«12. . .342343344345346347348. . .363364»
Within the upper echelons of the Zyrothian command structure, reports begin coming in that the Metaphysics Research Division has uncovered a new dimension— though the reports are unusual.
Preliminary reports suggest unstable physics, strange (almost 'hostile') magical emanations, so on and so forth. Alarmingly, artificial intelligence seems to be something that is impossible in this dimension in question.
Hence, some... augmentations... need to be made to the expeditionary force.
————————
Kurt Wynn makes his way through the send-off point, picking up on a conversation between two disgruntled soldiers.
"What the f*ck do you mean all our sh*t's gas-powered now?"
"It just is, Jeff."
"This is bullsh*t. Why the hell do we need to do this, anyways?"
"Do you want the long answer, or the short answer?"
"...Short."
"So y'know how Azucur's, like, a 'steampunk' place, right? This is the 'dieselpunk' equivalent."
"That's f*cking stupid."
"Well... The multiverse is like that sometimes. From the reports, all of our drones shorted out the moment they crossed the proverbial barrier, even with the mods... meaning no artificial intelligence, either."
"Great. So Henry's benched? And Todd?"
"Yeah..."
"F*ck this place already."
The conversation goes on, but gradually fades from Kurt's ears.
Soon, he finds the object of his search— or rather, the person.
"Afternoon, blondie."
"Mimi, I've asked you five times to stop calling me that. I will not ask you again."
Burnscar lets out a 'tsk', and takes a long drag of her cigarette. Her preferred brand smells strangely like a dead snail. Have you smelled a dead snail? It's kind of unbelievable how badly a snail smells when it's dead, it's not quite like anything else.
She sports a red shirt and black jeans, partially-scorched lab coat over both, and a dead look in her eyes. Her voice was flat, without any kind of inflection, like an actor reading the lines from a script without actually emoting them.
"I still can't believe somebody like you picked up that kind of habit."
"What's that supposed to mean, Kurt-boy?"
"It's just... unusual... to see a highborn elf smoking cigarettes. Even more so that you go through a pack a day."
The pyromaniac lets out a laugh. It is soulless and completely empty, each 'ha' accentuated fully.
"Well, I'm not like most elves, yeah?"
The high elf retrieves from her satchel a humanoid skull that's been hideously warped; likely by heat exposure. It reeks of something that's been used as an ashtray for a while, and the jaw clicks as she mushes her cigarette into one of the eyesockets.
"Anyways. We're set to head off soon, correct?"
"That's right," Kurt says, adjusting his tie. "I'll be serving as an impromptu diplomat, since all of our organic ones are currently helping deal with those Slugs that we found."
"Apparently, I'm meant to research the magical energies of this new dimension. Should be fun; assuming I get to burn sh*t."
For once, Mimi sounds... giddy.
Kurt clears his throat.
"Well, unfortunately, Mimi, we'll both be on the backlines. Unless something goes horribly wrong, we shouldn't see any action."
"Hm. Shame. It's been a good few days since I've incinerated anything."
The sounding of warning klaxons indicates that the portal's about to go online. The troops line up, piling into their transport vehicles. All manner of tanks and artillery roll up, weapons at the ready. Assets from the Bio-Warfare Division writhe in their deployment cages, shrieking and spitting in anticipation of potential slaughter.
"I believe that's our cue."
Kurt Wynn and Mimi ‘Burnscar’ Deliondel get situated in one of the retrofitted APCs, and the portal crackles to life soon after.
Clanking contraptions of diesel and steel roar through the gateway, retrofitted from the designs of the Iiqaathian Commisariat— most of the magic and alore replaced with good ol' gunpowder. Engines of war for a mission of peace.
If only they all knew how badly this would go.
"Allure? Al-oor? Al-ore. There we go." James was thrown off by the word for a moment but eventually figured out its pronunciation.
While intriguing, it didn't fully answer his question. He already knew that magic excluded, a bullet far exceeds a bolt or an arrow. Bullets, especially rifle rounds, typically move at higher velocities and carry far more joules of energy behind them, and typically were far more impactful in terms of how they damaged the target. If this was a normal world without magic, this would be the case, however with the inclusion of magic, there was the possibility that such a thing could be flipped on his head; he didn't want to underestimate the Elves' ability to damage a target, but neither did he want to completely overestimate the Elves' abilities and assume that nothing short of a tank shell would take down the monsters he wants to target and kill.
After writing down the weight, joules, and muzzle velocity of a usual arrow or bolt versus that of the rifle and bullet he used. Initially, he feared that if Elves use magic, it could warp everything he knows about bows and arrows and how they're traditionally used, thus throwing everything on its head. However, how did human civilization, which was presumably less magical, survive for so many years on its own if magic was required to win? The firearms he had would have to be mildly useful at the very least, however, it wouldn't hurt to know just how effective. The problem was his lack of means to test and compare the average magically charged crossbow to his 7.62 NATO bolt-action rifle.
This led him full circle back to what he initially wanted to learn: different hunting techniques for these monsters. He figured if there was a certain technique used by the Elves' magically-charged bows, it would tell in their monster hunting guides or information, which was exactly going to be the next book he'd look for. This time, he'd explore huntsmen guides, and even look for monster-specific books. He'd start by reading any sort of huntsmen guides before reading about specific monsters however, as he wanted to get a base for their techniques to determine whether Elven Huntsmen do anything in particular with their magic to take down some of the creatures he may face.
They emerge in a charred landscape of red sand and rock, a massive desert laid bare before their eyes and the portal they appeared through appeared to be nothing more than a large stone archway, much bigger than that of Azucur.
If not for the dunes, they’d be able to see far, but from what they could see, there were only ancient ruins left in this barren landscape. They could see no one but the people they had brought.
The moon stayed static in the sky, not even budging from its position as if fixed in space. Behind it were the stars and planets so close to the world that the landscape of each planet was clearly visible. This moon had the same effects as a sun, but not to the same extent. Any human in this realm would eventually end up with a Vitamin D deficiency.
This world seemed to be a flat island floating in space, yet curiously there was oxygen here, but far more than on Earth. It was so thick that the humans and elves among them might even get sick if not equipped with breath masks.
The gravity was also much stronger than Earth’s. Stepping off this island would cause someone to fall into space from which they could never return, and on top of it all, even if you survived, there was a threat out there, just on the border of the atmosphere.
Large creatures that look like massive jellyfishes swam through the air, as a bird got too close it suddenly fell dead, touched by a jellyfish’s tentacle. They didn’t seem to come over the continent, but kept to the edges.
Any spell casters among them would feel no mana. There was certainly magic, but no mana from which a spell caster would draw their power. It was impossible to use magic in this realm. A mage could, of course, attempt to draw on the corrupted magic of the Netherworld to fuel their spells, but that would kill the mage with a 100% certainty.
The animals of this landscape, such as the birds killed by the jellyfish and the small reptiles and arachnids of the desert, looked unlike anything they’d normally expect, spiders often came with an extra set of legs, scorpions sometimes had two stingers on their tail, if not two or three tails, the snakes sometimes sported tusks and one trait that kept true with all of them, they were both horned and much bigger than their earth equivalent.
They did not attack, but any human who looked upon this landscape would only see a hell.
Mimi shifts uncomfortably as she enters the Realm. Not from the oxygen, mind; her clockwork lungs are more than equipped to deal with the environment.
No, it’s more from this feeling of smothering, ever-encroaching dread.
“There’s… something’s replaced the mana here.”
Kurt’s eyebrow quirks.
“Pardon?”
“There’s no mana here. There’s something else in its place, but it’s… wrong. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Kurt himself was having absolutely no problems with his powers whatsoever; though that was most likely because they weren’t exactly his to begin with.
Seeing as how there was 200.12789% more oxygen here than an Earth-like atmosphere, he consciously slowed his breathing down by 50%, causing him to take in 6-8 breaths a minute.
“Hm. I believe we may have a situation similar to the Otherworld or Vhrakrad on our hands. Just as a precaution, I recommended not trying to use any of your magic unless absolutely necessary— we have no idea how this thing that’s replaced mana may react to a spellcaster; if it’s anything like the energies that permeate the Otherworld and Vhrakrad, they may be volatile or… corrupting.”
“Mmm. Wonder if the Psi-Corps would have any luck here… Pass me the sampling equipment.”
Kurt complies. Mimi proceeds to take a few samples of the environment, packing them into sealed containers for later analysis. Afterwards, Kurt’s radio crackles to life.
“Chargé d'affaires ad interim Wynn, sir, the fauna here is looking incredibly hostile. Permission to engage?”
“Permission to engage given, lieutenant. Fire at any hostiles encroaching on our position…”
Kurt looks up, and frowns.
“…And mind those damn jellyfish.”
With that, the group advances forwards. Any creatures that approached them with hostile intent would be summarily shot at with countless bolts and arrows; the tanks held their fire for now, as they might need their shells later. They try to avoid the jellyfish-creatures to the best of their ability.
Treading upon the sand, alerts the creatures beneath the sand and all of a sudden a large black and spiked pincer emerges from the sand attempting to snatch a meal, it then pulls itself, revealed to be a large 10-leggeed scorpion, every piece of its body covered in sharp spikes, and it's ten eyes blood-red. It hisses. The scorpion has three tails, each with two stingers side by side, already dripping with venom. The creature seems to be about 5 meters long.
While the smaller but enlarged creatures skittered away, larger creatures were more hostile and would attempt to make a meal out of any human foolish enough to enter their territory.
The scorpion's display is indeed very frightening; many of the soldiers jump, and one of them barely dodges out of the way of the pincer.
It is then promptly shot to pieces by dozens upon dozens of crossbow and ballista bolts, along with arrows that each have 180-200 pounds of force behind them.
"Alright, you guys, load up that thing into one of the bio-containment pods;" Mimi yells, "Cauldron's gonna have a field day with this."
After the corpse of the scorpion-beast is loaded into a proper transport and the soldiers reload, the expedition continues. A similar fate befalls just about any creature that attempts to approach the expeditionary force.
There were always more monsters in their way, but there was also a herd of corrupted boars. Staring at the Zyrothians. They didn’t attack, but they seemed to be defensive and would no doubt see them as a threat if they advanced at them.
These boars appeared similar to earth-boars but were bigger, with large black spines on their backs, red fur with black highlights with eyes like coals of fire. They each stood about 2 meters high and were quite muscular.
Their twisted appearance was because of the energies of this hellscape. There was little vegetation in this place, meaning these boars were probably carnivores.
They came across a few ruins on the way, but someone had already been through long ago. All that remained was the stone that the inhabitants had used to build the place. There weren’t even any bones left.
Further southwest, there were two things on the horizon. One was a portal like the one they had come through, but inactive, if they turned their gaze further west. They might see a city on the horizon, built of two materials. They could not yet tell which ones.
“Head researcher Deliondel?, ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a pack of… boar-things ahead. Probably sizing us up—”
“Kill them.”
“…I, uh…”
“Permission to engage. Kill them. Now. They disgust me.”
“Mimi…” Kurt groans.
“Shut your mouth, you accountant f*ck.”
“No. I’m not going to allow you to kill this expedition just because you can’t light your cigarettes anymore. Lieutenant, you do not have permission to engage, find another way around— that is an order.”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
As the detour is taken around the boars, the expeditionary group comes across the ruins.
“Start taking photographs, people.” Kurt orders, “Search for anything and everything— also, get a sample of the stone.”
After the search turns up nothing and the sample is taken, the group moves on.
“Sir, our scouts have picked up two objects of interest! A gateway much like the one we came through, and some sort of… cityscape, it looks like. Big. Made of two unknown materials; a kind of metal and the same stone as the ruins.”
“Is it inhabited?”
“The scouts haven’t gotten close enough to verify that yet, sir.”
“I see. Inform me the moment that they get back to you, you understand?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
A group of scouts makes their way towards the city in the distance, careful to avoid any creatures that would prey on them.
As they neared the city, they could see a tattered flag at the top, and it wasn’t entirely unknown. It was a flag that had already appeared at the summit; it had the Nathrasilian emblem on it. A species that had in the past fought the IDC and had a great distaste for them, especially the Iron Warriors, who at the time were part of the IDC. There was the occasional soldier walking along the walls, but they didn’t seem to look into the desert and hadn't noticed the humans.
"Oh, sh*t, it's the Nathrasilians!"
They activate their radio.
"Command, this is Charlie-Delta Five. We have confirmation that this city is inhabited; it appears to have a populace of Nathrasilians. Over."
Kurt narrows his eyes.
"Really. Interesting... Are there any individuals within your line of sight? Over."
"We have visual on four soldiers patrolling the walls. Over."
"Try to see if you can make contact with them. Over."
"Affirmative, sir. Over."
The soldier in question attempts to wave down one of the guards walking along the city walls.
As one soldier finally takes notice she draws a rifle and takes aim causing the other soldiers to react, all aiming their weapons and firing at them, as it was still quite a distance it was hard to hit them without a weapon better suited for this range.
They had yet to reinvent sniper rifles and were using what looked like the Farquhar–Hill rifles from 1909 or at least, their Nathrasilian counterparts.
If one could glimpse a soldier on the wall, they would notice their changed appearance.
"Jesus— Defensive positions! Open fire!"
The soldiers take aim, accounting for the arcing of their projectiles, and fire their repeating crossbows back at the Nathrasilians.
"Command, come in, command! This is Charlie-Delta Five, the Nathrasilians are confirmed hostile! I repeat, the Nathrasilians are confirmed hostile! Over!"
"Status report, sergeant!"
"Currently taking fire; targets appear to have early firearms, seemingly of WW1-era make, and—"
The sound of a wet chunky splatter sounds over the radio, making Kurt wince. Mimi shows no reaction.
"SH*T, they just got George! God dammit, take out those bumblef*cks, NOW!"
The line goes dead as the sergeant focuses on returning fire, leaving Kurt and Mimi to ruminate on what they just heard.
The Nathrasilians focus-fire on the remaining soldier, and after a short while, five basic battle tanks appear on the horizon. They fire their guns at the soldier’s position as they appear.
The last remaining soldier falls, and Kurt slowly turns the radio off. Those were good men that just died due to... no real reason that he can discern.
He takes a look over the hill at the position of the scouts, and points to the area where the tanks are approaching.
"Shell that position. Now."
Artillery thunders over the hillside, aimed towards the tanks— with Kurt's assistance, their aim is far more accurate than one would expect of long-range artillery.
One of the five tanks explodes from the attack, the four remaining tanks fire off three rockets each, missiles hoping to take out whatever heavy artillery they have, but as one tank has been eliminated, the Nathrasilians go on the offensive, with six airships making their appearance from behind the city, Zeppelins.
As they make calls to the other nearby cities, they mobilize their forces as the new YP x5460s, Basics and A12s, the cities further from the action launch additional Zeppelins.
But the Phenex’ qov also mobilizes a force, the YP x5460s do not move towards the Zyrothians, Phenex wanting to find out where they came from instead sends her tanks to search the desert, she assumed it was the portal structure near Thyzzgul’kath, or it could be the one deeper in the desert, which is why she split her troops to secure both, and if necessary, destroy them.
“Hm.”
Kurt looks at the airships. They are traveling towards their current position at a speed of 84.506 miles per hour, and are armored with more of that unknown metal— he can see that it has a tensile strength of 2000 megapascals and a weight of 0.2833 pounds per cubic inch; five times the strength of steel while retaining steel’s normal weight.
The size of each zeppelin’s balloon is 194 feet long, 67 feet high and 63 feet wide— meaning that they each hold approximately 235,400 cubic feet of gas.
He makes his way over to one of the artillery emplacements.
“Get out.”
“But sir—”
“Out.”
The gunner vacates the vehicle, and Kurt takes over the controls.
The shells launched by the vehicle travel at speeds of between 910 and 1,070 meters per second (3,000–3,500 feet per second), and would normally reach the maximum height of its arc at roughly 18,100 meters if aimed at angle of 60 degrees. However, the physics of this dimension have roughly 2.15 times the gravitational pull of earth, at 21.08505 meters per second squared. Accounting for that, the shell would begin to drop off at 9,050 meters.
“Kurt, what the hell are you doi—”
KA-THOOM
Kurt fires a single shell out of the cannon, perfectly timed and aimed.
The shell flies at one of the zeppelins, hits at just the right angle to slip through the demonsteel frame, and detonates inside of the balloon, setting the entire thing ablaze as the buoyant gas inside ignites.
Mimi watches in complete and utter awe as the burning wreck proceeds to then impact the ground, crushing the remaining tanks as they fire their missiles.
Said missiles manage to take out a good chunk of the soldiers and two of the Zyrothians’ own tanks.
Mimi stares incredulously at Kurt as he steps out of the artillery vehicle.
The accountant meets her eyes, and smiles.
“Nobody will ever believe you.”
With that, Kurt clears his throat and straightens his tie, his usual straight face returning.
“I suggest we abscond. Send an SOS to command— we are under attack.”
Mimi nods, and the two of them enter the APC once more. The Zyrothians proceed to move back the way they came, fighting tooth and nail to hold off the Nathrasilian forces as they make their way back to the portal.
Before they can reach back they are assaulted by Phenex’ forces, five YP x5460 tanks, they were originally on their way to the city, but upon spotting the retreat of Zyrothius moves to intercept and firing their 76 mm guns at their tanks with the .50 calibre machine gun firing at troops outside armoured vehicles.
The five others yet remain out of their line of sight as they head to the opened portal. A megaphone sounds. “Once enslaved by the devourer, once more enslaved by the IDC, then enslaved by the demons of this place. And here comes the humans, no doubt to enslave us again.” the voice was that of a woman. She sounded ancient.
While the Nathrasilians did not speak English, there was the exception with Rikhas Phenex. The woman that had led the attack on the humans in FT-12 when they were still under the rule of Hir’oruzz, the devourer. Having partaken in the peace talks and the summit, she knew the language, but she was the last of them to do so, and she would most likely die of age within the next few years, taking the language to the grave.
“I shall show you the justice slavers like you deserve, and you will know our pain!” the voice said before they shut the megaphone off, Rikhas had spoken from her base at Phenex’ qov, meaning she was not present and had only got the report from her soldiers at the scene.
The expeditionary force isn’t composed of humans. Over half of it, in fact, is composed of Dunes— aliens that appeared to be made entirely of sand.
How Rikhas Phenex didn’t see this is a mystery for the ages.
This hideously elementary mistake aside, the troopers fight back against the Nathrasilians as they fight their way to the portal; ballista shots and tank shells assail everything and anything in their path.
“I’ll take ‘ignorant, confused b*tch’ for 100, Alex.” Mimi says as she strikes up a match to light one of her cigarettes.
Kurt ducks out of the way of a .50 caliber bullet.
“This isn’t a time to be joking, Mimi. There’s a very real possibility we could be killed here.”
“Yeah, whatever. We called in reinforcements.”
“You are placing a… shocking amount of faith in command.” Kurt says as he draws his pistol.
“Mm-hm.”
Kurt pops out of the APC hatch, and aims with his sidearm.
He could see the exact trajectory each bullet from the gun would take; how it arced, how wind resistance and gravity would effect it.
Five shots rang out in quick succession. The machine-gunners of the YP x5460‘s .50 caliber machine guns slumped over dead, bullet holes placed neatly between their eyes.
He ducks back into the APC before he can take any fire himself.
This was going to be a long day.
Even with the machine gunners dead, the tanks still had a crew, the cannons aimed for the APC and fired, hoping to take out whoever had managed to kill the gunners.
Zeppelins seemed to approach from several directions, the ones from the cities were about to catch up, but they were still spaced apart as it was clear that the Zyrothians had managed to turn their war machines against each other, they also made sure that even if a Zeppelin would be shot down there was no way for it to hit their own forces.
The other tanks had reached the portal that the Zyrothian forces had come from, they fired at it. Although whatever material it was, the portal proved to be too much for the average tank.
The APC swerves out of the way just in time to avoid the shells, though Kurt and Mimi are both fairly rattled.
“God damn it, where the F*CK are those reinforcements?!” Mimi yells.
Kurt remains silent, dodging and firing shot after shot aimed at him as he pops out periodically. Every bullet fired hits its mark, while no attack manages to so much as scathe Kurt in return.
His radio bead crackles, and he gives it a listen.
“Command’s calling a tactical retreat. We need to proceed to the portal posthaste.”
“Sigh. So that’s a no on the reinforcements, eh?”
“…Did you just say the word ‘sigh’…?”
“Shut up.”
The remainder of the forces surge towards the portal, blasting apart the Nathrasilain forces trying to destroy it as they barely manage to escape from the Realm intact.
After all their forces are accounted for, the portal is promptly shut on the Zyrothians’ end.
With the Zyrothians chased out and the portal shut, the Nathrasilians begin building encampments and fortification around every portal discovered on the netherworld.
Those people killed are returned to Shathyyqzz where their bodies are tended to before being taken to the enchanters, large and complex glyphs are painted on the floor of their hall and the bodies are placed down.
The enchanters then place their hands on the glyph, and it activates, summoning the souls back to their bodies, reanimating the soldiers that they can, some however are too far gone or with bodies that can no longer function.
The materials left behind from the destroyed tanks is recovered and brought back to the cities, where it is used in new tanks and weapons. The crossbows brought by the soldiers killed outside Thyzzgul'kath, they are dismantled, and the materials reused, the bodies of the dead are then used for nutrition or as materials depending on the body's properties whether they be Nathrasilians or Zyrothians.
Post self-deleted by Zyrothius.
Visai was in his lab reading old files, considering what his next calling within the realm of technology should be. Some of his projects had not come to fruition, as there didn’t seem to be any possibility of technology to reproduce the sorcium field around Ferrandon.
A soldier entered the room rather hurriedly, a young shydean woman in the Arytiss armour, but without the helmet, a long blond ponytail laying over her shoulder, her eyes green like a pair of emeralds. “Lord Visai,” she said hurriedly, “Report…” she had difficulty speaking, and had likely run from the hangar to his office, which would include several stairs and corridors.
“Catch your breath, soldier.” Visai said. Soldiers were not his concern, so he understood that an Arytiss seeking him was out of the ordinary.
The Arytiss took a few breaths and straightened herself. “I have a report for you from planet Deyater, in the Abyss region.” She held out a report to him.
Visai sat back. “I’ll read it later. Give me the short version.” He said as he fixed his gaze on a vial on his shelf containing rat eggs. He wasn’t sure how he got them, as last time he checked, rats didn’t lay eggs.
The Arytiss nodded and looked at the report. “According to the report, well, the dead are rising.” She said “The recently deceased, whether from age, murdered or killed in the war, takes only a few minutes before rising again.” the soldier stated.
Visai turned to look at her. “Say what now? Are you trying to tell me we got a zombie outbreak?” he asked. He didn’t seem very affected by the news. Within the realms of magic, anything could happen.
“Yes, my lord. The exact words in the report state that: It is like a full-blown monster mash, yo.” the soldier said and then handed it to Visai, who read the report.
And there it was, clear as day. Whoever wrote this report had used the exact wording the soldier had said. He sighed. “Question every necromancer on that planet and get me a vial of blood from one of the affected zombies.” he stated.
The Arytiss nodded and rushed back to the hangar to relay the councilman’s orders.
A few days later he’d get a strange report, there were no necromancers on Deyater, there weren’t even any spell casters at all on that planet, the communities on the planet were mostly rural, the dead roamed every forest and mountain on the planet. But they weren’t really zombies, they seemed possessed by something.
He also got a few vials of blood and some tissue samples that he had not asked for, yet he performed tests. There were no signs of any pathogens or any residual magic. The community had no contact with the rest of the universe, save for a military base that was completely unaffected.
There were no yoctobots in their blood either. This phenomenon made no sense, but the military had already prepared for a potential purge of the planet, but only if the queen would allow it, something she was unlikely to approve.
In the meantime, the queen declared planet Deyater a quarantine zone, and all military personnel called onto a nearby space station. The military quarantined the space station to make sure no one aboard was affected.
The aelfey queen stood near the portal that her people had named, the Eage, which translated to “the eye”.
Next to her floated one of the lesser aelfey, Datartis was his name. He had volunteered to go into the eye and through the rift. Every species had the odd-ones, and Datartis was one such odd soul.
The queen, Lyvkyrath, turned to Datartis. “Are you sure you wish to do this? There's no telling what lies on the other side, it could be virtually anything.” she stated.
Datartis seemed to bounce up and down, lesser aelfey could speak, but if they could make themselves understood in any other way, they'd much rather do that.
Lyvkyrath nodded, “Very well, then go Datartis, but make sure you come back here.”
«12. . .342343344345346347348. . .363364»
Advertisement