The Second Dark Age

[zelda12]

I'm getting a vague inkling of whats happening. Something to do with experiments on test subjects by Solicious or something. Which, as will always happen in such circumstances, leads to some undefinable evil being created.

[Monk]

Part xii
Old Allies

Arctic outpost, Berserker Dominion
16:34 hours, First Encounter +4

The sky above was grey and bright as a chilling wind blew in from the north. It was just another day on the edge of the world for the Berserker Jarls, a people who had built themselves an empire that matched the Imperium’s in both land and power of technology. A fierce warrior people, much like that of ancient Vikings in days past; not even the Imperium wished to evoke their wrath. This outpost was one of many stations in the frozen north, stationed around a huge white wreckage of some sort of vessel. One that was nearly as big as the continent on which it rested. The mangled armor torn from ages of the ice’s wear stood silent, echoing the shouts and loud noises by workers who worked tirelessly to uncover the entire structure. Its origin was unknown and after years of study its secrets were slowly being revealed. However this day, an even colder wind would blow from the south, one of treachery and war.

The lord of the camp stood in the middle of the blowing wind which held a thick blanket of snow and ice. He was unshaken by the gnawing cold of the wind that seemed to cut straight into one’s veins and chill their blood. After years of this weather day in and out, one ceases to care or notice. In his hands was plans of the giant wreckage they were uncovering, all indications was that is was some sort of ship. However it was not an ORDER vessel; its design was much to alien. Strange that an unidentifiable ship would be found here, the place where all scholars claim the Berserker Jarls had from come countless millennia ago. “Careful there!” he shouted to a couple of workers removing some radioactive substance from the ship. His voice rose above even the howl of the wind and startled workers, and they nearly dropped their load.

They grasped onto the handles of the radiation shielded container and pulled it up just in time keeping it from smashing on the ground. Their lord laughed, “Gotta be careful like I said!” he grinned at them. Strangely they couldn’t help but smile and nod as he did so, seeing such a hard and tough guy like him laugh could make anyone feel at ease. They moved on inside a lab a little ways from him, no doubt to study their find.

The Lord rolled up the plans he had and was about to walk away when a messenger ran up to him. He was going as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast at all as he was trudging through the snow. “Lord!” he cried, his voice was nearly over taken by the wind, and his shout was nearly silence to a whisper but his commander heard him. He turned around and replied “yes? What is it?” only now after being in the cold overseeing operations for six long hours was he feeling the cold creep up on him.

“Call for you sir!” the messenger replied; even though he was wearing a thick coat he was visibly shaking. To used to the southern climates no doubt.

“I’ll go to my office.” replied the Lord. “I’ll take it there.”

“Yes sir!” replied the messenger, he turned around and moved as fast as he could to get back inside. The Lord just laughed seeing him shutter so easily. He walked away to a large building in the center of the outpost; it was in fact the central command for the entire northern continent. Uninhabited except for the Outposts of the berserkers, it held no real strategic advantage for any nation to control it, no recourses and no military advantage. Yet for the last ten years the Dominion of Berserker Jarls had occupied it, claiming to be doing “archeological” study.

The Lord of the camp reached the building and opened the door; the snow blew in quickly as did the loud scream of the wind outside. He stepped in and slammed the door behind him; a warm light greeted him and melted the snow on the floor almost instantly. He set the plans down and walked up a flight of stairs, moving through the base at a rather lax pace. He reached the door to his office and opened it, inside was his desk and pictures hung on the walls of his accomplishments and medals he had won. A few weapons were also hung on the wall; close combat weapons that were rarely used in war but still a symbol of pride for all Berserkers. His phone was silent as he closed the door, but as he took a step toward his desk it began to ring. ‘This had better be good’ he thought to himself, he was tired after a long day of excavating.

He extended his hand and picked up the phone and slowly brought it up to his ear. He cleared his throat and spoke; “Yes?” he said in his normal tone, though it was deep and menacing even when he was relaxed.

“Am I speaking to the Commander of this outpost?” a voice on the other end asked. Emotion was hard to find in the words, perhaps because it was a simple question.

“Yes you are.” Answered the Lord, “what do you want?”

“Good.” The voice said as a background voice could be heard speaking, though it was nothing but a mutter to the man in the office. “I’m going to have to recall all the soldiers from the Northern Continent.” It was now that the Lord realized who this was, it was the leader of the Berserker nation. He was startled by the comment to say the least.

“Sire?” he said as confusion set in his voice. “May I ask why?”

The voice on the other end took a deep breath and said “thank you” in a low voice, but it wasn’t directed into the phone. “Four days ago” he began saying speaking to the Lord again “One of our sleeper agents working in Solicous went missing. He missed a contact and is presumed lost.” It sounded as if a few papers were being shifted around and a pen was writing on something as the Master Berserker spoke. “However…before contact was lost we received an unexpected piece of information.”

“What do you mean; “unexpected”?” asked the Lord, he would have questioned why he was receiving this information had it not been for the fact he was in command of nearly all of the Berserkers northern assets.

“Something worse than seven years ago.” the Master spoke in a low tone, in a way he himself was unable to accept the horrible truth of his own words.

“Worse than the Plasma Explosion?” the Lord was completely shocked, how could anything be worse than that? It was hard to imagine something had happened that was worse than an explosion that nearly destroyed the world.


“…Indeed.” the Master’s reply was slow. He spoke off to someone else, not into the phone again saying “mobilize our assets; I want them ready to march ASAP.” The Lord was getting nervous; he had heard that last sentence even though it wasn’t spoken to him. War was coming again.

“Sir, what happened?” he asked, trying to keep his composure.

“We were sent plans for a new weapon by the spy.” The Master said, the Lord could not see him to notice his head was looking at his ceiling wondering how he could contain the situation. “A weapon that is unlike anything I’ve seen in my many years.”

“What is it?” The lord inquired, now seeds of strange curiosity had been set and he desired to know. Even if the information filled him with fear he felt he must know; as if his destiny would be decided by that said weapon. “Did the ORDER master Plasma technology?” there was no answer. “Did Solicous introduce a new breed of Guardian?” silence greeted him once more.

“Yes…and No.” The Master finally answered. His voice held dismay, and a strange one at that. He never had showed such emotion to any of his military officers or to the public, always remaining a strong pillar of resolve. What could drive him to show his true feelings?

“Sire, I don’t…” understand was the lord’s next choice of word. But he was cut off by the Master.

“You don’t need to.” he said, knowing what he’d say. “I’m going to tell you. Were you there a few years back, the aftermath of the Second Solician Civil War?”

“Yes I was.” The Lord answered, ‘who could forget?’ He thought.

“The Abbadon treaty was signed by the two greater powers as both intervened.” The Master seemed distracted as he spoke, probably doing multiple things at once. “Because the man who grabbed power had launched nuclear weapons, a new government was installed with both nations support.” The lord was wondering where this was going, “The compromise said Solicous would help the Imperium research a number of things. It was to ‘Double the research power’ in the treaty’s own words.”

“Sire…I fail to see…” again the Lord’s words were cut off; if he was speaking to a lesser man he would be enraged. Yet despite talking to the Master Berserker and leader of his nation, he was becoming a bit irritated all the same.

“The Imperium demands of a new weapon have fallen into our hands.” The Master’s words calmed the irritation in the Lord shocked him slightly, ORDER transmissions were hard to intercept.

“What is it?” As he said that he heard a loud crash on the door downstairs, he lowered the phone from his ear even as the Master was explaining the situation. The crash repeated itself, this time even louder. His first thought was that one of his workers had crashed one of their heavy lifting vehicles into the base again. It happened when rookies took the control; however as he was raising the phone to his ear another crash hit the entrance door, busting it from its hinges and sending it flying into the base. And following it was a loud piercing scream.

His eyes set upon his door through which he could hear all this happening. His Master was shouting on the phone, he heard the sounds too but had no idea what was going on. Fear was rising in the Lord’s chest; it felt like an iron hand had grasped onto his heart as another scream was heard echoing through the base. He heard what must have been countless limbs pounding on the stairs rushing toward his door.

He dropped the phone and grabbed an axe off the wall; the frantic shouts of the Master on the phone were warnings telling him to get out of the room. Yet there was no way out as something crashed into his own door, denting it. Another crash hit the door; the hinges were giving way visible as the Berserker stood with the weapon of his ancestors in hand. He could hear a snarling as the door gave way under another hit, and in stepped a creature that was an abomination to the gods. There were six arms on it not counting the two legs; the arms were shaped thinner than humans deceiving the power they held. The creature stood slumped over, it had an elongated neck and a head that was dominated by a huge mouth; filled with teeth sharp as a needlepoint.

The creature charged screaming and the Lord swung his axe into it. The creature underestimated his strength raising two of its arms to stop the blow, only to have them hemmed off. The Berserker screamed in rage and swung his axe around severing its head. A green blood sprayed out and covered both him and the room. As he brought his axe down he could hear even more coming into the base, literally pouring through the door below. He readied his axe and waited for them to come bursting through the walls.

“Father Odin” he said as the lifeless body of the creature sat before him. His breathing was a bit heavy as he had put tremendous power into his swings. He had no doubt in his mind that if he attacked with any less power; the creature would have easily blocked him. “Give me strength.”



----

And so Enters the Dominion of Berserker Jarls, the third and last major player in this story. Hope you enjoyed this last part. This story is now over 30 pages long (MS word) .

if you spot some editing screw ups I apologize. I’ve gone through it a few times but I’m seriously tired at the moment. I'll look over it once more after I’ve got some rest.

@zelda: ah, yes. partly true, but it's not exactly that simple as you shall find out in later parts.

[zelda12]

Very good, ~:D descriptions were a bit thin on the ground as far as the people/buildings/environment goes, but thats just your writing style.

[Monk]

as for the people: that is done purposely. No one character is described in great detail. Even the guardians (the only characters who have names) have no basic description. This is done for a reason, so no one person becomes the main character. In a sense Humanity is the main character, by taking char. desc out you find yourself thinking about the entire people instead of one or two of them.

I thought about how to write this for a long time, and everytime i tried to do it with main characters it failed and turned out horrible. I kept trying until i came across this style of writting. This style places the focus on the race/people instead of individuals. I like it because it fits well with the theme and you don't get bogged down describing some people who you know might die in five minutes (that's imo at least). In that sense this story is very experimental for me. But i have given descriptions for certain characters, i.e the ORDER ship captain, the Solician Army, Black Dragons, Colonel at the Old City (you get the idea).

as for buildings/environment: same reason. I do give desc of Environment when i think it's needed, but here the outpost is not important. All i wanted you to see was a small outpost in the middle of an arctic continent situatied around a huge vessel of some kind.

but i'm glad you liked it

[Shadow]

very nice

I like your style of writing.

[Sigurd]

Greetings Master Monk,
It was by chance I found this story and I must say; you give it a new and an exciting twist.
I am flattered you give the Jarls such credit and I am anxiously awaiting the continuance of this master piece.
Good work!!

[Monk]

part xiii
Not so Human

Blast zone 002, Quarantined area of Solicous.
21:00 hours, first encounter +4

Uriel kicked a stone as hard as he could, the rock speed over the cracked earth and bounced up before crashing down and shattering into a number of fragments. “We’ve lost them!” he cried in frustration, his brother Azreal was a few feet away and scanning the ground below him looking for some indication of where the creatures had gone. And the third guardian; Tanthius, stood upon a smoldering wreckage looking into the horizon. The wreckage he stood on was their ship, the very same they had teleported from at the Battle of the Old City. Its armor was ripped open and the crew inside was slaughtered; however there was no sign of any creature for kilometers.

“Would you keep it down?” the voice of Azreal hummed as he looked over the ground for any tracks. “Tracking these things is hard enough without you throwing a fit.”

“Well I’m sorry” Uriel laughed as he sat down on the dusty earth; his voice was worlds different from his brother, being hard and wrathful. Yet that was how he always spoke. “We can’t all be pacifists like you.” He turned to Tanthius who was standing silently on the wrecked ship and shouted, “Ain’t that right Tanthius?” However he gave no response, only staring emotionlessly into the horizon. A gentle breeze picked up and a strong silence fell between them.

Azreal rose to his feet and looked at Uriel, “You shouldn’t waste your time. First generation Guardians lack all emotion…you know that.” He sighed slightly as he said that, feeling strange sympathy for his brother who felt nothing.

“I know.” Uriel said, “but at least he isn’t consumed with worry and sorrow like you” Uriel grinned at his brother teasingly, such a joke was out of character for him. Azreal gave a slightly laugh and his soft voice emitted a strange hum as he responded.

“Yeah, and Gods forbid he be like you third ‘genys’ …full of hate and wrath!” He smiled at his brother as thunder boomed overhead. Their joking came to an end as lighting streaked across the dark sky above, each of them could sense the ominous feel of the wind. Azreal could feel a strange emotion floating on the air but could not place it, Tanthius put his hand on his sword as bands of energy began to pulse through it.

“The enemy is approaching” he said as he saw a band of creatures closing in fast, his voice was metallic and lacked all emotion, just as Azreal had said. Uriel smiled and quickly stood up readying his weapon; Tanthius leaped from the smoking heap of metal and joined his brothers and waited the arrival of the Creatures. They each held pistols and power swords at the ready awaiting their enemy; as they did the wind began to howl and above the rain broke and poured down. However as they stood, no creature appeared. Azreal used his mental prowess to scan the area around them but could sense nothing, he began to think Tanthius’ eyes had deceived him when suddenly from all around them the earth was broken and shot up into the sky by some great force. Through the dust of the shattered land the creatures jumped on the guardians; their number was small but they were confident having the element of surprise. However the swords of the Guardians flew through the air, cutting through the falling rain and finding their way through the tough flesh of their enemy. Within seconds three creatures had fallen.

The surviving creatures screamed in anger at the fall of their comrades and brought their claws to bear upon the guardians, only to meet the same fate. Tanthius swung his sword around, hemming one in half just as Uriel struck down one who was about to rip into his brother. Azreal stabbed his sword through the chest of a creature; the abomination fell upon its hind legs and slumped against the guardian. Azreal lifted his leg and placed it on what could be considered it’s “shoulder” and used his foot to push it down on the ground. The creature’s eyes were frozen in an instant of anger that it took to its death. The last creature attacked Uriel as he turned from slaying one, and in pure hatred drove three arms through the warrior. A strange dark green substance flowed from Uriel as the creature’s arms began to withdraw themselves from his body; however Uriel looked directly into its coal black eyes. He smiled a sick smile, “Not bad…” he said in a low voice, his wrath was rising in his eyes as his blood dripped down his body. The creature looked at the way he seemed to feel no pain, and for the first time in its existence, knew fear. It desperately tried to withdraw its limbs from Uriel and screamed in pure terror, yet the guardian raised his pistol quickly and jammed it into its mouth, shattering its huge teeth.

“My turn…” he pulled the trigger and his weapon fired, blowing a hole into the creatures head sending its brain and pieces of flesh scattering into the air. Uriel pushed the dead creature from him and screamed aloud in anger, firing a number of rounds into the its body. As he looked around he saw that both his brothers had survived the attack, but something was different. He looked down and saw that from his wound was flowing a green substance, it was his own blood. As his eyes looked on his brothers he noticed for the first time his blood was that of a different color, theirs was red and his was green. More shocking, his blood was the same color as that of the creatures’. The other guardians took no notice to this, assuming that it was the creatures’ blood. Before they could examine his wound more Uriel covered it quickly.

Tanthius looked down into one of the holes the creatures came from and saw a metal corridor, it appeared to be some type of hall way. If he could feel confusion, now would be the time he’d feel it. “Brothers…” he said in a slightly weary voice. “To me.” Azreal and Uriel quickly came over and looked down into the hole; they were greatly shocked to see what looked to be the hallway of some underground base.

“Good work Tanthius.” Azreal said as he looked down, “we’ll keep moving from here.” His eyes set on his brother Uriel who was holding his covered up shoulder. “Something wrong?” he asked concerned.

Uriel shook his head “No…I’m alright.” Azreal could sense deceit in his words however Uriel was always secretive to some degree, he paid it no heed.

“Very well, let’s move through here” Azreal motioned to the hallway as Tanthius dropped down into the hole without waiting another moment. The sound from his landing echoed through the dark corridor, he looked around seeing no threat and motioned to his brothers that it was all clear. Azreal then descended into the hall followed lastly by Uriel.

The guardians readied themselves and moved down the hall, being cautious and alert to any sign of the creatures. Yet as they traversed the metal corridor there was neither sight nor sound of them. The only thing that greeted them was the whispers of an age gone by. The darkness was thick as they moved slightly quicker, around them they were slowly starting to hear noises; that of a computer processing something. The sound seemed to go hand in hand with the silence making them all a bit uneasy. After what seemed like hours they came out of the darkness into a fairly sized room with a large computer and screen on the north wall. On the left wall there was a door and the right wall there was a map of Solicous with areas marked out. Much of the north was a red color and marked “Loyalist”, the south western portion was covered in blue and had “Alliance” written on it. Finally the jungles of Solicous and the south-eastern area of the map was a color of green and labeled “NR rebels”.

Azreal laughed “I don’t believe it.” He looked at the high tech equipment in the room and smiled.

“What is it? Where are we?” Uriel asked; his usual anger ravaged voice was now taken by confusion as he looked around. Tanthius scanned the hall behind and made sure it was secure; lacking emotion he did what he normally did at this moment which was his job.

“It’s one of the Berserker’s bases they established in the Civil war.” Azreal said rather anxiously as he walked over to the computer, he punched in a few commands and quickly text displayed itself. The words were in the berserker’s language; which if you had an understanding of Old Norse, was not that difficult to understand. Of course, knowledge of foreign languages was something implanted into all guardians since the first one was created.

“So…how does that help us?” Uriel rolled his eyes, his annoyed and hateful voice now found its way back to the surface surpassing his confusion.

Azreal was punching in commands to the system as he responded, “You have to think of the bigger picture dear brother.” He couldn’t help but smile, “From here I can access the Solician Mainframe, maybe there’s info about those things in there.”

“Oh” Uriel said, a bit embarrassed he didn’t think of that. “Well then go ahead.” In a few moments Azreal had established an uplink to the Solician mainframe network and gained access using his authorization code. As he did so though, a question appeared on the screen. Yet it wasn’t a search question or a password requirement; displayed in perfect Solician was the question “Just what do you think you’re doing Azreal?”

Uriel was astounded as he saw the text display itself on the screen, as was Azreal. “What the hell? Did someone track the link?” Uriel asked worried

“No.” Azreal replied. “It’s coming from…” there was a beep from the machine as he found the location of the sender, “inside the mainframe.”

Tanthius heard that and said “It must be Andy”. He turned and faced Azreal who in turn did the same. “The A.I” as normal his voice was emotionless, but his eyes reflected his confidence that he was right.

“I thought that thing was deactivated.” Uriel said as he looked at the screen.

“Apparently not,” Azreal said as he punched a few keys. “Maybe he knows what’s going on.” The guardian punched the keys before him and asked the A.I a simple question, “What do you know about the creatures?” there was a moment of silence before a line of text flashed into place. “Be specific Guardian.” The A.I responded.

Azreal shook his head, computers are stubborn they need the right info. So he rephrased his question. The sound of him hitting keys filled the room as the others watch the words form on the screen. “What do you know about the creatures met by the 5th Solace at the Old City?”

The A.I responded rather quickly; “Quite a lot. What do you wish to know?” Azreal smiled and typed a simple word “Everything”

What followed was a lengthy silence before a number of lines appeared below Azreal’s query. It was a .dat file that the A.I retrieved and opened for the guardian, within which was a shocking amount of information that Azreal read aloud, perhaps some lines he should have kept to himself though. It read as followed:

“Specimen 04, starting as a bipedal organism created as a weapon of last resort. First test subject was created in the aftermath of Second Solician civil war, also known as G102”

Azreal couldn’t help but notice that was the designation for the second generation of Guardians. He stopped for a moment and thought of what that could mean before continuing.

“G102 was found to be too compassionate, not fitting with project outlines. Furthermore, subject’s Humanoid form created sympathy for “fellow” humans. Type G102 frozen following creation of fifty test specimens.”

‘That would explain why I awoke frozen in a cryo-pod’ Azreal thought. ‘But.. this can’t be right…’

“Experiments on second generation guardians yielded the creation of G103”

Azreal was starting to see a pattern; that was the designation for the third generation guardians. The same type Uriel was. Uriel upon hearing this became greatly confused as Azreal read on.

“G103 met outlined requirements of project, but Solician government was unwilling to follow through with experiments. Subject’s mental capacities proved unstable. Demand for a non-humanoid Specimen was first raised, G103 placed in cryo-stasis. G104 created some time later using the same method used for G103; manipulation and combination of DNA from various sources yielded the creation of what is officially named “specimen 04” or G104.”

“…what?” Uriel said. “This can’t be saying what I think it is.” Azreal ignored the silent words of his brother and kept reading, his own voice beginning to shake as he did so.

“G104 moved to Research station 82 for further experimentation and testing. Genetic material of subject is unstable and adapts to environment over a single generation.” The file ended, it seemed unfinished. Azreal couldn’t believe the words before him, if this was true, the guardians were created the same way those creatures were.

Uriel leaned against the wall; he couldn’t understand what he heard. Thoughts were racing in his mind, thoughts that sickened him but at the same time made sense. Neither of his brothers noticed the change taking place in him; Azreal was to busy asking the A.I if the information was accurate and Tanthius just didn’t care. Uriel closed his eyes, he kept seeing scenes of death and destruction and no matter what he did he couldn’t drive them from his mind. All at once a cruel realization dawned on him, he wasn’t human at all. He was one of these creatures just in human form. That’s why he bled the same color and felt no remorse for the dead at the Old city. As it all set in his hate seemed to flare up again, driving away his confusion. He understood it all clearly now, it was like a dam in his mind broke and every horrible thought he had fled into his conscience mind. But instead of being sickened by the images he saw, he smiled in delight. Any shred of humanity he had in him was lost in that instant.

He stood up straight and raised his pistol to Tanthius’ head, without hesitation he fired into the back of the guardian’s skull shattering the bone and ending the life of his brother. Azreal turned and saw Uriel standing over the fallen body of Tanthius, his mouth slowly opened in utter shock and fear as he saw the look on Uriel’s face. One of pure hatred like that he had never seen him show. Uriel pointed his pistol at Azreal and fired; his brother was fast and could have easily dodged the shot. Yet the sight his brother killing Tanthius was too much; he was frozen in place and the bullet hit him in the chest. The bullet raced through his chest and cut through his heart, ending his existence as well.

As if on cue screams echoed down the hall and Uriel turned to see two creatures coming out of the shadows. They looked upon him in a twisted sense of respect and bowed before him. The creatures had psychic powers as Azreal had, and they could sense Uriel had changed and was now like them to some extent. Strangely they now regarded him as as a leader figure. Uriel smiled as he spoke, his voice seemed a thousand times more ravaged by hate than it had been before. “Go now my brothers” he said, “gather our kin.”


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ok i lied... 1 main character (sorta ) .

@ shadow: thank you glad you like it.

@ Sigurd: i've been hoping those who were on NS at the time would come by and read this. i'm very glad you like it and the Jarls deserve all the credit i give them. very glad you enjoy it