Journey West 04: Sae-Fram

    Somewhere far out into the desert many levels below the ground a rather plain looking young to middle aged man in a green military uniform sits at a war table with several advisors around him. He looks around through his brown eyes as these men prattle on while pointing out graphs, charts, and reports from files sitting in front of them; about how fast their empire has grown over the last few years, going from a mountain bandit alliance to a full blown empire. How they now control the stretch across the north to the Archae Sea, the slow march over the desert and grass lands, and the up coming seemingly peaceful acquisition of the Sae-Kingdom, one step further to their goals, complete control of Ravashira.

    The man knows better, he after all is Rodolph Magnus, son of their emperor, “heh” he thinks, “just two years ago my dad was a general of a mountain bandit troop now he’s emperor and I’m the general of our top research base.”

   He shakes his head, one of the men at the desk mis-reads his expression, “Sir Magnus, there is nothing to worry about. I know we had some short comings with the weapons from the Croix Empire, but there is little that stands in our way. Our reports show that the Stratalians have no standing army, only a few cities with powerful sorcerers is all; and we
already have a means to shut them down”

    “…bla…bla…bla…” is what Rodolph hears.

    The man’s words are pointless recapping of things Rodolph already knows, about mass-developing magic suppression orbs that shut down magic powers with-in a certain distance around them to be used as weapons and defense against invasion from a mystical adversary. He looks at the map of their supposed territory, until now these places just had generic names like The Great Desert, The Forbidden Grass-Lands, The Death Paths, ect… places no one even lives in until they came along and made bases, an empire of dust and sand.

     “The real prize,” says Rodolph causing the men to go silent as he points at the map, “Is here to the north, The Land of a Thousand Kingdoms, people who are constantly at war, yet we have yet to conquer them, why?”

    One man looks like he might reply, however Rodolph continues, “I’ll tell you why gentlemen, because allllll this, all this territory we control…its empty! Its nothing but grass, mountains, and desert, no commerce, we are still building roads, and we have to set up re-supply stations to feed the caravans, which also have to re-supply these re-supply stations. Heh, it’s pointless to build a fence around something no body even wants, the territory of dragons and beasts, we don’t even venture into but go around most of this.”

   *sigh*

    He sits back down, “by the time our men down here in our main bases get around to the coast, then up to the coastal bases, we have used up most of our fuel. This is why the Sae-Kingdom is important, a real coastal port, a way to attract more business, perhaps even trade with the southern continent, with those the Stratalians wont even trade with, we scratch their backs they scratch ours.”

    “The north..” whispers one of the men.

   “Yeah that,” says Rodolph, “once we get trade going, once we get an actual navy going then we can go north, those kingdoms are so tired from wars with each other that they could fall easily to our main forces, not to mention the weapons we are working on here. Conquer them, unite them, and we will truly then be mightier than Stratalia and the world will finally recognize us as a real power.”

    He points at a view screen with a man’s face on it dressed in red, “So tell us Tamptious why hasn’t the rail-road been built yet? Huh? This grand project that would have made the navy pointless, your forces down south were supposed to start work on that a year ago, connect us with the south land, create a fast way across the desert to the ore minds?”

    With out giving the man a chance to speak Rodolph says, “Oh yes that’s right that man, the one who calls himself Bastard the Bastion of Magic, yeah he took issue with your slave labor camps and has a group of rogues blowing apart your trains. I assume you have yet to deal with this problem, despite all our anti-magic methods my fellow commanders here seem to be so proud of.”

   The men around the table try not to glare; somehow this man down south has found a way around their anti-magic weaponry and magic suppression orbs, to sabotage their efforts to build one long interconnected rail-road system rather than short ones between towns in the desert.

    Rodolph points at a blank screen, “and there had he still been alive is where Manstrich would be, he was supposed to start a war between several of the kingdoms which border us to the north, those kingdoms which our northern forces seem to have more trouble than they should, those damned kingdoms who seem to think its their duty now to protect the smaller kingdoms from us all thanks to Lana Outfarce and her overly buxom friend The White Basilisk amongst other famous traveling so called heroes; they now all think of us as an evil empire and are united against us. Where as they should have destroyed each other, where as we would move in and save the people from chaos, thus gaining a foot hold in the Land of a Thousand Kingdoms and their much needed resources of timber…”

   He sees one of the west commanders is about to say something, “Yes,” says Rodolph…

    “Well,” says the man… “We do have timber in the…mountains…”

   “Really?” says Rodolph, “the steep cliffs, crawling with dragons, difficult to get into let alone transport out large quantities of anything mountains? The very mountains we ALL had bases in for those specific reasons? Yes I’d love to hear any plan to have long lines of men we can’t spare to carry out of there on horseback large quantities of wood and ore.”

    He presses a button on his desk bringing down a screen behind him, “Actually gentlemen, I didn’t bring you here today to just berate you for all your barbaric ideas and methods. As of very soon, trains, subtle manipulations from behind the scenes, and any other primitive methods will no longer be needed. We have the main computer online.”

    Their eyes light up and smiles actually creep across their faces understanding the real reason for this meeting.

   “Men,” he says, “Our communication system will no longer be our only advantage, we have already sent from this base a contingent of mecha-golems to meet up with the northern base caravan going to Sae-Crita, they are taking with them a copy of the assembly line blue prints, others have been sent to each and every one of your bases, where we lack in man power we will make up for it in mobile weapons. Even the Croix Empire will have to admit the superiority of our mechanical designs…well those of the pre-cursor civilization…”

   The screen behind him shows several vehicles, mechanical humanoids, and some oddly geo-metric tri-pod shaped things with blades and guns.

   “Gentlemen, today the Magnus Empire not only knows about the secrets of the past, now we can revive them all thanks to my scientists uncovering the assembly line blue prints from the main terminal of blue unit which they also figured out how to power up and access.”

    Across the grass lands, down the paths heading south, and the roads going north, siege engine caravans set to build fortresses and assembly lines for their new weapons march in many directions to their secret bases in the desert, to Sae-Crita, to the northern border, and to the disputed zones in the south; humanoid mechanical abominations marching tirelessly as only a few human commanders ride along with them to over see the construction to be carried out by conscripted locals.

    ******

       Meanwhile the party is nearly to Sae-Fram.  Take three steps north and one is in grass land, a very clear straight line across the land divides the grassland from the desert, an un-natural divide as the party walks near it with the city of Sae-Fram a short ways up in the distance. One can see over the hills that the city is built right on this line which also comes from the west, but at an odd angle with the city right at the point of this divide. The party has stopped their horses here for the moment to take a lunch break.

    “How…weird,” says Hollia stepping between grass and sand, Lin Lin flying back and forth just above the ground at the height of the grass.



    Rhulan strokes her hand against an invisible barrier causing a ripple in the air as well as the ground to shake and the sand to dance. They see a purple energy rippling above them from this as though Rhulan had stroked some curtains.

    “We’re at the wedge,” she says.

   “Huh?” asks Hollia.

   Rhulan chuckles a little, “I’m not surprised you don’t know, its really more of an oddity than anything else, a small area here has an dimensional curtain controlling the environment in order to help the divide between a corner of desert down by the sea and the surrounding grass land before the great desert starts up further west. In fact it’s barely noticeable except right here at the point of the wedge where it’s the most exaggerated.”

    “Oh,” says Hollia, “so its like the zone around Stratalia that always makes it spring around the school?”

     “Something like that yes,” says Rhulan.

    “Just when you think this world can’t get any weirder,” says Cata

   “yeah,” says Betty.

   “So,” says Gold Wolf, “an invisible barrier serving some purpose…and you just happen to be able to touch it?”

    “hmm,” says Rhulan, “Okay, lesson time for everyone then, as you all know the sun, the moon, and the stars are all illusions on this world, they are controlled by a satellite high above us called The Castle of Seasons, this castle also controls the weather to a certain degree, however there are structures down here, some obvious, some invisible, some very hard to define or find for that matter that also serve as part of the larger mechanism. These structures as it were are closer to the edges of our world and near large bodies of water but scattered about so they are few and far between; with many others whose exact large scale purpose is hard to figure out. One of these is the Wedge, which it seems the Sae Kingdom put themselves inside of, which is odd as the interior is designed to be sandy desert while the rocky desert and grasslands exist outside it.”

    She shrugs her shoulders and thinks with a smirk for a moment before continuing, “Maybe their ancestors thought this is some divine sacred site, wouldn’t be the first time I saw a culture do that.”

    “Okay,” says Gold Wolf, “and you can touch it how?”

   She gives him a quizzical look remembering he is new to their group he didn’t see her *overload* or her mystical abilities affecting the environment.

    “Well,” says Rhulan, “everyone else here has already seen me alter the environment…my powers…seem to work with the same type of…energy…if it can be called that…that the Goddess Tech uses.”

    Hollia nods.

   Cata simply goes, “hm” as a Kuhrai officer she was briefed on this rare goddess tech and the many powers of Aesperians so it comes as no wander to her that a “super-Aesperian” with the strange clearly magical but naturally magical powers of Rhulan could interact with it in some way.

   Betty isn’t really all that interested, “So,” says Betty, “My people use things like this all the time.”

   She pokes her finger with a golden aura around it causing a small indention in the air as though she were poking plastic, which reverts to normal when she removes her aura. Unlike Rhulan however there is no larger effect.

   Gold Wolf narrows his eyes at the unseen barrier thinking, “I see,”

   “So,” says Cata, “this would then be how you made the sky turn black and red back in Osopika?”

    Rhulan stops and turns with solemn tone, “Yes, I…caused a glitch in the sky when I…overloaded.”

   They continue on their way towards the city, their horses kicking up the dusty trail, up ahead with Gold Wolf thinking, “If there was any doubt in my mind she might be that other woman it’s gone now, that blackness in the sky I saw on the horizon was her then. But this means she’s also using Astral-kinesis, that means besides her looks, her powers are also the same…only on a much larger scale. How’s that possible?”

    ******

    As they approach the town something is clearly wrong, it’s something all of them except for Hollia and Lin Lin are familiar with. The walls are covered in makeshift plates of sheet metal bolted together and on the wall are men armed with rifles, a weapon virtually unheard of back east, or up north for that matter on this continent.

    One of the guards points a rifle at them, “State your business traveler!”

    The group stops, but before they can say anything a ringing sound alerts the guard to pick up a walkie, some quick words on it and the he orders the gate open.

    “Okay,” he says, “the general wants to talk to you people.”

   Inside it’s not like a town, as they are escorted by a guard they see shanty town buildings, men with rifles, the town is more like a military fort, there are no signs of children, elderly, merchants, or the regular things would expect from a town. The only normal structure this town is the horse stable they hitch their horses at as the guard escorts them further in.

   Rhulan glares at Gold Wolf, who shrugs in his defense.

   ******

    An old man with a scruffy white beard and hair, yet a muscular body wearing a green coat and camo pants is introduced to them as the general. The man goes on about their town preparing for war, or perhaps civil war. He is clearly a proud man, and proud of their cause, which is clearly about opposing the Sae Kingdom resigning its power to the Magnus Empire.

    “We are prepared to fight both the Magnus Empire and even the other cities if it comes to that!” he proudly announces while telling them of the plight of his people, which it seems are the royal knights of Sae-Crita joining with the royal forces stationed at Sae-Fram.

    “We have a strategy that can’t fail.” He says to them, “We plan to use the very mystical nature of this holy area to defeat the unholy armies of the Magnus Empire.”

    “Enough.” says Rhulan causing the man to pause with a confused “huh?”

   “Excuse us,” says Hollia, “Mr. General, we don’t mean to be rude, but we are only travelers, yes we are what your people would call hunters, but we can’t allow ourselves to become mixed up in your country’s affairs.”

     “Which,” interrupts Gold Wolf, “We can only imagine is why you’d tell total strangers all this.”

    “Of course they could just mean to not let us leave,” says Cata in a cold tone.

    “Clever,” says the general in a darker tone, “but don’t get me wrong hunters.”

    He presents a smile and nicer tone, “We don’t normally even let travelers or hunters even enter the town, not since the arming of it of course. We would have just let you go on your way past us…but.”

   He gets serious and points at Rhulan, “We have drones spying on the nearby areas in the desert, a bit of Magnus technology we got our hands on, we saw what you did to the barrier of this holy land. We set them up to detect anomalous energies; you see the Magnus Empire has started using magically powered golems, in direct contradiction to their anti-magic laws. We have a weapon against them, but my men on it tell me what you did could ensure our victory.”

    “Well, well, well,” says Rhulan, “that does peak my curiosity a bit.”

   She gives a knowing look at the others, who just nod, they know worse comes to worse they more than likely together have more than enough power to fight their way out of here.

  “So tell me,” says Rhulan, “how exactly do you plan to use the power of the Wedge to fight an army of golems? I trust you had a way before I came along.”

   “That,” says the general, “is due to a purple gem we found at the heart of this nation. When ever anyone would try to take it away it would resonate with the barrier and be unable to pass through it, it would cause the barrier to ripple purple like what you did and send purple lightning bolts down upon the thieves.”

    He smiles and crosses his arms, “our scientists have a way to charge up the gem causing it to send out mystical waves that will charge up the entire northern barrier running all the way to the coast north of Sae-Crita.”

    “Your target then,” says Cata, “is the Magnus tax collectors?”

    “Oh didn’t you hear?” says the general, “They plan to change Sae-Crita into a Magnus military outpost, an entire military base construction squad is heading that way, weapons and all. When the barrier is active we know it will shut down their golems and golem engines, we’ve tested it on the small scale already with our own drones. With their power shut down they will be weak enough for us to ambush and take out.”

    “And boost your own armory with their temporarily shut down weapons of course.” says Rhulan.

    “A mere perk that will help us later down the line of course.” says the general.

    The party huddles up, its clear these people have no intention of letting them leave if they say no, and Hollia argues she doesn’t want to hurt any of them or destroy this town. These people are just trying to defend themselves after all against the Magnus Empire, the same people who attacked Osopika.

    “And likely Delca as well,” says Rhulan, this part loud enough for the general to hear.

    “Okay,” says Hollia addressing the genral, “Mr. General, we have agreed to help, but only with the gem, so long as you promise we can leave right after.”

    “Of course miss Hollia.” says the general.

    “All right then,” says Rhulan with a confident tone and wicked smile, “show me this gem and your device and I’ll see what I can do for you.”

    ******

    Rhulan looks over the small dome topped machine with its purple crystal hooked up to some wires inside it. The whole set up is a rather surprisingly small and unassuming room for what is supposed to be some all or nothing final weapon, or at least that is Rhulan’s impression of it. She is here alone, with a guard in the room with her, and another outside, Hollia and the others are being kept in a private room in the building above this basement closet of a room. The rest of the militia style army; or guerilla forces as one would be justified in calling them are either guarding the town turned fort or are out hiding in the hills in foxhole encampments waiting for the Magnus caravan to come; their radio equipment poised to signal that the attack has begun back to base. Rhulan agreed to do this if her comrades were left out of any actual fighting, after all this is a local matter and they do intend to continue on west after this is over.

    Earlier Rhulan had proved she could do what they ask by demonstrating her powers through the prototype of the machine, but now looking over the main device she shakes her head.

   “Idiots,” she says aloud earning her both a glare from and the attention of the guard in the room, and the one outside it, “if you people had used this with out me to regulate it you would have destroyed the wedge, its not just called that because of its shape. It’s a wedge between the weather control beam from the Castle of Seasons that gives the eastern coast its Mediterranean type environment and the beam that maintains the desert environment up till when it can maintain it’s self. If you had activated it the wedge would have been destroyed, the beams would have crossed, and this whole area would have become one massive hurricane.”

    The guard nods his rifle at her, “stop your lies witch, it’s too late to back out now…or are you really a spy after all?”

    Rhulan just chuckles and smiles, “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to do it.”

   She gives him a cold and predatory smile, “In fact I was saying it’s a good thing I’m here to keep this hunk of junk working least you would have killed yourselves and everyone in the Sae Kingdom.”

    She smashes her hands through the dome as easily as one would break through paper and grabs the gem in her hands.

   “Hold on!” screams the guard.


   Rhulan smiles again, “How exactly did you think I was going to link with it little man with your little toy? Now aim that someplace else.”

   As though by magic…yes actually by magic, the rifle flies from his hand and is pinned to the wall. The room fills with purple light from the gem as Rhulan concentrates, her hair and cape floating up as though trying to escape gravity, her feet gently lifting slightly from the floor. The man standing guard finds himself having a hard time staying on the floor and is forced to retreat beyond the door to the room. Anything loose in the room such as papers and stationary becomes aloft.

    As everything gently floats back down Rhulan turns and says, “Tell the general I have linked with the crystal and modified it to work the way he wants it to, when the time comes it can be activated and will work perfectly.”

   As she walks past the bewildered guards she turns and says, “However tell him it’s a one shot deal, he gets one chance to use it, after that the machine will die and turn to dust.”

   The general is coming down the hall, “I see,” he says.

   As he walks past her he whispers, “So you also take this after the legend you named yourself after, your friends will be free to leave…but only after we know you actually made the machine work.”

   She smiles as she walks away from him as he says, “Good to know you and I have an understanding witch.”

    ******

    Elsewhere in the rooms above Hollia, Lin Lin, and Cata are in the room as Rhulan arrives, however Gold Wolf and Betty left sometime earlier, out the window and flew over to a restaurant in the civilian section of the town, what little there is of that left in Sae-Fram.

   “So tell me,” says Gold Wolf sitting across from Betty at an outdoor table in a surprisingly nice looking restaurant, implying this really was an up-scale town before the militia arrived, “about your guns,”

    “My guns?” asks Betty.

    “Yeah,” says Gold Wolf, “you modified them, clearly changing them so they would look the way they do, but in return you let them become weak. Those things are practically useless in a real battle.”

   Betty remember the confrontation with the demon Impchin, he had said almost the exact same thing.

   “Don’t forget,” says Gold Wolf, “you and I, we’re both elves, granted I’m a High Elf, and you’re a Royal Angel.”

    Betty turns to him, more surprised he isn’t whispering this than about what he is saying.

   “So,” he continues, “I know those weapons, I have encountered the Dimension Police as well, of course I won’t inquire as to how exactly you got two of their guns. But I reckon underneath that cute and innocent façade you’re a lot more dangerous than you let on.”

    *hmph*

   Betty strikes her nose in the air and with a tone of snootiness yet not denying it she says, “So what, you can believe what ever you want Mr. Gold Wolf, you said you had something important to tell me, something about helping Rhulan.”

   “Yeah,” he says, “that is what I am getting too, I don’t know why you’re tagging along with her, but clearly you don’t want to be a burden right?”

   “My guns are at her service.” says Betty.

   “Then shouldn’t your guns be in their peek performance?” he says

   Betty turns to him clearly interested but confused, “You said it yourself, these are Dimension Police guns, I don’t know how to make them stronger…”

   She thinks for a moment about the fight with the kraken, this is clearly what has inspired this man to confront her, all their attacks were large and destructive while hers were lost in those attacks, being completely useless.

   She looks at him; his smile shows he knows she knows that is what he was thinking about as well.

   “Well,” says Gold Wolf, “what if I told you I do know how to fix them.”

   “And you’d do that?” she asks, “but for a price right?”

   He smirks and then scowls, “Hollia…is my niece remember? My job is to keep her safe, so optimizing our weaponry is part of that. How do I know we won’t come up against something that requires Rhulan and the rest of us to fight head on while you end up somehow backing up Hollia, only for you to have those two pop guns as your defense…”

   He points at her side, “Because clearly, we both know that sword…”

   “Fine!” says Betty a bit louder than she would have liked given the fact they’d rather not draw attention to the fact they are outsiders, especially given the fact the civilian section is mostly bordered off save for some road gates to the military section at the main gates.

    ******

    Later in the day just before the sun sets.

   *Vaboom!*

   Rhulan, Hollia, Lin Lin, and Cata run outside with the guards as an assembly of men are standing around the shooting range (which used to be a street), as a cloud of dust and electric sparks calms down to reveal a splintered apart target dummy. On the other end, the shooter is none other than Betty, the weapons in her hands however while clearly her guns now no longer resemble large musket barrel hand guns, but fancy high tech laser pistols from some videogame console.

   *Frakoom!*

   She fires the red gun; the fiery explosion actually consumes the dummy in the air as a sphere of fire and then implodes.

   The general comes out and looks at Betty and then back at Rhulan with a suspicious expression, Rhulan unlike the others is only smiling, not showing any surprise, especially as she sees Gold Wolf, despite his calm demeanor is clearly happy with himself.

   Rhulan turns to the general, “The last line of defense is the town,” she says, “we will be here when the attack starts, your last line of defense to protect your families and the civilians should always be your strongest line of defense.”