I have yet to define a valkyrie, but I have plans on incorporating them as a possible enemy of Vog.

@Liminori Here's a recap of everything you need to know.
Differences between original Cradle and my Cradle:

Gremlins are now good. The Great Colony and Haven are neighbors, and do not war each other. There are other groups though that cause problems... And here is a copy/pasted thing that I used for the other two books. Most of the stuff is above ground. And lastly, don't bother much with the Coliseum, I'm not really using it. Unless, of course, you want to have a character that is a Coliseum champion. I also have a few drawings here and there.

*1* There are no health capsules, but revives are possible. To be revived when dead, you must be hooked up to a defibrillator, but this must be done within twenty-four hours of death, unless you are cryogenically frozen. If the knight died from the loss of blood, lost limbs, or other gruesome deaths, this option will not be available, and the only way to save them is by use of magic, which only the great Owlites have/had.
*2* Haven is a sprawling metropolis on the light side of Cradle. The Auction House, Town Square, Arcade, and Garrison area are all part of the industrial section, which is where the knights work and operate out of. There is a full-scale armory in the Garrison, so all knights have free Spiral gear (Cobalt lines, including weapons). Other gear (Acherons, mist bombs, Chaos gear, Wolver gear, etc.) must be bought from special smiths in the Bazaar, where blacksmith knights make and sell weapons and armor. Lockdown and Blast Network take place in a large arena similar to the Roman Coliseum. The maps change by a giant robot that moves them from underground. The rest of Haven is for the homes of both Stangers and civilian Spiral Knights.
*3* The Clockworks are a system of caves with a series of elevators going through them. The upper levels (Depth 3-13) are inhabited by Gremlins and their Construct minions. The lower levels, (Depth 14-28) are inhabited by the deadliest of undead and fiends. Many call it the Underworld, because of the devilish and dead inhabitants. Depth 1 and 2, the Surface Levels, and the surface of the planet itself, are inhabited by beasts, including Wolvers, Chromalisks, and Snarbolaxes. Rabies DOES spread through the packs, so some are rabid, and there are certain shots carried by medics to cure the disease. Slimes are found near volcanic vents on the surface.
*4* Gear works differently! Damage types do not effect different monsters differently. Weapons can be set to stun mode for Lockdown and Blast Network, and for capturing Gremlins or enemy Knights. Also, there are no costumes, because costumes like Chapeaus, Storm gear, and other things count as armor. Wings do not exist, but tails do!
*5* Guilds work differently. There are a few guilds, and they're not all friendly with each other!
*6* Spiral Knights are humans, with normal hair, eyes (although glow eyes still apply... They're synthetic eyes for the blind, like Mono), and skin.

Drawings (not a great artist, but I just decided to make some concept art a while ago anyway):
Haven Map
Mercenary Outpost
Rezule, Old Snag, and Z'Raejum'kal. Three minor characters. Don't remember why exactly I drew them, but I did.
Owlites

(Out-Of-Context: Well I'm finally done with the first chapter. Wanna know what happened? Life happened. Whatever. Hope y'all like it! As summer comes I'll be able to write more. Maybe one every couple days. :D)

Chapter 1: The Exile

Along the weary road he traveled. Ten miles. Exile was a such a lonely thing. “Too hot-headed,” they had said. “Obsessive, insane, horrendous” they had said. Well screw them and their opinions! Talfring spat to himself.

Maybe they had been right. He did murder a commanding officer, and steal from his own father. But not after being rejected by society. “The Fire Child,” he was called. Until today, that was what he was referred to as. I’m seventeen, I’m not a child, Talfring thought to himself.

Another lone traveler appeared when Talfring turned a corner. His look was of surprise, disgust, and fear. Talfring’s cinnabar eyes dug into the poor knight’s soul, who was more in shock from the sight his burned head. Only the left half of his hair remained, and the other half of his head was covered in burn scars. His right eye was synthetic and glowing, adding to the menace.

“Are you afraid of me?” Talfring challenged. “Bet you’ve never seen such an unfortunate soul as myself! Maybe you wanna join me?”

The stranger trembled in terror. “I-I meant no offense,” he stuttered. “I just w-wasn’t expecting…”

“You weren’t expecting what?”

“I’ll be going…” the stranger said as he tried to turn away.

As soon as the knight turned to run, Talfring pounced. In a split second, he had his enemy pinned to the ground beneath his flaming Barbarous Thorn Blade. His victim was sweating from fear, and now the heat from Talfring’s own Vog Cub hide coat. “Now,” he said through clenched teeth, “can I have an answer?”

“It’s just… You’re the Fire Child!” the stranger blurted out. Before he finished his sentence, the flaming Barbarous Thorn Blade pierced the armor above his shoulder, nailing him down and searing his flesh.

“My name is Talfring,” his oppressor growled. “I never want to hear that name again, you understand?”

Once the stranger nodded, Talfring stood up, sheathed his blade, and continued on the path he was going. He was headed north, to the Mercenary Outpost. Mono, like Feron before him, had left it untouched, other than the occasional recruiting trip for the Warriors of Old.

Talfring could find freelance work at the outpost, and perhaps join up with some other faction vying for power. Vog, the god of fire, had always inspired him with power, and the story of his defeat of the Norkein. The rolling hills of now-brown grass wound him down the path of despair and anger.

His armor, including his boots, sensed his anger and began to warm up. Wherever his feet went, scorched terrain was left in their place. Onward he trekked to the outpost, and as he went on, entire squadrons of the Vog Cultists’ airships crossed the sky. They were becoming bolder, even bombing patrols and towns on the outskirts of Haven.

Talfring’s eyes sparkled in amazement as a lone airship flew to the Mercenary Outpost and started to land. Seeing this, he picked up his pace to get to the outpost before they departed.

!#-^*^-#!

By the time he reached the outpost, the airship was preparing to depart. Talfring noticed that it was not designed for cargo or weaponry, but passengers. Eight knights and three gremlins boarded the aircraft under the supervision of a cultist dressed in armor, but not helmet, fashioned from hide of a Vog Cub. Talfring slowly approached the cultist.

“What are you staring at?” the cultist demanded. “Where’d you get that armor? Kill one of us?”

“No, I bought it from a smith,” Talfring answered honestly. “Saw your airship fly this way, so I decided to see if I could join up.”

“Hmm… You look tough enough,” the cultist commented. “Do you believe in Vog?”

“I believe in all gods, yet I do not worship them daily or anything like that. I’d still be happy to join a cult.”

“We’re a little more of a cult. What’s your name?”

“Talfring, you?”

“Lodraj. Hop inside the ship and we’ll be going.”

Talfring quickly entered and took a seat, not bothering to strap himself in. Another recruit dressed in a feathered cloak and cowl sat next to him, also not bothering to use the seat belt. Talfring was surprised someone had actually sat next to him, but then remember that he had his mask on, and his burns were hidden from prying eyes.

Across from them sat Lodraj and another cultist, grinning slyly and chuckling beneath their masks. They both proceeded to fasten their belts, along with a few other cultists. “You might wanna put a seat belt on,” suggested one of the cultists. “Takeoff gets a bit rough.”

Talfring scowled at her beneath his mask. “I think I’ll be fine, thank you,” he replied cockily.

As soon as everyone else had boarded, including the pilot and gunners, the engines began to hum and built up to a steady roar. The wheels screeched along the road toward the brand new runway. Turning onto the runway, the airship began to vibrate, and, once it was in line, jolted into motion. Talfring and the others who decided not to fasten their belts were sent hurdling across the hull for the entire duration of the takeoff.

By the time the ship was at a substantial altitude, Talfring managed to get back to his seat. He only felt a few broken ribs, not any serious injuries, but was grimacing in pain all the same.

Everyone else on board diverted their attention to the landscape below them, as many had never flown before. They were awestruck by terrain, as it morphed from tropical jungle to a higher altitude moor, and eventually to a frozen pine forest.

As they flew, Talfring finally grasped the power of the airship. This power is for me, he thought. Those fools back in Haven will never wield it as I will.

Considering just under a third of them died during the explosion that killed most of Mar's group, they lost quite a few. >.> And the words "Kzumøk ver hing" are probably necessary for you to know. Tinkinzar said them just being his death, roughly means, "Death to my subjects." In gremlin culture/society it's considered the worst thing a leader can say or even do. Also, to answer a question... Previous characters are here. I am using the character templates as I see fit, this isn't a RP. Also, 20 pages of the Machinaut RP?! Dang...

Also, anyone enjoying Ch1? Gonna be exploring both protagonists and antagonists a lot more, in a different style from The Darkwalkers. Gonna get interesting... And don't worry, Pythonne will have his moments.

(OOC: @AI Thank you, and I highly advise you take the time to at least speedread the other two, so what happens here will make a lot more sense.
@All: Yes, a town named in this chapter is named after a certain deceased character from Guilds and Gremlins (Spoilers!). This is more of an introduction, so don't expect tons of action yet. It'll get fun, just wait. ;) Also, don't worry about rolecasted characters, they'll be introduced eventually. I'm working on it, perfecting my plan.)

Chapter Two: Science, Science, Science

Tørahn opened his eyes slowly and painfully, groaning to himself. His arms felt as though they were on fire, and he couldn’t feel anything beneath his knees. “What… happened?” he croaked.

The crowd gathered around his bed let out a cumulative sigh of relief. Ava der Ärztin was working furiously on a computer to his right, while his sons, ages ten and twelve, were to his left. “You were out for four days,” the older brother, Drifildt said. “We feared you wouldn’t make it.”

“Where’s your mother?” Tørahn asked worriedly.

“She was at home, when… when the bombs fell,” Drifildt replied. “She… Didn’t make it out in time. There was no warning. The cultists slipped through the outer defenses undetected.”

Tørahn reached to his right and grabbed a glass of water. He hurled it furiously across the ward, screaming in grief. His arm flared with pain, and Ava had to repress him to stop him from hurting himself further. Ava gave the Tørahn’s sons a quick glance, and they exited the room, with a nurse on their tails.

A second nurse came in to replace the other, and Ava barked at her to tie Tørahn down. Once he was secure, Ava injected a powerful painkiller into his arm, making him delirious in seconds. It’s a good thing he hasn’t seen the state of his legs yet, Ava thought, as she pulled the blanket off the bandaged stumps.

Another doctor, this one an Isoran, Jangüri, walked into the ward. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think it’s about time we get those legs on him,” Ava answered.

Jangüri was the Colony’s expert on synthetic body parts, and had been for the past thirty years. He was approaching seventy-five years of age, and had first entered the field of medicine with his synthetic eyes. Jangüri later made blueprints for a new, cheaper, and more natural type of bionic limbs, but was captured by Tinkinzar, and tortured for information until Tinkinzar’s Last Stand. During the torture, he had lost his ears, his eyes, half of his tongue, and all four limbs. Fortunately, after he was set free, the blueprints were published, and he was used as the test subject for them. Once he was able to communicate to the knights who he was, they allowed him to continue his work, and he eventually made a synthetic tongue, allowing him to speak once more.

Jangüri brought in a pair of shins, feet, and ankles for Tørahn, and slowly began to remove the bandages. After one final check to ensure the arteries and nerves were aligned perfectly on the synthetic legs, he pushed it into place. The synthetic skin squirmed around until it locked in place, with no visible difference between the synthetic section and the natural section, other than that the natural section was still slightly burned.

Ava shook her head in amazement, muttering, “The gap between magic and science is getting thinner every day…”

Jangüri chuckled in agreement. “When are you going to get him out of the hospital?” he asked.

“Probably sometime tomorrow,” Ava answered. “I can’t be spending too much time on him alone, as there are many others that have similarly serious injuries from the strike on the civilian district. You’ll certainly be needed, so, if I were you, I’d start getting quite a few limbs and eyes ready. Maybe a few lungs, too.”

“I’ve already received a few sets of artery, nerve, and bone designs, and started working on getting them into the limbs I currently have,” Jangüri said. “One is already scheduled for… fifteen minutes? I don’t know. I probably gotta run. I suppose I’ll be seeing you later.”

!#-^*^-#!

As she typed out the final words of her research report, Frílta gave a heavy sigh. She collapsed onto her desk once the final period was there, only to be awoken five minutes later by Lieutenant Wegner, who, surprisingly, was still the head of the geology department in the Spiral Order.

“Frílta?” he summoned. “Are you in there? Get that report printed out so we can get on the road!”

“Shut up!” she yelled at her boss. “I’ve been up for sixty hours getting it done, and I need some sleep!”

“Well I’ve been up for eighty-five now, and I’m still going fine!” Wegner shouted back.

“How on Cradle can you do that?” Frílta exclaimed in bewilderment. “Are you on some medication or something?”

“Unstable Cores in Mugs of Misery,” he replied coolly. “They sound revolting, but anything is good if you add enough Chromalisk Sugar.”

“Don’t you have to torture Chromalisks and get their tears for that?” she wondered. “How can anyone afford that?”

“There’s a way to synthetically produce it with Valestone and--”

“Shut up and get me some!”

“Alright, but you’d better have that research report done,” Wegner said. “Mono will not be pleased if he doesn’t have all the information about the effects of Valestone on volcanic slimes. Deterring those pesky things has been his pet project for years.”

“Why does he care?” Frílta protested. “Very few of our settlements are anywhere near volcanoes, and those that are haven’t been bothered.”

“You’re forgetting about Kral, the small outpost east of Corvin. All one hundred knights posted there were slaughtered by those slimes.”

“That was an isolated incident caused by unusually high amounts of Crimsonite beneath the surface that radiated heat, agitating the slimes,” Frílta explained.

“Precisely why we need to be careful,” Wegner retorted. “If Crimsonite can do that, what about all the other minerals?”

After ten minutes of arguing, Wegner finally convinced Frílta to print it off and bring the analysis to Mono. She fell asleep on the ride over in the Aret-67 (the civilian version of the Alya-67), but when she awoke, she was able to have some of Wegner’s bizarre concoction to keep her awake. It’s instantaneous effect kept her awake long through the discussion with Mono about the results.

(OOC: Hey guys! Ch3 is here! I'm going to Alaska late Thursday night for about a week, and won't be able to write during said time, but I'll see if I can't rush out a chapter in the mean time. Enjoy this. I'll have some more stuff happening next chapter, but, as you know, not a direct continuation of this. I'd have this up about five minutes earlier if my ear hadn't started being stupid and bleeding everywhere. Eh, what's five minutes, when we've had 4.5 billion years of existence to sort this out? EDIT: Fixed the HTML on the leaflet. Was all buggy and weird.)

Chapter Three: The Next Generation

“No, no!” Pteron yelled at the recruit. “You’re doing it wrong. You can’t fire a Pulsar with one hand. Who got you one of these things anyway?”

“My parents,” the young soldier replied bitterly. “I see people all the time shooting these with one hand though!”

“The warriors of the Coliseum have no experience in real-world combat,” Pteron rebuked. “Those guns are also specifically modified for speed, and therefore must be lightweight. They’re less worried about not getting stunned, and more worried about knocking out others. Kamikaze warriors are not going to work in our army, as life is precious.”

The other recruits were practicing with a more standard weapon: the Blaster. The old Isoran favorite was given to all young knights, as it took less skill to master than the Pulsar, due to its higher rate of fire. Most recruits were aiming correctly, and hitting well. Unlike the heavier Pulsar, the Blaster could be used in a single hand, or both hands. Those showing promise as gunners typically were given two.

“Alright, you whelps,” Pteron declared, “it’s time to get our hands dirty. I want to see you all perform in a fight. We’ll be doing this in the Coliseum, but don’t worry, there will be no crowd. I’ll explain it here. There will be two teams of eight, and the objective will be simple: kill the other team. You’ll all be wearing your current gear, as Cobalt armor will make it fairly even. You can all use the guns you have currently. Be aware, though, that Kämmer here has a different gun that the rest of you. You all can figure out the teams on the way over. Remember to set your guns to stun (I won’t let you in if you don’t) and your armor to detection.”

On the way over there, the knights bickered among themselves until, finally, they divided into two groups of eight, and felt that they were even. Once inside the Coliseum, they chose to fight in a dense pine forest. It moved into place, and the two teams took their places on the map, after a few minutes of planning.

Pteron watched from above, analysing their movements. He was recording the entire thing via the Coliseum’s many cameras to show to them afterward.

Kämmer, the naїve young gunner with a Pulsar, charged forward instantly, not bothering to look where he was going. He got to a clearing, then wildly fired three shots into the surrounding trees. His gun recharged almost instantaneously, and he began to run farther away from his team to engage the enemy.

Kämmer ran headfirst into one of the more talented gunners, Tsurem. Before Kämmer could lift the heavy Pulsar, Tsurem already had both guns up and fired. The first hit Kämmer’s stomach, and before he could lean over, the second found his heart. The knight crashed to the ground, helpless for the rest of the match.

Tsurem beckoned back to a bush, where two more gunners came out of and followed him. The rest of his team was engaging in a five versus seven battle, which they were losing. Two of Tsurem’s team had fallen when the enemy team opened fire on a group of trees the five was hiding behind. The remaining three had fired back, but only managed to down one of their pursuers.

Tsurem led his group behid the enemies, as they blindly pursued the other three. All six of the remaining enemies were in pursuit of the other three, charging across the trails while their prey hid in the woods. By the time Tsurem caught up with them, they were still firing blindly. He assigned each member of his group two enemies, then gave a loud whistle when they were all ready.

Tsurem’s signal alerted the enemies of their location, but the prey became predators when Blaster shots sounded out of the woods. Tsurem fired at both of his targets, nailing both, while his two friends only shot one each, as their second targets were already down.

“Good work!” Pteron called out over the loudspeaker. “Come over here, to the commentator's box, and we can discuss what happened.”

Tsurem’s team were laughing, talking, and bragging to each other how they got their kills. Kämmer’s team was less pleased, with many of them hassling Kämmer for running off on his own.

“Now, why did one team win and the other lose?” Pteron asked.

“Because the other team used more advanced strategy than us,” Thylis, the leader of the losing team said.

“Elaborate,” Pteron ordered.

“Well, for one, they divided themselves up and attacked from behind. They also didn’t have someone running off and abandoning their plan,” Thylis replied.

“And what was your plan, exactly?”

“We were going to stick together as a group and slowly swarm them.”

“Firing blindly into the woods did you no good,” Pteron explained. “By doing that, you revealed your location. Tsurem, what was your plan of attack?

“We actually prepared a few,” he answered. “One in the case they slowly marched forward like they did. We moved into formation for that at the start just in case, as we could easily adapt to other possibilities with whistles. We had another for if they broke into two and tried to flank each group of us, like we did, and a third for if they went full kamikaze, in which case we would hide in the trees and shoot them down one by one.”

“That’s pretty good,” Pteron said. “I want all of you to head on back and get some rest, as I’ve got something major planned tomorrow for all the gunners in training, including you lot.”

Just as Pteron finished talking, three crimson airships flew overhead, dropping small bombs across the city. The young soldiers watched in awe as the sky exploded in fire, without a single bomb actually damaging the city. Thousands of leaflets fell to the ground.

Pteron caught a leaflet, quickly glancing over it.

Join Us TODAY!

Discover the true power of fire and
fight for our true savior! Come to Tulth’s
Outpost, 10 miles north of Haven, to
find us and learn more!

“Interesting…” Pteron muttered to himself. “They’re become more open…”

!#-^*^-#!

“Alright, listen up, whelps!” Pteron barked at his force of one hundred knights. “For many of you, this will be your first combat mission. I have assembled a fairly even division of knights, with balanced squads. I don’t want to have four gunners and no guardian in a squad, or something pointless like that. You had better be happy with your squad mates, as they are not changing. Keep in mind that you do have some more experienced knights among your ranks, and they are your squad leaders for a reason. Listen to them. Follow their orders. Ten to one they’re smarter than any, and all, of you.

“We’re heading to the Mercenary Outpost, or as the leaflets said, Tulth’s Outpost. I’ll be bringing in about three squads into the actual building itself, but I will need the other twenty two squads to guard the perimeter and ensure that we don’t encounter hostiles before we enter the building.

“It’s likely that they have airships, and will retreat into them, which is why we’re pretty heavily loaded with gunners. I did chose some of you for your piloting skills, as it would help to hijack a few airships off the bat, if they have them. The last group of specialists I brought along are those skilled in jungle warfare, as this is a stealth operation, and we will not be taking the road most traveled. We’re carving our own road with machetes and hatchets through this jungle, and when we arrive, I expect all of us to split up and encompass the entire fortress. It’s got some machine guns, and sniper towers, but nothing we can’t handle. My own group will head off, and I will give them their own briefing. Are you all ready to do this?”

An uproarious cry came out from the knights gathered in the field.

“I want all of you to get into your squads immediately and exit the city. I want us taking all three entrances evenly, and going through the backstreets. Don’t be too loud, don’t be too quiet. If you are followed, circle a building, and if you are still pursued, get into an alleyway and ambush the stalker. We can’t have spies following us.”

The twenty five squads of knights instantly dispersed into the sandstone corridors, overgrown vines, and colorful fabric roofs of the pathways. Pteron’s squad was of people he wanted to keep an eye on for various reasons, and included Kämmer, a fairly experienced knight in Valkyrie armor, Serah, and another young gunner, Derkifda.

Pteron snuck his squad into an alley, and headed toward the south entrance. When they entered the street that marked the division between the Bazaar and the Military District, he noticed someone watching them. The cloaked knight found cover instantly, and started tracking Pteron’s squad.

Pteron led his group into another alley between a triangular store and a long, thin warehouse, but the stalker was still in pursuit. As soon as their tracker rounded the corner into the alleyway, Pteron fired his Argent Peacemaker and Sentenza, with every last shot finding its target. With twelve bullets in various places, including his forehead, throat, stomach, and heart, the cloaked knight fell to the ground in a pool of blood.

The crowds of the Bazaar came rushing over to investigate the gunshots, but by the time they arrived at the corpse, Pteron and his squad had already snuck out the southern entrance and were circling around the eastern side of Haven through the thick jungle.

Pteron was in the past two. He's one of my personal favorite characters. He's the one that killed the dumb gremlin kid. Very much a Clint Eastwood sort of character (he even uses dual revolvers).

(OOC: Alright, got a lot to cover here. First of all, yay! I got another chapter done. Second of all, I updated the map, with two lakes, a river, Villaggio tra i Pini, and Þalfort, a Vog Cultist settlement. Click here. Lastly, the cultists actually speak another language, which is their religious language (the modern equivalent would be sort of like Catholicism and Latin, I suppose), and they all have a basic understanding of it, but the Isorans that are not part of the cult are clueless when it comes to the language.

Every time they use the language, I will have the English/Isoran translation up here, for reference.

Refalt! Refalt! Forl laaj cref sut crafgul! Refalt den Þalfort! - Retreat! Retreat! Our work here is done! Retreat to Þalfort!

Edit: Fixed emphasis and a href formatting for OOC)

Chapter Four: An Unexpected Encounter

“Para, you want some Frostifur meat?” Etta called. “Got a young and tender one stuck in one of my snares, died about fifteen minutes ago.”

“I suppose you can bring it on in,” Para yelled back from inside the cabin. “Did you find any herbs or fruits?”

“Nothing,” Etta complained. “The snow hasn’t melted, and it’s already early July. Something is wrong with this place. When we came here last year, it was rich with flora and fauna, now there’s barely anything. The only plantlife available isn’t any good for us to eat.”

“This trip is not helping my cookbook!” Para added. “We’ve been here for three days, and the only recipe I’ve recorded was rabbit and pine needle stew. Heck, our campsite in the moor was more productive than this.”

“I was thinkin’ we could head over to Sforzandosi’s settlement, and see if we can’t get a ride on one of their airships back to Haven, and stay there for a while,” Etta suggested.

“Haven? The jungle is too easy to find ingredients in!” Para retorted. “I’d prefer somewhere a little more interesting.”

“We can see where the airships are heading when we get to Villaggio tra i Pini,” Etta said.

“Alright, I’ll start getting my stuff together, and we can leave after I do something with this wolver.”

About an hour later, the brother and sister set out on their journey to Villaggio tra i Pini, where Sophia continued to lead Sforzandosi. They trekked through the woods, heading west southwest, using nothing but the slowly sinking sun to navigate.

By the time the sun was a mere inch above the horizon, the pair were settled down in a small camp in the woods. Para had just finished setting up his makeshift oven when Etta heard a noise in the woods in the direction in which they came.

She immediately gave Para the signal to remain silent and prepare for trouble. Etta drew her Wildfire (a newer and modified Polaris), whereas Para pulled his portable fridge from his backpack. They both crawled in the snow, half burying themselves. Their white Battle Chef coats kept them warm, dry, and camouflaged.

All they could see through the dense trees was a faint orange glow and the sound of a raiding party. Etta crawled through the snow, and when she finally caught sight of the disturbance, quickly crawled back to Para.

“Who’s making all the noise?” Para asked.

“There’s about eighty of them,” Etta explained. “All dressed in Vog Cub coats, and armed to the teeth with a variety of weaponry. I saw something to do with Vog written on a couple of their coats. Their leader wasn’t speaking a language I’ve heard before.”

“Doesn’t sound good,” Para commented. “Heading to Villaggio tra i Pini?”

“Yes indeed,” Etta replied. “Looks like a raiding party. We need to get there as fast as possible.”

“But it’s at least twenty-five miles away!”

“If these cultist weirdos can do it, then we can,” Etta assured him.

Para quickly and stealthily packed up his oven and Cryo Drivers while Etta kept watch. A few minutes later, they departed from the small clearing and continued, following the cultists in their melted footsteps.

Etta noticed that the cultists had not cut a path, but instead had woven through the trees expertly. They made no attempt to hide their numbers though, and were fairly spread out. She found the occasional dead animal left in their wake, but for the most part, there was nothing.

As they approached Villaggio tra i Pini, Para and Etta split off on opposite sides of the trail. While Etta found nothing of significance on her side, Para found a fallen cultist, with his head entirely missing. The snow underneath his body was stained scarlet, and what was left of his head was charred and blackened.

Para gave a quick whistle, and Etta came rushing over. She was slightly disturbed by the sight of the mutilated Isoran, but continued on.

After another mile, they finally heard the sound of battle. Para and Etta picked up their pace, and eventually arrived at the village, just in time to see the cultists torch a wooden home. Para and Etta charged through the battlefield, with little worry about being shot, as the sight of two armored chefs running through a battlefield was highly unusual.

They got to the other side, where Sforzandosi was mounting their defense, just in time to see a white haired and yellow eyed leader, who they recognized as Sophia Clemente, barking orders at the frantic knights.

“Semper, take ten or so soldiers and block off the northern street!” she ordered. “Rubidus, take another ten and get the southern avenue back. Now, as for you two,” she paused, pointing to Para and Etta, “can I have some help getting some barricades into place?”

Para and Etta immediately helped Sophia and a few others push large logs into place to block off the street. The knights that were fighting the onslaught directly were either dead or retreating at this point, and a larger amount of soldiers was slowly building up behind the log. Para and Etta fired their guns into the fray, alongside Sophia, but both decided to cease their own firing when they saw a dozen knights jump from the rooftops, armed with nothing but daggers, and start denting the attacking force.

A chill of horror went down Para’s spine when he saw a scarred and red-eyes cultist snap one of the roof-jumper’s necks. He fired two shots at the scary knight, but both skirted around him and killed other cultists.

When all twelve of the knights that had jumped from the rooftops were either dead, wounded, or out of harm’s way, Para and Etta joined the fight one more, sending another volley of gunshots into the battle. Sophia and the others were still firing, taking out what seemed like dozens of cultists.

Once a few more fell, the raiding party’s leader shouted above the noise, “Refalt! Refalt! Forl laaj cref sut crafgul! Refalt den Þalfort!”

(OOC: All right, I have another chapter in store! I'm uploading this from Anchorage, Alaska, thousands of miles from home, and I wasn't exactly sane when I typed this onto the computer. Most of this was written while I was waiting for my plane in LAX, but I did do a bit last night. I expect to get the next chapter out this weekend, but I might have time tomorrow, or maybe even later today. 2 chapters in a day would be quite the feat. I'm surprised I even got this one in, after fighting fish all day on Sunday. If I don't post within a week (today is Tuesday, right?), a bear probably ate me or whatever. This is also a decent sized chapter, surprisingly.

@LoN: I'd gladly have another gremlin from you, type it up whenever.)

Chapter Five: Tulth

Pteron gave the quick signal for his soldiers to break off into their three established groups: the west, the east, and his own that would enter Tulth’s Outpost. The west and the east groups disappeared into the jungle, while Pteron’s marched straight up to the outpost’s front door. By the time Pteron reached the door, the other twenty-two squads were in place, and ready to open fire on the enemy. Pteron saw no airships on the south side, but he was not surprised when he received a transmission informing him that there were five of the cultists’ airships on the northern side.

The solid steel door opened at a touch of Pteron’s finger, and the eyes of the bar’s patrons all came upon him and his squads. “All right, I don’t want trouble,” he said. Most of the patrons resumed their previous activities gladly. “We’re here to speak with Tulth, anyone know where we could find him?”

“He has a makeshift office in the storeroom, behind all the rooms,” one gremlin kindly informed him. “He’s really young, so don’t expect some old and hardened warrior.”

Pteron politely gave thanks and beckoned to Kämmer, Serah, and Derkifda to follow him in the back. He motioned for the other eight to monitor the bar and look for suspicious activity. Pteron had recently developed quite a disliking for giving orders with his mouth, and found that simple hand gestures were enough to carry out most missions, especially when he had already explained a fairly detailed plan.

When the four knights entered the storage room, they were taken aback by the sheer quantity of weaponry, supplies, armor, ammunition, and other valuable goods. “I’d wager that most of this is from black market trading,” Derkifda commented. “There’s got to be enough value here to buy a town.”

“Yes, but you forget: that would cause massive inflation in the amount of gear,” Pteron said. “Now, who can tell me what this stockpile means? Who do you think is using these weapons?”

“The cultists?” Kämmer asked daftly.

“There’s more to it than that,” Pteron replied. “You need to think more, Kämmer. Serah, you got any ideas?”

“There is obviously more than one group behind it,” Serah answered. “Yes, the cultists are most likely using some, but with Sforzandosi gone up north, there is another group. Where are these weapons and armor pieces being made?”

“It seems that they’re mostly made in Haven,” Derkifda informed her after inspecting a couple boxes. “Which makes no sense, how are they getting them out of Haven?”

“And that’s as far as we’re going to get with logic alone,” Pteron concluded. “The amount of weaponry being made and/or sold in the Bazaar has not gone up or down, and no one group of people are buying them.”

“What if they’re not being made in Haven?” Kämmer asked. “What if some smiths went rogue and left?”

“Again, that wouldn’t make any sense,” Pteron debunked the theory. “The amount of smiths that left Haven in the past five years is extremely low. Most went to the Great Colony, and are still there. Maybe about three ended up here, and three smiths couldn’t do all this. There is no way they could create all these weapons with such precision.”

“What if they were stolen from battlefields?” Serah suggested.

“And again, no,” Pteron answered. “Most knights have their weapons customized to some extent.”

“Maybe there’s a factory?” Kämmer threw another shot in the dark.

“Possible, but unlikely,” Pteron said. “Now, we’ve stalled long enough; it’s time to find this Tulth kid.”

The others nodded in agreement and silently followed him to the office. On their way there, they passed even more supplies and weaponry. In one of the corners, they caught a glimpse of small, single-person airships. All four took notice of them, and made a unanimous unspoken decision to discuss them later.

When the squad entered Tulth’s office, they pretended to not notice or care about the dead gremlin on the floor, or the still warm Raptor on the desk. Tulth smiled slyly at his new guests. “Any particular reason you came waltzing into my office to hunt me down?”

“Look, kid, there doesn’t have to be any trouble unless you want trouble,” Pteron threatened him. “And before you ask: no, we are not here about the insane stockpiles of stuff in the warehouse.”

“What a surprise,” Tulth joked. “Also, don’t call me a kid. I may only be eighteen, but I’ve run this place for four years, which is more than most have done.”

“We’re here about the cultists,” Kämmer jutted in. “Where are they, and what are they doing here?”

“Calm down, Kämmer!” Pteron exclaimed, then turned to Tulth. “We saw the cultists’ airships outside, and have heard rumors that they’re doing something here. Can you explain this to me?”

“Well, it has to do with the weapons trade,” Tulth began. “We have a little deal with them: they buy weapons and supplies from us, can use this outpost as a base of operations in the south, and they give me the weaponry and armor they don’t use, which is quite a lot, seeing as they have a specific uniform. Our little deal here sorts out all of both parties’ needs, but I have to admit, I do have the better end of the bargain.”

“But what about the rest of the weaponry?” Serah inquired. “There’s more than enough for all the freelancers on Cradle in that warehouse alone.”

“That, my dear, is where the other group comes in,” Tulth said. “The pine forests up north are kept perpetually in winter by Vog’s enemies. I do not know who they are exactly, but they pay good coin for weapons, armor, ammo, and supplies. As you said, though, I do get quite a bit of money from freelancers. Oh, and I must say, that is quite a pretty necklace you have there. ‘Twould be a shame if you lost it.”

“Thank you for your time, Tulth,” Pteron told him, beckoning the others to leave.

“I hope you have a nice day,” Tulth sneered.

Pteron quickly led his squad back to the other two squads, who were starting to have trouble. One knight was on the floor, bloody and unconscious, with many others cheering on one of Pteron’s soldiers, Zalfri.

“What on Cradle happened here?” Pteron yelled at the knight. “I told you to keep an eye out for anything suspicious, not get in a brawl. Now, did you find anything of importance, other than some drunk to knock out?”

Before the knight could reply, the outpost was awakened by gunfire. Two bullets found Kämmer’s arm, one nailed itself in Zalfri’s foot. Above the noise, someone shouted, “Retreat!”

Pteron and the others all agreed with them, and ran as fast as they could out of the building. They immediately found refuge in the jungle, and a quick headcount let Pteron know they were all alive.

Two knights and three gremlins, all dressed in Vog Cub coats charged out of the building, but were instantly gunned down by hidden knights. Almost instantly, the machine guns on the walls were in use, and were firing blindly into the jungle. The word was sent along the lines of knights to hijack the airships.

After minutes of silence from the jungle, the machine guns stopped firing. With no orders given, all the knights approached the jungle’s edge and opened fire on the enemy gunners. A few fell to snipers, but most were unharmed, as they disappeared back into the jungle with speed.

Pteron sent out the order to head to the north side on his com unit, and all the surviving knights started to slither through the jungle. When the last of the knights arrived, they found that the airships were already being boarded and prepared to fly away.

Each of the five airships was built to carry twenty passengers, plus three gunners and a pilot, so they made the decision to destroy one of the airships, as they had lost seven knights to snipers from the outpost. Pteron’s squad was the last to board one of the airships, but once they were in, all four began to take off. These were propellor powered ones, so they could take off with less space, but were a lot louder.

Once all four were in the air, some gunfire started hitting them from the outpost. Pteron’s pilot sent three missiles into the fifth one, blowing it to smithereens. The airships split up into two groups of two to fly around the outpost. The gunners fired into the sniper towers and onto the machine gun posts, killing most of the cultists.

Unfortunately, the one mortar launcher one the walls was not destroyed, and fired onto the ship flying next to Pteron’s. The projectile smashed directly into the hull, blasting the ship, and all twenty-four passengers.

A unanimous cry of shock came from all three other ships, but the pilots kept on their course. Pteron dipped his head in defeat, realizing that the operation had gone completely sour.

“Do you know who was lost?” Serah asked. “We going to do a memorial or something for them?”

“Of course,” Pteron replied hollowly. “I always keep track of who goes on a mission and who returns. Spiral Order regulation and all.”

The three remaining airships flew in unison to Haven, but landed about a mile away, to ensure that they were not perceived as threats.

(OOC: Sorry for my lateness! I kinda forgot all about this until yesterday, and I already had all of this but the last paragraph typed out on Thursday. But I got it out. Hope y'all enjoy it. Maybe y'all are starting to figure a few things out by now about a certain group ;)....)

Chapter Seven: Snowfall

That was a terrible raid, Talfring thought to himself. We lost way too many people in that charge, an accomplished nothing, other than torching a few buildings and killing a few members of Sforzandosi.

He kept his thoughts entirely to himself, as they would most likely aggravate Xerpraz, the leader of the raiding party, should they fall on his ears. The rest of the raiding party felt the same, and they slowly trudged back to Þalfort, where Xerpraz would likely face punishment from his superiors for his failure.

One of Talfring’s few friends, Baort, had been struck down by the enemy knights who had jumped from the rooftops, and Talfring was quite angry he had been killed. He spent the entire trip back to Þalfort brooding about how Sforzandosi would pay.

A sudden gust of cold wind hit the cultists as they made their way through the forest, and before they could react, a blizzard was upon them. The sky went from sun to clouds in minutes, and the cultists were struggling to walk in the wind. After an hour of the snow and wind, one gremlin could not handle it anymore and collapsed.

Xerpraz noticed the straggler and dispatched him with a single shot from his Magma Driver. “Can’t have information getting out,” he reasoned dryly from beneath his fiery mask.

Another few miles went by, and the cultists passed an abandoned cabin. After stopping to check it for supplies and valuables, they decided to divvy up the food and continue on their way. What was found was not perishable, but they did find some cooked meat in the snow, obviously preserved for later use.

About a mile after passing the cabin, Xerpraz finally relented and decided to wait out the storm. Their resident sorcerer, Kavler, lit up a magical fire in a small clearing, just big enough for the remaining cultists to sleep comfortably. Their armor kept them warm in the cold, except for those without helmets.

As he drifted off to sleep, Talfring heard the howls of Frostifurs on the hunt, undoubtedly excited for the blizzard. During blizzards, Frostifurs would get rushes of adrenaline, and joyfully dig rabbits from their warrens to feast upon. Occasionally, they would stumble across a larger predator and flee, but for the most part, times of bad weather were times of the hunt.

When he awoke, the first thing Talfring noticed was the absence of a fire. He tried to sit up, but felt a searing pain go up his left side. There was a hole in his armor, surrounded by frozen blood. His armor had lost its heating, and he was kept warm by the fur alone, and not by its magical properties.

Everyone else in the camp was cold and still, and the snow was stained red with blood. Struggling to breath, Talfring stumbled through the clearing, over to Xerpraz, who was clearly dead, with three gunshots in his chest. The wounds were inflicted by a Hail Driver, a weapon none of the cultists would possess. Xerpraz’s customized Magma Driver was still in it’s holster, and Talfring was about to use it for himself, when he noticed that his own flaming Barbarous Thorn Blade was missing.

He glanced around the clearing and saw the blade stuck into a gremlin on the other side. After carefully cleaning it, he sheathed it beside the Magma Driver and began to slowly limp through the woods to Þalfort, where he knew he could get some medical help.

Just two miles from Þalfort, Talfring collapsed on the ground and prayed to Vog for assistance and guidance. Before he could finish his prayer, exhaustion overcame him and he fell backwards into the snow.

His sleep was disturbed, and many visions came to him. He saw the thriving city of Uðinkäl beneath him, and watched as a dragon razed the city to the ground. All that was left was a smoldering ruin, which was slowly overtaken with snow. Talfring watched a small knight, armed with nothing but a small jagged blade, enter the city’s ruin and battle the dragon.

The city became alight with flames from the mighty dragon’s maw, but the knight was finally victorious. He left the city with his armor glowing, a set of dragon-like wings, and a wolver-like tail. His face had become more canine, and his weapon transformed. Talfring recognized the new blade at once as the Fang of Vog, a weapon said to have been forged in battle by Vog himself. It became clear to Talfring who he was watching.

As the strange figure entered the wilderness, the ice melted, and the plants bloomed with the green of spring. The other Isorans present hailed him as a hero, and followed him to the southwest, where they founded a new prospering city beside the mountains.

Talfring saw Vog eventually die, and watched as his spirit ascended into the heavens as the first god of Cradle. Many Isorans eventually left the city to form another kingdom across the mountains: Almire. Talfring watched over the siege of Almire, and the kingdom’s ultimate destruction.

When he finally awoke, Talfring was dazed and confused. He saw a gremlin healer working on his wound. “Where am I?” he shouted out, worried he was in the Great Colony.

“Relax!” she said. “You’re here in Þalfort. A patrol out scavenging found you passed out in the snow. What happened to you?!”

“Who are you?” he asked bluntly.

“Tabetha,” she replied. “I’m just here for the day. I volunteered to cover for another healer that got sick today.”

“Okay…” Talfring muttered in response. “I was with Xerpraz’s raiding party. We were going to try to take Sforzandosi’s village to the southwest of here. We lost quite a few men trying to take the town, so we retreated into the woods.”

“And how did you end up with a dagger wound in your chest and passed out in the snow outside of Þalfort?”

“Well, the weather was fairly good, so we were just marching back here as we normally would,” he wheezed. “Out of nowhere, a blizzard hit us. We trudged on through it, but eventually Xerpraz couldn’t take any more, and the rest of us were on the brink of collapse, so we set up camp in a small clearing.

“Our armor was keeping us warm, so we all got some much-needed sleep. When I awoke, our magical fire had been extinguished, I had this wound in my side, and everyone else was dead. Xerpraz had been shot three times in the chest with a Hail Driver, and my own sword was buried in a gremlin far from where I was sleeping. I grabbed it, and Xerpraz’s own Magma Driver, and headed out into the woods in the direction of Þalfort. I might’ve gotten maybe ten miles before I collapsed. I tried to pray to Vog, but I passed out into the snow. Had some strange dreams about Vog, and I watched his life go by, and then I woke here.”

The entire time, the cultists’ leader, Creevan, was listening and watching Tabetha work on Talfring’s wound. “Very interesting,” he commented, scaring both Talfring and Tabetha. “Was everyone’s body there that was there before you fell asleep still there after?”

“I didn’t think to look,” Talfring confessed. “I’m pretty certain there was no imprint in the snow, and the footsteps I saw were not made by heated armor like ours. All of the magical fires on our armors were extinguished too, which makes no sense.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to believe you?” Creevan asked. “This whole story is very suspicious.”

“Send a patrol to the clearing where we camped,” Talfring suggested. “I don’t think it was Sforzandosi, since they wouldn’t have the power to conjure a blizzard, so it has to be someone else.”

Creevan didn’t respond, but stared into Talfring’s eyes for almost a minute, then promptly left the building. Talfring looked to the others in the room for an explanation, but they were all as confused as he.

(OOC: Classes be harder this year, but I finally got a chapter out! Yay! Hope you enjoy it. I've already started on Chapter Eight, so that might be out faster than normal. I'm back in the saddle again! Blah blah blah.... Here it is!)

Chapter Eight: Surprising Success

Returning from a memorial service for the recently lost knights, Pteron was stumped. Thoroughly stumped. Everyone he had asked said he was crazy. Except Mono, but he didn’t count. Mono was crazy too, and insanity cannot recognize itself.

Pteron had hypothesised that the cultists had another enemy up north. Another group that was using Tulth’s Outpost as a base of operations in the south. All sane sources in Haven still refuted his claim. Maybe they were crazy, and he and Mono were the enlightened ones. Either way, they were not alone in fighting the cultists.

Still confused, Pteron returned home to his meager hut. It had but one room, and was barely big enough to fit his bed, a humble wardrobe, a chair, a computer and small desk, and a fridge. The ceiling had collapsed years ago, and, in its place, was a piece of cloth to hide him from the sun. Rain, however, was a problem, and often chased him out his modest abode to the Auction House, or the Military District.

Of all the lieutenants (he had recently been promoted, along with a few other notable people), Pteron was the only one to have residence outside the Military District (his home was actually in an alley in the Bazaar, so he happened to be the only non-merchant living nearby). Unlike the wealthier lieutenants, like Grub, he did not care for a house. His guns were of top caliber because, as his most important facet of life, nothing else mattered. His guns were his source of income. His guns were his source of entertainment. His guns were his source of food. To Pteron, they were his life, and without his dueling revolvers, he was not a man. From the day he got his first weapon, at the age of twelve (for he was always the youngest in his group due to his inherent skills), he had gone only four days without touching them. All four of those days he was deathly ill with pneumonia.

He decided to open up the computer, and see if the other lieutenants, or Mono, had sent anything to him, or if anything important had happened. He was immediately taken aback by the news of an attack in Villaggio Tra i Pini, and the news of an airship going down in the Almirian Mountains. He sent out a message to the other lieutenants, and Mono, to see if the downed airship was being dealt with.

It was not.

The opportunity was perfect for Pteron. Two missions, almost simultaneously, for his young knights. This one was going to be a lot more difficult, though, and he knew he could only take a few. He started to write out a roster, and made sure to include Derkifda, Tsurem, and Serah, three people that had impressed him in the past (although Serah was not technically one of his students, she still had to follow his orders, and most likely would not complain). He had been told nothing but positive about a gremlin named Tørhan, except the fact he had bionic legs, which, in Pteron’s experience, was more of an advantage than a disadvantage, although the official Battle Efficiency Calculator (BEC) registered it as a problem, and lowered his BEC score, making him below average, although in actual combat, he was above average for a guard.

After seeing Tørhan’s unusually low theoretical score of 2, Pteron decided to do some research. His own was, according to the official data, (8,9) (practical,theoretical). Haven average was (3,4). He looked at a few more, and determined that it was mostly useless and inaccurate, and he would always watch a soldier instead of using the score. Heck, stories told by drunken knights at three o’clock a.m. about someone else’s battle prowess were probably more reliable.

He worked on the roster a bit more, then decided to acquire some airships at the Garrison, which distributed supplies of all sorts to military personnel, from homes to guns and food to airships.

“You can’t check out three airships, Pteron,” one of the quartermasters told him. “What are you even going to do with them? Go on a rescue mission? That would be more suited for one airship. You might be a lieutenant, but you are overstepping your authority. Besides, you used three less than a week ago.”

“I registered three less than a week ago,” Pteron corrected him. “I did not take them from our arsenal, I added them to it. Fix that.”

“No, I’m pretty certain you requested them,” the quartermaster replied. “I can’t have people lying about what they requested and then asking for more.

“Listen, fool, I’m doing important tasks that other lieutenants are too afraid to do,” Pteron told him. “It takes a lot of guts to march into an enemy controlled base and question people. It also takes a lot of guts to do what I’m trying to do: fly into cultist controlled airspace and search for a downed Spiral airship. If you would rather lead this mission, by all means, go ahead. But noooo, you’re just a quartermaster doing what your higher ups are telling you to. Also, you’re fired. Can someone else please assist me?”

The first quartermaster left his post and returned home, now jobless (although Pteron could not actually fire him on the spot, the quartermaster knew he would lose his job anyway), and another came to help Pteron. After a short discussion, the database was corrected, and four airships were allocated to Pteron, as the quartermaster reminded him that he would need a transport ship, and could not rely on three gunships, which, although they did have passenger space, would not have space for troops and survivors.

Once he eventually gathered enough men to do the job, Pteron gave them a small rant about why the Garrison was managed terribly, then proceeded to explain that they were to fly into the Almirian Mountain Range and search for a downed airship.

“We don’t know where exactly it is, but all I can tell is that the airship is somewhere on the southeastern end of the Almirians, and possibly on the moor,” Pteron said. “Our best bet will to search the mountains with two airships, and keep the transport one with them, and send a third out to follow the foothills, starting at the tail of the range, and going north.”

The pilots all nodded in agreement, and the airships were promptly boarded on the runway outside Haven. Everyone strapped themselves in, and the pilots loaded their destinations on the maps. The airships zipped down the runway, and into the air. All four stuck together on the flight to Lake Krev, and stayed close to each other along the Krev River, but when they approached the mountains, and the Krev River veered west, three of them, including Pteron’s, continued to follow the Krev before turning north, and the other turned east and followed the foothills around.

It wasn’t long before the signal came in to the other three that there were multiple destroyed airships by a large canyon, marked as Crimson Canyon on the map. Fortunately, they appeared to be from crashed cultists, and not a transport ship, so they once again split up.

Within a minute of Pteron sending the order to split up, they found the actual crash, and all four airships were roughly landed on the moor. As they unboarded the airships, the survivors sent up another flare.

“It’s okay! We know you’re there! We’ll be over quickly,” Pteron called, then added to his men, “I need a few of you gunners to stay here and watch the ship, while the rest of you, particularly the medics, come with me.”

The survivors were in better shape than Pteron was expecting, with minimal injuries. The pilot had a broken arm, a few others had minor scrapes, and one passenger had just awoken from a concussion, but was already recovering.

“Medics, get to work on these injuries, particularly the concussion and broken arm,” Pteron ordered. “The rest of you, come help salvage what you can from the wreck. Any passenger possessions or even parts of the airship itself.”

From the wreck they secured an package full of scientific data, parts, and an experimental gun, which Frílta claimed, a few engine parts, some wheel bearings (only a few were intact), and a few miscellaneous weapons and tools that survived in one of the storage cabinets.

As they hauled the parts and weaponry back to the transport airship and the three gunships, three cultist transport ships flew overhead, accompanied by five gunships. “Everyone get on the ground and hide!” Pteron called out. Unfortunately, cover was lacking on the moor, and they had to hope they would remain unseen.

They did not.

One of the gunships shot at one of Pteron’s own gunships, crippling the wings and engines. The enemy airships turned around to get a view of who was below, and on their return, prepared for landing.

Pteron’s knights opened fire on the landing enemies, managing to cause one of the gunships to crash in a fatal burst of orange flame and black smoke. One of the passengers on the downed airship, Frílta, got out her experimental weapon, and headed over to where Pteron and the others were hiding.

“Can I be of any help?” she offered.

“You sure that gun works?” Pteron asked skeptically.

“Tested every way possible except in battle,” Frílta replied.

“Just stick with me and shoot enemies,” Pteron ordered, then moved to telling the others what to do. “Get the injured back to the airships. Don’t get them inside, but use the Arets as cover. If you can, drive the airships in around and get them as a square formation so we’ll have cover.”

About half of the men did so, while the other half stayed with Pteron and Frílta. He then assigned everyone to be watching a different area, as the cultists could attack from anywhere. Pteron climbed to the top of a mound and hid behind it for cover.

“This isn’t right,” Pteron commented. “They should have appeared by now.”

The pilots just started moving the airships slightly, and when they were in formation, the pilots returned to Pteron. The other knights and rescued passengers were hiding in the square, invisible to anyone else. Suddenly some dust was kicked up into the air by an invisible foot.

Pteron shot directly where the foot’s owner would be, and nailed the previously-invisible cultist in the neck. As he should have expected, a horde of cultists appeared, all armed to the teeth, some with swords, some with guns.

Pteron immediately recognized one of them as the Fire Child, and he immediately approached Pteron. “We can do this one of two ways,” Talfring warned, “you can come back with us, or you can die right here. What do you want?”

Pteron spat in his captor’s face, then replied, “How about you just let us go here and now? We’ll head back to Haven, and you’ll head back to wherever it is you live, and we can continue peacefully.”

“Are you serious?” Talfring chuckled. “How likely is it that we’re gonna let you escape back to Haven in one piece?”

“I’d say it’s ten to one,” Pteron replied. “But anything under a thousand is better than the other possibilities.”

“That’s odds, you idiot!” Frílta grumbled at him.

“I like that attitude, my friend,” Talfring said to Pteron. “But I’m afraid that one is gonna get crushed by the other ten.”

Before he could speak further, a threat came from the direction of the square. “Drop your weapons and no one has to die.”

Not knowing what they were facing, the cultists all dropped their guns and swords, while Pteron and his crew raised theirs. “Now how about we do this my way?” Pteron asked. “You all board your airships and leave, and we go our separate ways, no problems.”

“That sounds pretty good right now,” one of the cultists muttered.

“Rhasa! No weakness!” Talfring reprimanded him. “But I do admit, that sounds pretty good right now.”

Pteron escorted them back to their airships, but before they left, he had one of his technicians sneak a tracking device on board. He brought his soldiers back to the square, and they slowly filed into the three remaining airships, barely fitting. The transport ship had the enemies on the map, and they flew back to Haven, without a single injury, something Pteron was not used to.

(OOC: Yeah, this is way late. October sucked. I haven't felt like writing much, honestly, but I think I like it again. So as soon as this is posted I'm gonna be back writing again. Anyway, this chapter might be boring for some (and interesting for others), but the next one is gonna be sick. I think. Or just terribly miserable and depressing. We shall see.)

Chapter Eleven: Philosophies

“You’re telling me all the cultists in our prison escaped, we lost three airships in a blizzard, and Villaggio tra i Pini and Kral have been destroyed all within the span of a week?” Mono snapped at the guard. “Is it impossible for me to leave you fools for any time at all without all hell breaking loose?”

“Sir, with all due respect, I am just a guard, I did not have any power over the events of the past weeks,” he replied.

Mono growled at him and stormed into the city. People in the streets all turned to watch the angry captain march angrily toward the Military District. When he got to the main building, he sent out a message to his lieutenants, an invite to a meeting in the headquarters.

Within an hour, Alisa, Grub, Pop, Ryker, Pteron, Vaelyn, and Wegner were gathered at a table, forming the Spiral Order’s Council of War. “Alright,” Mono addressed them, “We need to talk. Some unknown force has caused us to lose our allies in the north: Sforzandosi. Not to mention the three airships we lost in a blizzard trying to save the survivors. Our outpost, Kral, was overrun by slimes. Yes, slimes. That is not acceptable. And on top of all of that, Tulth took over the Mercenary Outpost, and is using it as a spot for his allies, which are quite obviously our enemies. Oh, and we had a bunch of cultists cause a riot in our prison, and many escaped.”

“We’ve been spread thin,” Grub explain. He had been quietly lording over Haven and the surrounding areas while Mono had been gone. “This chaos is so widespread it’s becoming difficult to have a grasp over what is actually happening. And to top all this off, we recently sent a small group of soldiers over to Cravat Hall, since we heard of tidings of war over there, but we have yet to hear back from them.”

“And who gave that order?” Mono demanded, infuriated.

“Err… I don’t actually know,” Grub answered awkwardly. “Some lower-downs took the initiative on their own and we haven’t been able to figure out why or what even happened.”

“Have them court martialed, preferably executed,” Mono ordered the council. “I also want Tulth’s Outpost seized. Let them remain there, but we need to control what goes in and out of that place. Fortify Corvin, as it will likely be the next place these cultists, or this other unknown force, attack. Make sure the prisoners are hunted down in the south, get some help from the Great Colony in doing this. Preferably have Aelston send some of his troops to fortify Corvin. Figure out what happened to those airships. And, lastly, figure out who the hell wiped out Villaggio tra i Pini!”

“That's not currently possible,” Ryker jutted in. He had been checking numbers on his computer as Mono was speaking. “Currently, if we put effort into all of those at once, we would be looking at using all of our troops, including the Haven guard, and all of our reserves that aren't exactly in the best shape for fighting… Haven would be completely defenseless.”

“Judging by the havoc they caused in Villaggio tra i Pini, this strange force could wipe out at least ten thousand of our soldiers,” Grub added, “and that's assuming they win by a decent margin. It would be a foolish move to take them on with any less than twenty thousand… And that's nearly our entire force, counting Aelston’s army.”

“Then we can train the people,” Mono said defiantly. “There is no way for us to win this war, whether we like it or not, if we cannot use anything but soldiers.”

“Where are they getting all these bodies?” Pteron inquired skeptically. “There is no way they could have taken these from the Haven population.”

“I'm going to share a secret with you,” Mono informed the council. “When the Skylark crashed… Well, it broke up first. I do not know all of the details, but the knights that landed around Haven were not the only batch. My parents were part of this group, but maintained contacts in another group. Two of these groups landed in the far northern area of Cradle. The last landed in the volcanic mountains, near where Xerxes’ fortress was. This group traveled to the east, and eventually found the Vog cultists. They too were Isoran, but had been here for thousands of years. This formed the modern Vog cultists, along with a group of gremlins that had been stranded in the Clockworks for eighty years and finally resurfaced. The two groups that landed around the North Pole were never heard from again.”

“How do you know about this?” Pop asked.

“I learned a little bit from my parents, but a lot of it I found in the archives after I was promoted to Captain. Apparently even Feron didn’t know of them when he was Captain, so after he passed I had to request for files that had been unopened since Ozlo’s time of ruling. The administrators I had to ask were very confused, but here we are. Remember, this information does not leave this room.”
“So how do we deal with them?” Grub asked. This was unusual for him, as he was normally the one with all the answers and plans. “Is there any way to beat them when we are so hopelessly outnumbered?

“Yes, actually,” Vaelyn, who had previously remained quiet, started to speak. “It will be risky, and a likely suicide mission for many, but there is actually a way we could beat both of them at once.”

The entire council looked to the seasoned veteran, who was more than happy to share her unique plan.

“You see, if we can somehow get the majority of the two groups’ forces to fight each other, one side will win by a slight margin, which is why they haven’t fought outside small skirmishes. Heck, I don’t think the cultists even know anything about these strange northerners. Our best bet would be to assemble a large enough army outside each of their cities, then draw out their armies while bringing our groups closer together. In the end, our troops would meet up with one another and retreat from the battlefield, leaving the two groups to slaughter one another.”

“Now that sounds good and all,” Pteron critiqued, “but how on Cradle are we going to get twenty something thousand soldier through that gap in a short amount of time?

Vaelyn was shocked. At no time prior to this was she ever contradicted at a council of war. Of course, she hadn't been present at a council of war since Ozlo was kicked out, but she was still taken aback.

“I say we forge some sort of alliance with these Skolver whackos, if only temporary,” Pteron said. “Now, how can that go wrong? Yeah, they might betray us, but at least we won't have the cultist crazies going after us with their airships and stuff.”

“The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend,” Vaelyn countered.

“This isn't about philosophy, this is about winning a damned war!” Ryker jutted in. “It doesn't matter how we win this, it's about the results. Ten thousand losses to take out both of our enemies is a result. It's a bad result. Letting those crazy Skolver people in is a bad result too, but it's worth a shot. Hell, dropping bombs of Compound 42 on them is a result, albeit an immoral one. Even the gremlins didn't go that low. They had the Alyas and the Compound 42 for it, and they could've bombed Haven if they saw fit, but they weren't that bad. Now, what do we want out of this war or possibly this treaty that Pteron suggested?”

“Peace via minimal losses and possibly an expansion of our power,” Mono answered. “Isn't that obvious?”

“No, it isn't. Vaelyn’s suggestion would have caused a lot of losses for us, and Pteron’s would've put us at a political disadvantage, seeing as we would not be negotiating from a position of power. So, what gives us our goals?

“Owlites,” Pop suggested, almost randomly. “The Owlites would help us achieve both of those goals.”

“Those crazy old philosophers couldn't defend themselves against Xerxes, how would they be useful to us at all?!” Alisa interrupted.

“Maybe for those of you who remember Kaval Uribor, I have an idea,” Grub began. “If they could train enough soldiers of ours in the ways of magic, then maybe we could resurrect an army of the dead to fight our enemies. No losses, no risk, only reward.”

“That falls under the category of ‘immoral,’ I'm afraid,” Mono told him.

“This is war. Do morals matter?”

(OOC: Alright, nothing to say, but here is an example of generally what the Pyrozert machine guns look like, with energy cells similar to Alchemers instead of the box and chain of rounds.)

Chapter Twelve: The Horde

“All warriors, please go to the arsenal at once,” the cultists’ loudspeaker rang out through the city. “All warriors, please go to the arsenal at once. All warriors, please…”

Talfring knew this was it. The enemy was finally attacking. The last two months had been peaceful since the prison riot, save for a couple skirmishes with the crazies clad in Skolver coats. After all this time here, under Creevan’s rule, it was the final do or die moment for the cultists. He was already equipped in full armor with his Barbarous Thorn Blade and Xerpraz’s Magma Driver, but many of the cultists still lacked armaments.

One of the gremlins in his squad, Rhasa, rushed passed him in search of the armory. Talfring was fortunate enough to have his own apartment and did not have to live in the barracks, unlike many others. Rhasa had an apartment with his apprentice, Tabetha, too. Although neither of them had been trained for combat (and Rhasa was quite old), they were both part of Talfring’s squad of thirty, though he frequently withdrew soldiers from the unsquadded reserve.

As was planned, Talfring’s squad already knew where they were going to be during an attack such as this. They, along with many others, were to assemble outside, and to the north of, the city.

Once Talfring’s group of thirty and nine other groups, along with their commander, Vreltid, the setup stage began. Vreltid ordered the soldiers to build a wall of snow, and a trench behind it for the soldiers to shoot from. They had machine guns to line the top of the trench, and with this came the advantage. Talfring estimated that they had enough energy cells to hold off a force of ten thousand, which was over thirty times their own force. It would be unlikely for the Spiral Order to send any more than that their way, as ten thousand was already two fifths of their available force.

“Alright men!” Vreltid shouted once everyone was in their places in the trench. “We are the smallest defensive force around our entire city, since the Spiral Order is much less likely to attack here than any other side. Creevan has entrusted us with the north side, and, should the Isorans attack, we will defend! None of you are to leave this trench until the Isorans are either on the defensive or have breached the city. They are not used to this cold terrain, and they do not have the power of Vog on their side, and it's unlikely they will have anything they cannot carry. We, however, have thirty artillery cannons behind this trench with which we can bombard the enemy before we are in their range. You have healers in that trench with you, so even if you are wounded, you won’t have to go far. Now, we wait.”

Darkness came over the forest, but the sky was clear and the stars visible. The entire forest was silent, save the distant howling of the Frostifurs.

“The waiting… By Vog, the waiting,” Talfring heard Rhasa mutter to himself. This was probably the worst part of the entire war. They were doing nothing. Prohibited from moving, the cultists could only sit there and wait for their inevitable end. Each and every one of them knew that they would be easily overrun, no matter what Vreltid said, but also that it was their duty to stay there, and that was more important than the world.

With their heated armor, the cultists became comfortable and sleepy, so Talfring had to scream at them to stay away, and to keep himself awake. He turned around to find Vreltid and perhaps get something to keep the soldiers awake, but he was pacing frantically, looking this way and that. Must have gotten into the phearium again, Talfring thought to himself. Vreltid had been addicted to the drug ever since he was tortured with it back when he had first joined the cultists. He was once part of the Spiral Order but had been captured, tortured, and turned against them with phearium. And now it was driving him insane.

Talfring decided that it would be best to run back into the city to get some Crimsonite powder to keep the men awake. The stuff burned tongues, but it was well worth it to keep the men focused. On his way back, he heard Vreltid screaming “They’re here! They’re here!”

Talfring was scared to death, as he was away from the front line during an attack, but by the time he got back within sight of it, the entire place was quiet. Vreltid must just be experiencing the effects of the phearium, Talfring thought to himself.

By the time Talfring was back with a satchel full of Crimsonite powder, Vreltid had gotten even crazier and was now firing randomly into the air with his Magma Driver. While he was sneaking back into the trench with the Crimsonite, Talfring took a stray shot from Vreltid’s Magma Driver to his left thigh.

Luckily, Tabetha was nearby, and was able to use her mender magicks to seal the wound, but there was still some internal damage, along with the gaping hole in Talfring’s armor.

As he made his way back to his own Pyrozert machine gun, Talfring heard the distinctive sound of enemies from the forest. Before he had time to duck into the trench and crawl back to his gun, the other cultists of the trench began firing madly into the woods. The guns they used had dual barrels, with handles on them, and large tubes around the barrels themselves filled with ice to prevent the guns from overheating. They spat firey bullets of energy, similar to Pyrotechs.

By the time he had gotten back to his own gun, the enemy was visible through the trees at last. Talfring had expected flamboyant and well-trained knights to be on the front lines of this operation, but before him was a horde of the mindless undead. So this is why the Spiral Order has been quiet for so long, Talfring realized.

He tore apart at least thirty of the thoughtless enemies, but they kept coming: it seemed as though nothing could stop the horde. Luckily, they were armed with nothing but swords and shields, but when the horde reached the trench after the guns inevitably began to overheat, the mêlée ensued.

Vreltid jumped frantically into the fray, slashing and stabbing everything in sight (including his own men) with his Flamberge. After taking care of yet another shambler, Talfring decided to take control on his own.

“All menders, get out of the trench!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “If you are injured, leave the line!”

Talfring drew his Magma Driver and dispatched another two shamblers, but witnessed one stab Rhasa in the gut. In a fit of unbridled rage, Talfring broke the enemy’s jaw off with the hilt of his own blade, then lifted Rhasa over his shoulder to bring the injured gremlin back to the menders.

“I’m okay… Seriously, don’t take me back there,” Rhasa urged him, but it was no use, for Talfring had made up his mind to save the old smith.

When he turned around to return to the front, Talfring saw Vreltid toss down his weapon and do battle with his bare hands. The frantic commander tore shamblers limb from limb, but he eventually disappeared into a large crowd of the resurrected, and never emerged.

Another two cultists fell to his right, and Talfring decided to grab his Pyrozert and retreat to the menders. He called out the signal for retreat, and many others did likewise. They had about twenty Pyrozerts and barely over a hundred men left, with the enemies just one hundred yards out now. Those who had brought machine guns quickly began to use them once more, and mowed down at least five hundred shamblers within a minute.

They kept this up until the horde of the undead began to dissipate, at which point they took to mêlée once more. Once the final few were eliminated, Talfring took a look around at who still stood. Rhasa was still recovering from his gut wound, Tabetha was tending to him, and Vreltid lay still in the middle of a circle of bodies. Only four others from his squad had survived, making Talfring’s squad one of the hardest hit. From his estimations, of the three hundred original cultists, only one hundred remained standing, with maybe another twenty at most still alive in the trench.

In the distance, Talfring could hear the sound of more battle. They must be facing something similar down south, Talfring thought as he began to make his way down south to find a higher up to report the events of the attack from the north to.

(OOC: Yo! I'm alive and well, and on summer break, and currently bored out of my mind, so I can write! I'm currently working on something I plan to have published eventually. It's a medieval fantasy story, and it won't be anywhere for a while yet, but I just thought I'd let everyone know I am doing stuff, just not this. Anyways, on to the good stuff! An actual chapter!)

Chapter Fourteen: Two Vials
 
“What are your thoughts, Talfring?” Creevan asked. “You seem unhappy with your new position as commander in my great army.”
 
“I am afraid, Your Highness,” he answered. “The Spiral Order is more powerful than they used to be. Their direct attack on Þalfort proved their power. I fear with more sorcery on their side, they may overcome us.”
 
“Corüv’s loss was not to sorcery,” Creevan reminded him. “That should have been a small skirmish in the form of an execution of Knights, but they got lucky and called in for reinforcements while Corüv did nothing. That was a deserved loss, and as far as I'm concerned, Corüv proved his uselessness with it.”
 
“But the Spiral Order’s airships are getting stronger,” Talfring said. “We have no way of defending against multiple machine guns from above.”
 
“There are ways,” Creevan told him. “I want you to go to Tulth and see if he has a shipment of weaponry that can take out airships.”
 
“Where is he gonna get that?”
 
“There are many sources of weaponry on Cradle, you just have to know where you are looking. Deep beneath our feet are the best weaponsmiths on Cradle, we just have to contact them, and Tulth has contacts everywhere.”
 
“Doesn’t the Spiral Order also have a small army of Mecha Knights?” Talfring inquired. “When I was still in Haven, they had them, but were not in use.”
 
“Yes, they still have a few that they use as a backup plan in case the city is breached, as do the gremlins in the Great Colony,” Creevan explained. “Oh, by the way, would you be willing to accompany me to a conference?”
 
“What sort of conference? Another boring political meeting of the other cultist leaders to discuss some random rule?”
 
“Well... It is a political conference,” Creevan said. “I’m going to be going to the Tulth’s Outpost to discuss terms of combat with Aelston, Mono, and a couple of their higher-ups, I thought it right to bring one of my own commanders.”
 
“I suppose that could be interesting…”
 
!#-^*^-#!
 
Mono, Grub, Pteron, and Ryker all filed into the conference room at Tulth’s Outpost. They were the first to arrive, besides Tulth himself, who presided over the hearing as a neutral moderator. The four representatives of the Spiral Order took the four seats on the eastern side of the room, and prepared to discuss warfare with the two representatives of the Vog cultists and the two representatives of the Great Colony, who were to sit in the four chairs on the western side of the room. Everything about this conference had been planned at Mono’s request, to ensure nothing would go wrong, and no one would get killed.
 
Aelston and Leona walked in hastily and took their respective seats. Soon after the gremlins’ arrival, Creevan and Talfring arrived.
 
“Before this conference can proceed, I ask that all of you remove your hats,” Tulth began.
 
Mono took off his faded coral chapeau to reveal his slowly graying blond hair, Talfring took of his Vog Cub Cap to show to the world the nasty scars that adorned his face, and Pteron begrudgingly removed his stetson. "No thank you," Ryker replied, keeping his cap firmly upon his head.

Tulth was about to rebuke, but Mono shot him a threatening glare, and the Isoran understood the message: do not try to order the Spiral Order around.
 
“I hereby declare the first session of the Conference on Deadly Weapons in Warfare and Testing Facilities begun,” Tulth said. “Creevan, would you like to go first, as you are outnumbered in this conference?”
 
Mono and Ryker shared a glancing scowl, but Aelston sat there with a grin on his face, as if he enjoyed every moment of life.
 
“On behalf of the cultists of Vog, we graciously accept y--”
 
“Just get this conference started, you idiot!” Ryker smashed his fist on the table and shouted at the cultist.
 
“Now, now, Ryker, keep your cool,” Grub warned him. “There’s no way we are going to accomplish anything by getting mad. Well, we could murder Creevan right now, but that might not be the best idea, and I doubt we want to do that.”
 
“Now we’ve got that sorted out, I suppose I must give my first demand,” Creevan concluded. “We would like to request the Spiral Order to cease all use of necromancy while at war with us. The use of necromancy provides an unfair advantage to the Spiral Order, and allows you to do massive damage to us without risking the lives of your own men. We are forbidden from using necromancy under the guidelines of Vog, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be also.”

“What if we were only allowed to use necromancy in the event of a direct attack on Haven?” Mono asked after a few minutes of discussion with Grub, Ryker, and Pteron.
 
“That sounds decent…” Creevan brooded. “This would, of course, include a similar ban on the usage of Mecha Knights and other such constructs, which would also affect the Great Colony.”
 
“Yeah that’s not happening,” Aelston confirmed. “What are we gaining from this meeting anyway? I see no reason to be here.”
 
“Watch it Aelston, we may gain something yet,” Mono warned. “Pteron, I believe you had a question of your own to bring to the table?”
 
“Yes, indeed I did,” Pteron began. “While at this very outpost, myself and a few others noticed vast stockpiles of weaponry, and even a few airships, that Tulth said belonged to another faction here on Cradle. I would like someone in this room to shed some light on this subject, as I know someone knows.”
 
“I can tell you a little bit about them,” Creevan explained. “There is a group of very strange Isorans that inhabit the forests and tundras to the north of even us. They are warriors by nature, and are extremely good at what they do. From what I can gather, they are trying to expand their territory, though we do not yet have a name for them. We captured a few of them, but they have all died in the interrogation process. Talfring told me that the last one he tried to capture committed suicide with a poison he kept on him.”
 
“I see,” Mono began to think. “Would you mind letting me send a battalion north of Þalfort and station them on the tundra to deal with this outside group?”
 
“That is not happening,” Creevan said firmly. “That would position you in the perfect place to attack Þalfort again, which is too risky.”
 
“Do you have any way we can assist you in wiping them out?” Ryker asked. “We’re tired of dealing with these idiots harassing people and causing problems, and this won’t come to an end if the all of us team up.”
 
Tulth gazed around the room suspiciously. Mono noticed his darting, scared eyes and his furrowed brow. “Perhaps eliminating them wouldn’t be the best solution,” Tulth ventured.
 
Mono drew his Gilded Griffin and aimed it at Tulth, saying, “What are you hiding, scum?”
 
Everyone else tensed up and drew their own weapons, save Grub and Aelston, who remained calm and unarmed.
 
“Now, now, there’s no need to get feisty,” Tulth tried to calm them, while drawing his own Raptor. “I’m sure we can all walk away from this unscathed.”
 
Mono slowly walked up to Tulth, then whipped him across the face with his Gilded Griffin, breaking the moderator’s jaw with a resounding crack. Tulth staggered backwards, and fired a single shot at Mono, which embedded itself in his left arm. From across the room, Talfring fired in their general direction with his Magma Driver. The fiery ball of energy found Tulth’s neck, killing him instantly.
 
Mono turned around to see Pteron pinning Creevan against the wall with his guns, Ryker with a Voltedge at Talfring’s neck, whose gun was pointed at Mono, Leona buzzing her saws dangerously close Creevan, and Grub and Aelston in fighting stances at the door, should anyone try to bust in. “Put your weapons down!” Mono order everyone in the room. They all slowly began to lower their weapons and sit back down, but Ryker and Talfring instead took up guard duty at the door to ensure the safety and privacy of the meeting.
 
“Damn it!” Leona exclaimed, stabbing one of the daggers from her belt into the table. The dark wood charred at the heat from the dagger, but refused to ignite completely. “Now we aren’t going to get any more information out of him,” she said, pointing to Tulth’s corpse at the end of the room.
 
“Well we have to do something about this other recluse group,” Grub stated. “These marauding militants need to be repelled, exterminated, or something, ‘cause I doubt peace is an option.”
 
“How about we close this meeting for now, and try to get out of here before someone takes notice of the dead body?” Creevan suggested. “I’m sure we all want this to involve as little bloodshed as possible, so can we agree to officialize the agreements we’ve already made?
 
Before anyone could reply, two of Tulth’s mercenaries blundered through the doors. The first one to enter was almost immediately decapitated by Ryker, but the second one managed to block his original strike. Ryker moved to the mercenary’s right, while Talfring flanked him. Just as the mercenary was about to strike Ryker, Talfring stabbed him in the side, just below his left armpit. The mercenary collapsed, dying quickly.
 
“That’s our signal,” Pteron noted, as they all began to head for the door. He and Talfring fell to the back to guard the rear, while Leona and Mono took up the vanguard position. Leona nimbly navigated through the outpost, avoiding people, and showing the others the best way out.
 
Leona stopped them in a hallway adjacent to the main hall. “I’m going to throw a couple vials of Compound 42 into the middle of the hall,” she said. “Then I’m going to light them. Hold your breaths. Under no circumstances must you breathe, or you’ll be as dead as Tulth. The entire place is going to go ballistic, so use your chance wisely. If we can escape during the confusion, and get into our respective airships, we might avoid taking the blame for murdering Tulth. Everyone got that?”
 
Everyone nodded, and then filed into the main hall. Leona started counting down from ten, and when she reached three, they all took big breaths, then Leona tossed two vials into the center of the crowd. Flames flew from her palms as she ignited the poison.
 
In the moments that followed, chaos ensued throughout the outpost. Mono, Ryker, Pteron, Grub, Aelston, Leona, Creevan, and Talfring hacked, slashed, and shot their way through the crowd until they got to the door. As soon as they exited, the crown came under machine gun fire from the guard, who were clueless as to who was who and what was actually happening.
 
The representatives from all three groups safely made it to their respective airships, which were already preparing for takeoff. As the three airships gained air, they went their separate ways, leaving chaos to reign supreme in the frenzied fort below them.

(OOC: Yay I got another one out! I wrote a bit of this while on the road in Michigan and Canada, and a bit at home (was in Michigan for my cousin's wedding). Anyway, if you are reading this, please post something. I have a feeling only 2 people are reading this, and they talk to me on Steam, so they're cool. Also, if you have trouble understanding Gån, well, I had trouble writing him. I didn't know how to articulate everything, particularly the way he says "as." I decided to write it "azh," and save you the diacritic version "až," which I think yields the same result. Either way, it's pronounced like the "s" in "treasure" or the "gg" in "D'Maggio" or "Villaggio tra i Pini." Also, the "å" in "Gån" is the "aw" in "saw." You're also free to look up the pronunciations of any other diacritics I use, they're all used as they are supposed to be. There is no "Toe-ran," it's "Tuh-Rahn," but there's no way to say "ø" in English. :( Just a rant on pronunciation don't mind me.)

Chapter Sixteen: Darkness Under Cradle

“You’re telling me the Spiral Order is bombing the Skolvrads?!” Creevan shouted at the messenger. “Get out, let your superiors discuss this alone.”

The messenger ran away, scared for his life. “Well, that will certainly be a problem,” Talfring pointed out. “They’ll probably seek, er, what’s the word? Retribution? And attack us.”

Creevan nodded slowly. He knew Talfring was striving toward fluency in the cultists’ language, and this pleased him, but not nearly as much as the prospect of being caught in the crossfire between the Spiral Order and what the cultists had taken to calling the Skolvrads displeased him. “We’ll need to prepare some sort of defense against them. I doubt they’ll try anything until their city has recovered, so we have a couple weeks. In the meantime, I have a plan for you. A very important plan.”

!#-^*^-#!

“Alright, you whelps, get yourselves ready,” Talfring ordered. Two days ago he received his orders, and today he would start the first phase of the possibly days long operation. His twenty-four soldiers were each packed with sufficient rations to last the group two days, though they weren’t exactly filling meals, but they made the presumption that they would be able to get a little bit of food on the way.

In addition to being loaded down with food, every cultist was required to have a variety of weaponry. Talfring still kept his own flaming Barbarous Thorn Blade, and Xerpraz’s Magma Driver, but he also acquired a ten grenade bandolier. In his left hand was his new Barbarous Thorn Shield, which he had bought used. Two of the spikes were broken off, and anyone could tell that no one had ever taken the time to repair any of the damage done to it.

Four of the twenty-five carried Area Protection Shields, or APSes for short. They were all Isorans, as the gremlins’ shorter stature did not allow them to be very effective in the guardian role. Everyone had at least one ranged weapon and one mêlée weapon, typically consisting of either a larger sword and a small gun as a side arm, or a longer range gun like a Polaris Rifle or a Grim Repeater and a short sword as a side arm.

Before them was the Spiral Order’s Arcade, where a massive elevator took squads to different levels of the world beneath them. Their orders were specified that they were to avoid bloodshed when dealing with the knights. Talfring disliked that policy, but he knew they couldn't risk attacking Haven directly, or any other Spiral Order-controlled areas, including and especially the Arcade.

“We're going to march right up to them, in formation,” Talfring ordered. “Four columns, six ranks, people with APSes in the first rank. We will march slowly, we don't have to have in unison steps, but the guardians should have their shields up the entire time to keep us safe. Hurry to it!”

They scrambled into ranks and columns, but Talfring was pleased with the final result. He stepped in front of the rough block and signaled for them to march and follow him. Unlike the Spiral Order, the cultists used a completely silent form of marching that relied heavily on hand signals and other visual cues. For less obvious changes they used shoulder movements, which most onlookers would ignore or miss entirely.

The block followed Talfring over the ridge they had been bedded down behind and across the grassy field in front of the massive complex. The soldiers on sentry duty saw them immediately, and prepared to shoot, but held their fire. Talfring thought he saw one run back to talk to a superior, but he wasn't certain.

Once they teacher the Arcade’s gate, they had at least forty knights’ guns trained on them. The gates suddenly swung open, revealing Lieutenant Wegner and his elite guard. “Lower your shields,” the lieutenant ordered.

The cultists did so reluctantly, but they knew certain death awaited them if they didn't.

“Now,” Wegner began, clearly annoyed, “why do you have to bother me? I was doing important research into the effects of luminite when powdered and fed to various creatures! Can you people stop being so irrelevant and pointless?! What do you want?”

“We're here to use your elevator, simple as that,” Talfring answered truthfully. “We're going underground for a particular mission. We’ll be back in a few days.”

“And you think we're gonna let you through?” Wegner looked at him skeptically. “Do you think we're stupid?”

“What if I told you we have a bomb on one of us that will destroy this entire place of blown?” Talfring bluffed, thinking quickly. “Would that change your mind at all?”

Fear jumped into Wegner’s eyes. He had lived long enough to know not to bet on a bluff unless it went too far, and he knew this sort of sacrifice was not beyond the cultists’ abilities. “Let them through,” he ordered gruffly. “No use risking our lives over something this petty.”

“Oh, and while we’re at it, how about we take a couple hostages with us?” Talfring asked.

“That won't be necessary.”

“Are those bombs ready?” Talfring asked the cultists behind him.

A couple affirmations came from the crowd, and Wegner look around nervously. “I suppose you can have two, provided we have two in return. They can be exchanged upon your return, assuming our hostages are alive and well.”

“That works, I suppose,” Talfring conceded with a scowl. He accepted two volunteers from his party, who walked forward to stand by Wegner. They put their guns on the grass beside the building’s wall.

Two volunteers from Wegner’s men stepped forward and put their own weapons on the grass with the cultists’, but Talfring stopped them.

“You might as well bring your weapons with you, there's no point in bringing two unarmed knights into the Clockworks,” he ordered. “You're more likely to die if you don't have weapons, and if you die, we have to fight our way out of here, plus their hostages die, so what's the point?”

The knights were pleased by this, sighing in relief as they picked up their weapons. Talfring eyed the one of the female knight’s weapons suspiciously. It looked like a Valiance, but it had clearly been modified. He knew he had seen it before, as with its owner, but he couldn't place it.

As they walked through the massive Arcade, toward the elevator they would go down, Talfring ordered their Mender, Tabetha, to lead the group, as they had stopped marching. He fell in beside the strange knight to question her. “I've seen you before,” he started, “who are you?”

She looked surprised and taken aback. “I wasn't exactly expecting any of you to talk to me,” she explained quickly, “but I'm Frílta. Yes, we have met before. On the moor? When you cultist freaks shot down a passenger airship?”

“Ah, yes, that,” Talfring said with sudden realization. “I'm most sorry about that. At least we didn't come to blows, beyond that one man I lost. He deserved it.”

“You people are sick!” Frílta exclaimed, looking away in disgust that a commander would say that about his own soldier. “Get away from me, or I'll test my new blade on your ribs!”

Talfring looked slightly hurt, so he moved over to talk with the other hostage. “And who might you be?” he asked.

“Ret’gånryt’kilushbal,” he answered bitterly. “Gån verksh.”

“Where on Cradle did you get that name?!” Talfring asked, trying to be friendly. He still resented the knights, but knew he had to make them tolerate him if he was to keep them alive throughout their expedition.

“I vash raished to the easht. Far to the easht,” Gån replied. “Dere’sh actually an ocean not too far shoud, and a little easht. I vash raished by gremlinsh on an island there. Not sure how I gut there, dey never tuld me, but a plague viped dem out, leaving jusht me, azh I guessh it doeshn’t affect Isoransh.”

Talfring had trouble deciphering his words due to his heavy accent, which was unlike any he had heard before. Most cultists and gremlins could speak the Isorans’ language well and without too much of an accent, but this knight clearly spoke a different dialect of the gremlins’ language, Külgrip, or a different language altogether. Even then, there was still a word he failed to recognize. “Ocean? What's that?”

“Vater,” Gån explained. “Lotsh of vater. Shalty vater too. Very shalty. It movesh a lot, but it dependsh on de moon. Ekshept after de ground rumblesh. Den it movesh more. Den it movesh in vavesh taller dan you or I. Do you knuh of Lake Krev? It'sh like dat, but hundredsh of timesh dat.”

Talfring shook his head, utterly confused. They were nearing the elevator, which was quite large, so he resumed leadership of the party. Upon arrival, he called Frílta forward operate the elevator. She did so reluctantly, but, at Talfring’s request, set it to Depth 12. The rest of the cultists and Gån boarded the elevator, and after a quick rev, it began to descend.

The cramped elevator was lit by small red lights, and it rumbled angrily. None of the cultists tried to speak, partly due to apprehension and partly due to the deafening sound. Talfring noticed the rusty walls and wondered how safe it was.

The cultists felt weightless in the plummeting elevator, and one or two even began floating. After a few minutes, they heard a parachute deploy above them, and the elevator finally started to slow down.

“Get on the floor,” Frílta ordered.

Everyone did as she said, so when the elevator came to a slamming halt, they were ready. “Velcome to Depd Tvelve,” Gån announced gruffly, breaking the silence.

The elevator’s doors jolted open, revealing a partially lit cavern. A Clockworks Guard was stationed inside a small building on the right side. “Show your IDs,” he ordered the cultists.

“That won't be necessary,” Talfring told him, then pointed to Frílta and Gån, “unless, of course, you want these hostages to die.”

“Alright, get your headlamps and rations,” the Isoran said in a resigned voice.

“We brought our own rations, but we’ll take the headlamps,” Talfring responded. “Twenty-five please.”

“Behind the building,” the guard notioned through the window.

The cultists got their headlamps, and while they were back there, noticed the barrels of rations. They had not eaten for a couple hours, so Talfring gave them the go-ahead to eat some. Multiple cultists had not eaten that morning to save supplies, as they had camped out near the Arcade the night before. Those that hadn't voraciously consumed some supplies, and when they finished, donned their headlamps and assembled before Talfring.

He gave the order to move out, and they followed him, not in formation, into the darkness.

Only a few minutes into the darkness, a Greaver flew at the cultists. The massive fiend bowled over an Isoran cultist and bit into his arm. Tyuv, the cultist, screamed in agony, but Frílta quickly shot the Greaver in the head.

“Thanks,” Tyuv said, with a quick smile.

“Welcome to the Clockworks,” Frílta replied.