//Xorlak, does this mean that Retan might someday return?//
Haraldur reached Alterna, ready to change the inhabitants' lives forever. He started to fly around the land, behind him a red trail, which reached down to the bottom and extended up before curving to form what would become a hollow hemisphere, but now just a sector of one.
After flying right around it, the shield-like dome flickered with red and black mixing around in its liquid like surface.
Cloud started to gather around the dome and spin above it.
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Durruti left to go to other villages, and some of the villages went too, but to different villages. Accross the area, villages would have pause of activity and then raise the red and black flag (or both red flags and pure black flags, plurality was not frowned upon if they were some variation on the standard, even if only one of the colours was used). Sometimes this pause was violent, sometimes not, depending on the presence, dogmatism and numbers of the guards (some of whom joined the revolution), but they were always outnumbered by the villagers and defeated.
Tesla approached the city of Dalinn, its glistening walls rising out of the clay surrounding it. This impressive facade was deceptive however. As he got closer, he heard curious sounds from within. There were screams, and sounds of charging horses and men, and lashes of metal against metal. Closer still, it could be seen that the southern section of the wall was breached, obviously through magery. The sounds were of streetfighting between two competing warlords' armies, with unfortunate inhabitants caught in the middle of a battle between between two would-be masters, both of which they despised.
Ruthlessness is necessary, thought Tesla, as he turned South.
He saw that the breach was quite empty, with just a few guards. Evidently the attackers seem to have the upper hand.
Using the most advanced techniques he had learnt from Haraldur, he began to feel in his brain a sense of the ground around him, a taste of the soil.
In a field next to the walls, there was a slight rustle before earth and rock ripped itself out of the ground and and fell back down, its trajectory towards the hole in the wall. Withing seconds, the guards were squashed below rocks and clay, and the hole was filled, trapping all inside the city, as some had also blocked up the main gate.
The sound of confusion was in the air as Tesla raised himself above the ground, flying over the wall, with a look of fury on his face. He saw many uniformed individuals running towards the blocked gap to see what had happened, then they fighted eachother again, the two sides fighting in that area again. An advance from what were obviously the defenders could be seen, and a counter advance back to the former gap by the attackers as well.
Perfect... thought Tesla. He held his right arm out, and several wireless Tesla coils came into existance, and they dropped onto the battle from above, initialising as they fell. Screams could be heard accross the city as well as the sound of evaporating steel as the bodies were burnt up in plasma. Shots were fired at him, mostly from arrows, but there were a few bullet guns as well. Obviously, the Crimson Empire had been quick to attempt to emulate Aspyes technology.
The Tesla coils disappeared as he dropped down, materialising a sword in his hand that shimmered around the edges with occasional sparks coming out of it. On close inspection, it could be seen that lightning was wrapped around it. He dropped down into the city in the middle of the throng of infighting warriors, who were also shooting at him from time to time. As he slashed at them, vapourising them and their armour, sand from Durruti's song, The Internationale:
...And if those cannibals keep trying,
To sacrifice us to their pride,
They soon shall hear the bullets flying,
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale,
Unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale,
Unites the human race.
At the sound of his booming voice filling the city, and of the screaming soldiers, the voices of the people hiding from the fighting could be heard:
No saviour from on high delivers,
No faith have we in prince or peer.
Our own right hand the chains must shiver,
Chains of hatred, greed and fear.
E'er the thieves will out with their booty,
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty,
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale,
Unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale,
Unites the human race.
From numerous places, from houses, sewers, taverns and inns, a rush of people came, behind the soldiers fighting Tesla, brandishing knives and spears, some stooping to pick up discarded guns and swords, skewering the invaders from behind. Within the next 20 minutes, the remaining soldiers in the city were dispatched.
A General Assembly was immediately started, after seeing to the wounded (killing in the case of an enemy, in revenge for the rapes and extortion, and treatment for friends) where the people started to discuss among themselves what to do. Since, there were no dissenting voices, the whole population having been radicalised by the recent hardships, a Commune was quickly established in Dalinn and the lands around it.
From each tower on Dalinn's damage walls a flag was raised either red, black or more commonly red and black.
There is now revolution in an expanding patch of the Dark Continent on the East coast.
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Melkoth continued flying south.
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Quintus and his horde turned a corner at the Southwestern point of the Dark Continent and went East along the South Coast. Next stop: Laus.
