The Shlievek's Story

In the time of 14,900 BRT, the Shlievek were created.

This monstrous race first was born within the realm of water, creating kingdoms of glass and stone, but now lie in ruins. Overtime, they've evolved to become land creatures, dwelling underneath the ground. Their physical being can not tolerate the balance of pressure and oxygen the over world has. Their vision would blind them as well once the sun would rise. Their underground, ancient lives still rise to superiority of the caverns, though.

The Shlievek are of a high intelligence, dealing in the facts of Machinery and Architecture. Their battle styles are fair, fighting in large groups and usually stealth reliable. Their population is of a large amount, the food they eat is almost all plants and animals underground. Their intelligence does not fault there, either. They manage to create large farms with the necessities that the plants need to grow on, and evolve. They are experienced in breeding and making enhanced species, like themselves. But of course, their race did not start off as such a success.

It began with the birth of Throknalf, the first of the Shlievek. They were once a beautiful, elegant race, but not anymore. He was created by a strange being, considered the God of Existence in their religion. With the help of nineteen others, Throknalf and the disciples of his destroyed the monsters that dwelled in their realm, using nothing more than rocks and hard roots. Of course, many died within this battle, leaving no more than four to remain. With that, they were forced to breed and create the strongest of races to survive underground. But overtime, their beauty faltered. Their complexion worsened, and the darkness consumed their physical forms, creating the ugly beasts in which they are known as today.

But not all was lost in this adaptation, however. The Shlievek had evolved even more to survive within the realms of darkness, their visions enhanced to see within the shadows, as well as their feet to walk among them. Their battle styles evolved as well, realizing that their forms weren't meant on strength, but on speed. They managed to survive the starvation period which lasted 20 years, crippling their race once more. But, in the end, they succeeded, realizing the farms were necessary. And that, was when Throknalf had passed away. With that, they praised him as the giver of hope, and the creator of civilization.

And thus, their religion began. They've come to realize that they haven't of just sprouted from the water, but someone fed them it. They believed in three Gods, Existence, Creation, and Death. Those who followed by this religion were blessed in many ways, but those who hadn't were cursed and banished into the overworld. With that, they had been a progressive race, creating kingdoms the size of mountains and their armor as strong as them. Although they could never conquer the overworld, they thought themselves as the superior of all races.

But, in the end, it all faced on Honor, Religion, and Respect. These terms killed oh so many of this race, ending many unknown heroes as well as brilliant minds. What they never realized though, was that one day, a more superior, unknown force would enter their lives, be it to help or hinder their progression to the overworld...

9,000 BRT

Within the realms of the underground, deeper than the oceans of the overworld, the Shlievek have began to progress. They've adapted to creating a new sort of equipment, one that would help explore the existence of the dark and unknown waters. The first of these creations was a mask, filled with pipes and gears made of a copper like material that'd turn pure water into a minimum amount of oxygen. This also allowed their skulls to handle more pressure, going deeper underwater. With that, they began to research what was even deeper than where they were, finding more and more areas of potential civilization. Of course, one could not survive at this time, but it could soon become a great stepping stone for the race, an improvement to how greater they can survive within the realms of darkness.

Another set of equipment they had made were of the same expedition utensil, the fins. These machines were made from stone and marblite, creating attachable wings to the bodies of their hosts to paddle along the waters of the under-planet. They began sending many expeditions, caring not for the lives of the explorers, for there were many at this time. They began to send out squads of 15, armed with spears and shields for protection, but only five of them would carry the utensils for recording data and experimenting. Through the 4 expeditions, only two had come back.

Their detailed records showed great promises for the future of the Shlievek. The first one was to show a new metal, one attainable with their own steel to mine. Although they do not understand its boundaries yet, they were funded with the best of materials to mine as much of this ore as possible. This also allowed for a new food source to be shown, a mossy substance that had toxins within it, easily edible with the Shlieveks' immune system they did not know of.

The second report was more interesting, however. A new race was reported, seen within the darkest corners of the ocean, of course not reachable, the crew being thousands of miles upon miles away from them in the watery abyss. The Shlievek were baffled, questioning their Gods of this as an ally or enemy. But they paid no mind, realizing that many millennium would come before their encounter with one another. But this race was of course carved into the walls of life that the Shlievek held. This creation of dragon and serpent was now known to exist within the darkest of waters, and now known as a great, and powerful force...

At around early 9,000 BRT began the reign of Emperor Kaluas, who was later hailed as one of The Nagas greatest pioneering rulers. It was during the reign of this Emperor that a Naga outpost reported a group of strange creatures, moving in the shallow waters, after a while it was assumed that these creatures were watching the Naga movements, with this news an emergency meeting of the Emperors council was called, as the dangers of Faal Kein do Geind were well known by the Emperors line.

In the waterless throne room at the center of Anhiim they gathered, with the Emperor sat upon his throne, his advisers before him. He turned first to his Master of commerce, the Naga who was responsible for the transportation and logging of goods and resources through the entire Emperor. It was the opinion of the Master that this strange new race, who could not reach the depths, might have something they had yet to discover themselves, after all, had they not been amazed by discovering the open ocean? Though the council agreed on this, Kaluas remained silent and then turned to the Master of culture, who oversaw the recording of legend and maintained the stone scriptures were the teachings of past heroes were kept. It was the belief of this Naga that these creatures were clearly blessed by the Old Gods, to be able to enter the water so, though the fact they could not enter the deeps suggested that the Gods had abandoned them, and they should be eradicated before they polluted the Naga race, less members of the council agreed on this, as though the Old Gods were revered by the Naga as a whole, it was only the priests were considered fanatical in their worship. Finally Kaluas turned to the Master of might, the commander of the Naga armies in his stead, it was his suggestion that a task force of Naga soldiers were sent to these creatures, to follow them back to their homes, if their numbers were small enough they would enslave them, if they fought back they would destroy them. After a while Kaluas ordered the throne room the be emptied and he be left in peace.

Within a week, three score Naga soldiers were armed, with stone spears and coral javelins and sent to where the creatures were first seen, there they lay'd in wait, eventually a group of the slow swimming creatures arrived and they descended on them, attacking on all sides, first they would throw a javelin and then dart in to finish off the hurt creature, swimming around each other Naga and flying projectile with amazing skill, as they had practiced all their lives. They quickly finished off the creatures, with few causalities themselves, heading back along the way the creatures were coming they eventually came to a cave, in small groups they entered it and eventually found an air pocket, a number of luminescent coral torches were brought up with them to light their way as they slowly explored this cave, the lack of water massively reducing their movement speed to a crawl. For a time they discovered nothing, except from darting movements around them, that were gone before they could be investigated, eventually Captain Vurkul, who was leading the expedition turned a corner to discover a group of these creatures, in an easily defended position, weapons raised at him. His own warriors bristled but thanks to his quick action blood was not yet spilled in the caves.

Turning to his own lieutenants, almost for their support, he realised that he was making the first peaceful contact with a new and unknown race in the word. He kept his own weapon lowered, whilst his men kept their raised, and spoke to them in Nagan, not realising they would not understand him. "Mu los faal Naga, mu'uliik do faal Dil, unadaan joriin do Faal Wuth Rah. Mu meyz yen nuz hind nid brothuz, mu drey ni lorot hi mindosaal. Zu'u miik hi, ol rahzun do faal Naga, zodrem vanras ful tol un joriin uld doj zuk do enook vorey. "

8,976 BRT

The dragon race had presented themselves as intruders on the Shlieveks' soil, their weapons raised. Within the moment, one man's speech had confused them, and they left there weapons lowered, curious with the unknown race. Throughout the day, they'd present gifts to the creatures, attempting a sign language-based communication as they shared words for their own language. They, after weeks of this, decided that these new beings could be of an ally to their underground alliance. This day was known as "Duf Naabhal" Or "The Offering." To the extent of these creatures' decision did they not know, but only knew that these were a small group of people, easily able to be overrun. Of course, no such thoughts came to mind, only peace and alliance.

But before this, the greatest warrior of this time, Thieshnald, was unfamiliar with the words spoken by this ancient being, and with that, spoke with the limbs he bore and the words he translated. The mark of introduction chiseled to the wall, showing Thieshnald holding up a clump of marblite and speaking the word "Duushnaval" and offering it to the leader of the dragons, on his knees as he did so. "Don dush maahl bef yul, brovahk shuun delf yeesh dahn" which in future time could be translated to the words "You may not hear us, but you will see us." And with that, temples rose with the ancient symbols of dragon and beast, fighting alongside one another as a promising future they hoped oh so much for.

For the Naga explorers, life began to take a new and interesting turn. They had not expected for these new creatures, which eventually explained to the Naga, over many attempts to cross the bridges between their languages that they were called Shlievek, to be both peaceful and welcoming. The small party of Naga warriors quickly set up their own small community, in a series of both underwater and air bubbled tunnels. Eventually Captain Vurkul sent back a small number of Naga to relay the events over the last few weeks of the time with the Shlievek, and to send his recommendation that they become sos-fron, blood-kin, the highest form of friendship the Naga could offer, and had not had reason to offer since the time of the separate city states.

Though this message was indeed relayed to the Emperor Kaluas, it was later that day intercepted by the Master of Might, who was outraged that his suggestion for conquering the Shlievek was ignored, Kaluas had fully accepted Vurkuls suggestion of open peace and the messengers were to send this word back the exploration party, who were attempt to find a place for a Naga colony amongst the sub-terrain people. The Master of Might gathered together two hundred of his loyal followers, for in truth he could find no others who he would trust enough to betray the rulings of the Emperor and set out just a day after the messengers. However, even this number had some semblance of loyalty to the Emperor, and so the messengers were warned of the attack and swiftly carried the news back to Vurkul.

The captain knew there that his small group of only 60 warriors were no match of the Master of Mights far more elite force and he quickly went to the Shlievek for aide, for if the Naga explorers were killed and the Master survived, he would return to the Empire with a tale of the Shlievek slaying the explorers and the race would be plunged into war. Realising the threat for as great as it truly was, he attempted to with as great speed as possible warn the Shlievek as much as he could, before the Master arrived for battle.