Kriegere

[Guest Public Enemy #1 Levy]

Two warriors battle relentlessly in the plain.

One, a woman in thin armor covering most of her body except he lower legs and forearms. The armor was tinted blue as it shown in the late afternoon sun. Her face was covered with a cloth which wrapped around her face and dangled behind her. Her weapons were massive crescent-moon shaped blades strapped to her arms. The blades were just as beautiful as they were deadly, they were stained red from years of slaying. The intricate designs and gaps in the blade helped her swing them with full force yet still remain balanced and stable. The blades were as long as she was tall after all. If she would stand straight with her arms at her sides the blades would extend passed her shoulders and the other end would come close to the ground. Her hair was blonde and was dirty and tangled. It came down over her shoulders and laid on her back. Her eyes were deep dull shades of gray and her Caucasian skin was sun-burnt in several places along her legs and arms as well as her forehead and neck.

Her opponent, a tall man in full body armor. His armor was tinted black and was covered in cracks and scrapes. The crescent blades had been leaving their mark. His armor was lighter around his arms and shoulders, being mostly just hardened leather covered in a light plate. This allowed perfect movement of his arms and let him wield his weapon. They dangled from his hands as he clenched them, a long metallic chain. Each link was bladed and therefore deadly to both he and his opponent. The gloves he wore were only hard leather but in many layers but still not the best of protection. One wrong move and he could decapitate himself. His helmet rested on his head, hiding his hair and leaving his eyes in shadow. His helmet didn't cover his mouth however, being this his only fatal opening he protects it constantly and attacks between blocks. A blue cape dangles behind him and is torn and tattered.

"You will die this day!" He shouted at her.

"I will make you pay for killing my husband!" She cried out and lunged at him.

He countered and struck back with fierce force, throwing several time but each attack being blocked by the crescent blades. The weapons sparked brightly with each recoil.

"I will kill you for killing my wife!" He shouted and struck a blow to her arm, causing a wound. But the attack left him open and she brought a blade down on him, breaking some of his leg armor and forcing blood to up well from the wound.

Each were hurt and each ignored the pain and went back to swinging their weapons at the other and blocking well.

He threw another wound to her body, her waist this time. She managed a cut across the chest piece he wore. She cut a large chunk of armor from his body, revealing a mesh of chainmail with pale-white Caucasian skin underneath.

They continued swinging and dodging. well into the night, even by the moon's light they fought. Both bloody and weak, yet unwilling to surrender. They breathed heavily spat blood.

"In this last swing! YOU WILL DIE!" They screamed in unison and ran at one another. In a bright flash of light, the sound a metal to metal, blood to blood. They were back to back.

His helmet began to crack and fragment, slowly falling off.

Her scarf saw its last tear and shredded off her face.

They fell back to back and looked at one another. Their eyes in shock.

"Levy?" She said in disbelief.

"Kait?" He said in disbelief as well.

They embraced each other in dirt and blood under the full moon.

 

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

 

The world of Kriegere is a warrior world ravaged by war, flesh, and tyranny.

It was this tyranny which pitted lovers against each other. Being told one kingdom killed their loves, they both set out to kill the military leader of the opposing kingdom. Now they have realized the betrayal of their former masters and have infiltrated the kingdom of Hoelle. Together they plan to kill the king and destroy the city.

Hoelle is a desert kingdom in the middle of the Southern Tieflands. They are both dressed in desert robes and don't hide their weapons. Kait wields her badly damaged crescent blades and Levy's bladed chains are wrapped around his shoulder across his chest and resting on his waist.

 

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

 

A great example of Kait's blades: http://arctic-sekai.deviantart.com/art/Lets-Dance-40889703

I think you can figure out how Levy's chains look.

 

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

 

Also an alternative of the beginning: http://levy-wilson.deviantart.com/art/Krie...Deaths-79054639

 

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

 

((Pop in anytime you want, you can be anything. No limits, you can be their enemies, their allies, or neither. Be a civilian or a warrior, assassin or king, anything! I only ask you describe your character in the manner I did. No sheet of info, exercise your ability to write. I mean, what else do you do online? Besides feeding pixelpets that never die. o_O))

[antiaircraft]

((Okay, just give me a while to think of a character. :P ))

[Guest Public Enemy #1 Levy]

((No rush, no rush, I'm just sitting here playing Pokemon Diamond.))

[antiaircraft]

Deep beneath the kingdom of Hoelle is a network of catacombs, a criss-crossing maze of ancient rooms and passages that is said to span across Kriegere. It is said to have been built by some of the first humans ever to stand on the land of Kriegere - the Hoelt, the founders of Hoelle, an ancient race of warriors whose influence once spanned the entire world. The last descendants of the Hoelt today are the Hoeltian rangers, an elite group of warriors renowned for their tracking skills, knowledge of terrain, prowess in combat, and most of all, their ability to navigate through the catacombs like a second home. These rangers have their own lore, an accurate but incomplete historical record passed down over the centuries.

 

They know a lot more about these catacombs than the average person. They laugh at the myth of the catacombs covering the entire of Kriegere - while they are convenient for travel over certain ranges, the rangers know that the real reason the Hoelt lords ordered them dug was to go down. Deep down.

 

Follow any one of several twisting, turning routes along the catacombs, and you will find yourselves going deeper and deeper. You will pass armouries full of old, rusting equipment, and you will encounter weapon shards that tell stories of the great battles fought in the tunnels. The catacombs were obviously an instrument for war.

 

Continue down the trail, past the charred wrecks of giant war machines lying in the massive caverns that served as bases of operation, down past the darkest and dampest of the unlit man-made tunnels, and you will eventually come to what appears to be a dead end. But upon closer inspection, you will find that what is blocking the tunnel is a giant slab of stone, many metres thick, with a simple series of runes carved ominously across its massive surface. Were you able to read the language of the Hoelt, you would be able to interpret the straightforward message the runes carry: "Do not pass."

 

Supposing you had the strength to break through this massive barrier, and the resolve to ignore the warning, you would find yourself in an entirely different kind of tunnel. This tunnel is clean and square, with the walls, floor, and ceiling firmly set in stone. There are unintelligible runes carved on either side, continuing in unending lines down the tunnel as far as you can see. The reason you can see at all is that the tunnel is lit by an eerie green light from colonies of luminous bacteria on the ceiling. After a few more seconds of thought, you would conclude that 'tunnel' was an inappropriate word to describe the structure you were currently in. It was not dug carelessly or with haste, but constructed with exquisite perfection as part of a network, a home, another world. This is the home of the Night Goblins.

 

The Hoelt lords did not build the catacombs to move troops around Kriegere, nor were they meant to provide escape routes. There is only one reason to hastily construct a tunnel network to connect with another underground structure, and then send soldiers and war machines down it. The Hoelt had executed an invasion.

 

But they had underestimated the Night Goblins. A race of strange creatures that had lived in their expansive underground cities for as long as they could remember, the Night Goblins were invariably excited at the prospect of a resource rich surface land to conquer. And they were by no means new to war, especially not underground. With superior numbers, skill, and strategy, the Goblins easily defeated the Hoelt army, slaughtering each of the nine Hoelt lords in nine great battles. The humans were routed, most of the Hoelt army destroyed.

 

The survivors fled back to the surface, and banded together for a last minute defence on the surface. They managed to contain the Night Goblins within the hill country of Hoelle for many days, using the Goblins' lack of experience on the surface to their advantage. However, the Goblins' superior numbers and unequalled zeal were taking their toll, and after a week of fierce fighting, the Goblins broke the perimeter of Hoelt soldiers.

 

But something saved the human race. Just as they were on the brink of victory, the Night Goblin generals sounded a retreat, pulling their forces back into the tunnels. Certain that there would be a follow-up attack, the Hoelt took the opportunity to ready their forces, building barricades around the catacomb exits and training as many soldiers as they could. But no attack came.

 

It was many months later before the first brave Hoelt scouts entered the catacombs, and everywhere they found evidence of a rushed fallback. Unnecessary equipment was discarded throughout the tunnels, and a few Night Goblins had even died from exhaustion. Not taking any chances, the new Hoelt lords ordered massive stone slabs to be carried with haste down the tunnels, and used to seal off all entrances into the world of the Night Goblins. A simple warning was carved on each slab once it was in place: "Do not pass."

 

The soldiers were withdrawn from the network of tunnels, with the exception of a select few wardens, tasked with giving an advance warning if the Night Goblins ever moved to take the surface again. These wardens gave rise to the Hoeltian rangers, the only humans alive with the knowledge of the dark secret of the catacombs. The legend of the underground world vanished in antiquity, and many ridiculous myths rose to take its place. Nobody ever found out why the Night Goblins had withdrawn - the scouts that had been brave enough to venture into the Night Goblins' cities, even if only for a few minutes, never returned.

 

But if you decided to explore further into the mysterious world, you would find many wonders of construction. Gigantic interconnected caverns, where the Night Goblins had once lived and died. Huge gardens constructed on giant stalactite-like projections hanging from the ceiling, overgrown without their gardeners. Palaces made from gems of incredible size and unthinkable worth glittering in the dim green light.

 

As you pass through these silent cities, you would realise that strangely shaped objects litter the ground. Upon closer inspection, you would discover that they were bones - fragments of the toughened Goblin skeletons that allowed the race to survive comfortably at this depth. Scorch marks cover many of their giant stone constructions, and large chunks appear to be missing from several of them. You would begin to wonder whether this was simply disrepair, or something else.

 

Venturing even deeper, you would find evidence of the latter. Near-intact Goblin skeletons litter the floor of the hallways underneath the cities, weapons still in their hands, bony faces frozen in screams of rage, agony, and terror. The hallways here are not so carefully constructed, and appear to have been badly damaged by something. Rough sketches are scrawled over the runes on the walls, depictions of horrifying battles with deformed monsters. You would conclude, correctly, that something, or perhaps many things, had attacked the Goblin cities, that their army had been recalled to fight back, and that they had failed, and the Night Goblins had been wiped out, their cities left in ruins.

 

Heading still further down, you would encounter several roughly hewn, unlit tunnels, all sloping slightly downwards and seemingly headed towards a single point in the distance. Following these tunnels, you would emerge into a colossal dark cavity, an unspeakably large construction of natural erosion. The ground you stand on is glowing with more of the luminous bacteria, and looking around you would see that there was once a Night Goblin town there. Apart from the buildings, several poles have been erected, at the top of which were glass containers containing more colonies of bacteria giving out the same green light. Obviously the poles were made for illumination, but looking further you would see that several of the poles had been knocked down, the glass shattered, and the bacteria released. That would explain the glowing floor.

 

Striding through the empty town, you would notice more Night Goblin skeletons, many looking more surprised than terrified or in pain. After walking for a few minutes, you would come to the end of your journey, at least on the ground. The town is built on an island of sorts, in the middle of a vast subterranean ocean.

 

The ocean is truly the largest body of water ever to exist. This cavern is only the very tip of its reach - underwater, the fingers of this mighty deep reach across untold distances. No light ever reaches it, so the base of its ecosystem is the same as that for the mini-ecosystems clustered around sulphur vents in its much smaller surface cousins - bacteria feeding off the minerals and heat generated by the sulphur vents - but on a much larger scale. The descending walls of the ocean are littered with massive sulphur-spurting cracks.

 

A multitude of strange creatures inhabits this ocean, none of which have ever seen the light of day. Every conceivable ecological niche has been sized up and occupied by at least five different species, from microscopic grazers to ravenous carnivores more than a kilometre long. But all the creatures here, whether large or small, vicious or benign, live in fear of one thing. Even this ocean has a deepest point, and lying dormant in the unreachable depths is a being which has not awakened in 18,000 years. This is the being that destroyed the Night Goblins, wiping out an entire species in a matter of days. The being now lies in wait.

 

Correction: the being was lying in wait.

 

Now, triggered by some inexplicable mechanism in its bottomless mind, the being stirred.

[Guest Public Enemy #1 Levy]

They waited for the desert sun to set before they moved from their hiding place, near a hole in the city wall. The city hasn't known an invasion its elders could remember. And any story of war was just a myth. Stories of Dragons and Giants, all garbage. The wall of Hoelle is alway in disrepair, front gates destroyed and guards no where to be seen. Crime runs rampant through the city. The only place guards reside is the kings palace.

They were both still covered in wounds, wrapped in bandages. But they wouldn't let their injuries halt their resolve.

They kissed each other before setting out.

Kait's blades were places in a leather strap in her back to be quocky drawn if needed. Levy's bladed chains still lay on his shoulder.

They walked around late-night markets and shops. Bars were open, serving any kind of alcoholic beverage imaginable. Walking into the bar, they drew no attention. Levy was the past military leader of Hoelle, but no one had ever seen his face or heard his voice. He was able to hide without trying to hide. The people all thought their military leader was dead anyway.

Sitting in a corner table, they just thought.

What a scum hole, this place would be better off left in burning rubble and dust. Levy thought.

The poor people, their king pays no attention to the needs of the city! Its good we are putting them out of their misery soon. Kait thought.

They ordered a quick round of shots and left. Their bodies have been trained to take in alcohol but not surcome to to its effects so they took the opportunity to sample some alcohol before they destroyed the city.

They dodged int the shadows of an ally and plotted their entrance into the palace.

[antiaircraft]

Deep beneath the surface, surrounded by cold, black water at impossibly high pressures, the being slowly began to stretch out its armoured body, flexing every joint, testing every muscle, re-activating its body after almost 20 millennia of inactivity.

 

Its mind was also in need of a gradual startup to return to its normal, lightning-fast state. But there wasn't enough energy in its body to run the entirety of its complex intellect yet. It needed energy, something that is scarce in a body after 18,000 years of not eating, even in a state of suspended animation. Simply put, it was hungry.

 

Operating on the rough instincts that made up its lower thought processes, it oriented its senses upwards. The being's huge, feathery antennae picked up the vibrations from a 60-metre-long scaly-skinned filter feeder, the reptilian predecessor to the whales in the surface seas, which was swimming idly in the direction of a large cluster of sulphur vents several kilometres above. Its huge, energy rich internal fat deposits would be more than enough fuel for the being to get itself going.

 

The massive, misshapen armoured figure rose rapidly from the ocean floor.

[Midtime]

((I'll join to avoid the bother of being pestered by AA. :P))

 

Somewhere far away, a rooster's crow was cut short.

The cause of this was, at first glance, a young boy. Quite ordinary - practising with his bow, perhaps.

Except there was no feathered shaft protruding from the rooster's side, and no ordinary child would venture this far from home. The surroundings are the outskirts of a dark forest and a savanna that stretches into the horizon.

The boy walks up to the dead rooster. No emotions play across his face - another strange thing. Since there are no people to show emotion to, emotion is not required.

The silence is broken by a footstep. A gazelle, from the savanna, come to investigate this new sight. It has never seen a human before, so this will be its first time, and its last. The boy fixes it with his disturbing, ice-blue eyes. For a moment you could have said that his snow-white hair began to float. It looks at those eyes, and collapses, dead. The boy, now ignoring the fowl, gestures with his hand. The corpse rises into the air, and floats after him as he walks to an area that would be relatively flat if it were not for the long grass. Another gesture, and the grass flames and vanishes.

He looks towards the forest, and a few branches break away from their trees and build first a tent-shaped shelter, then, with the remainder, a bundle of neatly piled firewood, which sets alight. Leaves follow these and cover the structure, shielding it from the glaring sun. The dead gazelle floats in to hover directly above the fire until it is gently cooked. It then falls to the ground and the child eats.

Anyone watching would have sworn the boy was using magic. But he is not - this is a different kind of ability, a hereditary art that has been passed down, dormant until now, far greater and rarer than powers arcane.

Once the gazelle is finished, the shelter blows apart into the grass, undetectable. The boy, for no reason apparent to the watcher, walks away. He disappears into the forest just as a completely silent group of trackers emerges from the ground. A watcher who knew of the type would be astounded, for these are Hoeltian rangers.

There is a simple explanation for this: dumb luck. But there is a much simpler, and much truer, explanation.

The boy is an Oracle.

Blessed with the ability to tell the future, and cursed with it too, the Oracles are the key to creation of an empire. They are born as quite ordinary people, with no distinguishing features, at random intervals, due to a gene that is held in every strand of human DNA but has less than a one-in-a-quintillion chance of surfacing. But any mage can detect them, in much the same way most people can detect the sun. They are said to manipulate nature, and this is in some ways true; but they are more in harmony with it. And, more importantly, they know all things. It has been assumed, however, that they know only the future, as this is all that is important in the eyes of most.

Their ability would be a complete blessing but for power-hungry kings, a.k.a all kings. These seek to keep the Oracle for only themselves, isolating them to the point of driving them mad. This is why the boy is running.

But an even rarer occurrence has taken place. Not only has an Oracle been birthed, but two. Not only have two Oracles been birthed, but both from the same womb, born at the same time, inseparable to death and beyond.

This is why the boy with ice-blue eyes and snow-white hair is running towards a mostly identical boy who - and this is the difference - has eyes the color of lava and hair as black as space. They share each other's thoughts, each other's pain and happiness, almost to the point of becoming one person with two bodies.

 

Simultaneously, they reach up their arms, hands open as if accepting a gift. Two eagles fly down; the boys jump onto their backs and take to the sky as the Hoeltian rangers search in vain.

[antiaircraft]

With the entire of the bloated 60-metre filter feeder, recently swallowed whole, digesting rapidly in its gut, the being's mind finally headed up to full speed. It was an ancient, efficient design, far more advanced than the human brain. So advanced, in fact, that it was unable to fully understand some human concepts.

 

The being had been created by an entity with no real understanding of reality. Thus, it was only loosely anchored to existence, able to drift back and forth in the swirling vortex of spacetime with minimal effort. The entity that created the being also had very little understanding of the way a mind works, thus the highly advanced, but somewhat inferior mind of the being.

 

The being had been created for one purpose, and one purpose only - to serve the needs of the many. This purpose was engrained into every last fibre of its mind. It was so deeply engrained that it could even pick up the thoughts of a general population, or indeed an individual being, and carry out the actions that would bring about the greatest general benifit. This was what had led it to destroy the Night Goblins.

 

This was what would lead it to destroy again.

[Midtime]

((I guess I should think up names. They will generally be called "the Oracle twins" or simply "the Twins" but their real names - those used by non-enemies - will be Yintei (the first one, who was in the plain in my first post) and Xeyan. However, they will refer to themselves as "I" when they speak, since they are technically one person with two bodies.))

 

The two Oracles landed several kilometres away. They did not see themselves in the future, since based on what they would see they might alter their decisions. However, they knew the people here would be of a friendly disposition. The local ones, anyway.

Anticipating proper food and shelter, though, they let their guard drop. As they stepped out of the cluster of trees they had come to, a group of soldiers surrounded them, emerging from various hiding places. From the cocky, arrogant way they moved and walked, it was obvious they were new to the service. However, they had withstood the best infantry training program in Kriegere - that of Hoelle - and their confidence in their ability would be, in most cases, well placed.

However, this was not most cases. Without bothering to speak, Xeyan closed his eyes, and sent his mind into the earth, blackened from the nearby volcano, and found residual memories of times when it was free from its rigid form. Suddenly, the soldiers found themselves in a lake of magma, into which they sank, screaming. The Oracle twins stood on slabs of floating rock, impassive. After a few seconds the lake solidified again. Yintei bent down, collecting some of the scorched earth as if to examine it. Then he stood up, and they continued walking to the town in the distance.

They reached the thick wooden gates of the town, which stood open, set in thicker stone walls. There seemed to be no-one on the walls, which in themselves were unusual. But this close to the volcano, they had to have protection against lava flows. There were, in fact, no battlements - until now.

Suddenly, a row of archers rose from the edge of the wall. Behind them came the sound of catapults being prepared. A man, dressed in the attire of a general, though rather plump and obviously new to military command, stood in the fore. However, his expression was not angry, not determined, not even reluctant, but one of open fear. This town knew of the Oracles, and had respected them even through the barriers of time. They were obviously being forced to attack by decree of the king. The Twins smiled - they knew what to do.

The city's fields stood to the left of them, on the fertile ash that was the reason for the whole establishment. Yintei tossed his handful of ash in the air, and in midflight it became a multitude of wheat seeds. These fell in an empty patch and began growing at an amazing rate, forming more and fuller ears than even the lush volcanic soil could normally provide, enough to feed all of Hoelle for a year. They could feel the crowd's awe.

Then Yintei gestured, and the wheat grew taller, larger, each ear swelling to what appeared to be breaking point. Then one of them split, releasing hundreds of thorns that pierced the wall, creating large cracks. Their point (excuse the pun) made, and quite clearly, the wheat plants shriveled into the ashes they had once been.

The Twins were hurriedly welcomed into the city, all doubts about their ability to visit more terrible revenge than even the king could imagine banished. As they entered, the general - in fact, the mayor of the town - rushed over to offer his apologies. However, to his considerable relief, Yintei bowed and spoke for the first time since his escape from the capital. His voice was, in a physical respect, normal, but carried with it the silent melodies that you always hear in the voice of people who say things like 'From this day onwards, all who steal in the name of the king shall be put to death!'

"All apologies accepted, Mayor Kehran. If you wish to have a bright existence in future, however, try to be less rash."

[Guest Levy]

The massive palace of Hoelle was heavily guarded.

"So, stealth or brute attack. Your choice love." Kait said.

Levy chuckled, "I chose brute force, we'll use stealth at Himmel." ((Himmel is the opposite kingdom. Those who don't know, Hoelle is German for Hell and Himmel is German for Heaven.))

"Sounds good to me." Kait replied with a smile, though not really visible in the night darkened alley.

Kait unsheathed her blades and strapped them to her forearms. Levy unwrapped the chains and let them drag as the came out into the open.

They casually walked to the front of the castle doors.

"Halt! Sheath your weapons and state your business!" A guard ordered them.

Levy opened his eyes and the deepest shade of green hit the guard's eyes. He backed up in fear.

"Let us pass peacefully and you will live, refuse and you will die. I gave you a choice." Levy said darkly. Kait had her scarf covering her mouth and she said nothing.

"Open the gate!" He said. Then the gate slowly opened. "Thank you sir for doing what needs to be done, I doubt you will run into any resistance."

The guards dropped their weapons and armor then ran into the streets.

 

Unfortunately, they did hit resistance. Guard after guard slowly piled up. Levy and Kait soon became covered in blood. Then they burst open the throne room doors.

"King Teufel! You die here today!" Levy yelled as he ran to the throne. The king was a monster of a man. Seven feet tall at best.

"I had a feeling this would happen. Good thing I know how to defend myself!" He said and pulled the two large scimitars from the sides of the throne. They were three and a half feet long. "Come at me!"

Though, he didn't last long. Levy had speed, the king couldn't counter. The lunge of the chains went right through the king's skull and he was no more.

Any guards in hiding made themselves known and applauded the king's demise by dropping their weapons and kneeling to the two intruders.

[antiaircraft]

The being flexed its many powerful muscles, moving idly around for several hours. It had no concept of boredom - all it knew was that it had been awakened, so there was a service that needed to be carried out, but since it was unclear what this service was, it would have to wait. This was all it needed to know, and so it waited.

 

It did not, however, have to wait long. Soon, its hypersensitive mind began to pick up the fluctuating mental fields from the world above. The millions of individuals all had their unique signatures: their ambitions, knowledge, fears, and desires, but the field was made strong by the few mental patterns they all had in common. The being could feal their fear, anger, frustration, and hatred, all of it directed at the two kingdoms of Hoelle and Himmel.

 

Hell and heaven, thought one portion of the being's vast mind.

 

Carried by the rise and fall of the powerful field of energy, two fresh thoughts drifted down to the folds of the being's intellect.

 

The poor people, their king pays no attention to the needs of the city! Its good we are putting them out of their misery soon.

 

What a scum hole, this place would be better off left in burning rubble and dust.

 

Well that made its objective clear. Firing some unseen biological mechanism, the behemoth gradually began to rise through the cold, dark depths of the ocean.

[Guest Levy]

Kait found the King's diary and gave it to Levy. He thumbed through the pointless pages of his daily routine of adultery, execution, and genocide. He then came to a page marked, "Heretic's Armory."

"I have just discovered the layer of a heretic who uses black magic to create horrific weapons from other lands. He claims it's science. It is heresy. I ordered him to be locked in his house of evil and die a heretic's death, lonely and cold. -89/3/8110" ((Numbers are supposed to be a date, there is no pattern behind it.))

Levy walked to a general and asked, "Where is this Heretic's Armory?"

"The village is many kilometers away my lord, in the city of Toll." he responded.

"Thank you." Levy said. He finished wrapping up his chain.

Kait sheathed her blades.

They walked outside of the palace and it began to snow... snow in the desert.

Children were dancing in the cold as couple walked by them, hand in hand.

"To the Heretic's Armory my love." Levy said as they left the city.

"Sounds like fun." Kait said, smiling in the bright rising moons.

[antiaircraft]

As the being drew closer to the surface, many audible cracks could be heard as its body adjusted to the reduced pressure. The waters around it were surprisingly empty, probably due to the fact that anything too close would be promptly ingested, or perhaps simply killed.

 

The being itself, meanwhile, had focused some parts of its mind on its objective, while the rest concentrated on other things, such as feeding or monitoring the mental energy field created by the many creatures on the surface. Several appendages were clenched in anticipation - this was something it knew how to do, something it had done before. This was what it was made for - to fight for the needs of the many.

 

Unfortunately for the people on the surface, the word 'kingdom' had no exact match in the being's vocabulary. The essence of the word, which the being used to derive the word's meaning, was something along the lines of 'large, organised system'.

 

Logically speaking, the whole universe fits this description.

[Midtime]

Whispers...

Whispers are what the Oracle Twins hear, as they lie in their beds. They yearn for a chance to let the world hear these whispers, but they are the only ones gifted with such foresight.

Though most of the whispers are soft, insignificant, one stands out. It is strong, sinister, beckoning, and if it took a particular human form, it would be that of those who ask for you to hear them, bring you closer, closer, only to shout at a volume that would have deafened you were you several metres away. This whisper wants them to listen. It brings unwelcome news, news of ancients.

 

It brings news of a being powerful enough to destroy this universe, and intent, as it happens, on this particular task. Such whispers are what torments most Oracles.

 

It is no wonder they do not want to hear it.

[antiaircraft]

The surface of the subterranean ocean at its highest point, in the giant cavern where it meets the world of the Night Goblins, is normally a perfectly flat pane of black, disturbed only by the occasional ripple of some small creature attempting to escape a predator. But the green light from the goblin town illuminates something different now. Cross-hatched crests and troughs cut across the usually unblemished water, betraying the turbulence beneath. A true giant was about to break the thin barrier between liquid and air, but it wasn't doing it of its own accord. It was fleeing something equally massive, something that held powers so great that its menacing form had been marked as a threat in the brains of every single creature in the ocean.

 

The being could smell something it hadn't smelled in a long time.

 

Air.

[Midtime]

The whispers faded as the Oracles rose, but only for a moment. Their service was about to begin. A milling crowd had gathered slowly in front of the gates of their establishment. They stopped behind these gates, opened them, and waited. Through much pushing, muttering and shouting, the crowd formed a rough line. The first, a rough, egotistic man, walked up to them and stood. Yintei's faint smile changed a bit.

This time it was Xeyan who spoke. "What do you wish to know?" The voice spoke of wisdom beyond human years, visions of death and destruction for every last creature on Earth.

The man, unperturbed, was quick to reply. "What do you think? My future. Whether I'll leave the town and become great."

Yintei replied, "Why, you don't need us to tell you that. The answer is no. Commoners only become great in folk songs and fairy tales. It's the fat, rich men with extensive influence and connections that become kings." He paused, and for a moment both Twins assumed a vague look that suggested they were looking at things no human could see, which was true. "But if you want to know your true future..."

Xeyan carried the sentence without pause. "You will die, miserable, drunken, in the same place you were born in."

As the disgruntled man stalked off, the next person, a young widow, stepped forward. Once again the Twins assumed a far-focused expression; they were listening to the whispers.

Finally, Yintei said, "You will find a new husband, who will stay with you for the rest of your life. You will bear many children. But he will die before you."

The considerably happier widow bowed jovially and stepped out of line. The ministry of the Oracles had begun.

 

If only the man had known that what had been prophesied was the last month of his life, the rest of which would involve rulership and peace throughout his domain. And if only the widow had known that her new husband would beat her daily, and that her five children would all bear a deformation of some kind or another...

[Guest Levy]

"Sir! Sir!" Shouted a young man chasing after Levy and Kait.

They stopped, the young man was carrying an expensive robe and crown.

"Sir, I have orders to give these to you. The king's desert robe and his crown." He knelt before Levy.

"Young man, what is your name?" Levy questioned.

"D-Damion sir." He responded nervously.

"And how old are you?"

"17, sir."

Levy took the crown, then looked at the city. Several onlookers, good.

He placed the crown on Damion's head.

"Your majesty, I believe that this kingdom is yours now. Save it from the tyranny of the past king."

"Muh-muh-muh-muh Me?" He rose.

"Good luck." Levy said to the young king and then continued to walk away from the city.

Damion's eyes were wide. He dropped to knees and began to cry, tears of joy.

Levy and Kait soon disappeared behind the horizon. Toll, their destination. Little did they know, oracles were currently in the city.

[antiaircraft]

The being ensnared and killed the giant carnivore without a second thought. As part of it began to gnaw steadily through the creature's thick armour plates, the rest of the being's mind was analysing memories, memories of the last time it had risen from the water and destroyed. Its current form was capable of surviving outside water, but it would not be suited for the task ahead. This was not a major obstacle however.

 

As it finished of the last scraps of the dead carnivore, the being began to change.

[Midtime]

((The Oracles only know what the 'whispers' tell them. They're not responsible for the twisted prophecies mentioned above.))

 

The Twins stopped suddenly, to the surprise of the citizens. The whispers were becoming shouts.

The king is slain. A new king has been appointed. Two approach who slew the old. One comes who would slay the universe.

"The king is slain." they said. This was met with shocked silence. The villagers had hoped for this, but now it had happened, so unexpected. And it occurred to them, as it often does, that the old king might not have been so bad after all.

"His slayers come. We must meet them, and go with them. Wait for more news."

The last voice showed them images, pictures of death and destruction and oblivion and sadness, all caused by a machine performing its supposed duty. It was too painful to talk about.

 

They left, riding on eagles.

[antiaircraft]

The tunnels of the Night Goblins were completely desolate, mainly due to the fact that the goblins had coated them with a toxic substance to kill any pests. Thus any entity that had been present there would have been extremely surprised to see a blur of legs and exoskeleton speed through the tunnels, displaying an uncanny sense of direction that brought it steadily closer to the surface...