just as loudly.
"Mommy? Mommy!" "Yes, little sugarloaf?" "What's an eera?"
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E5.C1.D2, before dawn.
Salosar City centre, hub of The Faith.
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The top ring of the grand subterranean amphitheatre was seeing the last few dozen of the eleven thousand attendees trickle their way up the staircase towards the cathedral's bulk. Their slippers shuffling on marble sounded like a library room filled with newspaper readers. Or like money, to some knowledgeable ears, rather. The religious institute never asked, but always received generously. All the more this morning.
Down at the bottom level, the twelve Presiders watched them file out, with patience. The Scripture required the dozen to stay until the assembly was cleared entirely, and then until sunrise. Ronas Antoranir, Presider of the northeast, aid to the new Lord Mayor of the port city of Antora (his son, Ronas II), had had a difficult time hiding his dismay during the strictly scripted five hour long gathering of The Seat. Now, with the crowd out of earshot, he turned towards the other faith keepers and rasped his voice, feeling compelled to spit his commentary.
"Well, well then... For the first time since The Link was forged, the Ones That Died have lived through The Humble Times and into Rebirth. Remarkable! Rather difficult to start over with a clean slate when the populace remembers the errors of the previous era, is it not? I'm telling you, we should have just let Noys pull us back to reality when she herself felt we were ready for it. Not a day earlier!"
Newly elected Supreme Presider Ulucanth wouldn't have it. Not after this night of feasting, celebrating and renewal.
"We couldn't have prevented what happened, Ronas. Even with all the links rebuilt, we wouldn't have been strong enough as a people."
Ronas shrugged and wallowed in his guilt ridden mood, mumbling to himself.
Evocative western presider Paryn Melnok arched his brow, though. Always eager to taunt Ulucanth, once a close college comrade. "You're saying we are weak, brother?" He winked, but then turned to Ronas with an expression of both irritation and genuine concern. "Antoranir, you come here to spew insult at the watchers of The Faith, a day after the fifth founding? Come, you must be tired. Get some sleep, friend."
"He's right, though."
They all turned towards that creaky, yet commanding voice. Everyone always did when the Supreme Elder spoke. He had been chief of the Faith for decades, after all.
"We should not be here. In this place a,d at this time, feasting. To rust away in humbleness, that's what our purpose should have been, and was! Until the unimaginable happened." Grandmaster Hiellas let his words ring out, up over the seating terraces, his gaze following all the way until they gently echoed away through the gigantic vaulted ceiling's open roof. Bright stars twinkled above, where there had been nothing but dark blue, rather featureless swirling, up until the sudden unexpected and unsolicited Rebirth event, sixty three days ago.
Resentment towards those very stars, or the people among them rather, had become nestled deeply in the populace's core. Nobody dared speak of it under Noys' First Breath of this new era yet. Three more days...
The silence lay heavy like a dense smoke, hovering above the obsidian floor for a long, drawn out moment.
"And yet, here we are, brethren." Hiellas' old voice said, suddenly lighter in tone and rhythm, "Come, I bet the twelve of us can empty that barrel of fine red before the suns rise."
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Post by Einar on Feb 7, 2019 10:48:13 GMT
...more!
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