An Aetolian's Tale

Zhang, Zor Empire, Ascesion Age As/A: 3084

The Wraith guards marched in. A dozen of them; face lost behind a skull mask, armed with bows and swords sheathed to their waist. They stormed through the crowds in lines of two, venturing deeper into the epicenter of town: the bull's eye of Zhang.

Their boots echoed as it met the hard stone ground, and many who heard them march, knew what it meant.

To the pulpit of bonded timbers stationed at the center of this awe gripped town, a twine hanging over a single wooden pole that extends through the platform, dangles with a tiny copper bell at its end. The rope was pulled lower, forcing the bell to swing and ring, as it were to both carve respect, and serve more cold platter of fear.

The sound of the bell told different stories, and it being at the town's center, mostly gave the notices of when public executions met it's set time.

These executions were all but of mercy and restraint. Most were by slowly liquidating the flesh with corrosive substances -acidification.

As incredibly intriguing the pleasuring sight of watching the human skin slowly melt into red sticky goo, there was another that served more epiphany, and utilized only in rarer occasions: The Mïjknotr. It is a set of execution carried out in three theatrical stages.

The punished is first anchored face-up to the wooden platform: his arms, legs, and torso bound by shackles. Metallic hook drawn from a burning stove, shimmering in redness from intense heat, is then plunged into the corners of the eyes.

After it digs into the eye socket, the hook is then forced out, and with it is a scoop of eyeballs.

With the lightless eyes dangling from its sockets, a heavy tree stomp fashioned to look like a single log (though large) is let down with a rope, and made to first crash into the lower half of the body. The first hit ushers the second as the giant log is pulled up, and once high enough, the grip is freed, and yet again permitted to drop to the upper half, with a careful exclusion of the head. The same hammering processes continue, shuffling between the legs and the chest, pounding the body, shredding the bones, and near flattening the flesh, with heavy thuds as it stroke the skin, and puffs of dust that scurried away.

The executioners decide when the judged is near death, and if they are ready to cap up the show with the final piece: decapitation. The semi-conscious body is finally met with the edge of an axe that drives through the neck, ending the blissful life of the offender.

Hope in Valhalla awaits thou.

The Mïjknotr has always been a wild spectacle of torture and punishment, and it sometimes served as retribution for cases where the crime was either murder, thievery, or even rape, but not all crimes were honored with the three package deal torment, even though others were far less exciting than the Mïjknotr. Barbarians!

Today it was different. From the quaking feet of the Wraith guards, everyone knew that it was that time of the month, and they all began to make their way to the town's center for it.

Most of the citizens of Zhang arrived the set spot, and stood by to listen to their next order.

On the execution stand, the sun shone behind a man, stretching his shadow before him, creating a silhouette blacker than his ebony skin and red long braided hair that slithered down his back.

His appearance was crude with scars, yet lecherous and bold with a choking aura, and so were those red pupils: brutal and intimidating, with glances that stabs the heart.

Black boots gripped his ankle, so did a leather jacket tail down to his knees. An axe was locked within his fingers as he stood atop the execution platform,

with every intention to make his speech as less pleasing as he could.

The sun's brilliance, though lost to his back, still revealed the wraith crest, an emblem worn on the person of both the captain and his crew. Frightening and bold were at a glance the pretext of their crest. It was of a white diamond shaped crystal, having red thorns protruding on it's surface, and a black serpent slithering between each thorn: wrapping around the crystal while escaping the tips of the thorns. "We thread upon Hades and churn its awe within our jaw..." That was their motto, and they strut in pride with the words on their lips.

The crest visible, everyone who weren't part of wraiths, could tell what platoon it was, and that the man who was about to address them, was Markens the blood red bastard himself, the nastiest there is in the trade of torture and gruesomeness. A heartless monster.

Markens was the Captain of the wraith guards. He was a terror that spoke fear to the hearts of those who gathered around the huge bronze bell. Marken's reputation and tales were what mothers threatened their children to bed with, and even stating his name were as though receiving a death sentence, as it echoed death at every syllable.

He was a living mass of a brooding cultured bloodthirsty maniac.

He cleared his throat, then began to speak.

"I want the usual line of four..." He began laying off orders to the citizens of Zhang. "Women, children excluding babies, men, and the elderly." The gestures of his hands detailed the spaces he needed them to occupy, and they all began to fall within their respective order, moving like zombies reaching out to grab a floating cinder driven afar by the wind.

When he saw the extended lines of the converged populace, he began the second halve of his speech.

"So," He smiled. "let us all be friends today, uh?" The smiled was quenched, and his brows concaved as his eyes scanned the thin bundles of crowds before him. "Now, if you have anyone hiding somewhere, or someone who might've skipped town few days back, I'd like to have their names, their supposed destination, and possibly a facial description."

His eyes were still running through the numbers before him, anticipating a risen hand of compliance. But he found nothing, making him more agitated.

"Or, are there any recorded death within the last three months, since our barcode survey?"

His agitation grew as he got no response.

"One last time, who chickened out from today's survey? Y'all know that deserting is a very big crime, and it is punishable by immediate death?" 

No voice was heard from the crowd, neither were there hands up for attention.

"Fine! I'll deal with it myself, and trust me, there will be no mercy for whomsoever I catch."

He gobbled air in, and slowly exhaled while closing his eyes to hasten more concentration. He opened his eyes, which immediately glowed in bright purple, and he began chanting a spell.

"Vilrik

mur

raïy, seor me munant

turik

nukaeis..." Amidst chanting a spell, he pulled out a dagger from his back, and had its tip piercing his palm. "Bararaq kei mein ka, ciet te tra vouz --"

"Tis a conspiracy Zorns. Let not our hearts be soiled by their lies and deceit!" 

A priest from the sect, queuing in the crowd, cried, thus temporarily halting Marken's spell.

Marken silently watched him tear away from the crowd, and walked towards the podium he occupied.

A dull red robe laced with mud and dirt at the end licking the ground, swallowed him whole. Thick green vines of veins stemmed on his thin arms, which one from his incessant gesticulating was partly hidden within the sleeves, while the other arm was waving in air a crucifix.

His hair was mostly white, short, with baldness slowly chewing away from his temple, marking out a round space on the crown of his head. His face almost round at the upper corner, with a chin hanging down, evidently attacked by the cold fingers of time who drew tracks by the corner of his eyes, and sagged his cheeks. The strength of his voice forcefully braced through the tremor braided into it, and although he paused a few seconds to catch his breath, the dry walls of his throat rubbed against each other, making his voice cease at some pitches, probing him to force it even harder through its leash.

Marken admired the old man's tenacity, and offered him a chance to speak.

"They tallied from birth our lives..." He continued. "...by inserting tiny devices into our brains, with marking at the back of our ears and neck, just to regulate our lives and keep us in check." He quickly paused, and desperately scampered his tongue for any available liquid, which he gathered and gulped before continuing.

"They fear the power we possess. Although they take our children who are blessed with magic at birth, we still possess more than just sorcery to bring them to their knees. Unity!" He lifted his arms above his head, with the wooden cross horizontally stuffed within the fist he aimed high with power. Both fists were prevailing dauntingly in the air: it spoke of his courage, and hid his fears.

"Together we are more powerful than their military, magic, and brainwashing chips!"

His voice suddenly became louder with more strength than before, and his eyes glimmered with anger shading the sorrow behind it.

"We. Are. In-vin-ci-ble!"

He dragged the last sound of his last word like a war cry of burning passion on a battle field, and his voiced seized right after he ran out of breath.

The priest's sermon although were contemplated pleas of a saddened heart, his reality wasn't far off his mind. Life was a walking despair in the year 3084. Earth was not as typical as what Sci-fis before the ascension had theatrically painted over the wide screen of a cinema. There were no monochromatic fashion, super computers, flying saucers and an invasion from the green folks, or cyborgs, and definitely no time traveling machine. Not even good electricity were as accessible as it were before everything went gray and dust, over a hundred years back: lost to the war that shook the trenches of earth.

His out cry was ill met, as nobody felt enthusiastic enough to bet their heads against the blood red bastard condescending from where he stood. Although the priest was right to the bone, they were just too powerless to defend their perception. It was better to calmly give into this designed fate, than struggle hopelessly. 

"Livestock! That's what they see us as; guinea pigs in a pen, caged in wait for the next science experiment. We are lambs, fattened by the butcher, awaiting a good taste of oil and boiling water! If we were even getting fed, death would have worth a day's meal." 

His arms fell to his sides, his spirit dimmed, and dozens claws of fear gnawed at his mind.

"We strife! We plead!" Each word came the crashing of his energy, talking seemed pointless, and simply preaching wouldn't close the curtains on their choreographed display of fate. "Yet we suffer!" He dropped to his knee, his head down. The priest robe sprawled on the ground, and it wasn't long before his eyes went heavy and rained.

"We thresh our knees for a life of soundless unending grayness, yet, you try to keep us in check even though we dwellers of the slums of the great Empire of Zor, have given everything we have to the emperor and his cabal. What more do you think we own? Even our destinies are scripted for us. What more would you steal of this sad lives of ours?" 

The priest was right. The only symphony that echoed through the nights were slashes of slaughter, fear of bloodshed, wailing of famine, and the cold whips of tyranny. Chips and barcodes were imprinted into the back of every man's earlobe and neck, that were routinely scanned to keep order, and to avoid the itching gnawing of shackles around the wrist awarded to those set in place for a public acidification, no one dared a hair out of place.

No where was save. There were no where to run to. Magic and dark sorcery, monsters and creatures and the tales of the bogeyman now, were far from being just a myth and bonfire stories, these were as real as the fluff of a cat's fur: dangerous, mysterious, cunning, and above all, strictly outlawed. The emperor was careful for any opposition.

"Even our brothers sell us off for cheap change, and the battle our fathers from century fought and conquered, are the what in an ensemble we turn a blind eyes to, yet we suffer with gritting teeth."

The hope for a utopia, was immersed in despair. The leadership was as it has always been in a typical dilapidated era, ruled by only power hungry lords. Ekryons, are the names of the emperors who ruled the four continents -Empire- that survived the last war: the servants of the god Ekron. 

Dashing doom was what those tugging within the confines of the lower echleons of Zor, called their emperor. Who could blame them; scraping crumbs and threshing their nails just to survive...well that's not a life worth living. But yet a few survived the hardship, and dared venture the wilderness. They had no choice, the lands were barren, the magic barriers between them and the upper echleon was impregnable, and as such, bliss and hope was as thin as a stretched massless string.

"Dear citizens of Zhang..." He turned to met the congregated men. "No one can save us, only we hold the key to our salvation in our own hands..."

A hero? A super hero? Not even superman could stand the heat. Kryptonite won't be his only bane, starvation will. But if there were heroes, then he'd be ploughing the harsh soil, or robbing off a rich merchant.

"We must take a stand now, and FIGHT!"

Another outcry, but no one dared a word off their lips, nor did her hold any expression of hope on their faces.

The priest could see the despair in their eyes, and he too was forced down the same path. His spirit and boiling adrenaline was dimming, and so was the unfolding realization of whom he had just defied.

He turned around to meet a brimming grin on Marken's face.

"That was very impressive." Marken applauded. "How about a motivational speech from me too? yes?" A devilish smile broke on his face, and he leapt off from the platform unto the ground beside the already alerted priest shivering in fear.

"Now, my turn." He inhaled deeply as a boost to project his voice. "Listen maggots, your lives are meaningless, there are no heroes to save you, so quit yer yabbers and listen. A single sniff from anyone else..." He stretched his arms for the priest, and grabbed his neck. "And I will kill every single person standing here." He clamped the priest's neck until he heard his bones snap.

"The regular checkup will begin now!" He sniffed, then continued to speak. "And trust me, I will hunt and kill every single person who thought they could escape me today."

He turned to his men.

"You may begin!" He ordered.

Kicking through the stabbing blizzard, those in the kingdoms of the lower echleons accepted their fates, hoping not to die in their sleeps, or by the silver fangs of the guillotine.

Yet, sarvation and poverty and death, became the least of their worries later that very night, as it all grew darker with despair, the clouds hid the moon and shielded off her lights, preventing them from reaching the earth. The sky roared thunderously, and unsettled lightening pierced with joy between the clouds.

A ritual began with the banging of drums, the swirl dance of maidens, a slaughter, and the Sorcerer's chants.

Three stood upon the altar; naked and ready to receive of the Emperor's blessing. A curse they were prepared to bear for the purpose of the Empire. The Mountains of Eleàd at its very peak, now gathered five men and no more; The Emperor, his sorcerer and those chosen to be the blessed.

Each man was perfectly trained in the arts compatible with the blessing he is to receive, a blessing to offer chaos, and wroth destruction. 

The sorcerer after a long incantation, offered a bowl of the emperor's blood to the chosen three, which they each took a gulp from.

As these men ingested the Emperor's blood, the sorcerer chanted again another unique spell which caused them to writ in an unsurmountable form of agony; a price for power which were mere scraps of the Emperor's darkness.

His power surged through them, bulging through their vein, cracking their bones, and exploding in its fullness, until they fully became one with it, and thus the end of the Eleàd ritual.

"You know your mission -" The Emperor's elegant yet commanding voice, pierced fear into the hearts of the three. "Do not fail me. Find them and offer me their heads, or I will have your head and the head of those you find dear."

"Yes my Lord!"

They chorused, and the emperor slowly faded away into the darkness.