SprylliNES IV: The Eternal Myth

No, it just doesn't matter. Maybe you could have ejected Endas and I could have made the opposite decision. Yours might be a sound plotline; I personally don't really think it is, but perhaps I'm wrong. It just doesn't matter whether you won or lost fairly, and you shouldn't care: as I keep on saying, it isn't the point. I am satisfied by the coherence of the plot consisting of the stories I have selected as canonical. I feel that the success of Endas's trickery is very mythologically sound, and to overturn it in the same episode/turn of the myth is not good for the storyline. I do not desire a more detailed or convoluted plot than that until I have been allowed to settle the story so far in the next update.

Just wait for the update, which will conclude the episode and bring the factions of Neroel to a new alignment; I have enough material for one mythological episode without more twists in the story. There will be opportunities for another twist in the tale after the next update.

So please spoiler the posts in question and wait for resolution of daemonical matters in the update, once we've dealt with human stuff. Clearly, every post I write like this is preventing me from writing a story for Myra, and is delaying the update yet further.

Now, to actually answer you, Endas is your Queen. She can very well change the name of the city by proclamation, and you can't. Signs and messengers are only a sideshow. She successfully tricked the demons, in a story, into thinking this was the case and they left the city. You have not managed to trick the demons into thinking the opposite. Therefore the demons have not returned, because even if you had succeeded in renaming it Lerone somehow, they all still think it's Neroel.

But I don't want you to try. I want you to wait for the update, because the driving out of all the demons from the city has an immediate (and fairly obvious) impact on Trilidys and Caacrinolas, to be determined by me in the update. You therefore do not know your present position, state, plane of existence, or location and will find it out in the actual update. You may consider yourselves cast to the hands of fate, a bit like Frast when he set himself up to go into battle with the Mopolachesthents.

SKILORD said:

My main complaint is that post 199 tends to show that in order to change the name of the city both signs will be repainted and the population is informed to change the name in their speech. This is the basis of the spell as I understood it.

Now, if those messengers and painters NEVER came to the southern quarter of the city then no problem, the South Wall remains Lerone with it's gates open to demons for all time as per the contract. If those people set foot anywhere near the Bloodsworn or inform them of their aims then they are going to be brutally murdered as per my characterization of my demon worshippers. Even ghosts I doubt would be safe from half demons.

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Post 199 came after Endas already did the renaming. Noone was said to run to the South Wall there. Messengers were sent to Frast (to allow the outsider player to contribute to the city plot) and the Gemorans (to link the outside with the inside plots and make the city known under its new name outside). Then the boy, who's touted as a potential new hero in the update and thus shouldn't be killed without my permission, talks to Myra and then 'everyone'. He may very well be exaggerating when he says everyone, however.

I thought that one way to handle the dispute between those who think they are of Lerone and those of Neroel was to draw a symbolic frontier inside the city itself. This would thwart part of Endas's plan to use a painting for Lerone, and allow the city to be actually cut in two. One part is Lerone under Trilidys and demons, and the other part is the renamed part. I think this would be nice enough in terms of having Trilidys succeed a little bit at thwarting Endas, but it remains to be seen how the situation would ultimately evolve.

LDiCesare said:

I thought that one way to handle the dispute between those who think they are of Lerone and those of Nerole was to draw a symbolic frontier inside the city itself. This would thwart part of Endas's plan to use a painting for Lerone, and allow the city to be actually cut in two. One part is Lerone under Micil and demons, and the other part is the renamed part. I think this would be nice enough in terms of having Micil succeed a little bit at thwarting Endas, but it remains to be seen how the situation would ultimately evolve.

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To be honest, I think you should all be maintaining just a touch of suspense for the lurkers' sake. But yes, I recognise that and I shall take into consideration when I update.

So, no more stories till the update?

And can we get an ETA on that?

It's whatever, it's been spoilered.

But I still find the extent of demon racism staggering here. It's like if the Klan held a Africa NES and then outlawed any stories where the players didn't act shiftless and subservient.

No more demon stories until the update, please. We need to resolve the issue of the Gemorans, and Myra is going to take a bit of initiative there. ETA on Myra's story, when I get round to it; ETA on the update, a bit longer. Sorry, all this arguing is making me lose track of RL slightly, so I don't know when, and I have exams coming up. I shall go and get a grip on RL tomorrow, I hope, when it's a bank holiday because our royalty is getting married over here. I might write then if I have time.

LDiCesare, Seon, I've PMed you. With that in mind, I suspect that the only stories we need before the update are the one from me for the sake of Myra, and perhaps one from LDiCesare (to determine what Meitas is going to try and do other than spread the word of the new name, or to indicate his clan's perspective on or participation in what Myra does). Equally, if Endas or Lerquinas wishes to interfere in human/Gemoran matters before the update, they each can.

Part One:

It was night, and the stars twinkled in the sky. The sky had been clouded for many months by the black mist of what seemed to be pure death, but now it was like the pavement of the street in days gone by, studded with jewels shining more whitely than the newest marble in the necropolis.

For even the most daring, the necropolis had been a place none could venture, for demons buzzed in the bodies of flies around the corpses of those struck dead by the armies of spirits fighting above the turrets that were once so finely gilded. A shadow flitted past, and Myra ducked instinctively and hid her lantern in her cloak so that the demon, unaware of the human passing underneath, would flee away and join its companions dancing around the dim new moon. Myra looked up, and the stars lit up a silhouette. Her lantern had been useless, because the demons were fled and the stars were alight, and it was but a bat there above her in the air.

She put her lantern and wondered why she was walking in the necropolis. Then, though, the inscription caught her eye, partly obscured by the ground the lantern was resting on. She dug her axe into the soil, cut out a clod of earth (casting it well away from the city) and read the inscription. To me to render it in a modern set of couplets would be to lie; euphony was not a common subject of expertise among the Ax-Lords, and even by prosaic standards the inscription was but a garbled rendering of some dedication with the approximate meaning that Midnas the Ax-Lord was buried here, above the forge where he worked the Axe. Then it went on. Myra dug again. Seven times she cast a clod of earth away from the city walls, and each time it fell, cast by the axe, at a distance perhaps a quarter of a mile away from the necropolis and half a mile away from the city. Only when she had displaced nine clods of earth could she read the whole inscription, and did she learn the prophecy that was written there, that declared that Midnas had not bequeathed the true Axe to his descendants, and that the true Axe of Midnas lay buried, far, far, away, beyond the western hills.

Then Myra saw the body of he who had been among the founders of Lerone, and they say that she found his body in the state it had been left many centuries ago, perfectly embalmed forever. Truly Lerone had been a city of great expertise and prosperity, and truly Lerone had been a city quite untouched by the agents of the Devil, when Midnas had passed away. Still, though, Myra looked over the body of her progenitor, and looked at his right hand. Surely it could not be that the very man that had wrought the finest of blades and the strongest of shafts should have his hand shrivelled and burnt? But she beheld, and she saw clearly the marks of the axe. Even Midnas had not been able to hold the true axe, and it lay buried in some foreign land, surely awaiting being reclaimed by the true mistress of the clan.

Myra had seen enough. She rushed back and ran straight into Prillitas’s servant, panted, apologised profusely for sending him flying several hundred yards, agreed with everything he was trying to ask her, whatever it was, and rushed straight back to her palace: nothing, however formidable, would stand between the heiress of Midnas and the Western Hills.

I don't have much to add. I'd do stuff regarding what happens outside the city, but considering the city itself is most likely in a chaos, it's better to wait and see how it gets resolved.
I'm also cautious with Meitas. I still haven't decided whether this trickster is actually a powerful wizard or just an awesome con-man. I'd rather the latter. He probably pissed off the Gemorans when he went there is all I'm sure of, and I'd prefer it if I could avoid another character with magic powers a-plenty. Just tricking/convincing people should be enough.

any word on the rest of the Update spryllino?

Only that my life is presently too hectic to write it! It'll be there sooner or later.

Argh I wanna go build my scary demon city haha

Update will come eventually, sorry, I've still got too much exam work to concentrate on writing anything half-decent.

Update 4

Look down from the Tower onto the plain beneath us now, and you will see those Three Great Cities in the plain around the lake. Remember, I told you about them when I began my narration. Now was the time that these cities were founded, quite accidentally. It had never occurred to us before to do such things as founding new cities; what would we have wanted that for, when we had Neroel, blessed by its imperviousness to demons of all sorts and protected by our Eternal Queen?

Truly, our ancestors never wanted to be divided. But as the demons fought, night after night, over the turrets and battlements of Lerone, and as the Gemorans made ready for a siege, the new Queen Endas renamed the city to Neroel after making an agreement with the demon Caacrinolas that they would leave the city of Neroel alone. So the demons flittered away. The men possessed by demons felt themselves lifted into the air, because, as they were bound to their demons, they could not be released. The demons flew all the way past that forest there, over the heads of the Gemoran catapults, and landed in the plain, at the opposite end from Lerone in the northern foothills of the mountains that stretch away to the cold wastelands. Finding themselves, though, still far to the south of the wastelands and in a prosperous district, with many fine fruit trees, brimming with game, and amply provided with rich cornfields, the demon-possessed men settled there, and built themselves a fine city, and a well-fortified one too, called Cacrinolle. The demons were within and without the men there, and they lived in harmony within their own corrupt race of diabolically possessed men.

[So, you devilish people are now in a separate city in opposition to Lerone, and this now provides the foundation myth for another city, which you may now run yourselves. This doesn’t mean you have to stop being evil, but you shouldn’t use your devilishness to persecute your own citizens unless you have a good reason for it, because everyone in your city (at least in the eyes of Neroelans) is possessed by the Devil and therefore you are all on the same side now within Cacrinolle (note the spelling!).]

Myra left the city with her mighty army consisting of her kinsmen, and marched boldly through the host of Gemorans. They were drunk, as was their common practice, and Myra, always inclined to courtesy even towards the most disgusting barbarians, did not slay them, and she made, in this way, quite a demonstration of folly. For the Gemorans awoke from their stupor, and laid hands on her men, and tore them limb from limb, and ate them, each and every one of them. Myra escaped and proceeded to the mountain beyond the Gemoran lands, and fetched the unmatched blade of Midnas from the stone beyond the Western Hills. She stood forth, with her weapon in both her hands, and hacked ferociously the leader of the Gemorans in two, severing the two heads, and from the dual body sprung two single human men, who rejoiced at their new nature, and called on Myra to help them by severing their companions also, who came to Myra and called upon her to pity them. Therefore, at their behest, she cut each of them in two, and called upon them, and led them into a new city in the Western Hills, and built a wonderful tower out of shining copper, which you can see opposite this one quite easily, reflecting the light of the midday sun, and shut therein the axe, saying that its purpose was complete. The Severed Men of the new city of Midnae sent to Lerone a gift of peace and sought their friendship and alliance.

So that was how three great cities were founded across our plain. Meanwhile, Frast sailed into the lake with his remaining companions, and established a floating settlement on the lake, and fought with the mermen, and became the High Vizier of an underwater king, or so they say, whose name I c...ca...ahem... presume not to pronounce. They built a great dam between the lake and the great river that flows down from the Western hills, to the south of Lerone, and it truly kept the water out, quite a feat for the time, not to mention the defeat they inflicted on the water-king of that river; indeed, much of the water was permanently diverted. You might see from the shape of the basin that the lake was once larger than it was to-day, and you can see the river that Frast created flowing away to the west; the river flows northwards below Midnae and passes through the cravasse just below Cacrinolle. Some say it was largely the new river that made the new cities prosper.

Such, then, is the story of how we came to have the rivers and the three rich towns of Neroel, Midnae and Cacrinolle, just in the places as we see them in our own day.



A decade or two have passed and the towns are now established, and people are now fairly used to the new disposition of the world.

Seon is Endas the Younger, the Witch and the Undying Queen of Neroel
Quisani is Lerquinas the Bold, son of Pollix the Brave, descendant of Cephas the Wildman, High Priest in Neroel
LDiCesare is Prillitas the the Far-shooting, the now aged younger brother of Echlas the Tamer of Beasts, descendant of Dontas Horsehammer, Chieftain in Neroel
The Hillmen, a tribe in Neroel, still have a semblance of order and kinship but no real organisation.

SKILORD is Trilidys the Mighty, son of Micil, son of Pederic, descendant of Micil the Brave, Chieftain in Cacrinolle
freemanuncg is Caacrinolas, a spirit released by Endas the Elder, currently living in Cacrinolle

Myra Ax-Mistress, niece of Midnas Ax-Lord the Younger, descendant of Midnas Ax-Lord, Queen of Midnae, is free and really needs a player!

Anonymoose is Frast, descendant of Frast Over-the-Lake, High Vizier of Mulhudullimillolotodull



OOC Note

Sorry about the lateness of the update; most of my exams are over and so I am free-ish again now, so I ought to be able to do at least the next two or three updates as soon as you've all written your stories for them.

In fact, though, I can't say updating this takes a long time. After all, I wrote this update in the past two or three hours: the prohibitive factor in the past weeks has not been lack of time, but lack of that highly necessary continuous period of two or three hours that I need to write a continuous and flowing update of this sort without wasting large amounts of time wondering where I got to last time. Now, though, with days where nothing's happening in relative abundance, I want to start a new, more ambitious and arguably less creative, historical NES running in parallel to this one. Do not fear when you see the thread, because I have no lack of will or time to run this NES too.

Mulhudullimillolotodull is pleased with the update. Story incoming.

BTW, I was thinking of joining this but it's difficult to get a good idea of what's happened and what's going on? Could somebody summarise it for me please?

Well there are like 4 factions the Demons and half Demons, Myra's people, the people in Neroel, and Frast's people who live on an Esgaroth sort of town on the lake.

The Demons got kicked out of Lerone, renamed Neroel, and founded their own city.

Frast's people are working with a river 'demon' or 'god' depending on your perspective

The city of Neroel is controlled by Ednas and populated by pure humans.

And Myra kicked the crap out of this army, like single handedly and built her own city to complete the trio or quartet depending on whether u count Frast's city.

Is there any area relatively isolated from the rest of the world? If not, then what's going on locally in, say, Neurel? Has the condition of peasants in the countryside been covered?

I don't think there are any established people in the countryside left except for Myra's people who are open if u want them, they are in their own city separate from the other 3 factions.

If I were to start off with, say, a countryside peasant moving to one of the cities for some reason ignorant of what's been going on (in order to get around the fact that I am), is there anything I ought to know or has very little been established?

Oh He's a god. There is only righteous bubbly wetness in the Deep Master.