LINESII- Into the Darkness- Part II

Wubba: Just attack everyone. Something entertaining is bound to come of it.

Maybe the Lengels just aren't telling you... *ominous*

Speaking of which, Iggy, any chance of that map (keep in mind that my people have migrated out of the valley in the face of enemy attacks...)?

question iggy? Is emor now directly lengel territory or merely a puppet?

TerrisH's stories would imply direct rule.

Diva Divine​

The descent of the Acendancy was not entirely the fault of Suwapa's successor, Enpeesee, but history paints it so. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, we must examine the events before the dishonorable Nurmaferi invasion.

Suwapa, crazy fanatacism aside, was a good ruler, instituting reforms and improving lives. Its a shame he is only remebered for his "program", which was recently discovered to have been thought up by his wife who was having an affair with the General heading to Svitzerland. Suwapa had actually against the idea at first, but during a passioniate night, she whispered it to the General. He liked the idea and implemented it, saying Suwapa mandated it. It was so popular with the Bladeists that Suwapa took credit, even though it went against his morals.

But alas i have digressed. Anywho, as the Nurmafer invasion was drawing now, Suwapa began to become insane, more draw into himself, taking what was called "His Vacation". He was deposed, and his son, Enpeesee was appointed as ruler. But Enpeesee, only 20 years old was not the brightest person ever, he was shy and completely unready to be king. His inability to lead was shown when Nurmafer invaded. He was incompetant. Sintonia was taken, Chipland destroyed, Svitzerland split. He made peace with the Oneists, and continued to lose to Nurmafer. If it wasn't for Warmaster Luhk, who on his own intiative attacked into northern Nurmafer and taking Gastar. Then he went back to try and defend Swade. But then, after Nurmafer bridge the river, Luhk ran out....... of the City and Luhk left the Ascendancy and went all the way to Emor, where they killed him. By the end, the city had fallen and Enpeesee had almost given up hope. He was 52 years old and enternally hated. During the fall of the city he lit himself on fire and plunged off the top of the Necropolis.

The Swade then fell into hard times, very hard times. Enpeesee had no children, so Warmaster Igee took over. He did a good job, holding off the Nurmaferi, but ten years later he died. The Ascendancy needed a leader who wasn't always fighting, so they appoint Denet-hor, a famed politician and grandson to the General who had sex with the wife of Suwapa. Dent-hor was Steward of the Swade. He sucked. But that didn't matter, for he was left slaughtering Sentinel after Sentinel.

Around the time Denet-hor was appoint, a loyalist named Tisisfor Tehstoree traveled to Emor in search of the heir of Teissa, who would be the inheritor of the throne. They say miracles happen, and if you subscribe to Swade beleif, one happened the night Tisisfor found the heir. Teissa daughter gave birth to a beautiful daughter and then died. If you beleive what is said to have happened, her daughter, named Diva, was a Virgin birth. Scripture holds that her mother, Blesid, was given a daughter by the Blademaster even though she was 50. Tisisfor swept Diva away and raised her in secret for the next 20 years.

After the 20 years was up, Diva was suffeciently ready, she went to the provisional capital of Unchete, and confronted the Steward. But he would not give up the throne to some girl, he was grooming his eldest son for his position. But then news came that his eldest son was killed by the Nurmaferi's. In Denet-hors rage he attempted to kill Diva, but she turned the tables, killed him and assumed her rightful throne.

Diva was a firebrand, and she would stop at nothing to see the Swade glory regained. She could not be crowned Ascendant Master until the Necropolis was retaken, so she assumed the title of Divina. She reportedly speaks to the Blademaster, and she is the last hope of the Swade. She is the last hope of the Bladeists.

Pain flared in his shoulder every time Kal took a step; even the merest shock from stepping on an upturned stone was intensely painful. The trail didn’t lack for upturned stones, either. They were merely hidden, covered by a thin layer of snow, just deep enough to obscure some of the bad twists in the ground.

He supposed he should be thankful that it wasn’t ice... Though the local goatherds who they had talked to by the roadside reassured them that the highest parts of the pass were always iced over. Kal didn’t fancy slipping and sliding, especially not if he landed on his wounded shoulder. And if a ramid would fall on the ice... Then things would be disastrous.

He gritted his teeth as his foot crunched the snow ahead of him and twisted up a rather large stone. He angrily kicked it aside, and was rewarded with another flash of pain. Just one more step.

He took his mind off of the pain for a moment by glancing up at the trail ahead. It wound up and up, further up than he had ever gone before. Kal was fit, but this hike was incredibly exerting. He had no choice, though, for the tribe was moving on–in fact, several tribes, with thousands of men and over a hundred wooly ramids were plowing their way through the snowy passes, to explore what lay beyond the mountains, and to escape the Fairhelters.

It hadn’t seemed that bad, when they had started up the path. The hills had gotten a little more rugged, and the path a little more twisted. Then the real journey had begun, and he had looked up from the base of a mountain and despaired... The path switched back numerous times, over and over, up and up, to what must be thousands of paces higher than he had ever gone before in his life. When they were only halfway up the mountain, he was tired, but it didn’t seem much further.

But then the path kept on going onward, and even though he kept reassuring himself that there was only a little further to go, it was harder and harder to convince himself of that.

He turned another switchback, sighing as he continued up to the pass.

Up the pass a bit, looking so much like any other person who had stopped to rest for a bit that he had almost missed her, was Miya, wrapped in a ramid fur cloak and looking thoroughly miserable. Kal remembered that her father had died in the battles against the Fairhelt, and felt a sudden urge to sit by her and comfort her.

The urge did not go away, and he hesitated. Then he mentally slapped himself for being so ridiculous. He had almost died at the point of a spear, and here he was, too cowardly to sit and talk to his adolescent sweetheart?

Forcing his tired legs (suddenly heavy as lead) into step over step, he walked up to Miya, whose face was red. From the cold? Or tears? Or something else?

He greeted her hesitantly, and she looked up at him, blinked, and wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve.

“Hello, Kal.”

He looked into her eyes for a second, and his heart skipped a few beats.

“I know that there are plenty of other, perfectly good rocks to sit on nearby... But I was wondering if you’d mind if I sat here.”

“Oh...” Her eyebrow raised a fraction of a millimeter. “I suppose so.”

He carefully sat a measured distance from her–not too close, yet not very far.

“How are you holding up.”

“I... All right, I guess.”

He refrained from asking the obvious–it was clear that things were not at all “all right,” but as long as they both knew that, and knew that each other knew that...

“I’m... I’m so sorry, Miya,” he said, perfectly aware that he was sounding idiotic.

She snuffled slightly. “For what?”

“Your...” Out with it. “I should have been able to do more. I... I was so close to him when he died... I could’ve... I should’ve done something. But my arm was bleeding so much, and I could barely lift it...”

“It’s quite fine. You did all you could, I’m sure.” Suddenly her voice had turned icy cold. Damn.

“Look, Miya. I know you probably hate me for coming back where your father did not–” she glanced over, “–and I know that... That I’ve probably never been that interesting to you. But you’re the most beautiful girl in our tribe, and I wanted to know... You’re intelligent, you’re... Everything I could ever want. I wanted to know if you ever felt that way.”

She smiled, and his heart leapt.

“Once I felt that way. But now? No.” The smile froze. “You’re just a bratty little boy, who lived where my father died. Go away, Kal.”

question iggy? Is emor now directly lengel territory or merely a puppet?

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Direct. And don't worry NK, your tribe is migrating southwards, and inland.

Once more, the Storm approaches

The death of Emperor Yi-Ga threw Guangfei was a sure yet still stunning thing. One of Emperor Yi-Ga’s greatest eccentricities was his fear of women. Indeed, he denounced them all as evil scheming manipulative witches and thus never consummated his so called marriage.(no offense) His grandnephew, Prince Ming, instead was brought in to Guanzhong to rule still a minor and under a regency. His grandmother, Grand Dowager Empress Xuan Zhuang took charge of the upbringing of the young Emperor as his own mother had died years ago when the young Emperor had been around 5 dying due to “infested lungs” as the doctors would say, leaving a deep mark on him.

As things went, Emperor Hui wasn’t that bad an Emperor. So far, he had only traveled around the Empire surveying the land himself taking in the conditions of the cities, the lives of the farmers, the bustle and trade of merchants, and even conversing with foreign merchants. Nothing abnormal or weird like Emperor Yi-Ga’s own trips, though as always, things always go bad. He fell in love, or so to speak, with the daughter of an Oneist mercantile family and she with him as well. Her family being mercantile was not an issue, Grand Dowager Empress Xuan Zhuang having come from a family of wealthy miners herself.

The problem was that she was Oneists. That phenomenon, others would say blasphemy, was something the aristocracy and upper classes of Guangfei was unable to comprehend outside of Qingdao. Worship one “Supreme Being?” Be loyal to the Church? Blasphemy! Loyalty to the Emperor, not a foreign Church! The daughter’s own parents insisted that her husband be of the Oneist faith as well, and the young Emperor, perhaps thinking with his second head instead of the one on his neck agreed.

At the last portion of the conversion ceremony was taking place, and before the fatal conversion itself, summons came from Guanzhong from his grandmother ordering him to not undergo the conversion ceremony until the marriage contract negotiations were over. In the presence of his elder sister, Princess Lianfei, negotiations were carried out for the marriage ceremony. Things went quite well, with the girl’s parents extremely happy over their future son in law’s position, and the Princess moaning over the lack of position her future sister in law had.

That all came to nothing, as there was one point neither side could agree to. The daughter’s parents demanded the conversion of the Emperor for marriage, something Princess Lianfei refused to even consider instead asking that their daughter return to the religion of their ancestors. As recent converts, perhaps even more fanatical, her parents refused to even consider returning to the “primitive” and barbaric religion of “Ancestor Worship.

The talk infuriated Princess Lianfei, and one day she and her entourage left, the Emperor with them still pining. Two weeks later, when he had regained a bit of common sense, his grandmother told him in a blunt and completely informal way exactly WHY he could not marry her for the good of the state. An Oneist Emperor, would only serve as a catalyst for rebellion from all the great lords and the upper class. To save the lives of thousands in any such horrible war, he must not marry her or any other Oneist.

She perhaps exaggerated the danger, but it was received and remembered. From that day on, Emperor Hui would remember what his grandmother said, and once more compare the Oneists to the “infested lung” that killed his mother. Years later, when he finally returned to Qingdao and at a reception met the women he once loved, he would say “Was it really for the best that you remained Oneist?”

Lord_Iggy said:

Direct.

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OOC: You know, even if the Emoran Leadership are full out hot gas, are there any chance that they'll get overthrown and active resistance mounted resulting in the massacre of the Emoran People? I mean, out of everyone else I think they deserved to get genocided the most, it would be a fitting end to a nation of traitors, first Veritas, then the Bladiest nations.

north king, are you mocking kal'thzar?

For many years the shanty town of Svitzerland had been an annoyance and an eye sore. It was hopped that the poor and miserable inhabitants would blend with Tellium as they were hired into Tellium’s growing economy. But the Bladists took little interest in such work. When their homeland found itself beset with invaders the Svitzerlandians eventually fled leaving only a few thousand dreggs who began migrating into Tellium's wealthiest districts.

The Board met in the old White Chamber. Though much smaller than the Assembly the Board members were tied much more personally to the decisions they made; such accountability lead to much more productive results.

The Chairman spoke up from the High Elder’s seat: The first order of business is Svitzerland. Since the invasions of Swade, Svitzerland has lost control of its people.

Defense advisor: It is also weak, providing an invader with easy access to the peninsula.

Trade advisor: Disaorder in Svitzerland also hampers trade with Verta.

Chairman: Agreed, our forces will have to restore order.

Labor advisor: It could be problematic to absorb them into our labor force, especially if they are disaffected with our method of assimilation.

Justice advisor: I think the best solution would be to expel them. Can they be returned home?

Transportation advisor: That could be problematic. I doubt our ships would be welcome in Swade after this.

Chairman: Give them an opportunity to leave. Those who wish to will be returned to the sea. Make sure to do so far enough away so as not to disturb those who elect to remain. The rest must convert to Oneism, those who do not choose either and instead wish to remain Svitzerlanders are traitors to Tellium. Execute them. What is the next order of business?

Spiritual advisor: Andama’s population has been growing rapidly. The temples there will soon be at full capacity. I would like to build a larger cathedral.

Chairman: I can see that our finance minister has much to say on that point so let’s take lunch now so that we can work through that issue without interruption.

@alex- It's possible. You'll find out in the update.

Oh, BTW, I'm going away for the weekend, I'll be back on Sunday or Monday.

alex994 said:

north king, are you mocking kal'thzar?

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No; the coincidence in names actually went unnoticed by me until I had already posted two stories.

And how would I be mocking anyone with that?

great stories!!!

You're going away, Iggy? Then when be the update?

Early next week.

alex994 said:

OOC: You know, even if the Emoran Leadership are full out hot gas, are there any chance that they'll get overthrown and active resistance mounted resulting in the massacre of the Emoran People? I mean, out of everyone else I think they deserved to get genocided the most, it would be a fitting end to a nation of traitors, first Veritas, then the Bladiest nations.

north king, are you mocking kal'thzar?

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Veritas betrayed the Emorians first, Veritas's way of saying thank you for helping us defeat the Zibonese.

emu said:

Veritas betrayed the Emorians first, Veritas's way of saying thank you for helping us defeat the Zibonese.

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Actually no They marched into the former Emor giving out gifts and etc to get them to join Veritas while Emor marched into Veritas with fire and death

alex994 said:

Actually no They marched into the former Emor giving out gifts and etc to get them to join Veritas while Emor marched into Veritas with fire and death

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And that wasnt a betrayal? they annexed the entire country, I suppose you would thank somebody if they did that perhaps bend over and allow them better access, rather then wanting to get even.

Edit: and stop with the damn smilies it doesnt prove anything, just makes you look like an arse.

it doesn't matter, emor is dead, lengel wins

enough spam