shirouamakusa

Lost Soldier: Chapter One: Part 2

Sun, 13 Feb 2005 08:46:12 GMT

Sorry I'ma late with this posting! I had a hellish weekend last week. Anyways this is the second part and the end of chapter one. Chapter two coming next. Enjoy the story as it unfolds, please.

Chapter One: Part 2

Eternal twilight, the dawning of a sun that would not fully rise, such was this realm. Each corridor, every open space remained a constant half darkness and one could go miles in pure darkness before a warm glow of a dull, ruby light would shine vaguely a few dozen feet overhead.

There were only a few large openings, like areas of centralized hives, huge open grounds that were almost as large as whole cities with hundreds or thousands of drones and guards hard at work with one project or another. From these internal strip mines a handful of tunnels and passageways wormed outwards into other hives, housing, pits, mills and even to the towering palace of blackened, hewn stone.

Violence stood at the window of his room looking over the vast expanse, the laboring slaves and the market place of his underground base. He lorded over all he could see, and could see through cameras or other methods given to him. The world itself was his, he had conquered, enslaved and dominated it for a full solar rotation, but he was forced to rule from the depths like a demon lord of hell. The irony hardly escaped him as he was more demon than he was dark juraian, however his noble blood shown through despite his half breed nature.

Above was a world of light, green and creatures that could endure the heat of the sun, the blinding rays it shown forth. He hated that about this world, it lacked the darkness he was so used to, and was born in. Rohr eyes were not adapted for the light of day, perhaps a genetic fault that occurred because of the radiated world they came from, or just from the lack of a light giving sun. In any case the surface world was only bearable when sun came down and the moon came out, even then the world above was dangerous.

He ran his rough, calloused hand along his left arm he could somewhat notice each scar he had burned into his flesh, a notch of status in his mind and each one representing a hated foe that he has dispatched, or a world scourged of life. He delighted sowing terror, most likely a trait he shared with his sire. To make see his foes baulk in horror in front of him always ran a shiver of pleasure down his spine, especially when he knew they were looking upon his visage. His face was already very angular and the skin tight across his bones, so when he shaved his eyebrows and had a ebon skull tattooed into his entire face it almost appeared that there was no flesh but an actual skull. The spiked horns that came out of his wispy, dark hair only added to horror of his countenance and they were not only for show.

There was a sudden shrill cry from his com just to his right on a table. With a hiss and a growl he slowly picked up the fragile device and put it to his ear where it stuck.

“What,” he grumbled into the air, the com picking up his voice and carried it to the caller. No one in their right mind disturbed him unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Lord Vayrc,” came a slightly shaky voice from the com, undoubtedly afraid that his life hung in the balance. Some of the new staff called him by his old name, Vayrc Dei Loet, it didn’t annoy him, but he preferred the name Violence to his real name. “We detected dark jurai ships on the outer fringe of solar system. At this time they are in subspace heading inwards.”

Violence growled his displeasure at this bad news. It might take a little time but they would detect his base sooner or later, then if they still had the higher group they could level his base from orbit. He had to strike first and fast.

“Prepare the fleet, all of it. Have them use their cloak fields to ambush the dark juraian fleet and then destroy it before they can raise a distress call to their superiors. Now!”

The operator barely squeaked out a “y’sir,” before he cut the com line and gave the fleet their orders.

Violence raked his razor sharp claws across the stone wall of his room sending a shower of sparks spraying across the room and roared with frustration. The work he was working on could hardly be said as done. There was too much left undiscovered, unfound, too much hidden in the depths of the mines. Not only that, but thanks to his remote location he would be unable to contact Lord Emperor Atsual to inform him of his potential discovery by the hated dark jurai.

Just as he turned around his keen eyes spotted the barely clad woman across the room at the entrance. Narrowing his eyes he could make out her every detail as though they were in a well-lit room. She wore nothing else besides a long, dark, silk dress that trailed to the ground well passed her small, sandaled feet, the dress itself hanging loosely about her slender, shapely hips showing a little shard of her thighbone. Her upper body was bare save for a few articles of gold finery that dangled on her slender wrists, adorned her fingers in the shape of rings that resembled long claws. The flax, dark mane of hair was pulled forward in front of her, the only barricade that blocked line of sight to her supple bust and it too was ordained with bands of gold with a blue metal skull centered in the bands. Her long, elegant face was left uncovered by the length of hair, but shown subtle signs of makeup.

He was ready to lash out at this stranger at first, but now that he had seen who she was he bowed to the ground quickly and lowered his gaze. She spoke to him then, a soft, sweet voice of a simple child. “Do you require my aid yet?” almost as though she knew this would happen.

“No my lady, there is no need for your talents just yet.” He loathed lowering himself to a female, even if she outranked him. Women had no loyalty, or comradery that men shared; women were too prone to be catty with one another, and were quick to betray one another over anything petty. No, women were nothing more than baggage and creatures with which to procreate. Other than mating they should have no place in society, yet here was one that could have him strung up and killed with a word. It vexed him so.

“Violence,” she cooed, “do not place all your faith in the abilities of your men over my powers forever. Cain bless your efforts and curse your foes.”

With that she turned slowly and slipped from the room allowing Violence to stand and growl with contempt at her. His fleet would be victorious despite the Bride of Cain’s blessing.

***

With a lurch and a halt the world came back into focus for Akina and once again the poor talking cat was a bundle of fluff. They had come out of subspace a bit earlier after discovering that the sixth sphere from the sun bore signs of life. The small cat like creature was already scanning the space around them plotting the best course to set in order for the Fury to make an accurate scan of the surface.

The other ships in the fleet were slowly emerging around them from subspace, each one appearing on a screen on one of the many floating around. Akina always enjoyed watching ships break the dimensional boundaries and enter real space; it was a wonder to her.

She shook the fantasy from her head and looked to the admiral, who was speaking to the other captains in his fleet and directing their formation as they drifted towards the planet ahead. As she looked at him he directed his gaze to her and was silent for a moment most likely calculating what he was going to say to her.

“Akina, what do you sense?” Dayun’s voice was soft and quiet, as though here were afraid to ask.

Akina closed her eyes and concentrated. She had done this before and it was the reason why she was able to find so many of their lost brethren in the past. In the landscape of her mind she stood on a single silver thread centered in the middle of an all encompassing blue universe. The thread simply hovered in the air and both ends trailed off into the nether of her mindscape for eternity for all she knew.

Balancing her mind in this way she could sense things that others couldn’t, read emotions, and even locate people. Slowly she lifted her arm in her mind and there was a ripple in the thread next to her that undulated outwards like a pebble being thrown into the still waters of a pond. The thread grew a small, emerald leaf and slowly it pushed outwards turning into a twig. As the twig grew outwards more leaves appeared around it, and the thicker the wood became, then more twigs appeared on the first spreading out slowly to become long, thick branches of a tree.

As she watched the branching tree appear below her another appeared further ahead of her, but this one was blighted, its limbs choked by leathery mistletoe. Each of its limbs were mangled, burned and twisted so much that they grew into each other causing whole branches to splinter, crack and causing others to snap off altogether. She had never seen such a tree grow in her mind before, this worried her greatly, more so was that it was coming closer to her first branch. It was growing faster and larger than her first as well, it seemed to threaten to engulf her as it loomed forth.

Then she felt it, emotions coming from this corrupt tree, hate, and anticipation and it was growing stronger. The sweat coming from her physical body was disrupting the picture in her mind making her lose focus.

With a sudden realization she broke out of her other world launching herself out of her seat and exclaimed quickly. “Dayun! Tell the fleet to activate their wings and to fire directly ahead of us! Now!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. The rest of the crew looked at her as though she had gone mad, but Dayun quickly followed her instructions yelling into his com and then the ship shook as each of its forward cannons fired.

“I hope you had a good reason for telling me to do that Akina,” was Dayun’s only reply during the brief moment of quiet as they all saw the beams of energy flying towards an unknown target.

There were multiple impacts ahead as energy collided with unseen walls, then the invisible walls turned into burning hulls of black wood in the effect that looked as though someone was pulling the sheets off a bed. Dozens of the burning vessels appeared in space in front of them, a few of these raising a three wing design of their shields and returned with their own rain of fire.

Alarms went off all over the ship as one of the crewmembers on the bridge turned towards the captain shouting at him, “Rohr energy signature detected Admiral!” Just as the man exclaimed the ship shook as the wings took the brunt of the counter attack, more alarms going off.

“Return fire! Fleet come into formation Embrace of the Empress’s wings!” Dayun shouted into his com and the other ships came into a tight formation closer to the Fury. Dayun looked at Akina and smiled. “Thank the Emperor you were here.” He shot his face back to the screens ahead of him and his face hardened.

Akina was shaking, so much so that her knees buckled under her and she found herself flopping right back into her seat. Realization that she just saved the fleet from a surprise attack that would have most likely had obliterated the fleet put her into a near state of shock. The adrenaline in her veins made her heart race so hard that she could hear and feel every pulse of blood in her ears, drowning out the sound of combat and the shouts of the crew.

Her moment of shock didn’t last long, and she launched herself from her chair running towards the halls.

“Akina, where are you going?!” Dayun shouted as she ran out.

She stopped in her place turning around so fast that her hair whipped her face smartly. “Rohr are notorious ship borders, I’m going to suit up and get ready to repel borders!” With that she spun on her heels towards her room. “Thank the emperor,” she whispered to herself the ship shaking harder.

Lost Soldier: Chapter One: Part 1

Sun, 30 Jan 2005 09:44:28 GMT

Here it is, the fist part of the story! More next sunday... maybe sooner if I have the time. Comments and critiques are always welcome. Plus if you find errors, "highlight" the section for me and post the correction. Please tell me what you think!!! Thanky.

Lost Soldier: Chapter One: Part 1

The unending, black depths of space engulfed everything leaving no plane of horizon, no obstacles in which to judge size and distance, nor did it offer any comfort or warmth, just desolation of shapeless, formless nothing. Now and again, but not frequently a mass of color from a dense, cloudy nebula, or the racing, azure, streak of a burning comet there one instant and then gone once more in the distance, but other than these few and fleeting manifestations of color the cosmos around remained a dull and encompassing night. The shroud of the abyss was only ruined by the occasional appearance of a diminutive, nearly nonexistent point of diffuse illumination from the few stars that tried to find their way through the curtains of the murky realm of space.

It was lonely out here on the frontier of explored space and Akina could only watch out the imaging screen, a poor substitute for a window, but almost as real as being there yourself. She sat on her bed in silence staring blindly at the realm of death and unyielding blackness and had been doing this for what seemed like hours, but she knew only a few agonizing minutes that could be counted on one hand had just barely slipped by. Yet she found she could hardly look away from the sight before her, as it seemed to fill her with wonder and dread in the same instance that made her want to stay here and watch nothing happen, not even wind pass by.

She nearly startled herself when the soft purr of her own sigh broke the silence around her like a window of glass shattering into a thousand pieces on the floor. A blush crossed her face from her own silly reaction to the sound of her own voice causing her to panic in such a way, and finally in this way she was able to break the spell the monitor in front of her had and looked away making the image turn off with the wave of her hand.

Standing in the sparse hole she was given as her quarters instantly dwarfed the tiny cabin and the bed she had only recently been sitting on. The size was severely impacted just with the placement of her body in the center of the chamber, which only gave enough room to change clothes, turn around and sleep. Three drawers under the bed were all the space that was given to accommodate clothing, personal items and not much else, but that was the price of traveling on a ship that was built for war not recreation.

Again Akina sighed, louder this time and flexed her muscles in her arms as she stretched them out to either side of her quarters, just barely missing the edges of the room with her knuckles. With only a moment more given to that small leisure she took a single broad step towards the door leading to the hallway the door sliding open instantly with little more than a soft hiss before she reached it and out she stepped the door sliding shut behind her.

As she walked down the unadorned hallway, the sheer lack of people that a town or a city provided wasn’t here and only added to the sadness deep within her heart with each step she took. This was no time to become homesick, not when home was already so many billions of light years away and there was no turning back now anyways she had already accepted this assignment, like all the others before it. This would make the fourth time she had been pulled out of retirement and back into active service. Although this time it was not just for a small skirmish, or for a war, it was for all her people and all worlds within the empire! It didn’t make her feel any less melancholy though, but the God Emperor, Anoron of Dark Jurai himself, was gone.

It happened so suddenly too, one day Anoron was sitting on his exalted throne the next near chaos as the high council was sent into a panic. He had become more than just their emperor, he was the strength of the people their living god who stood before his fellow dark juraians and filled them with the confidence and the drive to move on into the future, the heart and soul of the people. True his wife and daughter could easily guide the people in his place, but the loss of one of the first children of the very first emperor and empress was losing your eyes while beset by demons. At least that is how she felt about the matter.

They came to her apologizing, bowing even, when they asked for her to continue her searching, not for any remaining lost families and ships, but for her very god! She missed the blue skies of home, the soft grass beneath her feet and the tranquil, clear waters around her home. How could she deny such a request though? To say no to such a request would not only be unpatriotic but heresy! Anoron was her god, the pinnacle of her faith and belief, to just walk away from him would be damning.

So she accepted with a heavy heart that yearned to return home, back to her fields and back to her family, but her heart filled with pride and a feeling of righteousness that gave her the strength to hold back her tears and continue onward into the depths of space. There was no reward mentioned, though she suspected that they would make her some sort of hero and that didn’t matter to her. The emperor would be united with his people once more and with his return the empire would live again, thrive again, never to grieve the loss of their devotion again!

Thinking back on that moment drove the shadows from her mind and brought her back to focus right as she stepped onto the bridge of the Fury. Out in the halls there was silence and blank walls, but here there were moving view screens images of security cameras on the ship, the voices of people giving commands into the communication network, the sound of typing fingers, and the occasional sound of admiral Dayun issuing a course correction.

Only a few seconds passed before the admiral turned his head to welcome her. “Major Akina Raine,” he said with a simple nod of his head to regard her presence.

The admiral was a handsome man who looked to be in his early thirties, most likely by choice and she suspected he was older than most trees from home. He wore his coal colored hair long and tied into a ponytail to show his status and rank. Around his brow he wore the key that controlled the ship and allowed him to communicate with the space tree within the womb of the vessel. He wore his officers’ uniform, a black suit with a dark blue over vest that prominently displayed his families crest and the metal tags that displayed his rank in the military.

Akina snapped to attention as he regarded her, saluting him promptly, “Sir!” she responded back to him quickly.

He sort of waved her off, “No need for those kind of formalities on my ship, Major,” he said as though they were the same rank, or good friends, “I want you to feel at home on this ship and to enjoy your stay.”

She was slow to relax her salute, with a bit of reluctance at that. She stepped forward and up a short flight of stairs to stand next to his wooden throne that allowed him to oversee the bridge. The bridge bowled out in the front making a long oval shape were a large view screen rested, imbedded in the dark wooden frame of the ship and in that screen was the immense, empty void before them with a single bright dot far off in the distance.

“Admiral, what is that?” she asked curiously.

“A sun,” he said right as she finished her sentence. “We’re charting it now, we’re amazed it’s out here too.”

“Is it new, or has it been here the whole time and we never charted it?”

One of the com techs turned in her chair conjuring up a panel of holographic light in the air in front of Akina. It only took a moment before images began to appear on the screen, a detailed map of the galaxy their empire controlled. Zooming in on their current location, the outer fringes of the black void between galaxies Akina could see nothing surrounded them for hundreds of light years.

The com tech girl spoke softly, but knowingly, “As you can see this sun is not on any of the Alliance maps. We may be the first to discover a new solar system.”

Akina picked up, and added, “And perhaps,” she held her breath for a moment as she noticed that everyone took a moment to look at her as she finished, “where the emperor can be found.”

There was an instant buzzing of whispered voices all through the bridge, voices full of hope, and giddiness from all the females, the only male, the admiral, remaining quiet. His eyes showed that he too hoped to find the emperor there.

Dayun lifted his hand the sound of an opening communication port activating. “All ships, follow my lead as we step into the great unknown, as we enter the unexplored,” he paused deliberately for a moment and once again continued, “to find our emperor.”

There was no return com chatter, but Akina could feel the energy from the ships around her, from the people within them and those in their own ship. It sent a ripple through her spine that in turn sent her into a sudden, violent shiver making her heart race for the instant. She was always psychically inclined, just being born a dark juraian like she was gave one psychic powers, even if it meant that one could only activate a key weapon, but she had a little more power than that.

Ever since she was sixteen she could feel the emotions of those around her, even from a great distance away and she learned how to make it stop only after a few hours of acquiring the talent. That wasn’t all she was capable of, but the rest of her powers were so minor they were hardly worth noticing; though she guessed seeing in the dark when others could not was an admirable quality.

“We’re going to gate into the solar system soon, Akina,” Dayun said completely interrupting her current train of thought. “You might want to sit down.”

“Oh! Of course!” and quickly she walked down the stairs and found an open seat next to the navigation post.

“Hey,” came a small, high-toned voice from the seat next to her.

She looked around for a moment, and then looked at the navigation console itself to find a little, bushy mane, calico cat that had a miniscule, amber stone shaped like a diamond centered in its forehead. It’s bushy tail swept back and forth behind it cheerfully as the creature looked at her with an the typical deadpan face all house cats possessed.

“How you do?” the cat asked.

This wasn’t the first time she had seen a houseki, but there were an oddity if not naturally born navigators. “I’m fine,” Akina began a little lost for words.

“Hold onto ass,” the little feline chirped next.

Before Akina could question what it meant the world lurched violently forward stretching outwards before her eyes for an instant pulling at her body from every angle all at once. They had entered the gate, an event horizon ships made to leap from one spot in space to what was known as subspace to make space travel vastly shorter than it should be. The experience was always unsettling and uncomfortable, but quickly the feeling died away as the ship drifted into the other plane of existence.

Shaking her head she looked back at the houseki and stifled a giggle she felt was going to explode into laughter. The poor thing looked as though someone had taken a rubber balloon and used it to pet the poor dear, the fur stood on end head to tail with the cat’s eyes a little wider than normal. She looked at Akina with a little bit of a cat like growl of disapproval coming from deep within her throat.

As the fur on the houseki settled, and Akina’s amusement the navigator cat spoke once again in it’s high voice, “Gate successful. Time arrive be sixty-seven minutes.”

The admiral just nodded and sat back deeper into his throne weaving his fingers together before resting his hands on his lap. He said nothing and seemed to drift off to sleep, as he didn’t have to really control the ship to guide it through space, the tree itself could do all the work for him.

Akina stood up from her chair and walked off the bridge. It was a lot to hope that the emperor would be found in the uncharted territory, but she let herself hope the impossible hope and dream that soon Anoron would be among his people again.

Last character of the story... and the main villian

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 05:39:15 GMT

There will be a few other names in the story, but these are all the important names.

Violence
Age 939 (Physical age: 26)
Sex: Male
Description: Standing nearly 6’ tall his body is covered in blood colored markings and tattoos that resemble scars, kanji symbols and skulls. He is lean and muscular wearing little more than tattered, sable colored pants with some form of thick, rust color scales from an unknown beast sewn into the sides of the pants along the shins and on the knees, while his feet are clad in heavy, military boots. His skin is slightly tanned, and in some places scales grow out of his skin, especially around his shoulders and around his burning crimson eyes, the eyebrows have been shaven off to help show the large ebon skull tattoo that takes up most of his face. Small but sharp horns protrude from out of his wild but wispy, black hair.
History: Violence is a Rohr warlord, and part demon. He has lead many bloody raids on planets, and has accumulated a A-6 class criminal record (Criminal records are done a-z, 1-9, the lower you are the more wanted you are) with no limit on the statute of limitations. In the past few hundred years he has lead a bloody campaign across the galaxy attacking anything within range, but he and his fleet have been missing for some time. Though Violence may seem like nothing more than a savage thug he is an accomplished geneticist, and considered brilliant by many scientists… though he often gives into his more feral nature when frustrated or provoked. Violence is not his real name, but it has become his trademark name that many of his people choose. His loyalty is to Atsual, Emperor of the Rohr voice of Cain, thus it is suspected that Atsual has commanded him to remain in hiding… or to work on something more sinister.

Should have a starting story by Sunday, thank you.

Terms

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 03:16:28 GMT

Wing/s: Wing is a generic term for a visible plane of energy that works like a shield. Wings come in many shapes and sizes and are exclusively used by the Jurai type races. Ships primarily produce three or more of these wings, the more powerful the ship the more wings it can produce.

Key Weapon: A key weapon is a small wood like handle, or bracer that can produce a beam of energy such as a sword or claws. The key itself is made out of sap from a space tree and focuses energy through force of will from the wielder into the handle to produce the energy blade. The Dark Jurai use these weapons more commonly than any of the other Jurai type races, but these weapons are hard to make and are only rewarded to officers and veterans. Not only can a key weapon form a blade but it can also form a wing to protect the wielder.

Small list of the Cast

Tue, 25 Jan 2005 07:50:18 GMT

As promised, there are a few members of the cast. Akina's history also contains some of the backstory to the story to come. Hope you enjoy!

Akina Raine
Age: 97 (Physical age: 21)
Sex: Female
Description: Akina is a lean bodied soldier, but a strict follower of Anoron and retains a beautiful nymph like appearance. Her ebon hair is short in front of her eyes with long, streaming, wisps of scarlet flowing down her back in a noble ponytail. The structure of her face is soft and narrow, more elven than human, her eyes pools of cobalt and dark sapphire around the edges.
History: Graduating her classes with honors and the academy with full honors Akina never had to become a soldier in the army, but she chose that path nonetheless. She has thus served the empire for 80 long years, never straying and always-obedient serving in the Jurai / Dark Jurai war, the Puppet wars, the second Shikana invasion, the Techoren / Dark Jurai war and the war with the godlike Yuan-ti overlord Ra. Though there has been piece for a while the ancient enemy of the Dark Jurai, the Rohr, have come out of hiding and have once more plunged her and her people into war. As Fate (Dark Tsunami, Goddess of Dark Jurai) would have it she has been assigned to another ship, Fury. It has been sent on a mission for the last 4 years to find any lost ships from the Great Exile, but now it’s mission has changed to that of the most dire of missions; Find the God Emperor, Anoron Dark Jurai who was blown into space by the entity known as Seishin. It has been two months, and the Emperor has yet to be found…

Anoron Dark Jurai
Age: 500 Billion (Physical age: 19)
Sex: Male
Anoron is the God Emperor (literally) of the Dark Juraian people, and one of the five gods in the dark Juraian pantheon. He is known to be beautiful and graceful, but attacks with the fury of nature itself. However, he has gone missing since he fought the entity Seishin, and is presumed dead by many. Finding the emperor will give the dark jurai people the strength to endure again.

Brent Stone
Age: 36
Sex: Male
Description: Brent stands a full 8’ tall, and is a towering pillar of muscle and angst. Most of his body’s features are buried under 200lbs of solid galvinite (a composite alloy ten times stronger than titanium), his suit of crimson power armor lined with jet around each joint and across his chest. When he is not wearing his helmet, a visage of a scowling angel, one can see his pitiless hazel eyes; eyebrows arched in a permanent scowl and his shaven head with various plugs that his helmet attaches to.
History: Brent was once a simple marine, an extremely efficient one. He was physically stronger than most other men, faster, and smarter and a strict worshiper of the god Mortial (god of mankind). Women and children of the heretics (any race that isn’t human) died at his hands. When the officers at Genuer Tech asked if he would become a terminator (a super human clad in power armor) he gladly accepted. He has since served out Mortial’s justice by killing orcs, demons, devils and most hated of all, those not human.

More members of the cast to come!

Looking into society

Sun, 23 Jan 2005 08:31:43 GMT

Do to working a 12 hour day at work I will have the first part of the story ready by next sunday, but first I think it would be integral to say a few things about growing up as a dark juraian.

The life of a dark juraian youth isn't an easy one, one could say that any child's life isn't easy. Though most children are never trained in the martial arts by age five (faster learners might start by age four). From these early ages they are taught a variety of weapons, first aid, and to respect rank in the military. Note now that the dark juraian civilization itself is very militaristic, so recognizing rank becomes very important.

During these training sessions the child is also taught basic school work, writing, sentence structure, math (ranging from physics to subspace mechanics). It is important to wield a weapon as it is to have deeper knowledge behind it. Every day of their lives they train, and learn until they reach the age of 16 when they are considered adults. At this point they know how to use at least six different weapons, one style of martial arts, know basic surgery, pilot a fighter jet/space ship and basic use of key weapons. It is also at this adult stage that they are given the choice to be civilian, or military.

Being a civilian means starting a farm and supplying food for yourself and your community. What you grow as extra can be sold to the government as non-taxable income. Though you have chosen to become a civilian doesn't mean you're doomed to it, you can join the military at any time of your very long life. A civilian is expected to return to military training every two years to keep them familiar with combat styles and weapons, one never knows when you will be expected to defend yourself against an outside threat. These sessions of retraining last at least two weeks.

Being in the military is a dangerous, but fulfilling life. You are paid more, respected more and once you advance in enough ranks you can train under one of the Weapon Masters. You must serve at least 50 years in the military before you can retire. To most other races this seems absurd, but being a dark juraian means that they can live nearly "forever." Life Water keeps a dark juraian young, most start drinking it around the age of 20, other at 18. They stay eternally young for as long as they keep drinking this water. That is why 50 years doesn't seem so long to them. Though they may be in military service for these years that doesn't mean they don't have time to find love, or get married.

After 50 years in the military you can retire or stay in service, earning the right to be a ship captain, or more. Those who retire are given a large plot of land, and money to start a farm. It is mostly expected for you to do so. To date there have been only 50 known retired soldiers. Not many actually retire, and those who do come back into service after only a few years.

Next update will be a few profiles of the characters, and other names that will be in the story.

Not withstanding, the Intro

Sat, 22 Jan 2005 05:17:26 GMT

This is the start of a short story; hopefully I will be able to continue to update it on a regular basis. In any case, I hope to have a new posting every Sunday.

Basic Information: This story takes place in the world of Senshi Muyo, which is my online RPG. Not withstanding there are many ill regular races, terms and ideals that many will be unfamiliar with. So to make things a little easier to understand I will make a few notes here.

Dark Jurai: Long ago the Jurai and the Dark Jurai were one race, but the energy that flows through their veins was more akin to negative and positive. Do to a misunderstanding and a very violent exile the Dark Jurai left their home world and fled from their cousin race. Billions of years have past since those times, and the two races get along now a day as part of an alliance. They use sentient trees inside large wooden hulls as space ships. Though the frames of their ships are made of wood this wood is stronger than most metals and alloys. All Dark Juraians have psychic energy, which is coined simply as Dark Jurai energy, which stems from their living goddess, and allows them to commune with their ships and sometimes weapons.

Rohr: Once they too were Dark Juraians, but they fell prey to the evil nature of Dark Jurai power, and the dark influence of the Dark Jurai god, Cain. They long ago split off from their own people and have evolved into far more evil and cruel race where their lord emperor, Atsual, rules over them and has for the past few billenia. Their ships, and technology is very similar to that of the Dark Jurai, though the energy given off by their ships, and weapons is slightly different, making it hard to distinguish between the two races ships.

More as the story progresses… if it progresses.