Rynhart's Story

Rynhart approached the new arrivals with pointed purpose as he separated from the gathered onlookers in the courtyard. As he came to stop before them he briefly looked them over before nodding his head towards the temple steps.

"Come," he offered.

He headed up the steps without so much as a glance back, seemingly assuming the group would follow him. There were still a large number of Aschen soldiers idling within the courtyard, but the soldiers seemed to be for the most part not paying the temple residents much mind and he didn't spare them a glance either as he strode past with the new arrivals at his back.

Cináed raised an eyebrow at Sahlie, "Mr. Toasty?" he questioned, folding his arms with a smirk. He followed the others' eyes, then, to the soldiers spread out across the courtyard. His smile dropped into a faint frown, "Huh, I certainly wasn't expecting this sort of thing here." he remarked a little uneasily.

He lapsed into a momentary silence until Rynhart approached, at which point he blinked in surprise. "Come..? Are you in charge here..?" he started, but by that point the man was already walking away. He stared after him for a few moments before turning to the rest of the group. "Well, I guess that answers our question. As vague and mysterious as expected, I guess!"

With a beckoning gesture for the others to follow, he hurried after Rynhart into the Temple proper.

As she had done before, Stryfe sat her desk. A pen moving swiftly along a piece of paper. She was writing another letter, this one less of a call to arms like the last. This was where the brainpower came into play. Where she saw who was serious and who wasn't.

She wrote, 'Hello again, captain, officer, prime minister, ambassador, colonel, general, director, president, senator, or congressman, whomever you may be. Once again, my name is Fatin Alfarsi, you may, or may not, know me, but I am one of two heads of the organization known as The Invictus.

To those who have met with me, and those who haven't had the chance but are still interested in reforming Terra, I ask that you attend a meeting of minds. Send those who call the shots for your organization, nation, clan or army to a neutral location we all agree upon to discuss where we'll go from here.

We have to discuss the organization of our military and intelligence forces, get them used to working together, which there will be much of in the future. We need to get our mouthpieces, our would-be politicians, used to making choices together. We have to discuss how we'll handle the crime on our planet, the anarchy, the war with the Taiyou.

Until we're organized, we have no real power. Until we're working as a cohesive unit, we can't squabble as a cohesive unit. This is our chance. I suggest meeting in Solinus City, it's much safer than Wing City, and nicer to look at.

Personal Phone: 213-489-2732.
E-mail: BigKahuna@various.
Address: The Palace @ 9001 Main Street, Wing City.

Finishing the letter, Stryfe handed the letter off to her bodyguard, Natasha. "Take this to the Veritas. Make sure it gets all those I designate." Stryfe informed the woman. "You got it." Natasha said, making her way to the exit.

Casren followed after with a considerably less amount of enthusiasm. As he took in the temple, the soldiers who went unacknowledged, he wondered. Something, he could not say what, was not right here. The warning from the dish still quaked the fibers of his flesh. It was a threat to his very vampyric fate.

Who was it on the edge of that depression? Time had frozen and the voice had echoed sound over the mountain-scape. What divine being dare speak such definitive statements? It was troubling, indeed. A warning from the Gods? Vague and mysterious indeed. This mountain had produced nothing good, it had crushed his hopes and dreams under an avalanche of soul defiance.

Casren nodded and marched onward after the others, ready to be lead almost anywhere, so long as his questions would be answered.

The light-hearted commentary would have to wait until later, it seemed, since the nearby troops and Rynhart put a damper on the mood. Exhaling upwards, a few strands of Sahlie's hair danced in his breath before he tossed his head to get them out of his eyes.

"How did that poem go again? "'Will you walk into my parlour,' said the spider to the fly,"" he sang softly, though not soft enough so that his companions couldn't hear him. "'Tis the prettiest parlour that ever you did spy.'"

With a last glance at the Aschen who were present, a few brisk strides brought Sahlie alongside Cináed. Maybe the questions that had plauged him for a month would finally be answered. Or maybe nothing would happen and it would turn out that coming up here was a waste of time. At the very least, he would know which it was.

Rynhart cast Sahlie a curious look as they departed the courtyard, but said nothing further as he disappeared inside with the group at his heels.

Rynhart swept inside the temple which the group would find to be far more extravagant than the exterior might have hinted at. Spacious and with tall windows to allow plenty of light in, the room had an almost regal atmosphere. Towering pillars and artfully carved bas reliefs dominated the room alongside statues of heroes come and gone. Overhead an indoor balcony ran the length of either side of the hall to overlook those within the vestibule. A few knights of Le'thorian patrolled the walkways overhead, but the general atmosphere was far more welcoming than the courtyard had been.

Their footsteps echoed loudly through the hall as Rynhart led the way.

"If you require food and shelter, we offer both to travelers," he offered with a gesture towards the west wing of the temple. "But I imagine many of you are here for answers, not shelter," he added.

"I am Rynhart," he introduced. "Pardon the state of the place. The Aschen arrived only shortly before yourselves. Rhea, my sister and proprietor of this temple is with them as we speak. They had many wounded, and she may not be able to speak with you until later. In the meanwhile I will answer what questions I can should you have any, or you are welcome to wander the grounds until she is ready to see you."

Cináed gazed around at the impressive temple with wide eyes, bright with wonder. He gazed between the statues, almost missing when Rynhart started speaking so enthralled was he with the architecture. It was more impressive than anything he'd ever seen, in his limited experience of the world. He snapped to attention as the elf went on, however, waiting till he had finished speaking before taking the initiative on putting his questions forwards.

"I think..." Cináed glanced between his companions, "The question most of us have is why we were called here? In our dreams. I've been dreaming of this place for weeks, been pulled to it. Why?" The teen ran a hand through his hair, "My name is Cináed. I'm from Asta, a city to the west. Are you one of the Patronus?"

Rynhart shook his head. "That I cannot answer for you," he replied.

"Each of you was called here for reasons known only to yourself," he explained. "None here can speak for the one who sent out the call. We only receive those who arrive."

He thought a moment over how to better give the group some measure of closure to their journey.

"The order that resides within this temple is an ancient order that has been tasked with the preservation of Terra," he explained. "Each of us serves in different ways, but we have all sworn off allegiances to any home or country. We are a neutral entity."

There was a note of detachment from the man as he spoke, and his eyes often lingered upon the entryway that they had arrived from. Pensive some might have called him.

Obvious to the mood of the place (and to Rynhart's gender), The circuited crusader rolls up the lovely form of elvish beauty before him and does what rick does best, woo her with his manliness.

"Howdy ma'am, come here often?" the knee high construct inquires to Rynhart while doing a wheelie backwards. The pupil of his eye now shows a pixelated pink heart instead of the normal light green slit.

It began. He couldn't help it, or stop himself, for at this point his body was beyond control. The last few days had been a true trip for poor Casren, and as it looked the drug of his life wasn't ever wearing off.

It started as a single cry, pitched higher than the ceilings it flew towards on golden wings. A few more followed jumbling together in a giggle that rounded itself ever higher. Hysterical laughter whirled feathers of euphoria around the vestibule, tickling any who had the least bit of whimsy left in their heart.

Was it the The Call that buckled his knees, or the Crawling Chaos itself that dragged poor Casren groundwards? The man shrieked joy, failing in his feeble attempt to point to the heart, forgetting every trouble for just this moment.

"Casren?" Cináed looked towards the vampire with concern as he started to laugh hysterically, an expression that shifted to one of shock as he collapsed to the ground. He turned to lay a hand on the man's shoulder - an unnaturally warm touch, as ever, stark contrast to the cool of the vampire's dead flesh.

"What's wrong?" There didn't seem to be much regard for the fact that he had met the vampire mere hours ago on a winding mountain trail, where many would have awkwardly stood by and wondered at the stranger's eccentricity rather than interfere. He crouched down beside Casren, furrowing his brow. "D'you need to lie down or something? What's so ... funny?"

Casren felt the warmth and shivered, still smiling and giggling. He flapped a hand around, to everything, then let them settle in his lap. Breathing in real deep the vampire looked to the ceiling. There he held his breath, not needing to breath and not wanting to exhale just yet. Things just got stranger and stranger. Exhaustion, lack of blood, his age, it all was beginning to catch up to him.

The air wooshed from his mouth in a sigh. Casren looked to Cináed with a staling smile. What's wrong? What wasn't wrong? Time was stopping, soldiers were everywhere, the world was in a panic. What's funny? Exactly just that. Despite the pandemonium and chaos, things went on and happened. Despite things getting weirder, they became more normal. He chuckled once more, staying to the ground.

"The world is ending, friend, and we've front row seats," Casren then looked to Rynhart, smile fading even faster as he recalled the scene on the mountain. The time stopping in the bowl. "On our way here, something peculiar happened. Something like such a thing from a dream..."

"The figure on the pathway..." Cináed nodded, turning his attention back up to Rynhart, "There was a figure that appeared to us when we were climbing. Blue skinned, winged and wearing golden armour. Time stood still around us... it sounded. Uhg..." the teen ran a hand through his hair, searching for the right words to describe the experience but failing. "It was like... when it spoke, everything was listening. Not just us, but... the mountain..."

He made a noise of frustration, rising to a standing position again. "That sounds really stupid, but... I don't know how to describe it. It was terrifying. It said... it told us that the path we were on led to destruction. 'Tali'van'eh'. Do you know what that means?"

The situation at the temple had reached a near boiling point since Nagala and Rhea's departure. The Aschen wounded had begun to exceed the barracks capacity and the use of the main temple had been provided, a fact that didn't sit well with many of the locals even before the Taiyou had arrived.

It was the barracks that Derek entered, as it seemed to be the central point of operations at the moment. The interior was packed to the brim with bodies, Aschen and Terran alike - a strange conglomeration of archaic and modern equipment and dress. There was a great deal of heated arguing going on as Derek arrived.

An Aschen soldier approached Derek as he entered.

"Sir?" the soldier asked.

"Who's in charge out here?" Derek asked.

"Technically you are now, Sir," the man replied.

"I want a briefing on everything that's gone on here since Admiral Nagala left," Derek instructed.

"Well we've got Taiyou snipers in the mountains," the man explained.

"Show me," Derek replied.

Leading the way into the room the soldier moved some maps around on the table before directing Derek's attention to several locations within the region. "Here, here, and here, that we know of. Probably more that we don't know of."

Derek rubbed at his jaw as he looked over the maps. "My ship is nearby, but with this weather there's no way to get it down into these mountains. I have orders to evacuate the wounded here." He made no mention of the fact that his orders had come from a woman of no rank. Come to think of it, why was he here? Whisper's psionic influence had begun to fade enough for him to take note of the peculiarity of him agreeing to return to Terra with her. He shook the thoughts from his mind and focused on the situation at hand. "How many men are here?" he asked.

"About a hundred and fifty, sir. Most of them wounded. Maybe fifty or so of them are in any shape for combat."

A hundred and fifty? Derek frowned. That was a lot of wounded to get evacuated in twenty-four hours.

Meanwhile the direction of the conversation had several of the locals exchanging glances. Some seemed glad of the news that the Aschen were departing, while others were less so.

"And just like that you're going, to leave us to clean up your mess?" one of them demanded.

With that said the arguments began anew with accusations and angry words flinging back and forth between Aschen and local. Derek let it ensue for several minutes before he finally interjected.

"Enough," he barked, slamming a fist against the table with a resounding echo. "Now listen here. I have twenty-two hours to get these men out of here, or you're going to be having the Coalition knocking on your doorstep as well. With any luck once we leave, the Taiyou will divert their attentions elsewhere. In the meanwhile we can either learn to get the frak along, or we can die alone. These Taiyou, they don't take prisoners, and they don't differentiate collaborators from Aschen. Throw accusations all you want, but we're all in this now and surrender isn't an option. Maybe we'll all die out here anyways, but if we do, maybe, just maybe we can take out as many of these fraking sons of bitches with us as we can."

It was then that the sound of a gunshot echoed ominously through the mountains. Silence. Eyes raised as a second gunshot echoed. For many long moments no one said a word. Somewhere out there was another casualty, possibly two.

There was a cough from the side of the room, where one figure had been watching the bickering and arguing going on with unphased calm. Arrow stepped forwards with a stern expression, "Am I to take it that you're the new ranking officer on site?" he inquired, "Let me introduce myself. My name is Arrow Flight, I'm the leader of the Knights of Le'thorien and a member of the Patronus. About as close to a military commander as we have here, I'd say."

He glanced towards the window, frowning. The gunshots had been noted worriedly. He knew that there were several Patronus out there who hadn't been at the Temple when the snipers first got into position, and he feared for them.

Just a few short moments later, the door to the barracks swung open and one of the temple's denizens yelled out loud enough for Arrow and Derek to hear him through in the impromptu war room. "We need a stretcher!"

The Aschen medics quickly moved to respond, and not long after they disappeared out the door, they returned. Carried upon their stretcher was the unconscious and bloodied form of Noah. Anaiya was in tow, the robed doctor exchanging quick words with one of the medics.

He was quickly placed on one of the beds being utilised for the more heavily wounded, and the medics got to work. Anaiya hung back nearby with a both worried and baffled expression on her face, sighing.

"Derek Adams," the Aschen Commander replied to Arrow while he skimmed over the assortment of maps laid out for him. "How many men do you have?" he asked the Patronus Captain.

"Most of my knights are down in Windcrest," Arrow replied, "I have maybe twenty here at the Temple, along with any volunteers amongst the rest of the Patronus."

Derek spared only a single side glance for Noah as the wounded lad was ushered through the room on a stretcher. With as many wounded as where at the temple, Noah was just one of many.

Meanwhile it didn't take the medics long to assess that Noah's injuries were too severe. A black x was marked on his forehead before the medic waved for the others to move the stretcher. "Put him with the others," the medic instructed. Those too far gone to be saved.

At Noah's arrival, Arrow's reaction was more dramatic. He swore under his breath, losing his composure for a moment and breaking off from the conversation to move to the boy's side. "You're giving up on him?" he asked incredulously as the medics marked him with an X. Exasperated, but managing to keep his tone level and respectful, he shook his head. "Surely there must be something you can do, Rhea has lauded the Aschen for their medical advances to no end, I..." Arrow struggled for words, something that he could say to change their minds.

Rebellious thoughts of 'you brought this on us, you owe it to us' crossed his mind, but he knew that saying as much would achieve nothing. "Is there really no way?"

Derek glanced up at Arrow and then to the lad that was being moved. He thought a moment before answering. "He might survive, if we got him to an immersion tank," Derek replied.

One of the men who had arrived with Derek interjected. "Sir, we have our own wounded to worry about." The translation was more than apparent. He's a terran.

Derek cast him a hard look. "Wounded that by my reckoning would be dead by now if not for their wounded." He shook his head after a moment more of thought to weight the situation. "He won't survive the trip. It's a several hour hike through those mountains to reach my ship. We need to focus on the people we can still save."

"We have people that can get him there, orthodox methods or not," Arrow insisted, "If you can save him, I implore you. Let us worry about getting him there."

"Arrow is right." Rynhart spoke up from those gathered. "If you can show us where you need to get him to. Our portal room is still unstable, but it's functional again."

Derek looked again to the wounded lad. He couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old. Many of the wounded Aschen soldiers weren't much older themselves. "How many can you get out?" he asked.

"With enough time?" Rynhart asked. "All of them."

"How much time do you need?" Derek replied.

"Four, maybe five hours?" Rynhart answered. "It's still unstable, I wouldn't send more than a couple people at a time through. We'll need to recheck the calibrations for each group."

Derek nodded as he slid the map over for Rynhart and Arrow to see. He pointed to a region to the south, just beyond the mountains. "There. If you can get my men there, I'll do what I can for the lad."

Arrow nodded his head to Rynhart appreciatively. "We'll make it happen." he stated determinedly.

It was at that moment that the entire barracks was rocked by an almighty roar, as a multitude of devastating explosions shook the mountain range. The nuclear ordinance deployed by the Taiyou created a powerful shockwave that resonated across the landscape, but thankfully, the distance between the Temple and the blasts left only a rush of hot air coursing through the courtyard and rattling the windows of the various structures.

The thunderous booms quieted the conversation throughout the barracks as soldier, patient and patronus alike waited to see if anything would follow. The silence hung in the air, thick with tension. Every so often the building would shake again as as another bomb was dropped.

It was Derek who broke the silence as the orbital bombardment continued unabated. "I don't think we have five hours. Get the critically wounded out first," he barked at the Aschen men. "Move it."

Rynhart gave the small mechanical construct a curious look as it addressed him. He seemed somewhat perplexed by the thing, though any inquiries he may have had into the nature of the AI were forgotten under Casren's abrupt outburst.

He watched the group impassively as Casren melted down in front of everyone, and he offered no word or question as to the man's strange behavior. This whole group seemed a bit off, weary from their travels perhaps.

It wasn't until Cinaed addressed Rynhart with specifics that he spoke again.

"I haven't seen nor heard of anything matching your recount, but we get a lot of strange occurrences out this way. The only one we have out here with any capability to tamper with time would be Tessa. I think she's out training with Noah right now though. You could speak with her when she returns."

He looked over the group once more as he mulled over the situation. "You all look like you could use some rest. Why don't you help yourself to the dormitories and the dining hall. I'm sure Rhea can speak with you further tomorrow."