Death Hunters 13: Agrax

    Ausila the dry continent; located at the south western end of the Great Sea and well north of the frozen wastes that border the edge of the world, home of sand-worms, giant insects, savage mammalian predators, and whose western shore is a favorite breeding ground for leviathans is not a land one would expect to find people living on. Two thousand years ago when a mere forty million Aesperian colonists descended upon this world they shared that exact same sentiment. While the ships scattered most landing here and there on this world of Aesperia, colonizing river valleys, lush forests, hill sides, and more no one stayed on Ausila, much like the massive continent of Ifrit where only a few costal towns were founded; however one can see an Endaphant stomping the ground flat long before it arrives, on Ausila its another story to have a caravan swallowing sized sand-worm suddenly appear from beneath the ground.

    This land would remain empty until the rise of the Rhulan Empire when the empress Rhulan announced a nature conservation program, a program un-popular in Ravashira as it made so much land unavailable for living, and a station was placed on the island south of Ausila, Tazarn. These people over the centuries however became a secret base for researching none-magical technology and weaponry. When the Rhulan Empire fell, their technology remained. Over the last thousand years the city of Tazarn spread till it encompassed the entire island. These now militant people with strong military technology and none-magical communications and power systems claimed the entire continent of Ausila as their territory placing bases at key locations along its shore line and on mountains, or rather inside mountains, inland. These bases are in reality their towns and cities, each protected by the mandatory soldier population, to be a citizen is to be a soldier. The founding group, the researchers, renamed the continent after their own group, a name that would come describe their empire, which has grown to be one of the three strongest empires currently on Aesperia. They are the Agrax Empire; and this is the land the Adorable Death Bringer has been sent too.

    ******

    *beep*
   *beep*
    *beep*
    *dit, dit, dit, dit, dit…*

   “huh?” says a young woman in a lab coat rising from her chair across the sterile room with its steel tile floor, numerous monitors showing bar graph readings, one with a circular sonar display, and others of various purposes.

   The woman with her blond hair tied back in a pony tail swaying behind as she makes her away across the room narrows her green eyes at the display or a bar graph fluctuating and slowly falling.

   “What in the name of the goddess?” she says.

   She picks up a receiver nearby and dials the numbers in the rotary panel, “Armand its Abigail there appears to be some trouble with tower seventeen please verify.”

   Elsewhere across a dusty plain, the wind kicking up gusts of sand, broken up by small steel buildings and strange pink spiral towers in rows, like some strange coral mixed in amongst the rather dull shack like structures, in another of these oh so hot to the touch in the blazing sun structures there is a young man his short blond hair being blown about by a mechanical fan plugged into the wall.

   “Okay Miss Finnen,” says this man as he sets the receiver down so as not to hang up.

   He pushes his wheeled desk chair across the floor to a monitoring station and pointlessly taps the glass, he knows that doesn’t do anything but it’s a fore of habit.

   “huh?” he says looking at a display of all fifty test towers, he moves a small computer control screen indi…screw it…it’s a computer mouse…the people of Agrax just call them hand to screen indicators…

    he moves the *mouse* over to tower seventeen’s graph and clicks on it, “well I’ll be,” he says, “the power is draining?”

   He gets back on the receiver, “Miss Finnen, it looks like the main display says the tower is loosing its stored power and…” he narrows his eyes and quickly wheels over and back again, “and…” he scratches the back of his head, “it looks like its saying none of the towers, even the still filling ones are getting any more power.”

    “I see,” says Abigail Finnen, “Check the converter too, if we’re lucky its just a glitch with converting the tower energy to
useable electricity. Never did trust this Croix tech, converting magic energy into electricity with their hybrid tech, who knows how many things can go wrong, that stupid tower could be wasting power dumping it into the ground just because of a bad copper wire connection or a surge protector went bad.”

    “Miss Finnen?” asks the young man named Armand.

   Abigail shakes her head, sighs, and talks back into the receiver, “sorry Armand, the heat must be getting to me, I’ll have to ask Jerry to bring me one of those fans from town next time we send for supplies, please check the converter reading okay.”

    “No problem Miss Finnen,” he says as he wheels over to the display for hastily labeled with tape and a marker “Croix / Agrax converter”

    He taps the screen with its all green bar, “No problem with it on this end,” he says back on the receiver, “It must be an external problem.”

   “Great just what we need,” says Abigail, “I’ll call the guard station to check on it, watch it turn out that these big pink eye sores have birds nesting in them or better yet are pecking holes in them, or bugs or something stupid like that, and that all it takes to waste their energy.”

   She shakes her head and says, “Thanks Armand,”

   “No problem Miss Finnen,” he says as they both put down the receivers, “huh,” he says to himself, “You’d never know it was her husband who signed off on testing this tech’s usefulness would you?”

   ******

   In the heat of the desert sun a long guard in short armor, just a plate guarding his chest, shoulder plates, arm guards, and shin guards, along with a light tan uniform underneath, and a long rifle type fire-arm at his side, walks between the towers. He holds in his hand a map where each one is.

   “tower thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, oh…” he says to himself as he walks stopping just before a ground plate labeled “Tower 16”.

    When walking out in this blazing environment looking down and forward is only smart, no reason to look up, so it comes as no surprise that he is very shocked that after a quick look around the base and finding nothing that he jumps back in surprise upon looking up to see a small black robed figure drawing a green mist from the tower and into a red crystal its holding.

    “Halt!” he screams aiming his gun in the air, “These towers and their energy are the property of the Agrax Imperial Government, you are in violation of the law stand down and surrender immediately.

   The figure just looks down at him from its larger than is natural for this tiny frame hood, but no face is to be seen inside, and goes back to draining the power.

   He takes a walkie from his side *click*, “This is guard station two, private Gregs, need assistance at tower sixteen, repeat need assistance at tower sixteen, we have a…sorcerer or something out here robbing the tower somehow, repeat there is a thief somehow taking energy from the tower.” *click*

    “I said!” he yells up at the small figure, “Halt! Or I will be forced to open fire!”

    The small figure, known else where in the world, and in other worlds as the Adorable Death Bringer pulls a scythe from no where and yelling out in her squeaky voice, “Necro Arc!” throws the large green arc of energy down at the ground next the guard.

   *Pwoooosh!*

    *cough, cough*

    He looks around rapidly to get his bearings and looks up to see the small figure has all so nonchalantly returned to drawing power from the tower. He blinks in disbelief, the figure has treated him like a fly buzzing around her head, just shoeing him away.

   *ra-toe!*

   His rifle fire brings the other guards running faster, and makes Abigail and Armand stand in their respective locations elsewhere and utter at the same time, “What the hell?”

    Five other guards arrive on the scene and take aim at the tiny trespasser, firing the weapons, only for the shots to vanish
in green flashes of fire around the figure.

    “idiots.” says the Adorable Death Bringer to herself, “I am of the Land of the Dead, I am a reaper. These foolish humans would harvest souls themselves to what end?”

     She stops draining and looks down at them announcing, “You are but mere mortals, neither you or your mortal weapons can harm the likes of those of us who bask in the presence of death herself.”

    “Necro-Arc!, Necro-Arc!, Necro-Arc!, ect…”

    *Ka-Boom!, Crash!, Crumble!...”

    She lets fly necro-arc after Necro-arc; not at the humans below her, no, at the towers themselves, destroying one after another, reducing the test area to rubble and releasing the ghost inside them back into the atmosphere; many fleeing into the country side; while others try to find the streams that pulled them here from across the world.”

    Abigail Finnen looks out her window as a green mist made of various ghosts flies through the sky like some living green cloud made of jet streams; flying towards the south.”

    *gasp* she places her hand over her mouth in wide eyed terror as she realizes they are flying towards the mining towns.

    “Oh dear gods,” she mutters

    She has no time to ponder the how or why, the book was clear, in the case of a tower collapse; she immediately picks up the telephone and calls in the danger to the southern mining camps, the head of the town appearing on her screen just as another blast and another shakes the very ground and walls around her.

    “Captain,” she says, “Code N, I repeat code N, activate the Necro-Stone immediately!”

    “What?” the man stammers, “This is a test right?”

    “No captain!” Abigail says with urgency, “It happened, now activate the Necro-Stone immediately!”

    “Yes, yes,” of course he says frantically as he starts to tap on a telegraph sending the signal to the secret location of the massive Necro-Stone.

     Not too far away in a secret base, surrounded by a fake grave yard, guarded by twenty foot tall tank like biped mech-suits with gun torrent arms; in the hill side they have kept a large Necro-stone secret, magic is forbidden in this land, but a contingency, secret from the public, was obtained should the test fail. While the Croix Empire who sold them the spirit-tower designs had insisted the tech was safe, their own engineers saw the very potential catastrophic event that could occur if a tower was badly damaged with ghosts inside it drawn from all over and of various strengths and types.

    Some men in lab coats press various buttons and switches on a circular control panel around the two story tall green crystal contained with in a glass tank filled with green fluid and silver segmented cables connected to the crystal from the mechanical base; looking very much like a giant green version of the very devices the death hunters use to harvest spirits.

    *wirrrrrrr*

    As the machine springs to life the crystal glows, and the howls of spirits can be heard being drawn into the tank. While this device can not draw energy from ghosts, it is far better suited at containing them than anything the Croix Empire has devised, that the Agrax Empire is aware of thanks to the one man in the room allowed to know about the contingency who isn’t part of the select science team and guards running the power test. This is the very man who sold them the spirit-tower tech in exchange for knowledge pertaining to the none-magical technology in Agrax Mech-suits; a sort of mutual exchange of technology in hopes of future trade and good relations.

    However now its not looking so good as a scruffy Agrax general *harrumphs* next to the short thin merchant/ambassador from Croix.

    “So,” says the general, “looks like we have a problem.”

    He yells to one of the scientists, “So, what horrible internal error has caused countless evil spirits hungry for vengeance at their humiliation at our hands to flood over the country side?”

    “Sir,” says the captain who had received the telegraph, “The mining station captain is in contact with Dr. Abigail Finnen at the research facility, he says they facility is under attack from some short reaper or similar entity and its destroying the towers. Their guards have engaged it, but its no good and are asking permission to call in official reinforcements.”

    The scruffy general scowls at the Croix Merchant behind him and looks back to his own subordinate, “No good, send back an evacuation order. This project is done. We can’t let knowledge of it fall beyond those already involved, especially if this little magic toy fails to scoop up all those ghosts from all those towers. The monster hunters and mercenaries are going to have a cash boom thanks to this; guess a little good came out of this for the economy, but still can’t let the people know their government had any thing to do with it.”

    He glares at the stone as a few ghosts start to appear around it in the fluid.

    “creepy shit.” He thinks, “why’d I have to be involved in creepy shit?”

   He walks past the Croix Merchant and says in passing, “Deals off, you got the little your going to get from us, not contact your superiors, gather your shit, and get the hell off my continent.”

    “It…it’s just as small set back?” stammers the merchant, “You can’t really hold us responsible for an act of terrorism from some unknown outside party, its probably just some magic user fanatic or something.”

    The general glares at him, “You said those towers would absorb magic too, so tell me how a magic user fanatic is destroying them and putting my men’s lives at risk at the same time? Now don’t talk to me again.”

    *gulp*

   The merchant heads off in the opposite direction. Meanwhile back at the test site the orders have come into disengage the enemy, which is just as good for the guards as their weapons have been ineffective, and the best they have been able to do is avoiding the collapsing towers and explosions. The one known as the Adorable Death Bringer has been completely ignoring them and thankfully only targeting the towers.

    As the hastily packed rubber wheeled vehicles drive away from the facility with the now all too obviously small crew of technicians and guards, they watch the rising dust and scattering green mist indicating fleeing ghosts going in all directions; and the arcs being thrown from the scythe of the tiny black speck in the rearview mirrors. Abigail actually sighs as they head over a hill and out of sight of the facility.

    ******

    Several hours later, the facility has been destroyed, the Necro-stone only managed to draw in what the engineers are reading as only a few dozen ghosts out of possibly tens of thousands that were being held by the spirit towers, and no guarantees that all those in the tank were even in the towers to start with. Abigail and the rest of the crew are already being reassigned back to their previous posts before the test was being run; and the Croix Merchant at the docks is in a small room in an inn using what in this land is considered forbidden magic to communicate what has happened back home. Even though he is an ambassador he must remain careful no one sees him use anything magical as the Agrax Empire does not recognize the concept of diplomatic immunity on its shores.

    ******

    Across the Leviathan Sea, north across the northern desert of the continent of Ifrit, across the Croix Sea, and deep into the Croix Empire inside the region known as Mid-Croix, with in a stone castle a man in a brown robe has listened to the report from their agent in Agrax.

    As the crystal ball goes dark and the echo of the merchant’s voice can no longer be heard the robed figure pulls back his hood to reveal an unimpressive visage, just another man with an aged face and pointed nose, with a scraggly head of brown hair.

    “Another failure,” he says to himself, “Another reaper has attacked the ghost tech passed down to us by the great goddess Satasar. Some dark power must know of our plans to sell the ghost tech to target individuals and groups to spread the influence of Satasar across all of Aesperia.”

    He pulls out an orb and speaks into it, “Orb of memory, record, On this day an unknown power has sent yet another reaper to destroy the glorious machines of Satasar. We will have no choice but to consult the goddess herself on this matter to verify and learn of what is to be done.”

    ******

    A few days later twelve of these robed figures meet in a dark dungeon in a secret location on a small island in the middle of a lake somewhere in Mid-Croix. Each has been in charge of another aspect of the plans handed down to them by Satasar. They gather around a large wooden table, two of them leaving the group to head down an even deeper flight of stairs to prepare the alter to speak with their goddess.

    “So,” says a man with a red beard protruding form his hood, “I hear the Agrax beach head plan has failed.”

    “Yes,” says the man who had been the one received the knowledge first in his castle, “It would seem the likely hood of a new player is high, another reaper like figure attacked the towers. Unfortunately the locals are too pig headed to give anything magical a second chance, preferring to rely on springs and wires with what ever they are using as a power source. We may need to make headway there another way.”

    “A shame indeed,” says the man with the red beard, “However even though the tech we sold to Baron Adonz was destroyed, and his un-usual plans were thwarted it became a blessing in disguise as we now completely control him through hypnosis. When ever we wish we can influence his decisions in our favor.”

    “I already know this,” says the first man, “I was there remember? Or are you just gloating?”

    “Gentlemen please,” says a woman’s voice from behind another robe, a bird song like voice, with hand protruding from her sleeves that would suggest a gorgeous form beneath the drab robe, “This is more important than your bickering, my men have compared the sighting of the figure seen here and the one sighted in the Stratalian Neutral Zone by our spies. Remember the sudden depowering of a ghost hot spot? Perhaps not, with everything else going on with each of us; however the news went through the Magnus Empire and back to my own company which sold them their new Necro-cannon, per the goddess’s instructions as you well know. It seems they were worried about something able to drain away Necro-energy on a large scale like that, at any rate the man they described sounds very much like the man Baron Adonz and his guards, including our own spies, saw in his castle.”

    “Impossible,” scoffs another, “Are you implying this man went all the way from Ravashira to Croix in such a short amount of time.”

    She chuckles, “Why not? If this is indeed a supernatural threat, something making a play…”

    “We can’t know that.” says the man who scoffed.

    “Well now is the time to find out,” says one of the two men who had gone downstairs, now standing in the doorway, “The time has come to speak with the goddess.”

     Everyone who had been speaking falls silent like the rest and head down the stairs in single file, heads bowed and arms crossed into their sleeves, for this is a solemn occasion whose ramifications can as they have in the past alter their very lives for better or worse.

    Down the winding stairs, down a dark cold hallway, there is a large room with a massive stone circle  in the middle adorned with many archaic symbols and divided into segments like some mystical stone pie with all the sides narrowing down to a circle in the middle. The lines are lit with a ghostly blue light flowing like burning water as they illuminate every line and every character upon the stone platform.

    A pillar of light emerges around the central circle and a figure appears with in it. It is the one known to others as Sally, except rather than her usual gypsy garments she is decorated in a gown fit for a queen made of black gem sequins. Her arms encased in black skin tight gloves, her legs and feet no where to be seen. Her ink black hair looks almost like thin roots to the black wood like crown that seems to be growing directly from her head. The red gems inlaid in it shining with their own inner light. She opens her eyes, glowing red, no pupil, no iris, the entire eye nothing but a glowing red orb.

    “I am aware,” she says in a regal tone echoing off the walls, “of all that has transpired, yes the reaper in the Stratalian Neutral Zone is the same that attacked the castle of the man called Baron Adonz. Yes the one that attacked the spirit towers is also a minion of the same being that sent the other reaper. And yes these reapers and their mistress are your enemies and the enemies of I the great goddess Satasar. Beware the reapers, and beware….another”

    She vanishes; the light vanishes, leaving the robed figures to ponder their own actions, and the meaning behind her own cryptic message; each of them wondering the same thing “another” and why didn’t Satasar simply tell them who or what was behind the reapers and what this “another” might be.