Post by Lady Hammer on Sept 13, 2007 11:07:16 GMT -5
K', so this is an old diary-format sci-fi story that I did awhile ago (and I mean while ago) and it's not that good 'cause it's so damned purple, but I thought it might help some of you who are planning diary-stories to be more... descriptive. And to elaborate more.
Date
12.81.XXXI, Month 2.
: That which surrenders is only indeeded foul and treacherous. :
The putrid winds from the Landfill mingled with the purple skies of Kitratha, and the warm air of the coming Hot season slowly began to show. This time of year on Kitratha always made me ill, and I could tell that the other Sisters in my retinue felt the same way. The scent made my stomach churn. Not only was it the stench, but the sickly warm humidity of the air. The nauseating smell wasn’t only at the landfill, either. It lingered all around. Kitratha was home to many disgusting forms of plant life that the whole of the Inquisition hated to encounter. They said that if you got an assignment on Kitratha, you were either a rookie, or just very unfortunate.
They considered us rookies.
I had only been in the Inquisition for a few years as a mere Expendable, and only because my life held nothing else worth holding onto. But then, the formation of a new chapter happened, and I was made a Sisterhood Commander. Most likely because all of the other Expendable sisters had died in the last battle, which was defense on our part. That’s a time I’ll never forget. I wasn’t present in that battle. I didn’t even know it happened until it was over. Not much to forget.
So, putting me in charge of a retinue in the Sisterhood hasn’t shown much turnout. We’re a horribly weak bunch. No experience, except what our measly training rounds have given us, and most of us have frail bodies, like normal women. Except our gunner. She wasn’t frail, and she wasn’t feminine. Sapphira was butch and damn right serious.
On this day, Sapphira put me through something that will be forever engraved in the back of my mind, playing over and over again.
We were at the Landfill on Kitratha’s capitol, Deinwa. Our assignment was to seek and destroy a group of cultists that had taken hostage a cleric of Kitratha’s most royal family. The Dage Vita Alcheox. She was the most saintly of all priestesses I’d ever heard of on this planet, and in the name of the Hierophants, I would do my duty. The search had taken us the Deinwa Landfill, after our pilot, Rufina, chased down one of the cultist’s old-modeled stellar speeders hiding out in a countryside factory. I never thought anything of it until Sapphira pointed out a strange significance.
The factory was an old typewriter factory abandoned in the late years of the 30th millennium. Typewriter factories weren’t only abandoned in Kitratha because the form of record-keeping was obsolete, but because a band of archivist looters had gone more insane than noted for, and savagely massacred the scribes working in the factories. The backstory is quite amazing - the thought of one man thinking that to slaughter an Ancient for their knowledge is a working and complete plan absolutely befuddles me. On Kitratha, to be a scribe, one must be an Ancient - a being of over 200 years. Not many people make it that far anymore, here.
Knowing that this particular band of cultists we’re chasing had been at that factory made me wonder. Rufina managed to chase the cultists down to the Landfill, where they promptly crashed into a Waste Management Spire. My retinue began to hunt for survivors. We knew they had survived. It’s not often you come across someone so hardcore that they die to keep their secret safe. At least my retinue won‘t.
“Seraphine, I think I see something over there… something’s moving. All officials and workers at the Landfill were issued an evacuation order this morning so we could come in,” Sister Scarletina said, “So it’s no one that should be here.”
Scarletina was young. Too young, I thought, to be in the Inquisition. It’s true that no age is unreasonable to serve the Hierophants, but she wasn’t even 17. She was such a pretty little girl, with a nice, small and attractive body, and a dainty frame. She served many purposes in my retinue, as her talents seemed to be limitless, but… she had so much ahead of her. Her story was unique, I thought. Her parents died of the Chaos Veins, which was usual for where she lived. As an orphan, she lived at the St. Kedo Chapel on Dulcio, until at age 12, the Inquisition adopted her for her amazing prayer skills.
I shook my head out of memory lane. Scarletina’s long, silvery, pale blonde hair fluttered in the faint wind, and I noticed everyone else’s eyes on me.
“Rufina, take Sapphira with you on the Earthbike, but make it a slow path, and keep your eyes on whatever’s moving. The rest of you will follow me, and we’ll head over on foot,” I told them. I had no tactical skills, so I didn’t really know why what I was doing mattered. Supposedly, having more than one group makes things more convenient if you’re in trouble.
Rufina hopped onto the Earthbike with Sapphira in the backseat, and the two slowly sped on. The Earthbike wasn’t exactly a fast vehicle, anyway. But, Sapphira’s deep blue eyes stayed securely on my frame until we were out of her sight.
The others in my retinue were Isadora, a 20 year old melee combatant; Ophelia, of 22 years, who was a heavy machinery operator and competent mechanic; and Lacine, a 26 year old who had only been in my retinue for a month. She was a very skilled cryptographer, and psychically received coded messages from the Inquisition, so the chances of us getting intercepted were very minimal.
We headed over to where activity had been sighted, our heavy armor clanking ridiculously. It was then that I noticed the activity in the distance suddenly stop, and I felt a chill down my spine. Once again, if felt as though eyes were on me. And then… something whizzed past me.
The next thing I knew, Sapphira’s deep voice was suddenly shouting in my ear from my vox set.
“Seraphine! Seraphine, watch out! Rufe and I are going after them! I see them! They see you!”
But I was too transfixed to notice what was going on. That which had whizzed past me only but a few minutes ago had landed just mere feet behind me. I could sense it. It tingled my aura, and Lacine and Scarletina knew.
“Seraphine, wait! Stay there!” Lacine told me, timidly going to inspect the strange object that my back was still turned to. However, I turned around, and saw a strange broach-looking object lying in a pile of unidentifiable decaying material. It was shiny and copper, with some opalescent gem in its center.
“… What is that?” I inquired, going up to it.
“Seraphine, don’t touch that!” Lacine told me once more, trying to hold me back.
“It’s magic!” Sapphira’s voice came yelling to me in my vox set once again. “It’s their magic! Has to be! It’s evidence!”
That which it was! So I hurriedly scooped it up.
Bad idea.
Sapphira is a pressuring woman.
As soon as the object entered my hands and was set in my line of sight, the opalescent gem let out a beam of solar light burning right into my left eye. Searing pain was the last thing I remembered before losing my consciousness to a disgusting feeling of sharp needles scratching deeply into my skin. A psyche bomb.
The day I lost my left eye was that day on Kitratha.
Date
12.81.XXXI, Month 2.
: That which surrenders is only indeeded foul and treacherous. :
The putrid winds from the Landfill mingled with the purple skies of Kitratha, and the warm air of the coming Hot season slowly began to show. This time of year on Kitratha always made me ill, and I could tell that the other Sisters in my retinue felt the same way. The scent made my stomach churn. Not only was it the stench, but the sickly warm humidity of the air. The nauseating smell wasn’t only at the landfill, either. It lingered all around. Kitratha was home to many disgusting forms of plant life that the whole of the Inquisition hated to encounter. They said that if you got an assignment on Kitratha, you were either a rookie, or just very unfortunate.
They considered us rookies.
I had only been in the Inquisition for a few years as a mere Expendable, and only because my life held nothing else worth holding onto. But then, the formation of a new chapter happened, and I was made a Sisterhood Commander. Most likely because all of the other Expendable sisters had died in the last battle, which was defense on our part. That’s a time I’ll never forget. I wasn’t present in that battle. I didn’t even know it happened until it was over. Not much to forget.
So, putting me in charge of a retinue in the Sisterhood hasn’t shown much turnout. We’re a horribly weak bunch. No experience, except what our measly training rounds have given us, and most of us have frail bodies, like normal women. Except our gunner. She wasn’t frail, and she wasn’t feminine. Sapphira was butch and damn right serious.
On this day, Sapphira put me through something that will be forever engraved in the back of my mind, playing over and over again.
We were at the Landfill on Kitratha’s capitol, Deinwa. Our assignment was to seek and destroy a group of cultists that had taken hostage a cleric of Kitratha’s most royal family. The Dage Vita Alcheox. She was the most saintly of all priestesses I’d ever heard of on this planet, and in the name of the Hierophants, I would do my duty. The search had taken us the Deinwa Landfill, after our pilot, Rufina, chased down one of the cultist’s old-modeled stellar speeders hiding out in a countryside factory. I never thought anything of it until Sapphira pointed out a strange significance.
The factory was an old typewriter factory abandoned in the late years of the 30th millennium. Typewriter factories weren’t only abandoned in Kitratha because the form of record-keeping was obsolete, but because a band of archivist looters had gone more insane than noted for, and savagely massacred the scribes working in the factories. The backstory is quite amazing - the thought of one man thinking that to slaughter an Ancient for their knowledge is a working and complete plan absolutely befuddles me. On Kitratha, to be a scribe, one must be an Ancient - a being of over 200 years. Not many people make it that far anymore, here.
Knowing that this particular band of cultists we’re chasing had been at that factory made me wonder. Rufina managed to chase the cultists down to the Landfill, where they promptly crashed into a Waste Management Spire. My retinue began to hunt for survivors. We knew they had survived. It’s not often you come across someone so hardcore that they die to keep their secret safe. At least my retinue won‘t.
“Seraphine, I think I see something over there… something’s moving. All officials and workers at the Landfill were issued an evacuation order this morning so we could come in,” Sister Scarletina said, “So it’s no one that should be here.”
Scarletina was young. Too young, I thought, to be in the Inquisition. It’s true that no age is unreasonable to serve the Hierophants, but she wasn’t even 17. She was such a pretty little girl, with a nice, small and attractive body, and a dainty frame. She served many purposes in my retinue, as her talents seemed to be limitless, but… she had so much ahead of her. Her story was unique, I thought. Her parents died of the Chaos Veins, which was usual for where she lived. As an orphan, she lived at the St. Kedo Chapel on Dulcio, until at age 12, the Inquisition adopted her for her amazing prayer skills.
I shook my head out of memory lane. Scarletina’s long, silvery, pale blonde hair fluttered in the faint wind, and I noticed everyone else’s eyes on me.
“Rufina, take Sapphira with you on the Earthbike, but make it a slow path, and keep your eyes on whatever’s moving. The rest of you will follow me, and we’ll head over on foot,” I told them. I had no tactical skills, so I didn’t really know why what I was doing mattered. Supposedly, having more than one group makes things more convenient if you’re in trouble.
Rufina hopped onto the Earthbike with Sapphira in the backseat, and the two slowly sped on. The Earthbike wasn’t exactly a fast vehicle, anyway. But, Sapphira’s deep blue eyes stayed securely on my frame until we were out of her sight.
The others in my retinue were Isadora, a 20 year old melee combatant; Ophelia, of 22 years, who was a heavy machinery operator and competent mechanic; and Lacine, a 26 year old who had only been in my retinue for a month. She was a very skilled cryptographer, and psychically received coded messages from the Inquisition, so the chances of us getting intercepted were very minimal.
We headed over to where activity had been sighted, our heavy armor clanking ridiculously. It was then that I noticed the activity in the distance suddenly stop, and I felt a chill down my spine. Once again, if felt as though eyes were on me. And then… something whizzed past me.
The next thing I knew, Sapphira’s deep voice was suddenly shouting in my ear from my vox set.
“Seraphine! Seraphine, watch out! Rufe and I are going after them! I see them! They see you!”
But I was too transfixed to notice what was going on. That which had whizzed past me only but a few minutes ago had landed just mere feet behind me. I could sense it. It tingled my aura, and Lacine and Scarletina knew.
“Seraphine, wait! Stay there!” Lacine told me, timidly going to inspect the strange object that my back was still turned to. However, I turned around, and saw a strange broach-looking object lying in a pile of unidentifiable decaying material. It was shiny and copper, with some opalescent gem in its center.
“… What is that?” I inquired, going up to it.
“Seraphine, don’t touch that!” Lacine told me once more, trying to hold me back.
“It’s magic!” Sapphira’s voice came yelling to me in my vox set once again. “It’s their magic! Has to be! It’s evidence!”
That which it was! So I hurriedly scooped it up.
Bad idea.
Sapphira is a pressuring woman.
As soon as the object entered my hands and was set in my line of sight, the opalescent gem let out a beam of solar light burning right into my left eye. Searing pain was the last thing I remembered before losing my consciousness to a disgusting feeling of sharp needles scratching deeply into my skin. A psyche bomb.
The day I lost my left eye was that day on Kitratha.
! Love the mixed sci-fi and fantasy themes, really gets the juices flowing. I think if you did it right this could be one hell of a read.
lol... and thanks for the comment. ^^ It's nice to know that something I wrote so long ago (though I had put the utmost heart into it!) is still good!