Arrival

[Mor'os]

It didn't take long. Armored with nothing more than a few strips of leather and rusting metal, the brigands were in no condition to face of against any kind of gunfire, much less so machine gun fire. It was bloody needless to say, very much so. The hill which had once been a practically picture of green summertime serenity was now all red and oozy, much more at home in a cheap horror film than fond memories of summers past.

As the sounds of combat and general disarray faded, he rocked back and forth a bit, tiara still firmly clutched in his hands. When it became apparent that the lull was indeed permanent, and that no one was still coming to slit his throat and leave his body to be scavenged by whatever nature felt fit to provide, he slowly came out from his seat with a faint note of suction as the impression reformed itself. He peered cautiously around the corner.

There were arrows about, a few unfortunate dead men who'd been dealt a bad set of quantum fate. But for the most part everyone incredibly enough seemed to be in fairly good condition. It had all happened so fast that most of them had forgotten to panic. Looking to the hill from which the attack he had come., he could see several survivors of the battle, desperately attemptng to flee back into the embrace of the forest. Further down the hill, he caught sight of the carnage layed out on the ground. Parzan promptly vomited.

[The Empire]

As Parzan looked up after releasing what was his latest meal that day, he saw how the machinegunners that were walking up the side of the left ridge stopped at each injured brigand and used their razor-sharp entrenching tools as axes to put them out of their misory...
One of them was spared though, the one that Jr. Lieutenant Stettman had knocked out cold with the but of his rifle. The fortunate or unfortunate one, depending on how you look at it, was promptly dragged back down to the caravan.
As the princess came back to the carriage, she looked as if she had bathed in blood and small slivers of undetermined pieces of human flesh and clothing formed grotesque textured patterns on her otherwise smooth armour. She opened her visor and let out a loud whistle before reaching in and taking back the tiara from the somewhat pale Parzan. Her own features looked determined and unusually grim for such a young woman.
Lieutenant Tanya and Jr Lieutenant Stettman dropped the unconcious capitve on the ground outside Parzan's carriage and splashed some water from a cantine in his face to wake him up...

[Mor'os]

Parzan said nothing, just sitting there and passively observing as he gave the shock time to work its way through his system. He watched as the brigand was dragged up and awoked with a vacant stare, vaguely comprehending the bare basics of what was occurring. The finer details though consistantly slipped like water through the grip of his cognition.

The brigand spluttered on the ground, opened his eyes as he surfaced from the deep and dark pools of unconsciousness. He could feel splitting pain throughout his whole body, but could not immediately recollect why. Then his vision cleared, and he comprehended where he was.

He screamed a mad and terror crazed scream, thrashing about madly as he attempted to free himself and make a mad run for the hills.

"Nai nai nai! Vi ne ne! Nai nai, vi su sang. Sang sang sang, ses sang! Om su sang, jas sang ha me di ab. Sang..."

And onward. The would be robber's mind was quite clearly and completely shattered.

[The Empire]

His run ended promptly as Lieutenant tanya grabbed his wrist with the vice grip of hydraulic gauntlets, pulling him back so hard his shoulder popped out of it's socket, causing him to howl with pain before the new direction of his momentum carried him hard into the side of the carriage.
Lieutenant held him firmly, looking at him intently and closely from withi the armour's insect-like visor before turning him towards Parzan, still maintaining a hydraulically powered vice grip on the prisoner, completely immobilizing both his healthy and his injured and unusable arm.

[Mor'os]

The prisoner of a brigand howled and wailed louder than before as the crushing grip was tightened around his wrist. His thrashing became even more violent as he fought to escape, foaming and biting and clawing as best he could like some kind of wild animal. His eyes were wide with terror.

Parzan for his part backed away from the terrifying scene, his own eyes widening with reflected terror. He was beginning to consider that perhaps all of this was not worth it, regardless of just how much fame and glory he stood to stand. Others were following his suit, distancing themselves as far as possible from the apparent madness.

[The Empire]

A gob of the prizoner's saliva spattered the face of the princess as he was thrashing about and she nodded to the second guard beside her and without hesitation, the armoured giant pulled out something that looked like a yellow and white tube from a utility slot in the belt and pulled a red ring of a to parzan unknown material. As the ring was pulled away from the tube, a 1.5" needle emerged from it and the divine one stabbed it in the prizoners healthy shoulder. Soon, the outlaw's movements became sluggish and he faded into an uneasy unconciousness, making him easy enough to handle but haunting him with warped  hallucinations of the moments before, induced by the powerful synthetic coctail now running in his blood. The last thing he picked up before he passed out was a warped female metallic voice speaking rough alien words...
"Se till att han går att förhöra senare"
Picking up her cantine, the princess poured most of it's contents over her armour, washing away much of the blood that covered it before wiping the rest of it away along with the gob of saliva that was running down her cheek on a piece of reasonably clean cloth taken from a dead outlaw's clothing.

[Mor'os]

An akward silence, something which had been an all too common event since the Imperials had first crash landed into the planet. Parzan stared at the slumped bandit. The blood didn't affect him as much as it initially had. He had in short gotten use to it. That, or his brain was simply so overwhelmed at this point that he had gotten used to just about everything.

The coach driver was first to speak, with the intonation of a question. Those who knew Mor'osi in earshot heard "Is it all over then?" He cringed slightly as he looked around to see for himself if it were so. Parzan nodded weakly, and wordless drifted back into the carriage and sat back down into his seat with all the intent of someone who is quite thoroughly convinced that the past few minutes in no way shape or form ever happened. The other servants caught the hint, and began to file their way back into their appropriate little niches in the caravan.

[The Empire]

Following Parzan's cue, the princess nodded to the colonel before jumping up beside Parzan, turning her armour off and blew a loud whistle as the other Imperails also settled in their carriages and started weapon maintenance after they also had turned off their armours. A few hundred yards away in the jungle on their left side, Sasha and Nikolai heard the whistle and doubled back and, to Parzan's dismay, returned to their choosen spots in the caravan as it had started moving, the horses now less spooked by their presence and most of them temporarily deaf from the recent gunfight...
The princess estimated that they had little more than 5 houirs worth of fuel left for each armour. The ammunition situation was far better.

[Mor'os]

The journey from that point continued devoid of any events worth noting. The sights along the way were spectacular at points, but monotony conspired even to detract from that. Slowly and surely the caravan and its passengers crawled along the dirt roads, across rivers, up and down mountains, heading farther and north east.

The weeks passed, and the weather began to shift with the scenery. It was not just the inevitable change in climate that such a drastic journey was bound to bring. It was also the approach of the autumn season, rolling across the land, that brought the new weather. The worst of the heat had retreated slightly, leaving a pleasant cool to the air.

It was in the morning of a day in this new atmosphere that the caravan made it's final approach to the Capital. The gates were open, and people hustled about with energy. Harvest and the Festival of the Red Dragonflies would be approaching soon, and there was a terrible amount of preparation to be made.

Parzan noted with interest the seemingly unusual amount of carpenters scurrying about, and scaffolds going up. The air held something different other than the weather, but he could not put his finger on it. For the moment though he disregarded the fact. He was finally at his destination! Now it would all just be a matter of gaining an audience with the Emperor and those close to him. Something that shouldn't be difficult for a noble.

[The Empire]

Compared to the cities she was used to, the capital mostly reminded Hanna of the large tees of the forest ants in the northern provinces of her parent's long lost lexiconian empire.
Despite the chaotic atmosphere and at times curious or even pungent smells of the capital she found it somewhat homely as the caravan slowly made it's way through the milling crowds on the narrow streets and once again she was wearing her mother's tiara together with her armor instead of the insect-like helmet.

[Mor'os]

As they made their way farther and farther into the Capital, things became stranger and stranger still for Parzan. Many of the sights had remained unchanged since he had last visited the city. But there were new sights that shouldn't have been there.

The most obvious of these was the strange two wheeled contraptions that everyone now seemed to be zipping about the city in great roaming herds on. They whirred faintly as they passed, their riders staying upright in defiance of gravity and poor balance. A few of them roared past in a spluttering cacophony.

Strange new structures were going up everywhere as well it seemed. Buildings going up and up in a cocoon of bamboo higher than anything other than  pagoda ought to go. Metal posts staked into the ground with righting plastered on them. Wires strung between odd poles and buildings, wires which hung the occasional box over the street.

The street...

Parzan forced himself to look down. Something was wrong with the street as well. No stones. Only some sort of single massive stone of black that stretched on and on. How in all creation did they manage to cut and lay the thing? It just didn't make sense.

Parzan gulped and sat back into his seat. He pondered whether he might be dreaming, that this was all some terrible dream. He dismissed the idea. This was all real, he could smell, see, hear and feel it all too well. But if it was real, why and how?

Terrifying as the situation was becoming, he refused to allow himself to turn back. The carriage pressed onward into the strange world. Parzan worried that in all the oddities, the palace might have transformed itself into something strange, perhaps a gigantic fruit or undulating mass. His wild imaginings bore no fruit however. Instead, there was a distinct lack of anything like the old palace where the palace ought to be. The entire building, in all its massive splendor, was gone. Again, in its place was more scaffolding, endless construction, and amidst it something even grander than what had preceded it taking shape. Some of the buildings on the ground's periphery were even complete, or had never been removed in the first place for all Parzan knew.

The sturdy wall and gates that barred the place from the outside world were still there, and there were still guards as there had been for centuries. But again, something wasn't quite right. There were no spears in their hands, only a device that Parzan didn't recognize. More terror for Parzan, but he continued onward, determined that having come this far he would not be defeated.

[The Empire]

As they came closer to the centre of the city, the princess felt as if she was travelling through ancient history progressing rapidly all around her as the cobbled streets turned to bitumen and concrete and bicycles started to appear everywhere while telephone and electrical cables started to appear running along and across the street.
She was quite amused by the horrified look on Parzan's face while at the same time amazed at the things happening around her. She had always been interested in how things came to be, an interest she had inherrited from her long gone father, and now she was immersed in it happening all around her. As they came up to the huge construction site that seemed to be the goal of the caravan, a series of questions had formed in her mind, how come all of this is happening now, so fast, why is Parzan so bewildered about it, but above all, who initiated it and drives this rampant development?
She decided it was best to wait and see.

[Mor'os]

Mustering up strength and confidence enough to face this strange new world, Parzan stepped down and boldly walked straight up to the guards at the gate. Instinctively an arm and hand was raised in a motion for him to halt and stand his ground. Parzan complied.

"What business do you have at the Imperial Palace?" asked the one on the left with authority.

"I am Prefect Parzan of Akfuh Village of Sekad Province. I have travelled a great distance to the Capital to speak with his Divinity on a matter of great importance.

The two guards exchanged glances before the one on the left spoke again. "What is this matter of great importance?"

"I have with me a troupe of the divine, who came down from Heaven at the Summer's zenith in a great carriage of fire that split the night sky!" Parzan found himself getting into the act as he spouted the grandiose description of the Ark's crash to earth. The guard's looked past him at the caravan behind him, a sight less and less common these days. It was of little surprise that this man hailed from the backwater of Sekad. They looked back down at him. His expression was completely innocent, offering no hint that what he had just said sounded at all like a whole lot of rubbish to him.

"We'll tell his Divinity of your arrival, and then it will be his choice whether or not he wishes to see you..." the guard let his voice trailed off, slightly shocked that he was even considering this for a second.


The days of late found Osmar in a good mood. With the revolt put down, the restoration had been put back on track and was now continuing at an ever more dizzying pace everyday. He'd spent the last few weeks working endlessly to revamp the entire civil service, purging the numerous corrupt ministers and inspectors as best he could. He'd also spent many a night up late with Chasmor, tirelessly working on what would be the keystone of the entire effort...

Thankfully for Parzan, he was as such in a rather receptive mood when the bureaucrat sidled in, bowed four times, and told him that one Prefect Parzan of Akfuh Village in Sekad province was here to seek and audience and to present divine emissaries. It was not that Osmar did not believe in the Divine; he considered himself a demi-god. But it the sort of ruse that many a conman had tried over the ages...



"His divinity...has granted you an audience..." the guard informed Parzan, struggling not to trip over the odd arrangement of words. Parzan's face lit up with joy, as he rushed back and ushered the Princess down from the carriage and to the gate. Again though they were halted, and the guards pointed meaningfully down to their shoes. Parzan nodded and slipped them off hastily, and grasped the set of geta which the guard had produced from some unknown store. After having put them on, he grasped another pair and offered it to the Princess, inviting her to follow his example. His feet clattered as he turned about now.

[The Empire]

The princess gave Parzan and the guard a look that unmistakeably questioned their level of sanity while half-heartedly trying to figure out how theese wooden slippers could be used without going through the ten-minute procedure of just taking the armour off and then put on a dress...
In the meanwhile, her Royal guards had started to climb off the carriages and stretch their legs while keeping their weapons slung across their backs. Sasha and Nikolai had also gotten tiered of traveling and had left their choosen spots, the latter having sneaked up on Parzan and sitting down just behind him, close enough for Parzan to start feeling the tiger's breath against his back.

[Mor'os]

Parzan noticed a sudden widening of the eyes of the two guards as he waited for the Princess to don the geta she'd been offered. He was puzzled for a moment, but then finally came to conclusion that perhaps he would simply do better to turn around for himself and see what the comotion was all about. As it turned out, it was one of the great white tigers that had been with them through the entire journey. Over the time his fears and anxieties had grown tired and bored of this one distraction, and had moved onto better and newer things liked the transformed Capital. Mentally he shrugged at this; there were more important things at hand now other than the worries of a pair of guards who might not be here the following day.

A hither to unseen bureaucrat waddled up now, clacking a great deal on his own set of geta. He seemed ready to burst into introduction when he too was privilege to the strange sight before him and lost his voice. His mouth continued to move regardless, giving the impression of some bizarre fish decked in black and red.

The Princess walked up, the geta abandoned. Parzan was used to this by now, and as always what the Gods wanted the Gods got, even if it went against ceremony. He gave the fish of a bureaucrat a "go on" look, and with one final fretful gasp he pulled himself together and motioned for Parzan and Hanna to follow. The small troupe set off across the grounds, gathering looks as they made their way over the plaza. Up they came to a building of evident authority, clattering and clunking up the flight of stone steps and passed the pillared entrance. There were a few twists and turns as the wound themselves down a hallway or two, and then they came to their arrival, or at least Parzan assumed they had by the way their guide knelt, bowing four full times and with all ceremony and pomp announcing his arrival, full title and all. It was rather nice found Parzan; it had been some time since he'd heard that full title stated.

A young voice replied, calling for his guests to enter. The guide backed away, bobbing up and down and gave the all clear for Parzan and Hanna to enter. Parzan drew up all the solemnity his training as a noble had taught him, and walked around the corner and before even bothering to look at who it was knelt and bowed four times as was proper.

"Ūe sai." was the response. Parzan followed the order without hesitation and lifted his head. He almost shouted out at what he saw. The boy who stood before him, emperor or not, was...was just dressed far to casually for such an occasion! Where was the Sun Spoke Crown? The robes and sashes and the sort? There was nothing more than the most basic of clothing on the boy, even if it was of a high quality. But he withheld his judgement, and instead proceeded to give a lengthy introduction of the Princess. The boy raised an eyebrow, but did nothing to eject him. When he'd finished his rambling, the boy turned to Hanna for her part of the tale, apparently unmoved by her odd appearance significantly.