Rigel Lake's Story

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"General Iratel!"

The slightly pudgy man at the indecipherable control panel span around on his leather chair with a scowl. "What now?!" he yelled irately, clearly not appreciating the use of his last name as such. "And I'm General Earth to you!"

Whoever had called him by that name was obviously quite used to the treatment. "General Iratel," the voice cooed again, shrugging off the glare (oh, if looks could kill...) "Would you mind sending out a scanner? We're supposed to be running a Galactic Protection order here, we don't want the fiasco from a couple days ago..."

"Shut it!" Alphaeus lashed out, and smashed his fist on the nearest available flat surface.

Said available flat surface was the control panel.

"Distress beacon activated."

The entire ship suddenly began to resonate with a distinctly feminine voice repeating several stock cautionary phrases over and over again, and the entire ship took on a rather reddish cast, due to the fact that each of the lights, once a pleasant whitish colour, had suddenly taken on an unattractive mauve shade.
The fact that someone had, in their surprise and fear, effused several bodily fluids all over themselves and surrounding objects was not helping the situation.
At all.

And why was everybody running around with their hands flailing in every direction?

---

"Why is there suddenly a giant red circle in the middle of space?"

"Orienda, did you divide by zero again? You know what happened last time."

The brown-haired woman gave her attendant a glassy stare, and he took it as his cue to suddenly need to use the lavatory.

After Rigel's 'fun' encounter with the bathrooms regarding having to stay there for a period of time much longer than five minutes (an unspecified span of time which, incidentally, was punctuated by several awkward groans, moans, and high-pitched yeeps) he suddenly found himself dragged from one of the comfier armchairs by the Magiton-powered campfire (who said spaceships couldn't have useless creature comforts?) over to the crude radar system, which was beeping unpleasantly.

"Explain this," Orienda breathed.

---

In the probe, everything continued to be chaos. The Aeromancer in charge of propelling the spacecraft had somehow regained her senses amidst the general pandaemonium and had begun to push the wind inside the probe in the direction of Grimore I.
Despite his misgivings, General Iratel really had to hand it to her. Not only was she able to annoy him without making him knock her out with a well-placed boulder to the face, she had somehow acquired an aversion to making stupid decisions along the way.

Now, if only the rest of this stupid crew (no, seriously, what were they here for? The only two people needed in a space probe such as the one he had been tasked with 'piloting' would be him and his pet wind magician) could do the same.

Alphaeus sighed as the person officially in charge of keeping the one lavatory they had on ship collided face-first with the walls of the ship, and went over to offer the man a hand.

---

"What is wrong with this radar? I knew we shouldn't have imported it from the Xindhi... bunch of thick-faced skelet--"

"Orienda, look out at the windows."

Orienda gave her Sub-General that look, and Rigel suddenly felt the urgent need to use the bathrooms.
Again.

With that being said, she turned her spinny away from the control panel and calmly glanced out the curved window, expecting to see only the faint glimmer of the millions of stars in the Milky Way.

She let out a shocked squeal and turned to the buttons, feverishly jabbing at the more red-tinted buttons.
A couple seconds later, a veritable crowd had formed around her chair, wondering what the source of that vile ticking sound was.
Rigel had somehow made his way into the crowd, despite the fact that he was normally aversive to large groups of people ("That's bad for the soul, you know"), and cupped his hands over his mouth.
"There are no pipe bombs on deck. Carry on."

With sounds of disappointment and more than several "Fuck you, Marinda!"s, the crowd dissipated, until it was only Rigel looking over his superior's shoulder at what the radar had said.

Both of them really wanted to know how you could make a red that was that red without breaking the monitor.

Thirty seconds later, with Rigel's help, the Gunship suddenly flew off towards Grimore in a burst of speed.
And no one on board could say that they'd kept standing through the whole ordeal. After all, staying standing on a curved surface was pretty damn tough.
Orienda didn't quite feel like facing off against several hundred unidentified spaceships with her tired old wreck.

---

The drop cylinders began to fall at night.

They turned red-hot as the fell through the heavens, illuminating the pitch-blackness of the night sky otherwise only broken by the Twin Moons. Children in the Castle and surrounding woodland looked up at the sounds of burning, and their faces were filled with amazement.
"Look, momma!" one of them cried, in the accent characteristic of a Glade child -- that is, a child raised in the woodlands, rather than the Castle. "Shooting stars!"

---

"All residents of Castle Cadremus and surrounding areas please report to the gates immediately! This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill!" yelled a teenager's voice, echoing through the woods with the distinct sound of magical acoustics enhancement.

Rigel had literally jumped out of the Magiton Gunship as soon as it had landed in the landing spot marked crudely with a giant 'L' surrounded by a circle. The marking had been made with chalk, and was soon scuffed over as the crews of both the Gunship and the space probe Alphaeus Iratel (the Irritator, Rigel would have to note with a certain fierce satisfaction) had been charged with piloting ran out from their respective spaceships.
Truth be told, he hadn't tried that hard to keep the gunship moving after the initial burst of speed. It was only the fact that he was a prodigy at Aeromancy that kept his ship ahead of Alphaeus'.
He really had to give a hand to that Aeromancer on his ship, by the way. What was her name? Laetitia? Adonais? He couldn't be effed to remember, and left the matter of names alone as he regained his thoughts and starting to organise things.

"All Magick-users, please report to the Tower of Subterranean Magicks or the Tower of Infernal Magicks posthaste!" Orienda screamed, using the same technique that he had to enormi-largi-cafy his voice just fifteen seconds earlier to come out with another announcement.
He had to hand it to her too. He'd never heard the word 'posthaste' used correctly up until this point.

With that, the crews of both ships vacated the landing space, leaving the ships in the middle of the landing point. Any spaceship wishing to land would have to land in the forest.

By the time Alphaeus, Rigel, and Orienda made their way to the gates (someone intelligent had left the drawbridge down), a veritable crowd of forlorn-looking adults, children, and assorted pets had assembled, looking rather like the inhabitants of Gambit's Bar; that is, assuming their apparently unlimited coffers had suddenly run dry.
The three of them set out immediately to push the crowd through the ever-so-slightly-open gates, as per Emergency Code XIa:

Emergency Code XIa: In the case of a necessary evacuation, relocate all forest inhabitants into the closest, most densely packed town, city, or castle available. This will result in better defences in the case of direct attack.

They were joined within a couple minutes by the likes of Balinda Wright and Ellana Normane, which aided immensely; Balinda's large frame, rather reminiscent of a particularly vicious gym teacher, and Ellana's particularly bothersome squeals of annoyance whenever someone took too long squeezing through the gates ensured that no one wanted to linger in front of the gate for more than was really, really necessary.
Finally, it was just them five.
"What're you waiting for?" Ellana enquired in a bubblish, girly voice. Rigel stifled a snicker, attempting to stay any thoughts involving the reader's mom. "Let's go!"

On the way to the Tower of Infernal Magicks, Orienda and Alphaeus each brifed their equals about what was going on, after ordering the crowd towards the farmers' quarter. Evidently, a large fleet of spaceships had been seen heading over to Grimore, and Grimore could expect either massive invasion or a giant gift of trash metals.
Balinda tripped over herself as they wound about the spiral staircase leading up to, and Rigel coughed a hacking cough. Orienda was not amused.

---

Three minutes later, the five of them found themselves joined by the other three Sub-Generals, Tyrelio, Gyrel, and Rish. Rigel sidled over to the former, but was stopped in his tracks by a look from Orienda. Clearly, this wasn't the time for romance.
With that said, Orienda began an impropmtu speech.

"As the Generals have been informed, we are to be possibly invaded. Us Generals will be heading the situation from the two Towers closest to the entrance; this one and the Tower of Subterranean Magicks, as you very well know. Now, you Sub-Generals will be overseeing the situation from the main gates of the Castle." She ignored a clap and a gasp from Rish and Gyrel's direction. "Rigel, you'll be establishing a wind current over the entire Castle, correct?" With a nod from the mentioned, Orienda went on. "Gyrel and Rish, keep track of the moat. Freeze it if you have to." The twins nodded as well. "And finally, Tyrelio..." The man stood up just a teensy bit higher. "Keep Rigel safe. We don't want to be losing anyone if we go to battle today, especially your boyfriend."

Rigel blushed furiously and excused himself for the lavatories, earning him a badly-suppressed giggle from the twins.
He'd have to get them for that.

---

A minute later, the four Sub-Generals stood at the banks of the moat, careful not to touch anything into the water; despite Ellana's assertions that it was completely and totally safe to bathe in (she offered to drink the water herself, an offer that Rigel would have wholeheartedly accept it had it not been for Orienda again giving him the look), they were very much wary of anything that Ellana deemed safe.The drawbridge had been sunk surreptitiously below the water, and it now rested at the bottom of the moat. Rigel felt rather sorry for Gyrel and Rish -- they had appeared quite constipated during the entire process, and he shuddered to imagine what awkward noises and painful-looking faces they would make raising the bridge up.

Tyrelio suddenly stood up and walked a couple metres to the left. Rigel followed him almost instinctively, wanting his prescence -- even if the boy didn't want it back. For that really what he was; he might have been a year or two older than him, but he could hardly keep his alcohol down, let alone consider himself a grown-up. Plus, Rigel enjoyed fancying himself the more mature one in the on-and-off, love/hate thing they had going on.

"I really, really missed you," Tyrelio muttered softly, more to himself than to him.
Rigel cracked a smile, reluctantly.
"Romance while Rome burns, eh?"

---

---

Over a hundred kilometres from Castle Cadremus, the first shots of the first intergalactic war to reach the Grimore system were fired.

The populace of Gransfeld, a sleepy little place hardly fit to be called a town, were soon rudely awakened by the sounds of moving rocks.

A little girl, perhaps the age of ten, sat upright in her crude wooden bed fashioned from lumber that the last thunderstorm's bolts had felled. She glanced around timidly, then rolled off the piles of wool blankets and old clothes stitched together that made for a mattress. She sidled up to the window, as she always did when there were sounds keeping her up at night, and gasped.

Strange lights were flickering near the Rock Over By The Way. She and her friends were fond of playing near that particular outcrop of stones; she'd been a tomboy from birth, and her parents were seriously considering sending her off to perhaps Dyline, by the coast, to teach her the more 'masculine' trades. Her mother had been the same as her, a rowdy sailor's daughter, and her father, a woodsman and carpenter, had only been able to tame her in a duel that she had carelessly challenged her to.

Suddenly, the pattern of lights by the 'back' of the ship changed, and she could distinctly hear the sounds of footsteps. Not the usual light, gentle steps she had come to associate with her countryfolk.
Plodding stomps that she could hear from a long while away.

"Metra! Patre! Vos ostine! Vos ostine!" she yelled, ripping herself from the side of the window and barrelling out of her room.

---

Two minutes later, the alarm was sounded.
And another minute later, every male of age in the town had found themselves by the large pool of water in the centre of the town, outfitted with at least a copper sword or a shield. The girl gasped as she laid eyes on one of the oldest in her group, a male nearing fourteen or fifteen. He was one of the lucky few who had armour on.
He caught her staring and walked over, patting the girl's shoulder with a lacksadaisal grin. "Myrin, noxis tremulo. Vos joyeu, pare dun. Deux'll esh bren,"* he cooed. "Noxis tremulo."
Then, at the sound of a shrill whistle, he stood to arms immediately -- Myrin didn't quite know how he knew what to do, perhaps it had something to do with the 'private' classes that he'd been taking with that scary teacher lately? -- and hurried off to where a crowd of men with armaments was beginning to form, on the side of the town closest to where the queer lights had first flashed.
Now, if Myrin squinted, she could see the faint outline of vaguely humanoid shapes approaching her sleepy little village. She shivered.

"Noxis tremulo. Deux'll esh bren." Her mother appeared at her side suddenly, resting a hand on the slight girl's shoulder. Myrin looked up at her mother in the dark of night.
Myrin could swear her mother was smiling.

---

* - "Myrin, stop worrying. Be happy, for me. It'll be fine.