The Second Motherland War S1 (Started, Please join on DT!)

Robert Shay Tenet - Lost.

Spoiler

Shay sighed.

It had been a long day.

He had set out early that morning, planning to catch something for his family's dinner, but after hunting for hours, wandering deeper and deeper into the woods, he had finally thrown up his hands and given up.

The woods had defeated him, he would return empty handed again!

Slowly he took the two long, perfectly balanced, ash shafted, throwing spears he used and stuck them back in their quiver on his back.

He glanced about his surroundings and frowned, it was getting late, and deep in the forest as he was, things where getting dark fast.

He carefully began walking back the way he had come, the dry leaves littering the hard ground crunching softly under his light step.

He was sure he had come this way, but . . . that white tree? Wasn't it an ash, not a mossy pine?

He shook his head, his long black hair whipping about his face, and pushed the feeling aside.

It was a hard time of year for the family. A older brother (Jacob) was a miner, and though he worked hard, ever single day of every single week, but his wages where so minimal his occupation bordered on slavery.

They were now where near sufficient to feed and clothe Shay and his little sister, Cara.

At least Mariah's well taken care of, he thought.

Mariah, his older sister, was one of the local Sentients slaves. A hard worker, a beautiful young woman, and a kind heart, she did everything she could for them, though that amounted to little more than sneaking a few leftover's from the Sentient household to them whenever she could, and taking care of Cara during the day.

He glanced nervously ahead, the dark, massive trees going off into darkness on every side. He sucked in a nervous breath, conscious of the dark, smoky mist curling around the trunks about him.

This was wrong.

The trees should be thinning out by now, and getting smaller, not thickening and getting bigger.

Suddenly he saw a light between the trunks ahead of him, and heaved a sigh of relief. The lower forest.

He ran forward, but jerked himself to a stop, just in time too.

He stared in amazement, there before him wasn't the clearing he had expected to see, separating the high woods from the lower. Instead a cliff fell lay at his feet, falling hundreds of feet before reaching the floor of a deep, dark valley far below.

He could see for miles. The forested hills went off into the blue horizon, beautiful, timeless, and majestic.

Then reality hit him. He had no idea where this was.

He was lost.

I didn't really know what to write, so I posted this.
I hope it's okay!

Gregory of Oompa-Loompa Land

Pat helped me out of the chair. He'd been twitching all night, he does every time he sleeps. I put my hand on his head and he lead me outside.

I pulled out my flask the moment we walked outside and took a sip. There's the good stuff. Pat eyed me curiously.

"Sorry bud, this is big boy stuff."

He pouted a bit, "So where are we going now?"

"Hm, give... give me a minute," I took a look around and saw nothing familiar, "Let's just follow the road and see where it takes us." He looked a bit cautious, so I added "Hey, hey, don't you trust me?"

"Of course."

"Well then let's head off."

And we would've, too, if we didn't hear a noise behind.

Spoiler

That can be anyone Unless Alv wants to improvise >.<

Spoiler

I apologize for length. But you should probably get used to it. I am long-winded.

Louis Defarge

If you were to invest the time to look at the soil, freshly preserved with a recent Spring rainfall, in a certain plot of land in Northern Colorado, you could see the process of growth happen before your very eyes. If you had all the time in the world, you could watch from start to finish, the growth of this young plant, beginning as just a seed and growing to a bud and a root, then pushing the soil multidirectionally from its path, then shooting through the atmosphere like a rocket. It goes above the ground level, using cell walls and thick fibers of carbohydrates to remain rigid as it ascends into the heavens, its rounded pod developing at the apex and rising steadily.

It fights gravity, weather, and other threats as it goes, but its momentum, the pure bliss of its uprising, carries it forth through the air. It is filled with moisture and fresh carbon dioxide as it grows, gaining pride as it continues to vertically transcend. Ands soon, as it comes out on top, its pod, now large enough to show true content, breaks all its former laws and bursts open, the petals of the flowers slowly and surely folding outward to meet the warm gaze of the sun, restoring all the power and glory of the plant that came before it.

But right now, without the time of observation, examining the great plant through all its stages of growth, it is not yet at the point of velocity.

For now it’s just a seed.

And directly below this barely surviving offspring of a once great species, one-hundred sixty feet beneath the surface of the Earth, another seed struggled to stay alive. This one had been trapped within the dirty confines of its shell for two and a half decades. This one had failed to sprout. Long had it wanted to, but its life imprisoned within a brittle shell, all its potential energy gasping and gasping trying to get a breath of fresh air. But it hadn’t come, and the attempts were liable to be crushed any second.

Don’t get me wrong, reader. There had been times in the past when this underground seed had tried to break its flimsy prison, by certain cells and processes from within. But each time it had failed, and each time there were repercussions from the waste of transferred and lost energy.

From inside the seed came the sounds of drilling, the sounds of picks on rock, the sharp clank of digging tools on compacted soil, the reverberations and tremors of whirring motors. The human pain in a scream.

I hopped down from my rock ledge, jamming the huge, rusty carabineer onto the thick nylon rope that hung down the sheer face of the wall. “Dammit!” I grunted as I slid down the stone cave and struck the floor far below with vibrations up through my knees to my shoulders. I pulled off the vest and was the first one to make it over to the screaming kid, who lay on the rocky ground.

As the other workers crowded over to the greenhorn, I assessed the situation to be bad and definitely irreversible. The man was screaming his brains out, his knees feebly kicking around, trying to move from the force that pinned him to the ground. A giant boulder crushed his arm, and his upper body was paralyzed, as his vertebrae poked through the space between crushed ribs. There was a lot of blood.

Too much blood. The aorta must have been severed by the broken bones. He was not going to make it through this.

This had been his first day on the job. His eighteenth birthday was the day before, and as was custom, being a “free” human, he was forced to join his fellow adults in the mines the day after his extra year of existence was celebrated. However, this one had looked a little younger than eighteen. The Sentients were notoriously bad at judging age, whether it be from incompetence or purpose.

When he showed up that morning, the kid was nervous. He was a pretty slight in build, white kid, probably only sixteen years old (like anyone even knows anymore). I showed him the main building above the Southside Mine and he told me his name was John. What a name, huh? I told him not to be worried, that he’d get used to the work eventually, and once you got to know your Drivers, they didn’t beat you nearly as much. He had already been trained to mine, and that wasn’t my responsibility anyway, so without further ado, Workforce 16 and our two Drivers all loaded into the little mechanical elevator and shot underground two levels to begin the thirteen hour work-day.

Within two hours, we hit a hot zone that was too unsound for the drill machines, and that meant we all had to abandon our zones and start hand-digging the Crystal out. Pickaxe in one hand and quasi-infrared scanner in the other, we scaled the rock face, looking for possible diggers.

John, just a kid, had found the first one. He had called out to us, excited at starting off his weekly quota well. I was about to go and help him with the rock when Franco, one of our Drivers, made it there first, and stopped me from coming.

“The boy can handle the d’elek himself,” the beast hummed, scratchily. “Let him do the work that we employ him for.” His birdlike, scarred and fleshy hands clenched a scourge that consisted of several leather straps bound together, weighted at every tip with sharp, heavy metal. He had it held out against the small crowd who had come to assist the newbie, and was warding us off.

Without fear, I retreated, and continued to look for hotspots, while keeping watch over the kid. The teen looked very nervous, and began to start up the brittle rock with a makeshift chisel, creating a pattern for the controlled strikes of the pickaxe. It was Mining 101, but his hands were shaking, and he was being glared at by Franco, who held the whip in his lowered hand, the creepy fingers twitching.

When he didn’t finish outlining his cut of the stone quickly, the Driver got a little frustrated. A transformation started and ended in a split second, but it was enough to let loose dirty gray smoke from his tall thin body, and inspire enough fear to make us all clutch to our respective harnesses and ledges. “Get on with it already!” the beast shouted, and John nervously jammed the chisel back onto his belt and readied the pickaxe, and it wavered back and forth in its raised grip.

He squinted, looking for a place to strike, sweat dripping down his forehead, and I realized that he didn’t have good vision. I recalled a time I had found odd earlier in the day when I asked him if he was literate, and at his affirmation, pointed him to a joke on a poster on the wall of the locker room. He had held up a small piece of glass in front of his face as he read it, cracking up. At the time, it made no sense to me, but now the purpose of that vision distorting transparent device was all too clear.

But, nevertheless, he kept lining up his strike, and was startled when the Sentient barked at him to move it along. He swung, and missed the ideal point of entry by almost a foot. The strike not hard enough, the pickaxe merely bounced off the hard rock face. The Driver was mad now. He began to yell at the kid, telling John to speed up and do it right, adding a ton of pressure to the already overburdened and troubled young man.

The kid began to hit, wildly, at the wall, in the general area of the crystal hotspot. This was not good. This rock was brittle chunks in soft binding sediments. He could cause something bad to happen here if he wasn’t careful.

The Driver, however, raged on, becoming more and more of a beast as he went, urging the boy with fear to work faster, the voice becoming a boom of a Satan in need of some Halls. I started to climb over as fast as I could, yelling to stop, yelling at the Driver to stop pushing him past safety.

But it was no good. Johnny hit a bad spot in the rock, and several large chunks dislodged themselves from the wall, falling onto his chest. The boy’s shallow crampons slipped when he lost his footing on the sheer cliff and he slid inexorably, unbelievably backwards, falling farther and farther down into the little abyss, a large, heavy rock in close pursuit.

I now recalled all this as I lay next to the dying boy, who was covered in blood and dirt and rock, trying to assure him that everything would be okay, even though we all knew it wouldn’t.

“Hey, son. It’s okay. Don’t you worry about a thing, Johnny.” My voice cracked a little, but remained in its calming, baritone style. I placed a very callused brown hand onto his cheek, gently holding him as he coughed up blood and shook violently, feeling death overtake him. Less than a minute later, he breathed his last.

This happened all too often down here, especially to greenhorns, yet this was especially heartbreaking not only because the boy was so young, but because we had not had an accident like this in more than a month. Even the Drivers had grown slightly more affable, still registering beatings to those who worked to slow, however.

“Hey, get up, what are you all doing, standing around the boy! Give him air! Get back to work-” the Sentient stopped abruptly as he took in the sight. “Shame, shame that is,” he grunted and looked upwards to see his partner, Franco staring indifferently down at the body and congregation of young John, a party that the very Driver himself had planned and hosted.

“Get this body cleaned up and get back to mining.” The older Driver ambled away, dragging one booted foot in his wake, rifle over his shoulder. Everyone in the Workforce looked at the body, and, in a final desensitized drone mentality, all started for it. Using my strong body language, in which I only needed one outstretched hand, I waved them all back, and gently dead lifted the boy from the ground, curling, and draping him around my shoulders. He didn’t weigh much, but it stilled weighed on my shoulders like nothing else, the body without a spirit.

And the whole time, I never broke my gaze with Franco, who still looked down apathetically from his ivory tower, from which the young John fell not fifteen minutes before. While his grayish blue eyes held nothing in the form of emotion, mine burned like a chemical fire. I returned his gaze with a glare that communicated no emotion other than anger and defiance as I strongly lumbered across the stone floor, back to the tunnel car, with the lifeless corpse of John on my shoulders.

Freeing one hand, I made the sign of the cross, then spit dirty saliva from my mouth, naming the fluids Franco, the Sentient Empire.

It was moments like John’s that always made me think. They made me question why we humans are doing this to ourselves, why we let these Sentients do this to us. I spit again, rubbed my mouth with a course sleeve, broke the staring contest with Franco, and continued to the car.

The event was over, but something else stared that day, and a little inspiration touched me, telling me the inklings of what was to come, sooner or later, and how my support for it would know no bounds.

The seed trembled.

Shay – Impasse

Spoiler

Shay had been hunting the woods for years, in that time he had primed his skills to a razor edge.

The instant he heard the strange voice order him not to turn around he reacted. Any other man would have raised his hand and surrendered.

But Shay knew better, surrendering to any of the bandits that lived in the forest meant death.

Jerking his bow off his back he spun around, slipping behind a massive oak by the side of the trail he had been following. An arrow split the air where he had been standing a moment before.

He had an arrow on string in an instant, and turning, spun out from behind the tree, the razor broad head primed for the spot where the arrows had been coming from.

He stopped.

Standing before him was a young woman, hardly any older than himself, long blonde hair falling about her shoulders, hard blue eyes staring straight into his. And her own broad headed arrow on string and primed for his throat.

He looked into her eyes for a moment and slowly lowered his bow, he had seen killers, and he knew when a person wasn’t one. He was sure from the easy way she carried her bow, that this woman knew how to fight, but she wasn’t a wanton killer.

She slowly lowered her own weapon as well, but they stood tensed, ready to flash off a shot and spin behind cover should the other attack. They stood there for a couple of moments until finally she spoke.

“It appears we have an impasse” She said softly, her eyes never leaving his.
He didn’t speak.

“So what are you doing so deep in the woods?” She asked again.

He didn’t want to talk to her, she was obviously not a bandit, she was too healthy, but only one thing kept coming into his head, runaway.

Helping a runaway meant death, and the Sentients weren’t terribly careful with cases. You’re caught with the runaway; you’re killed with the runaway.

But this was the wilderness; the Sentients weren’t here to catch him” Hunting,” He lied.

Slowly he returned the arrow to its quiver, though he kept on edge, ready to fire at a speck of provocation.” I don’t think that’s what you’re doing though.”

Slowly she returned her own arrow to its quiver.
“What are you doing this far into the woods?” He asked, now truly wondering.



Shays home.

Mariah looked up from the table at the sound of the door being opened.
She smiled as her brother entered, short brown hair covered in dust, and his face grim." How was work?" She asked.

"One of the workers had an accident." He stated simply, hanging his coat on a hook by the door, and shaking the dust from his clothes.

Mariah nodded to Cara, who hopped up, her long brown hair bouncing, and left the room silently." How is he?" She asked.

Jacob turned away, a pained look in his eyes." He's dead."

Mariah was shocked, accidents where common at the mines, but deaths where not common." How? Who was it?"

Jacob threw his tools on the rough wooden table." Listen" He said angrily" I don't want to talk about it! Where's Shay?"

Mariah shook her head." He isn't in yet."

Jacob frowned, glancing out the window at the sun, which had just set." Strange, he should have been back a while ago."

I hope this works

Spoiler

I hope you guys like my first post!! tell me what you think. Enjoy

"Going somewhere, human?" a guard stepped into my way.

"He wants food." the side of my mouth twitched in agitation.

Why don't you get the hell out of my way? Dumb asses. "Fetching food your master?"

I nodded. The guard standing next to him stepped toward me. His disgusting callused hand trailed along my jaw as he walked around me in a circle, his eyes running over my body. I'd never felt more naked in my life. I was forced to wear this ungodly harem get up that showed everything but the naughty parts, but then again, that's not saying much. It was ridiculously small, and I hated it.

"You are quite the beauty. For a human." he stopped in front of me to stare at my chest.

Gee, thanks for the compliment. I just stood there, waiting for them to let me pass. I wish I could slit their throats and watch them choke on their blood, but at the moment, I was in a rush. The guard's finger ran along the hem of thin article of fabric covering my chest and licked his lips. I had to fight the urge not to shudder in utter revulsion.

"Yaksha is one lucky Sentient." he whistled.

I sighed and shifted my weight to one side. "Yaksha is still waiting."

His fingers closed around my chin and he yanked my face on his direction. Being this close up to his face gave me new perspective on how horribly hideous Sentients were. They came in a variety of ugly, but the guards were specially ugly, which is probably why they're the guards. They were also giants. Giant and ugly. He gave me an grizzly gnarled grimace slash smile and said, "Don't ever let me catch you with your back turned on me."

My temper flared and I slapped his meaty hand away before shoving past him and the other guard and head towards the kitchen.

*********

"I see you finally decided to show up with my food." Yaksha's monotone voice rang out through the room.

He was sitting in a chair he called his throne with other slaves sitting around him holding his drink, fanning him with big feathers to keep him warm, and there was even someone in his lap. She couldn't have been more then thirteen years old. The poor girl looked terrified as I walked up the few steps to his "throne", and knelt down, holding the food out to him.

Before I knew what happened, the tray was slapped out of my hand and I was lifted off the ground by a large callused hand and thrown across the room. I didn't even have enough time to get off of my knees before he slapped me across my face so hard I went flying ten feet. The shock of his blow had me paralyzed, so I couldn't do much of anything when he walked over to where I was and kicked me into the.

"You stupid worthless insignificant wretch!!" he punctuated every word with vicious kick to my stomach.

When he finally stopped, it was only to pick me up by my hair and press me against the cold stone wall. His hand tightened around my neck, and after a moment began to see stars. I could feel his hot breath on my cheek. His body was blisteringly hot.

"Do not test me." he hissed in my ear.

I gave him the ugliest most defiant look I could and spat blood in his face. "Burn in hell"

His face contorted in rage slammed me down on the ground and commenced to kicking me in the ribs until he heard the satisfying sound of at least three of the breaking, and then I did scream. I managed to pull myself up to my elbows and wheeze in a breath of air. My body felt so heavy, and I was in so much pain I couldn't think straight. He knelt down beside me, tilting my head up toward him, since I sure as heel knew I couldn't do it. Boy did he looked pissed. "Be grateful I didn't kill you, and be grateful I didn't drag you into my bed chambers you dirty slut."

I would've spat in his face again if I could. I hated him with a passion like no other, and hoped he saw it in my eyes. He must have, because he smiled before letting go of me. I was too weak to get up, so I stayed there. He pushed a lock of hair out of my face and touched my cheek.

"Soon," he whispered before walking back to his throne.

The women began to scream and run away, but one wasn't fast enough. It was the little girl from before. She had fallen, but couldn't get back up in time. Yaksha grabbed her by her hair and dragged her into his bed chambers. I would've cried if I could've. Before He closed to the door, he turned back. "Take her to get her wounds tended to. I can't have her dying before i'm finished with her."

The door to his room slammed, and a few moments later, the girl's screams echoed through the room. I turned towards the wall, trying to drown out the sound I'd heard so many times before. Someone, I don't know who, picked off of the floor. I could still hear her scream down the hall and knew they would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Nya -Home Bound

Spoiler

Nya had heard the small movement the man had made, indicating his intention to draw his bow. She released an arrow at him forcing him to take cover then quickly stepped sideways in the event the man wanted to loose an arrow her way. The man, just as she predicted, withdrew from cover, bow fully drawn, and aimed in her direction. Not once had she let her concentration slip and her bow followed the man’s throat with deadly precision.
She watched the man watch her; intelligence shone from behind his blue eyes and she could tell he had come to the conclusion that, in fact, she was a runaway. She also saw something else in his eyes, life. A hunger burned in this man; he was protecting something, she decided, something dear to his heart and he would fight to the death for it.
The man gave an imperceptible nod and lowered his bow, indicating that at the moment, he wouldn’t fight her. She debated leaving her bow trained on him, but decided against it in the event that the man got suspicious and returned his bow to point.
“It appears,” she lowered her bow, “that we have come to an impasse.”
No answer.
“What are you doing so deep in the forest,” Nya was suspicious of the man. He didn’t have the look of a hunter. It’s possible he hunted here and there but she had the sneaking suspicious that that was not the reason he was here today.
For a moment she believed he would remain silent again; his eyes betrayed nothing, only the slight skip in his breathing indicated his next words would be a lie.
“Hunting.” Trying to appear at ease the man returned his arrow the quiver, though he kept his hand poised to grab it the instant she did something that spooked him.
He wasn’t scared of her, she decided, he was scared of them. A runaway like her was a liability; anyone caught talking to, hiding, feeding or fraternizing was immediately sentenced to death.
“I don’t think that’s what you’re doing.” Returning her arrow to her quiver she watched the man. Again, his eyes betrayed nothing; just the small catch in his breathing gave him up. He was young, she decided, possibly younger than her but not by much. She believed only his inexperience in talking with strangers prevented him from hiding his bodily actions, maybe she’d tell him about it. It could help him survive a little longer wherever he was from, obviously from his tan skin and built physic, he was an outside slave.
Slave. What a harsh word. At one time, the Human race were the domineering force on the planet bowing down to nothing, not even each other. Strong and powerful people brought as low as slaves. Despicable. She will help this man, she decided. He was strong and had a fighting chance; she could use him in the future, if only he wasn’t so scared of them.
“What are you doing so deep in the forest?”
She was slightly taken back that he had initiated a conversation; maybe he wasn’t as scared as she had first thought. She detected no malicious intent on his part but one could never be to careful these days.
She ignored the question, time enough for that later.
“I believe I asked why you’re here first. I know you're not a runaway, you were just scrambling moments ago to find your way back, yes?”
If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. Good.
“Well, whatever draws you back must be pretty damn important. I can show you the way if you can relax enough and promise not to skewer me with an arrow.”
He seemed to think about this change of events, looked about to deny then seemed to notice the receding sunlight.
He nodded.
“Good. Well, I don’t often travel with people I don’t know, what’s your name?”
He looked at her like she was crazy.
“You act like I just asked you to chop off your own arm! You don’t even have to tell me your real name, just tell me something that I can call you by, otherwise I’ll be forced to think of something and I can’t promise you’ll like it.”
His facial expression remained the same but his eyes seemed lighter.

Saihi- Practice

Spoiler

Saihi seethed as she watched that sad excuse of a living being taunt Ao; calm, cool and collected Saihi, seethed. She could feel Ao withdraw inside of himself trying, always trying to find the clue. He was sure that there was something that would set them free, and A’noeir had better watch his snarky self when that happened, there would be…what was the saying the humans used?
Oh yes, there would be hell to pay.
“Ao, darlings don’t tire yourself out so. We need to try and conserve our energy for The Great Release. We don’t know when the key will present itself but we need to be ready when it does.”
A’noeir and his slim ball friends stomped out of the hall, leaving an updraft that made her crystals quake in excitement.
”Ao…? Ao, I know he’s out there somewhere, don’t worry. He’s smart; they won’t find him unless he wants to be found.”
His mind was silent, a blank wall against her minds onslaught. Only he was strong enough to block his mind from being read by the others. Finally he opened his mind long enough to let a simple thought slip into hers.
”Worry not, my dear. I will set us free. Worry not.”
His wave link went dead, nothing but silence from him. The murmuring of the others told her they had caught a bit; they were awakening, and they were mad.
A while later, she was watching a bit of sunlight play on her crystals when suddenly she felt such…anger penetrate her mind. She searched for the source within the Great Hall and found nothing of that magnitude. Memories came flooding into her head, dark, black and slimy. They made her think of her people that put her here. Then she saw it, like candle light in a dark room, a small happy memory. She started to reach for it when instantly the memories and anger were cut off. Aos voice came to her once again.
“He should not be tangled with, Sai. Izar, still has not come to terms with crystallization, he has yet to master his feelings.”
Aos tone was not harsh, merely a whisper of warning to her.
“You must be getting stronger, you can feel his emotions and yet he is so far away. Wonderful, darling. “
And he withdrew again leaving her questioning; his protective shield slowly lifting to reveal only the thoughts of the others in the room.
She knew it had cost his greatly to shield her and promised herself she would practice her own more often.
Her training started immediately.

Spoiler

"My name's Shay" He said after a few moments.

She nodded."Nya"

"You're a runaway." It was more of a statement than a question.

She nodded, but he noticed curiously that there was no shame in the movement.

He sighed, he wasn't getting out of this forest on his own." Okay, I could actually really use some help."

She nodded." You live in the town?" She asked shortly." By the mine's?"

He nodded." I just wandered a bit too much while I was hunting . . ."
He was curious about her, she obviously knew how to use her bow, and he was fairly sure that the knives at her belt weren't there for decoration. What runaway slave was this?

She turned, though she made it obvious she didn't like turning her back on him, and started into the forest." This way."

He followed her carefully, runaways usually didn't fare too well in the wilderness and some went so low as to kill and rob their fellow humans to make a living. Better they not run away than get so low as that, he had always said.

The forest was getting dark fast.

"What do you do out here?" He asked after a few minutes of silent walking, his curiosity demanding information." I mean, you're a runaway. How do you survive?"

She glanced back at him, studying him cryptically for a few moments. Finally she seemed to come to some sort of decision." I'm not running you know. I'm searching for something . . . " She trailed off.

"What?"

"Well, my . . . father, always told me of a secret place where runaways would be safe." She answered." He told me that if we could find it we would be safe. We wouldn't have to live under the Sentients. And I'm looking for it."

Shay thought it seemed more like a false assurance than a real place, but he took a quick glance at the long heavy knife at Nya's belt, and decided he'd better not try to rub it in.

Suddenly she raised her hand, stopping him dead in his tracks." Did you hear that?" She asked.

He frowned." Hear what?"

Slowly he reached for his bow, he had always been told that the forest wasn't safe, that the deeper you delved into it the closer you came to the edge of the wild, the places where creatures lived that even the Sentients feared.

He had always assumed that those where stories meant too keep humans close to the Sentient's towns, but those thoughts had always taken place safely in his home. Here, deep in the forest it was quite another matter.

Suddenly there was a crashing sound in the trees behind him, and he spun around. .

Spoiler

Okay, I hope this works guys!
I hope you can build something off of this Starleene.
I was thinking some kind of monster.

Ao Mark'Zuul

Saihi. The crystals dug into my arm, sapping the rest of my energy. Her mind was full of determination. She was preparing for something.

A flicker of my mind touched the other Scientists. One, on the other side of the room, was full of rage, obsuring everything else. I tried to speak to him, but I was too weak.

I retreated my mind to my cacoon, making sure to keep a weakening layer around Saihi.

Saihi. She was like my own daughter? Yes, daughter is what the Humans call that. After her parents died during the First Motherland War, I took her in, and fueled her hatred for her felllow race, forming that into the cause of her becoming a Scientist. Of her becoming a Mudman.

I tried to turn my head, but I was too weak to do anything. So I pushed my arm into the needle of crystals, using a tactic that had just recently appeared in my mind. The pain was unbearable, the pain was --

The bridge was damaged. We couldn't control the descent. The raybands from the planet are still hitting us. I looked back to the place where I once called home. It was gone, replaced with a bright, ever growing, bulb of gas, heat, and the lives that didn't go with us.

I turned back to the controls. We couldn't enter the wormhole at this speed. I wrenched the throttle forward, and we--

The room shuddered. My mind was clearer and I had a little more energy, but not enough to communicate with the others.

The building lurched again.

This time, Saihi reached me. "What's going on, Ao?"

I tried responding, but nothing worked. The momentary relief of visiting my past was quickly vanishing, and I was getting worse.

I was dying.

Spoiler

PM if you have any messages. I want the humans to meet up before I post again

Nya

Before Shey heard the noise, Nya had picked up the distinct sound of charging footsteps and warned him. Quickly she drew her bow and whirled around and Shey followed suit. What burst through the bushes wasn’t an animal like they thought but a Scentient, a strangely misshapen Scentient, but a Scentient none the less.
“Drop your weapons, Scentient. Drop them now!” The creature looked confused, seeming to not understand her commands. The club he held in his hand was huge, come to think of it, this sentient seemed bigger than the others. Not taller, just more…muscular. She was shocked when she saw the arm that wasn’t holding the club was shriveled up, tiny nubs poking out randomly where the fingers should have been. His skin tone was off too, it looked too…human.
“Don’t shoot. Look at the arm and his skin; does he look a little like…a human?” She whispered to Shey.
“That’s impossible.” History made them both wary of this big creature, he may look dumb, but he could just be ruse.
Said creature shuffled his feet and stared warily at their bows. She looked up into his eyes. What she saw was baffling. There was nothing there, none of the usual cruel, glaring eyes that slave Scentients presented. Then again, he was wearing armor, leather armor that wouldn’t protect him from anything. A thought nibbled at her.
“Can…you…understand…me?” She spoke each word separately sounding them out and speaking very slowly.
The creature turned back to her and narrowed his eyes and concentrated, then nodded. He reminded her of the massive trolls she used to read about in books.
“Will…you…put…down... your…weapon?” Nya pointed at his club that he held aloft. He listened intently, and then shook his head.
“But if you don’t, my friend here could be forced to hurt you,” Her voice took on a persuasive tone as he listened, “You wouldn’t like that would you? I don’t want to hurt you either; you seem like a very nice…person.”
He nodded, “…Nice person…,” then glared at Shey.
“What’s your name?”
“Exper’ent,” and slapped his chest.
“You’re name is Experiment?” She looked at Shey.
“Their experimenting on their own people.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
Nya turned back to Experiment. “Do you work somewhere, I noticed your armor?”
“I…guard…”
“You’re a guard, that sounds important. Why don’t we sit down and talk about your important job. Would you like that?”
He nodded and sat down with a thump, setting his club next to him.
Nya, set her bow down, keeping an eye on the club the whole time.
“Why don’t you join us Shey?” She patted the spot next to her.
“But…,” She widened her eyes in a pleading fashion and patted the ground again, “…I think I’ll join you,” He shot a look her way and slowly released the notched arrow but kept the bow settled in his lap.
“So you have an important job? What do you do?”
“Guard…dogs. Play…feed…walk…important.” He grunted in self approval, grinning at her. Nya smiled back. He was so simple, not thinking about killing them or political matters, he just talked about his dogs in a halting, matter-of-fact way. Nya listened raptly, nodding in agreement to this and that. In a way he was like a child and though she knew he was one of them…she also knew he was part human, and she never took a humans life unless they put her in danger.
Suddenly Nya lifted her head. She heard something; it was stumbling around the forest. She looked at Experiment worried.
“Experiment, would it be ok…if some of our friends joined us?”
He looked around worried, “Friends…hurt…me?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she patted him on the shoulder, “Shey will you stay with him, I’ll go get our friends?” She didn’t tell him that the people she heard were talking about him; someone was dying, or already dead. She wasn’t sure but she had to make sure it wasn’t going to set him off.
Before she walked off she leaned down and whispered in Sheys ear, “If you kill him, I’ll kill you.”

Spoiler

Nether, the people are Jacob and Sheys family. Also, don't kill Experiment, he'll help us in the future.

Spoiler

Hey everybody. Once again, sorry for the length. Here starts the rebellion. Enjoy.

Louis Defarge

I stood there, holding the letter, a stony scowl on my face as I read the letter from Drin Stragerius.

The apparently mute boy stood by, eating some jerky that I had offered him. The kid didn’t have any body fat, and although I never had enough to eat, at least I had something. It pays when your wife has access to the kitchen of one of the richest Sentients in Colorado.

I was just getting off the machine for a routine bare-hander when he appeared from the direction of the elevator. I continued to work the rock until after the Drivers had finished searching him and took half the dry meat from Candice’s paper bag. Franco laughed as he walked towards me.

The kid was a little frightened, but I’m assuming that had to do with the fact that we were hundreds of feet underground in a structurally unsound tunnel. It didn’t help that two trodden mud Sentients taunted him, carrying nasty looking German carbines and shoddy whips. I wasn’t much of a fairy either, towering over him, shoulders twice as broad and looking quite tempered.

But behind the fear, there was a hardness in his eyes, the stroke of touch in a feathered brush, the thorn in the rose. This young teenager seemed to be a stone rejected by the builders, yet his importance in coming to bring me this letter would make him the cornerstone of our salvation from the Sentient scum.

I didn’t really believe that he couldn’t talk, but it really wasn’t my business, so I offered him some jerky and began to read the letter, a task in which I utilized my middle school level education and literacy lessons from Goodwife Defarge.

After I had read it, my hands trembled, and I let my arms slowly descend to my waist, eyes never lowering. Would he really-?

I quickly read the letter again, just so I could hold faith in my own consciousness. I tightened my core and realized that this was not a dream. What was written on the paper was real, and it was addressed to me.

Drin was on our side.

I resolve, I was almost caught off guard that we had sides in the first place, but the meaning of this letter was clear. We had some of the flesh-asses on our side in spirit, in terms of funds and supplies, but the actual revolt was up to us. It was up to me. I must have had a higher reputation in town than I expected. Perhaps the story of my visual showdown with Franco, a dead child wrapped around my shoulders had gotten out, and had reached the pinnacle of Sentient aristocracy.

I still couldn’t believe that out of all of them, it was Drin that wanted to help us rebel. Even though Candice constantly assures me that he never laid a finger on her in her whole life of service to him, he was a harsh employer, a greedy alien who let people starve for his own comfort and had dissenters publicly executed. His young slave who had brought me this note looked like he had been used as a punching bag, which was probably the case. There must have been something in it for the old wrinkle-skin besides moral complacency.

It didn’t matter though, because now I was thinking of young John, the look in his face as his mouth ejaculated blood, as he painfully passed from this world. I was thinking about Ferris Lanyard, and Tiberius, and everyone else in the mines who died for the sake of some stupid Sentient mining operation.

Human consequence aside, what were these beasts LOOKING FOR? The little crystals, the power source for the machines, a commodity that already overflowed in abundance, Sentients swimming in silver bathtubs of wealth. How could they put the human race through all this torture, all this death?

I was thinking of all of this, and barely even realized that I had let the letter drop to the ground, along with my pick-axe, and was walking towards the two drivers, who stood a short ways away, having a bull session about human women they had raped, having a jolly good time.

Eventually, they noticed me coming, shoulders back, chest inflated, hands clenching and unclenching, and began to shout at me.

“Defarge! Stop where you are!”

Franco stepped forward and pointed his firearm at my head. “Defarge, turn around and get back to d’elek, or by all means, I will blow the s*** from the back of your head so fast you will have the image of a bullet hole frozen in your stinking eyes for eternity!”

Brashly unafraid, I foolishly continued to walk towards them, gaining a little momentum and starting to breathe heavy, eyes narrowing. It didn’t seem to sink in that if I continued, I would die.

I heard my fellow workers dismount from their equipment and stations, and begin to catch on to the move I was making, unaware that I was doing something very stupid. They followed yet, however, and soon I had several people behind me, Kevin, John P, the mute kid, Andy, all ready for a f- Wait, the kid?

I turned quickly back, and as I did, Franco ripped off a shot that missed my shoulder and exploded on the rock wall a ways back.

Then the ceiling fell in.

The roars of trembling, vibrating rock filled the underground, stone-walled cavern in which we resided pumped through the space and the scenery began to crumble around us, rocks falling all over, striking our equipment. It seemed an epiphany of nature, the destruction this earthquake reeking havoc in the most beautiful way you could imagine.

Everyone, including the Sentients gazed up, in shock, at the wondrous gray spectrum of the falling rock and smoke, the shaking ground beneath our feet not even noticed for a split second.

I was the first to react, and as the Drivers tried to take cover from the massive boulders that slumped themselves around the cave with massive bangs and huge repercussions, I yelled loudly and sprinted towards them. I could vaguely hear other behind me. Whether or not they were coming with me, or panicking amidst the falling rock was unknown, because my charge on the Drivers was focused, low, in a Football tackling position.

They realized they were too late at the last second, when I bulled over Franco, hitting him off guard and pummeling his face with my gloveless hands. My knuckles were tough, but they still managed to split on the Driver’s face.

After several quick, but powerful jabs, I leaped up, grabbed his rifle, pulled the gun, which was lighter than I expected- but also seemed bigger- at the chest of the other Sentient and pulled my finger towards the trigger guard, feeling the light resistance, then the opposite leeway of the hammer being freed.

The rifle exploded at the scared and confused monster, and he was blown back a little, a huge, bloody hole ripped in his abdomen. Having shot from the hip, my whole body jolted backwards a little and I nearly lost my balance. He looked bewildered, so I took the time to pull the muzzle up and fix the stock on my shoulder.

I fired again, but seeing no reaction, I knew I had missed. I squeezed off another three shots, two wildly sailing around him, the third striking the beats in the crown, blowing off the top of his head, causing him to fall, dropping the gun that he had been pointing at me. I rushed over, and was ripped up and down as I emptied the magazine into the already dead Sentient.

Franco began to stir, and my dry-firing yielding no effect, I flipped the carbine and beat him in the head with the butt repeatedly until there was no way his brain didn’t look like a Van Gogh painting.

I breathed heavy and looked up at the mute kid, who was standing right in front of the bodies, obviously the one I heard following me. His mouth hung open a little, and I was about to say something when the walls rumbled again. Another earthquake was coming.

I ripped the ammunition belt off Franco’s lifeless corpse and picked up the other guard’s gun, identical to the one I had just used. Athletically hopping over the dead bodies, I pressed a gun into Quiet Kid’s hands and put my hand on his shoulder.

We crouched and ran, avoiding falling rubble that once more fell, this time in such great qualities that it was hard to tell our direction.

Soon, we were getting walled off. I could no longer see any of the other workers, and I vaguely hoped that they were alright. We ran through a maze of fallen rock, and I was sickened to see a bloody hand sticking out from one pile, not moving.

I kept us going though.

Then out of nowhere, the world once again stopped breaking, but the confusion was not over yet. Exposed by the recent rock fall, there was an alien site in the dark gray and brownish clay and stone that made up our stone prison. A wall of concrete stuck out of a rock face. QK and I edged up to it.

“What the hell is that?” I asked under my breath. I didn’t expect a verbal response from QK, and I didn’t get one, so we merely edged on, rifles in hand.

This wasn’t just a piece of concrete. This deep, under this layer of soil, it had to serve a purpose. It had to be an… underground building or something. And if it was a building, there had to be a way in.

The one we found probably wasn’t intentional though, part of the slab or mortar being blasted off by some of the falling rock. It left a gaping, rubbly hole, big enough for us both to step through.

The two of us approached the hole carefully, and looking inside the room, saw only blackness. I shrugged to the kid and stepped inside the hole, careful to land on a flat surface. He followed.

I unclipped a flashlight from my work belt and started to ask QK a question when the lights blared on, blinding us momentarily.

Staring us straight in the face was the muzzle of a large machine gun. Behind it was an old man. A very old man. He seemed just as shocked to see us as we were to see him. The old man stood up a little, still pointing the steel instrument of death at us, but a line of worry crossing his brow. “Who are you?” The voice was old and raspy.

We said nothing, guns still lowered, afraid to move a muscle.

“Oh no. They’ve already found us…” The man collapsed back into his seat and tears began to fall down his wrinkly cheeks. As he did, he seemed to change, to transform a little, to give off some light smoke, to smoothen himself, feature-wise. I realized that this was no man.

This was something that no man had seen since the end of the War. And it was crying, holding a huge gun to us, and rocking back and forth on the chair.

This was a Mudman.

Spoiler

Hey. Just so you know, the Scientist he meets is also my character, and I will post next as that person, so ShadowVyper don't get any ideas.