Let's Play The Spirit Engine 2

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Chapter 7: Back to Nature

Part 4: New World Order

The Maw!

I like this place already.



SPIIDEERRRSSSS



These spiders don't revive after dying normally.

They just get replaced on the spot by even bigger spiders.



Those are, in turn, replaced be larger, angrier spiders!



Defeated red spiders stay down for a long time to make up for it.

Once one goes down, the battle's as good as done.




Marvellous. We can come back in twenty years and see waht's sprouted. What a bunch of fools we are. I bet that old witch is sat up in her tree, having a good chuckle at our expense.




There we go. Aren't they beautiful? Have a little faith, Ionae.


Well, I'm not stepping out there. They don't look at all steady. You can go first, PyanPau, since you planted them.


Careful now. We don't know how these people will react to outsiders, but they've lived alone out here for countless generations. We should approach them carefully.




We're looking for the young woman who sought refuge here. She needs our help. Where is she?


We can no longer protect her. We thought we could, but we were wrong. In the end, it was too dangerous for her to remain alive.


Good grief! She came to you looking for help! What have you done?


We haven't harmed her! We could never do such a thing. Our ancestors left the Old World to escape such sins, and took a vow never to repeat them here.
But even our most sacred principles mean nothing to the vengeful nature of a man awoken from the dream you share.
Please forgive us. In the end, we weren't strong enough to do what had to be done. That is why, when the masked stranger crossed the mists further north, we let him and his lost knowledge pass.


Oh no, the Keepers! They got here first!


Dammit, woman, get out of our way!






Nothing but ashes. My task is complete. You people may do with me as you wish. I will give you no pleasure in my ending.


Then at least tell us why! So many innocent people killed, for what end? What are you trying to accomplish?


You... do not know? When we first saw you with the Prince's guard in Bluefeather forest, we thought that you did his bidding. You have come so far and fought so hard, all in his service.


Parliamentarian Batiste? What are you talking about? The boy was trying to end this madness.


End? No, his madness is only just beginning. What assembled here was the last of our order's strength, now lain broken. You may be our last chance to stop him if you can slay the remaining child.
We Keepers seek to maintain Order in all things. The world we inhabit is a delicate construct, built upon stolen memory. But we are too many now, even for our benevolent guardians to control.
Should that memory be returned, the truth will destroy all they have sought to build. The people will lust for power past, and this reign of simple peace and prosperity will be lost.
The past is known to few humans, and even then only in parts. Our Elders knew enough to hide it and the founders of this Enclave knew enough to fear it.
Now the Prince knows something of it, too. He seeks to cast down this benevolent Order and wield a force long since buried. He needs access to the vaults beneath medea, to the World Eye.
There are few left now whose blood runs pure enough to unlock it. We have destroyed them all, save for the one girl you took from us. Where is she?


Isabelle? We left her someplace safe. She isn't with the Prince.


You're sure? Listen to me. If you only bllieve one thing I say, let it be this: You cannot let him find her. Hide her if you can. Kill her if you must!


You actually believe we would help you? Now, after all that you've done and all that you've put us through? You're sick. I don't know who you think we are, but we are not murderers.


Really? We have but the blood of a few hundred shared on our hands. We have done evil knowingly in the service of Order, but you three, you are unwitting agents in the deaths of tens of thousands. More if this does not end here.


You saved the girl. You lead the Prince to us. And you helped him deliver the briefcase whose contents will set Medea's two greatest nations truly at war for the first time.


What did the briefcase have to do with Batiste? Are you saying that the Parliamentarian knew Porto Vale was going to be destroyed?


I am saying he destroyed it himself. And Kelstarin, Silareth and Pontara. With uncovered alchemy and the aid of the miratory star wanderers. This is only the beginning of what lost knowledge will do to our world.
He sent the falsified evidence out of Yaegara. We tried to follow it, but we lost track at the border. If you had not helped it to its destination, the Prince might have had to reconsider his plans.


This is preposterous! You're a liar and a murderer. We've no reason to trust a word you say.


Believe what you will about the city's fate. But you must trust me about the girl. Everything depends on her now.


I don't understand. If you do the bidding of the Rakari, why didn't you ask them for help if so much was at stake? They could have dealt with this.


We serve Order, not the Rakari. The Rakari have brought Order, but they do not direct us. They know of us and allow us to continue unimpeded because we serve the same master.
We did not want them to see us struggle. We are afraid of them. If we are no longer useful, they will come and take our minds from us.
Their power has waned much over the ages. The population has long been too large for them to directly control. So much of their governance now is deception and the slow mechanizations of our ordered society.
But their gaze can still undo the very essence of a man. We have watched them remake amind as easily as you or I might rub chalk from a board.


We thought that we could handle the errant Prince and his collaborators as we have with others before. We were wrong, in part due to your persistence. It may already be too late for us, but you can still atone for your mistakes.
Kill the boy and his followers, and bury what they know forever more.




You're too late now, child. Nothing left for you to do but wait for the righteous embrace of the hangman's noose. My brethren and I shall see you in hell!


Oh dear. My mother once told me that if you didn't have anything good to say, you should say nothing at all. What a shame that she and my father were never given a chance to complete my upbringing.
Never mind. You won't be bothering me much longer, pitiful thing. You must be the last of your traitorous kind. I see you've had a talk with our friends. That's a shame. I rather liked them.


It's true, isn't it? You used us! You murdered all those people, and we helped you do it! Never again!




PyanPau! Speak to me! Are you alright?


Thank you, Shara. I will no longer tolerate such disrespect. The rest of you would be wise to keep your hands well away from your weapons.
You three are here at my mercy, alive only because I am grateful for the service you have performed.


We understand, Parliamentarian. If I might ask, I would like to see a question answered. Knowledge is power, and it seems the power you seek to wield is formidable.
How did you, of all people, come to possess information known only to the Rakari and this secretive sect?


He has told you all he knows, hasn't he? It amuses me to see them so desperate that they would seek help outside their precious order. It is a fair question.


The Rakari have gone to great lengths to hide their past deeds in pursuit of the subjugation of our species. It has required great sacrifice and much subterfuge to undo their revision of history as far as we have.
I will indulge you four with a bedtime story of sorts. A fairytale before this world closes its eyes and awakens to a bright new dawn.
Our tale begins in times recently past, with a man of science. Doctor Robert Miles, once a brilliant and distinguished archaeologist, died a humble pauper, his mind taken from him in his later years. Stolen.
Few academics today would be familiar with his work. He wrote a great many papers about the Aulder ruins that lay across Medea, and their odd reaction to his presence.
He wrote of his theories that they represented a gateway to a world beneath the surface of our own, and of an ancient power responsible for a cataclysm that scarred our planet once before, thousands of years ago.
He must have been pressing a little too close to an uncomfortable truth as our benevolent guardians, the dear Rakari, saw fit to 're-educate' him, and set about destroying his work.
I believe he spend the rest of his life as a desk clerk in a timber company. He deserved better.
Unfortunately for the Rakari, the last few copies of his papers lay in the State Provincial Library in Solvakara, in my dear homeland of Amara, and were rendered unreachable by a rather inconvenient rebellion.
It's something we Amarans seem to have in our blood, and oh how we suffer for it.
In the last few days of the war, as my parents lay slain by an assassin's cowardly blow, the blood of the People's army soaked our dear earth and Solvakara burned...
...my dear mendor, Mr. Folkes, was searching for our salvation. He took the liberty of removing those papers from the Library's vaults, amongst a great many others.
It took him many years to extract and piece together the important information from them. Information that can free Amara, grant us power over our oppressors, and avenge the injustices wrought against us.
Too late for the noble rebellion and my father, but not too late for his son and a nation, my people, now inflamed by eight years of shame.


This is absurd! The Amaran Rebellion of 726 was no noble venture. It wasn't even supported by the majority of Amarans! Amaran freedom fighters terrorized and murdered any of their own people who disagreed with them.
They spread chaos along the border and threatened to cripple trade across the east of the Union. The Lereftese Parliament had no choice but to take firm action to restore law and order.
Carlan Batiste rode this tide of nationalist lunacy for his own personal gain. He was a monster who led his people to ruin in a war even he must have known he could never win.
Amara is and always will be better off as a Lereftese stat than a monarchy. At least now its people have a voice and a vote.


In the Parliament of Stars? Hahaha! The place is a theatre, and we are all merely its audience. I had thought you were smart enough to realize that. Perhaps I have misjudged you.


My father realized it, and he fought to free us from the tyranny of the Rakari. He was a great man who was murdered for his dreams of freedom.
I intend to see that he did not die in vain, and bring our glorious war of independence to a conclusion.


I realize now that my father could ahve won, if only he had known then what I do now. Known what lies buried in the Aulder ruins beneath the Great Plains.
The Rakari are afraid of those ruins. They left something terrible sealed in there because they could neither control nor destroy it.
They watch over the few remaining doors in fear, because they know that the great power buried below can be wielded by the hands of man. If I were more superstitious, I might say that the ruins are alive.
They're not, of course, but they do respond to certain people with a distinct harmony. Doctor Miles and others who share his lineage are among a privileged few whom those old stones remember.
The Rakari had almost succeeded in breeding that potential out of our race. They may have interfered with us for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. We are destined to be so much more than we are.
Both the Lereftese and Yaegaran governments are their puppets, and they are the true architects of my nation's misery.
Poor Doctor Miles is dead now, of course. He was one of the first the Keepers slew when they realized what we knew. They've been frantically killing ever since.
They really are a rather effective organization. No wonder the Rakari allow them to continue their treacherous work.


Our only desire is for peace and stability! Reliving the past will bring only great strive and conflict with our benevolent governors. Even we do not know what has gone before, only that it must remain hidden.
Man must know his place. That is why we must all forget!


In this case, sadly, you've failed. Man is forged by conflict and advanced by the struggle against adversity, not idleness and stagnation beneath foreign overlords.
Too long have we been unwitting grazers, content to chew the grass. It's time we took control of our own affairs.


No! It will never be. You have no access to the World Eye. We have purged the entire bloodline!


Your bluff is wasted, wretch. We know you were still searching. There is one left. A child.


But you don't know where she is!


...


He knows. We told his aide.


Gaining access to Longreach was a little difficult, even for a Parliamentarian. But I should think the situation there has changed somewhat in the past few days. They have much bigger things to worry about now.
Like the Yaegaran army. Medea's last great war is now in motion. A real conflict of blood and fire, unlike the fear and false memories our overlords have had us cowering from.
The masses are so easy to manipulate. When you control their fears and emotions, their intelligence counts for nothing. The Rakari have ruled like this for as long as anyone can remember, convinced of our ignorance.
They no longer have the power to stop their system of mistrust from tearing itself apart. And while they try in vain to reassert their authority, they'll never realize just how much we know until it is too late.


I have had to sully my hands to get this far, but not entirely with the blood of innocents. I will admit that I cried as I watched Silareth and Pontara burn beneath a beautiful, clear autumn sky.
But I felt little for Porto Vale or Kelstarin. The people of those cities were passive supporters of the tyranny we all suffer. Collaborators, content to take orders.
Did they protest as my people were butchered in defense of their freedom? Did they express their outrage as our fields were burned and our homes looted? Nobody cried for Amara and I shall shed no tears for them in return.
It is time for my people's vengeance. Lereftain and Yaegara shall tear each others' throats out, and I shall ascend from the ruins to finish their vile puppeteers, the Rakari.
I shall turn this world upside down! And when...


Prince Batiste, please. We all share your passion, but there isn't time for this.


Must you interrupt me, Julius? What use is a moment of triumph if I cannot savor it? This is my lifetime's work, all our lifetimes' work. I must be regal. I must make my father proud!


I understand, my Prince, but we need to hurry. We must get to Longreach before the Yaegarans attack in force and the child is either buried in the rubble or scattered with any remaining refugees.


Yes, you are right as always, Julius. I must apologize for my youthful over-enthusiasm. I have so much still to learn.


It is time for me to bid you farewell. When we meet again, it shall be in a better world. You, too, shall call me Prince.


You two - kill the Keeper. Do not harm the members of this Enclave. They are frightened and willingly ignorant, but they have given only this one act of assistance to our oppressors. We must set a merciful example.


As for the others, hold them here until we have departed. After that, they are free to enjoy my new world order. A reward for their service.




And what would we do when we caught them, PyanPau? We can't challenge them. We simply don't have the strength. I think we've run out of options.


Then think harder! You're the smart one, you have to come up with something! We're the only ones left who can.


Look, the boy's clearly got a few screws loose. He probably doesn't know what he's talking about. Look on the bright side, at least he finally shut up. Now there's someone who likes the sound of his own voice.


Hey! You watch your mouth there, woman! You'll show the proper respect to the Prince when you speak, or you'll suffer for it. Do you hear me?


Yes, I hear you, and you're starting to push your luck. We're trying to hold a conversation here, so shut up and sit down.


You arrogant swine! I think it's time somebody taught you a lesson, the kind your friend just had. What do you think, comrade?


I think you should have listened to the nice young lady.




Apologies, 'comrade', I'm just not feeling myself today. Perhaps I woke up in the wrong bed.


Jaques! Is that you?


I said I would get to the source, did I not? ANd so here I am, or rather, there I was.
I would have tried to dispatch of our errant young Prince at an earlier opportunity had I known his final intentions. But I was trying to assess the full scale of this insurgency.
His body guards are a formidable and diligent presence, but they cannot be beside him constantly. Circumventing them is a challenge Yaegara's premiere agent would have relished.
Alas, I fear I held my hand too long, and the chance has passed.


What is he going to do? The Keeper said that the founders of the Enclave shared some of what they knew. What do the Rakari have buried under those ruins?


The key, we fear, to a great force that once shaped our world, raised the mountains and sank the seas. But its masters have not had cause to use it for thousands of years, and it has lain silent.
The scars of its last great action can be found etched across cliff-faces and carved into the gnarled innards of our most ancient trees.
We would never have known their source if we had forgotten the folklore which our ancestors brought with them on their exodus from the mainland.


We've never heard anything about any such cataclysm. Why is that?


Memory is such a fragile thing, and your governors value it highly. Our ancestors made an agreement when they founded the Enclave so many unknown generations ago. They wanted to forget while their thoughts were still their own.
But forgetting isn't always easy. Some passed down tales of an age when the sky was afire and the stars fell to walk the land. Something terrible happened. The ground shattered and swallowed much on its surface.
Then, for a long time, it was quiet. Many dark years passed before the storm in the sky subsided, and teh ground closed and life could once again flourish on Medea.
We lived on, unconcerned with the outside world and these fancicul tales, until we felt the great silence falling. Medea knows more than we do, and is bracing itself for some terrible upheaval.


Old Lady Saga was right. We were destined to fail wether we fought or not. The young woman came before us, and we knew at once it was our duty to keep her from her pursuers.
We did not realize until late in this day that our fate was to help her die rather than to help her live.
A great pressure has been building in the world outside, a yearning that neither religion nor state could fulfil, a sense that something was missing. It has found form in the Prince, and she sought refuge from it.
That pressure has always been there. Even the mighty Rakari cannot completely obscure the past without destroying its children.
Our ancestores believed they could find a better way out here, with a simple life, a fresh start and willful ignorance. And for a time it worked.
We had hoped we could escape our past and, perhaps, our responsibilities. We were wrong, and when they finall caught up with us, we could do nothing. Now we all face ruin because we fled when we should have fought.


We're not finished yet. Is there anything you can do to help us get back West? If we can reach Isabelle before they do, we can end this.


Help? Yes, there might be, if the Traverse and its inhabitants are willing to assist us.


Oh no, I don't like where this is going...


The tireless tiquits can bear you south to where you will need to be in order to prevent the Prince's vision of the future from coming to pass.


Excellent! We may still be able to avert this great disaster by slaying the remaining child before the Prince and his cohorts can reach her.


No! This is mad! We can't kill Isabelle! There has to be another way to do this!


I don't like the thought either, PyanPau. But we must be prepared to do it, no matter how wrong it seems, should all else fail. The fate of all Medea may rest on a single moment's indecision.


Go, then, with the blessing of the Traverse and its inhabitants. We will pray for your success!



End of chatper 7!


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