Dark Age Legends

[Haraldur]

//

making splashes in what water was left on Gaian.

What do you mean? Where has the other water gone? The volcano did not get rid of it all, and the steam would condense back to water anyway!//

[Kahn]

"More like a spectacular poison, which by the way I wouldn't have been infected by had you told me the Prophet could....."

Hyperion was blasted out of the air, landing hard on the ground. He slowly pushed himself up, opening his mouth along the way. He began charging a large fire beam.

[Zeros']

// That is true, but, it also takes awhile for that to happen. It would not happen instantaniously. And, the period between the volcano, and now, would only be about 30 minutes, or so, but, time might of moved faster in Haraldur's other dimension. \\

Allen nodded, and turned, saluting to the guards, and walked out the doorway briskly, motioning for them to follow. He lead them down a series of hallways, and went even deeper into the castle, going down many twisting stairwells, before finally reaching a blank wall.

Allen put his hand on a section of the wall, and a steel door shimmered into view. Allen took a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door.

Inside the room, was like almost what you'd expect from an alchemist. There were many potions vials, pots, pans, bottles, and such, located all over the room, along with many other scientific instruments. Also, lining the walls, we're some of the few suveners he had collected in his travels, between the fall of the Dark Empire, and the rise of the Crimson Empire.

They were made out of many different materials, some were silver, others were gold, and some, were even made out a granite and sandstone.

Allen didn't come here to observe the sights, and strode confidently into the room, returning to his element. He went to his shelves, and pulled down a collection of filled vials and bottles, and walked over to a counter, where, a sword that seemed taken apart, was sitting in the middle of an alchemic transmutation circle.

"Now..." he murmurred, "I just need to figure out how to get done with this project," he said, while spreading out the materials he'd need to actually get this done.

---

Zeros' cursed. Multiple times. Haraldur was back, and he didn't want any tea and crackers.

He ignored Haraldur, for now, and continued to fly in Melkoth's direction. If he was lucky, they would kill each other off, or, one would weaken the other signifigantly enough, they wouldn't be a threat to the once-beatiful Gaian.

He really hoped Melkoth would kill Haraldur off, that was he could kill Melkoth himself. He still needed to kill him for his mother. If he didn't, oh well.

Or... He could make his problem completely worse, by, Melkoth and Haraldur joining forces, as unlikely as that'd seem.

He'd deal with it, when the time came.

[Xorlak]

(Doggonit!  Sometimes I imagine landmarks to be in particular spots and forget to tell anyone else.  (Heh...)  You need to play along or compensate instead of assuming the soldiers are idiots.  (Heh...))

----

Draven flew a few feet higher.  Blast it...  don't have time for this!  He could sense Ragnar in the other direction now...  What in blazes is going on?!

Draven cupped his hands to his right side and they began to glow with a crimson fury.

"Fool!  So, you allowed him to poison you and now you're his dog, while he waves the antidote in front of your nose!  Ha!  Then you deserve your fate, unless... you wish to be cured by the white mages of the Crimson Capital... but of course, you'd have to prove yourself first, and you already failed at that..."

----

There was a deep feeling of dread within Ven.  He looked around as he flew.  It seemed the dark sky was getting even darker.

"Uh, guys?  What do you make of that...?"

----

The airship rocketed through the sky.  Vincent leaned close to the airship window as an unfamiliar building came into view.

"A dome?  Where are we?  I don't recall a domed building around--"

*KABLAM!!*

A blast of energy from the building slammed into the side of the airship, and it turned sideways, ejecting Vincent out of the glass window.  He plummeted downwards into a tree and then some thick bushes.  He opened his eyes just in time to see his smoking airship curve to the east and fly behind the tall tree line, a column of smoke detailing its flight past...

"Hmmm... carelessness.  Note to self:  Defenses sub-standard at top speed..."

He stood up, removing a tangled mess of leaves and shrubbery from his black trench coat before dusting himself off and adjusting his glasses.  He spotted a soldier that had apparently fallen with him in some bushes a few yards away.  He walked to the man and offered his hand, and the soldier nervously took it, standing up and saluting.

"Thank you, sir."

Vincent removed a leafed twig from the man's medal on his chest.

"Captain..."

"Fernandez, sir."

"Excellent.  Are you okay?"

"Y-yes, sir..."

"Then let's go."

The general began walking in the direction of the newly erected foreign palace, the guard captain following.

"But sir, the airship sped off in the other direction..."

"I realize that, Captain.  I want a closer look at this..."

----

"AH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!"

The ghostly Alpha Retan laughed hysterically at the destruction Melkoth and the demon caused.  Such glorious death!  It was an insignificant amount, but it had been so long... With luck, maybe they'll end up destroying the planet anyway... Oh, the energy to be harvested...

Far to the north, three airships appeared.  But they were moving slowly, as if following something on the ground...

[D. Ein]

//Xorlak, were you referring to me? Also, where is Zeros' right now?\\

The moth was speeding up still. Then... it's wings... stopped. But, it continued flying by inertion.

[Dude Man]

(Zeros' is with Duilin and Rink.)

"Hmm? I sense that Haraldur has returned." Rink said

"Yeah, his power is pretty high. But we need to deal with Melkoth right now." Duilin replied.

----

Valos looked at the materials. He wasn't familiar with this sort of thing. He just looked into the vial some more.

[Trent]

Aura looked around in awe at the alchemy room, and watched Allen do stuff with interest. She had a feeling about a massive power that was disturbing her.

--- --- ---

"OH GODS! What the fuck is that power!?" Xenai's eyes widened as he halted to a stop.

Zion and Tsu halted as well. "Hm..." Zion begins to analyze the various strong energies. "Zeros' that way... Lots of other strong energies... A bunch of demonic energies... And this one... I've felt this one before. I believe this is the one they call Haraldur."

"I've adapted to fighting without our mech demons, but damn! I don't want a run-in with that guy!"

"Me either... We should just stick to finding Draven and learning about these demonic energies."

They continued flight and soon found Draven. Zion shouted down from the sky. "Hey, you look like you're in a pickle! What's going on?  Need a hand or anything?"

[Kahn]

"White mages? Where!?"

Hyperion heard Zion's shout from above. He expected he was in trouble but chose to remain focused on the task at hand. He stored the attack he had charged and began flying towards Draven.

[Dude Man]

Abodahon laughed. "You puny mortals...I haven't had this much fun slaughtering people like this for years."

The soldiers looked at each other. A bunch of them dashed towards Abodahon with their weapons swinging at him. He blocked at the swords, and axes that were swung at him with his gauntlets. He then, swung a punch at one of them, causing him to fly off and hit another soldier and then another. The warrior was of course dead.

Abodahon laughed again. His gauntlets glowed blood red, and swung his hand across the soldiers surrounding him, slicing them in half, making a huge cut in between the top and lower half of their bodies. Both halves of the warriors burnt up into ashes leaving only their damaged bones...

[Xorlak]

(Ein:  I was referring to Haraldur and Dude Man's characters' wondering why the soldiers were moving in the wrong direction.  Heh...)

----

Draven noted Zion, Tsu, Xenai, and Ven's arrival behind Hyperion.  Draven's aura dimmed and the previously charged energy wrapped itself around his right palm.  Draven extended his left hand...

"Why my legion of professional miracle workers is located within my heavily guarded, untouchable floating city of course.  I suppose I could make an exception to the 'destroy all traitors rule' and order them to cure you, if you can prove your usefulness to me...  If not, well, we'll make it quick, seeing how badly outnumbered you are and all..."

He lifted an eyebrow to the four warriors behind the dragon along with his smirk.


Ven was lagging behind slightly, and flew up behind his three traveling companions.

Good lord... him again...  Ven recalled the first time he saw the burning emperor fly overhead the small island he was on...  Ven still had the same uneasy feeling...  He stopped, standing fully upright on the disc of wind beneath him, and folded his arms behind his black cloak to watch the Emperor and the dragon converse...

----

Vincent stood behind a tree, the captain close behind.  It was a tree at the very edge of the forest.  From here there was a clearing of fifty yards of so until the domed palace's walls.  It would be impossible to approach any further without being detected, for they would practically be walking through an open field.

He watched the mechanized gargoyles atop the outer walls fire spell after spell southward.  Vincent reached the conclusion that a force was descending upon the fortress.  These things would impede them...

"S-sir?"

"Our mission is to disable those automated defenses."

"... How could we..."

Vincent swiftly placed both hands on the ground.  A perfect circle of blue appeared around them, about two feet in diameter.  The ground in this circle seemed to disappear, creating a long narrow hole straight down.

"From inside."

He jumped in.  The captain nervously followed.

[Zeros']

Allen studied each vial for a moment, before nodding. He turned to his two companions, and clasped his hands behind his back.

"Now... This is VERY dangerous. This is, what we alchemists like to call a... Human transmutation. Very, very forbidden things were working with here... One SLIGHT miscalculation, and all three of us would be gone. No traces left of us. We'd just be... Gone. Just imagine a condensed magic spell that obliterated everything. That, is basically what would happen," he said. Then, he held out his palm. "If you would, Valos, sir, the vial," he said polietly.

"Oh, and, I might possibly need both of your help for this. While it might only be a fragment of that demented mans aura, it is still very powerful, and unpredicatable. I don't have much raw power myself, but, I have trained my mind farther then what most people deem healthy," he added.

---

"Yes... Melkoth. A demented god who is obsessed with Gaian, for some reason. I've met him before he went insane. Quite a nice fellow, actually. Never did figure out why he went crazy... But, that's a topic for a later point," he said.

He flapped his wings harder, and waved his hand. Rock fragments flew through the sky, as more and more barriers were blasted apart, the sharp fragments flying in every direction.

[Haraldur]

//Another point of clarification: regardless of the opinion of Zeros''s character, Melkoth never "went crazy", he was always the way he is now (not identical, but roughly the same). All this might show is that Zeros''s character is not clean.//

Two werewolves from the forest had been following Vincent and his companions, and followed them through the hole, and then attacked, poucing from behind in order to bite the throat.

____________________________________________________________________

Quintus cast a spell, causing massive growth of the forest, excluding the clearing, and increasing the number of dangerous animals. He then left the palace to attack the attackiing force. He brought down a few wyvyrns with a fireball.

____________________________________________________________________

Melkoth now entered the now effectively defenceless Retangrad, and entered the governor's palace. He walked through the corridors unopposed, and entered the office of the governor, who appeared to have killed himself with an ice shard spell, which was melting, sending red tinted water across the room, ruining the carpet.

He strode out onto the balcony, with worried people staring at him.

"My new subjects, welcome to your first day in... THE GREY EMPIRE!"

As he said that, the sky darkened even further, localised over Retangrad, apart from one area, which was in a peculiar shape: giving the image of a grey fist, wearing on the middle finger a grey ring, with an eagle's head sticking out, as if the beak were to scratch. Below it, words, in grey, proclaimed, "Welcome back my subjects, welcome to the new Grey Empire."

Now, column after column after column, 100,000 in all, of grey uniformed magical combat troops entered the city, raping women as they chose, and enforcing martial law.

Melkoth himself now left North, heading for Alphagrad. Two ports, that should be our first aim.

He always enjoyed conquest as the most interesting part of empire building.

____________________________________________________________________

Salazar now arrived at the border, and saw that there was a battle between his troops and those of the neighboring Kingdom, Buteria. He moved in...

____________________________________________________________________

Haraldur arrived at Barnsby, and then started shooting a few fireballs at the city, setting some of the houses alight. He then started a strong wind. Within minutes, the city was a firestorm.

After a while, when the governor realised that no attack would have any effect, a white flag was flown on top of the palace, one of the few buildings still standing. Haraldur chucked another fireball, blowing that area of the palace to pieces. The palace was now definitely alight.

Haraldur watched, waiting for the fire to have completely destroyed the town. In the meantime, he sent this message to Ein and Marshall: In case you have not noticed, I have returned. The city of Barnsby, that pit of evil, is no more.

[Dude Man]

Abodahon, walked threw the soldiers running and fighting. He grabbed a soldier of Retangrad that ran past him wrapping his hand around his torso. (Note, that his gauntlets are gigantic) The warrior struggled, yet it did nothing. With his other hand he flicked the man head breaking his neck, and then tossed the body off to the side, and then jumped into the air, and flapped his wings, and flue next to Melkoth.

"Were are we headed now?" He asked

----

"Hmm. Interesting." Duilin replied. "Well, it seems as the auras are moving again...Yet we are getting closer..."

"Yeah...that other one...It seems familiar." Rink muttered...

----

Valos handed Allen the vial. "Our help? Very well. I suppose I know a bit of this alching stuff..."

----

"Ein, Haraldur has returned." Marshal said. "You think we should join up with him? Or just continue chasing Duilin and Zeros'?" He asked.

[Kahn]

Hyperion glanced behind for a moment before turning back to Draven.

"I think you might be overestimating you and your freinds abilities, however if your people have a cure I'm listening."

[Trent]

Aura nodded. "I'll be glad to help with whatever it is you need."

--- --- ---

Zion unsheathed Eternity Weapon. Zero Weapon appeared in Xenai's grip. Tsu positioned himself for a battoujutsu attack. They were ready to strike if need be. They and Draven ARE temporary allies, after all.