Black and White 2: Godless Age
Prologue: Exodus
Over a thousand years have passed since the gods warred. Two rose above all others; Nemesis and the One of Many Names, who did battle upon the ancient isle of Aztlan and sealed the fate of Eden forever. The One of Many Names triumphed, and in His triumph banished all other gods from the world. For a time He ruled, then He too passed from the world.
Over a thousand years have passed, and no god hears man's cries now. Now, as the world crumbles around my ears, I can't help but wonder what my life would have been like if there had been no betrayal, if the Grecian-Egyptian alliance had never crumbled, if the Aztecs had never come...
My name is Euronymous and it is my hope that someone, someday, will read these words. Even if that someone is you, Tezomoc. Know that once the Greek city of Athens stood grand and mighty amid the Thousand Islands. We had dozens of colonies, we traded the breadth and width of Eden and we knew peace - peace backed by strength.
I curse the traitor Nrahotep whose long deceit sundered first his people, then our own. It was he who opened the gates of Memphis. It was he who burned the Egyptian fleets, whose assassins murdered our ship captains. It was he who led the Aztec fleet to crush the remnants of our own navy, who forced us back from our colonies to Athens in defence.
It is he who leads the attack upon us now, and I pray to Zeus that he will be struck down before the dusk comes. The king is fallen, dead in the first wave of attacks, and so have his heirs fallen also. The people are looking to me as high priest to defend them, but our hopes are slim. With no navy to escape this would seem the end, but I place what faith I have left not in Zeus, but in my disciple Demetrios. Perhaps he may finally be able to open the gate, to take a few of us away from certain doom.
I only hopeNrahotep withdrew his sword from Euronymous' back and wiped the blade on the priest's robe. He picked up the note and scanned through the hastily scribbled testament. Nrahotep crumpled the note in his hand and raised his sword.
"Find the acolyte Demetrios!" he shouted to his men. "Let's leave these dogs no place to hide!"
---===---
Demetrios frantically checked the alignment of the crystals again. No change. Everything was perfectly arranged as the ancient rites called for, but Demetrios was no closer to creating a portal than he was when he had started his idle research five years before. The rite called upon divine intervention and he had called upon Zeus, upon Ares, even upon Aphrodite and (although he would never tell Euronymous) even upon the pagan names for the Many-Named. Nothing. Not so much as a whisper of a divine spark. Did Zeus truly intend for them to perish this day, or... or was He even listening at all?
Demetrios' thoughts were scattered by the sound of screaming and clanging metal from the temple's outer sanctum. The Aztecs were here. He considered trying to scrape together his equipment, but what would be the point? Instead he raised his pathetic sacrificial dagger in token defiance of the soldiers that would surely burst through the archway.
The fighting continued longer than Demetrios had expected, to the point where his initial flood of adrenaline was fading, replaced by a sense of awkwardness. Could Thanatos hurry up and claim him already? The suspense would kill him before the Aztecs did at this rate.
A bloodied figure burst through the doorway, dressed not in the war feathers of Aztlan but the stylised leather armour (and dog-headed helm) of an Egyptian warlord. He had an obsidian-edged macahiutl in one hand and a broken bronze waraxe in the other, and blood oozed from multiple open wounds. An arrow shaft was buried deep in his thigh.
"Demetrios," coughed the ragged Egyptian. "I... I have come to..."
He collapsed. Demetrios kept his distance, blade raised, then edged forward and gave the body a little kick. Then he kicked away the two weapons and stood back, possessed of an even greater feeling of awkwardness than before.
Nrahotep the great betrayer, scourge of Egypt and doom of Greece was lying at Demetrios' feet. The acolyte had to admit to feeling a little underwhelmed and possibly disappointed.
Huh. I mean; very well done our Greek soldiers, no complaint there, he thought,
but I'm pretty sure the epics were quite clear that when your nemesis appears you should have a fight to the death, not that he should basically collapse from injury and exhaustion before he gets within three paces of you.Demetrios gave the body another kick, letting the sacrificial knife fall to his side. Blood was still flowing from the wounds, albeit slowly, so he supposed Nrahotep must still be alive. The sound of continued fighting in the temple and beyond floated back into his ears and he shook himself into the present. Zeus damn it, this was no time to be daydreaming, he had a city to save! Somehow.
Gods, he needed a miracle right now.
Nrahotep lurched up from the floor and made a grab for Demetrios' legs. Demetrios screamed and backpedalled until he hit the marble sanctum wall. The Egyptian lurched up onto his elbows for a moment before they gave way and he unceremoniously slumped to the floor once more. In his throes, a necklace was exposed from where it hid beneath his armour.
The necklace was a simple leather thong holding what appeared to be a fragment of crystal, or perhaps a piece of mirrored glass with facets. It reflected the light so brightly - no, it
shone from some hidden source within. Demetrios knelt down and, ready to stab Nrahotep if need be, cut the thong and pulled away the necklace. On an impulse he tied it around his own neck.
Demetrios felt himself flooded with emotion; joy and sorrow and rage and others he knew not what. He doubled over and felt himself retch from the shock, but the sensation soon passed and dulled into the background. He wondered what-
The world exploded. Demetrios dived to the ground, but chips of marble buried themselves in his arm and shoulder. The catapult stone carried on through the inner sanctum and out into the world. When his ears ceased ringing, Demetrios absent-mindedly pulled one of the chips out of his shoulder; he felt blood flow but not spurt. Shock dulled pain, both shock of the attack and what he could now see beyond the temple.
There upon the hill overlooking Athens was a great and terrible beast, a thing of nightmares. An ape, matted with blackened and patchy fur, stood taller than the city walls. It bellowed to the sky, a roar that made Demetrios' fear want to burn a hole through his heart and flee.
A Creature. The Aztecs had summoned a Creature. Scripture said that only a god could do so, could do so and expect it to obey. Had the Many Named returned, and worse did it mean He stood upon their side?
As the creature howled it raised its hands and Demetrios watched ribbons of fire burst into being around them, swirling like currents in some evil storm. Was he actually witnessing a miracle?
The ground shook as before Demetrios' eyes a mound, then a hill, then a mountain came into being where once had stood houses, streets, people. Some faint part of his mind identified a crumbling piece of rubble upon the rising terrain as the tavern where he had spent his sixteenth birthday.
The world exploded again. The mountain became a volcano and fire and ash spewed first into the sky, then scorched the ground below. Demetrios' city, his people, his home, were blazing into so much ash.
The young acolyte turned to the relatively intact half of the city where the fight was still going strong. He was vaguely aware that the fighting in the temple had ceased, but gave no thought to what that might bode. The Aztecs vastly outnumbered population and soldiers both; this was no occupation, it was genocide. The citizenry had fought back as best they can, both by force of arms and trickery; Demetrios smiled grimly as stacks of blazing hay roasted a wave of Aztec troops. Yet it was only a matter of time before they won out.
A divine spark...
Scripture held that once the gods had sacrificed men and women upon their altars, let their blood flow and their bodies char because it pleased them, gave them strength. Was it their life that gave the gods such power, or was it their passing? The Aztecs continued such sacrfices to this day, and here they wielded power Demetrios had only dreamed. What had he to lose?
A quick check of the pulse told the acolyte that Nrahotep was barely alive, so he dragged the Egyptian into the centre of the circle prepared for the rite. Demetrios felt natural hesitation; he had only performed a sacrifice once, when he was permitted to kill the bull at last year's harvest festival. He had missed the first time and the beast had squealed horribly before he made the second blow and finished it.
Demetrios plunged the knife into Nrahotep's throat. It jammed awkwardly. Demetrios tried to pull it out but it only wedged in harder. Blood started spraying out around the edge of the blade, getting over Demetrios' robes and making the handle slippery. He put his foot down on the Egyptian's chest and yanked the blade out through brute force. The sacrificial knife slid out of his fingers and skittered across the floor. Blood spurted in a clean jet out of the dying man's throat; stronger, then weaker, then stronger, then weaker still. Demetrios watched with a mixture of fascination and horror as the flow of blood dulled, then stopped altogether.
He could never properly describe the sensation, but some part of him could feel the Egyptian die. It felt like wrenching out one of his own teeth.
The mirrored glass around Demetrios' neck burst into brilliant white light, as did the crystals and salt of the rite's circle. Demetrios felt a flood of images and sensations; comfort, home, a cold summer and winter snow. His mind snapped back to Athens, but not to Demetrios. He found himself watching the chaos beyond the temple and tried to focus in on a single point; a crowd of panicking citizens being butchered by archers on the wall. As he did so, a brilliant vortex of silver light came into being in the square. With nowhere else to go, people abandoned all caution and hurried desperately into the vortex. Demetrios felt them go... somewhere.
Demetrios felt his attention slip and suddenly he was dully aware of everything again. The vortex vanished. He tried to focus back on the original point but instead saw a circle of houses and trees blocked off by a pillar. The vortex reappeared by the houses and more citizens ran to whatever possibly safety it might offer in the fleeting moments before Demetrios' focus broke again. He was vaguely aware that a moment later, barrels of olive oil reached flash point and exploded, killing everyone left in the circle.
Fire seared his mind as the Creature raised its arms again. A new hill began to form beneath the second half of the city; the ape cared little if the Aztec soldiers died in its wake. Demetrios tried to focus in on it, but his mind was drawn instead to a young acolyte in a shattered temple, surrounded by shining crystals. Behind him, three Aztec soldiers stepped into the room. One raised his macahuitl to strike a killing blow.
Self-preservation kicked in. Demetrios felt the whole world go silver, then felt it shudder and be carried away as if by some terrible storm. His senses overloaded and he saw and felt nothing but white for a handful of seconds before information slowly trickled back in.
---===---
In Athens, a macahuitl passed harmlessly through a flash of silver light where once a young Greek had sat. The soldiers spent a moment in confusion, then became aware of the crack forming in the temple floor. Just outside, they saw a third peak begin to rise...
---===---
Demetrios came to surrounded by confused, angry and fearful people. To his relief, they were at least Greek people. Someone helped him up; he recognised the man as one of the old guard captains. One familiar face at least.
Some of the crowd were shouting, arguing or crying. Others were silent and despondant, looking for anyone to tell them what had happened or even why. Demetrios remembered that apart from rumours and hearsay, most of them had only the roughest idea of the war with the Aztecs before it came to their doorstep.
Demetrios tried to speak. His mouth failed to make words and a handful of garbled syllables came out. Though not his intended effect, this did get the crowd to quieten. A few people spoke up, then several more.
"What happened?" "Did Zeus save us?" "Did you save us?"
"What happened to my family?" "Why were the Aztecs attacking us?" "Those were the Aztecs? Gods..."
"What happened?" "Why did Zeus let them attack us?" "What did we do wrong?" "What did you do wrong?" "Did you do this?" "Was it your fault?"
"What happened?" "Where are we?" "Who are you?"
"What happened?""Enough!" shouted Demetrios, rather more forcefully than he had intended. To his quiet surprise the crowd did indeed stop talking. Demetrios brushed himself down and tried his best to compose himself and look vaguely as if he knew what was happening.
"This is a time of trials," he invented quickly, "a test put upon us by Zeus to try our faith and our resolve. Many failed that test.
You did not, and that is why you were saved." Demetrios honestly had no idea what he was saying, these were literally the first words to come out of his head. Later, he would seriously regret that.
"Zeus has heard your plight and answered you. The Aztecs attacked us because we were -"
Oh gods, think of something! "- decadent -"
Damn it. It'll do. "- and fell from the ways the gods gave us. Yet Zeus has given us another chance, just as He
will give you the chance and power to avenge your fathers, your brothers, your sisters, your mothers, but it is a chance you must earn!" Demetrios felt that he could at least try to put some sense into this speech, so he added; "But not yet. We are few and they are many, we are weak and they are strong, we are alone and they have allies. This will change, with Zeus' guidance, but first we must rest and recover. Only then can be plan revenge."
The crowd seemed to be vaguely mollified by this, so Demetrios took the opportunity to walk away toward one of the buildings in the distance in what he hoped was a dignified and meaningful manner; or at least one that indicated he had some idea what he was doing.
He really, really didn't.
Apologies to the other B&W2 thread going on. I'll be tackling things a little differently anyway.
This is going to be a mortal run of Black & White 2. The rules are simple; zero divine intervention. A certain amount of picking up and moving things is acceptable (if it can conceivably be done by a team of twenty people it's fine) but no throwing huge boulders without catapults and no miracles whatsoever.
Except perhaps Epics, but we'll get back to those. The Creature is going to be a necessary exception, but the Creature won't get miracles either and I will take steps to remove it from general gameplay as much as possible (chiefly by sticking it on a short leash well away from civilisation).
Otherwise, everything must be done by mortal hands. Specialists can be assigned and buildings can be built, but everything has to be fetched and carried, chopped, built and forged by the hand of man.
Further apologies for image quality; I'm running this on a laptop because I don't have a modern computer, so everything is set to the lowest graphics to make the game playable. It shouldn't be too bad.
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Topic: Black and White 2: Godless Age (Read 3233 times)