Earth of Crystals Part 1

[dragonpen61]

With a cry of fear the young elf soldier tumbled down the hill side as pulsebullets of energy explodedaround her. Her body was totally clad in tight body forming armour and even her eyes were covered by a transparent metallic like glass. With all those enemies firing at Feli'Tuo one would have thought that at least one would have hit her with their pulseguns but she rolled right down behind a rise in the dark earthy ground and to safety. With a soft curse the Legionary uprighted herself from an undignified position in a flowing muddy stream and looked along what was almost a natural ditch. Her compact pulsegun was back up the hill and was damaged anyway by the explosion that had scattered her Legion troop. Her deflector shield was up there as well. Despite her power armour she was nicely bruised in some tender areas and she was very annoyed. The desire to feel sorry for herself was swept away by the need to survive and to fight the enemy. So she slipped out her power-longsword from over her shoulder with one smooth motion and carefully peeked over the edge of the earthy depression she was in.

 

Goblin warriors were gathered in crouched clusters on the other side of a wide muddy, rocky expanse dotted with nasty spikebushes and the fallen crude armoured bodies of dead or dying goblins. The ground was also littered with goblin weapons, mostly crude ones of their own making such as crossbows, spiked clubs, hand-cannons and lances. The creatures did the same thing every year, that is they tried to invade the eastern border territories of the Alleye Empire and were thrown back with terrible losses but this year was different. This year some unknown force had provided them with crude, powerful and dangerous to use pulseburners and basic pulseguns which were also unstable. Perhaps it was some fool of a semilegal trading guild or perhaps it was one of the empire's enemies trying to cause trouble for the Imperials but it was causing hassles for the Border Legions either way. The empire had enough troubles already with out heavily armed goblins attacking its most isolated borders.

 

A pulseburner pulseshell of energy struck the hillside she had recently tumbled down causing a gout of mud and straggly bits of creeper grass. Thankfully the weapons were not very accurate by nature and the goblins were not very good at using them. Feli'Tuo ducked instinctively and then once more peeked carefully just in time to see an enemy pulseburner explode. Goblin warriors were either flung through the air by the explosion or flung themselves through the air to save themselves. It was hard to tell males from females or neuters but for every one female there were at least three males and six neutors. She almost felt sorry for goblins for they were overcrowding their warrens and the overspill was thrust out in all directions. Expelled goblins were normally given a fair amount of equipment and supplies, a crude map, and sent on one way journeys. They were not supposed to return to their old warrens.

 

In the distance was a great big statue of a human woman, a robed figure with bare breasts who held high a burning torch in one hand and a sword in the other with its blade downwards and its tip against the great big round base the statue stood on. The statue had stood there for a great many centuries and had remained unmarked, looking almost polished and new. Real humans had not been on the world for a very long time and it was the general opinion that this was a very good thing. Stupid goblins, on the other hand, believed that the return of humans would bring prosperity to the world. It was one reason goblins were not given much credibility in more enlightened circles. It was said that the statue had been at the very centre of an ancient human city that was of amazingly large size and full of many wonders.

 

Feli'Tuo sat back and something blunt but hard stabbed her in the back so that she felt even through her armour. With a soft curse she moved to one side and looked back to find a metallic golden shape partly projecting from the mud. She guessed it was part of a disk. Then she saw the symbols on the side and a chill of wonder and fear went down her elf spine. This was not only human symbols but those of one of the ancient high orders of humans, of the castes that had destroyed the ancient human civilization and all humans. Where such artifacts were found was usually only trouble. The young elf woman had some scholary interests and had always spent part of her free time, when there was any to be had, studying scrolls or scrollbooks or books on history. Feli'Tuo had been fascinated to some degree by the legends of the ancient world though the legends were far from complete, were sometimes contradictory and sometimes down right foolish seeming. Now she was looking directly at what was probably a very rare and powerful human artifact.

 

She knew she had to alert her commander at once!

 

I hope you enjoyed this writing...

:smile:

[dezdimona]

very good, an excellent read! kudos

[dragonpen61]

Feli'Tuo had difficulty in getting to a place where her helmet communicator would not be blocked by the bizarre terrain of the area. She found two isolated comrades on the way, both armed with pulseguns identical to the one she no longer had. Both were men because at least half of Alleye Legionararies were men. The three privates slithered, clambered and crawled up hill sides, along the floors of gullys, through areas of tough tangled plantlife and at last came to a sheltered high point.

 

At first she had difficulty in getting command to see the importance of what she had found. In a way she could not blame them for they had a battle with goblins to win but she also wished the officer she contacted had a broader mind. When at last they did acknowledge her there was, of course, some confusion and a small amount of panic. At last she was ordered to go, with her comrades, towards her own major forces and to a particular point. They grumbled about stupidity of officers in general and high command in particular, as was traditional for the common ranks. The hoverbob was waiting for them, an almost sleek looking machine like a lightly flattened egg with the pointy end being the nose. The pointy end was transparent and it had a bubble on the roof and portholes in the side all made of armaglass. The hoverbob was coloured splashwork of greys and browns. It bristled with a pair of heavy pulseguns at the nose and one in the bubble turret on the roof. It was a fine machine, tough and enduring, quite fast and able to hover-fly just over the ground or water or ice or mud. The only problem was that there were too few of such machines and many, like this one, were getting old.

 

They clambered into the hoverbob and found it had more than enough room but was not greatly comfortable. Still it was a fighting machine so they did not expect much more than what they got. Feli'Tuo found herself on a padded bench seat firmly belted in and talking to a hard eyed lietenant, an experienced fighter on the Eastern Front. Such veterans tended to be very tough but it was good to have one along with one. She had her helmet removed to reveal her oddly feline elf features of the kind that caused the Alleye to be often called the 'cat elves'.

 

Feli'Tuo described what she had seen, outlining size, shape, colouration including what she had seen after managing to clean away some mud from the object. "Sir, it was ancient and it was of the wonder metal like that of the goddess status. It could easily be the entrance to some sort of ancient underground shelter. There was an ancient city here once, a metropolis of the humans."

 

The lieutenant was an older stockier female Alleye of a dark skin shading being of the same species but of a different race. Unlike Feli'Tuo whose race were mostly of the central provinces of and around the capital, the lieutenant and her race dwelt mainly in that region of the eastern provinces. They they mined the strange growing substances of metalo, plastico, glasso and others that were very important to the empire but there were other important resources in the area such as minerals, metals, coal, oil, metal worms, gubo vines and much else. Surprisingly as it might seem some of the local areas were very fertile and grew much food and other produce for the empire's eastern most provinces.

 

The female liutenant was bemused. "You clearly know more than I do about such things, trooper so I will bow to your knowledge on this matter. Marshal Goin'Quil has ordered me to share some classified information with you. This is the third such disk now found in this area this month and yet for years now Borderguards and Legionaries have been in this region, have dug ditches, have seen ground worn away and have searched goblin diggings but have found nothing of the sort. The disks are the tops of tubes that seem to grow through the ground like great metal worms or so sappers have found when they have dug up ground using mechadiggers and sweaty Legionaries with shovels and spades. Word has been sent to the young Empress where her main forces are encamped around the capital city laying siege to the Great Fool."

 

The Imperial Civil War would soon be ending now that most provinces and territories were no longer fighting but were well on the way to returning to normal life. The Empress' elite Legionaries had breached defences and were fighting in the outer suburbs of the great old city. Cityfolk were rising to join the attack on the insane Emperor and his brutal dying leadership. The Emperor had weakened the empire at first but then, surprisingly, had strengthened by unifying it against his growing cruelty and brutal oppressiveness. When the Emperor Carl'Trutho had declared that all non Alleye elves would be expelled from the empire and other peoples would be enslaved, it had been the last straw. Whole provinces had turned against him and even Imperial Governors chosen by him had switched loyalty to the Empress.

 

Feli'Tuo was concerned for her Uncle Feli'Tarso who was a Sage in the Imperiatropolis University and who was the kind, wise old figure who had inspired her to be more than just a Legionary as her father and mother had been, along with many other family members. Indeed she was concerned for all folks of the imperial capital including some old University friends she had gained during her one year as a university student before she was called up for service on the Eastern Front. But her uncle had a special place in her heart.

 

The lieutenant went on speaking. "None of the tube doors have opened to us yet but the light on them has been yellow, being neither fully open or fully locked, so we have some hope that one will let a team into the ancient secrets that are apparently buried beneath this land. Unless of course the tubes lead to some great big elf munching machine and turns the team into so much bloody mash."

 

Feli'Tuo smiled. "This is not so likely, sir, as the humans were not so subtle with such things but only with each other. They did not need such tubes to get in and out of their wondrous cities and other places. Such tubes were meant only for those who served the humans like our ancestors who served them as elite soldiers, scholars and servitors. Also, though we do not wish to remember it, as sexual companions, assassins and gladiators. We are the cat like elves, the Alleye, much different from those other elves who often do not see us as elves at all, curse their arrogance. Our own records speak of the tubes and the tube doors that we often moved through in the super fast fashion of such wonders. The tubes stretched often for many hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres, and yet one could move through them at a pace of a hundred kilometres per minute if one had to do so though that was only for longer journeys. The problem is even if we do find the tubes open, where will they lead? Just because one has found three tube doors in this area does not mean they lead to something buried here and yet I get the sense that they do. I wish my Uncle Feli'Tarso was here. He is a great researcher of the ancient humans and their remaining artifacts."

 

The lieutenant sighed. "Nobody has told you then but that does not suprise me thanks to the recent trouble with the imperial communication and mail networks, even with the special military ones; your uncle was abducted by the Emperor's Darkolva, his infamous personal guard, his terrorists in uniform. Darkolva were stupid enough once to send a brigade out here to the far east of the empire. On the second day we made them vanish. The Emperor never allowed that mistake to be made again but Varth'Dader, the commander of the Darkolva, was punished for the loss of so many elite butchers."

 

Feli'Tuo nodded. "I saw her once striding through Imperiatropolis in her hulking black armour. She was surprisingly quiet and fast for all that armour and so are her soldiers. I heard they never willing take off their armour in public."

 

The lieutenant winced. "Never pass this on but I know why and it is one more reason why the Darkolva are so feared and hated as are the Emperor for all have gone through the dark weirding that makes one stronger, faster and harder to damage but which makes for a total loss of empathy, for the ending of compassion and mercy. It also distorts the physical features making one's hair fall out and one's skin become harder and of a dull dark bruised appearance. The Emperor's people found thirteen dark artifacts of forbidden nature in a buried vault of the humans deep beneath the imperial city. That was before he turned both insane and evil. It is said that his experimenting with and then use of such artifacts warped him and his followers, turning them all into monsters. In truth they are no longer Alleye."

 

The hoverbob twisted around an obstacle, an outcrop of rock. The muffled noise of battle came to them as Legionaries were trying to push the goblins back from the area of the tube but then, abruptly, the fighting ended. The troopers in the machine wondered what was going on.

 

:blink: