New Year, New Terror

[MonMarty]

The day after the new year started for many like any other day in Regalia, in a post-drunken stupor as the inner city had a hard time waking up to the bright sunlight. Alcoholism was a consistent problem in Regalia, with 70% of Regalians living within 300 meters of a pub, and a "mug of whisky" being a common purchase in any seedy roadside bar. It helped the locals that the first of the year was always a holiday within Unionism, thus barring actual labor. Crookback however was not keen on following the official city guidelines. As much as it was part of the city and Empire proper, with as few enforcers of law as there were inside, plenty of business had started early. Shopkeepers started opening their businesses, street peddlers stalled out their goods, and window tappers walked past the poor houses to wake up the residents for labor in some unregulated factory or sweatshop.

The day started like any other day, but how could it not? Outside of the more exciting occurrences like calamitous magical events, geopolitical contests, and foreign invasions, living in Regalia was a pretty mundane business for most of its 4 million inhabitants. Having an exciting life spent away from the daily drudgery of labor and self-sustenance was surely an experience beholden to those with "pretty privilege", whether that meant being actually conventionally beautiful, or magically powerful (or criminally violent). But something was off today. The Marken in the district were first to notice, sensitive to a particular frequency of vibrations that other mundane people could perhaps not hear. It was like a very low-frequency dog-whistle was being blown, not enough to the point to irritate, but certainly to upset any anxious feelings of impending doom.


The next to notice were the birds. For any Crookbacker who happened to look out the window to the back of Crookback, and the forests beyond, clouds of birds erupted from the trees like a hornet's nest disturbed with a firm kick. The birds panicked and fluttered in all directions, anywhere but close to the ground. This unusual sight would not have alarmed many on the street level, given that the buildings in Crookback were short, but the walls were tall, and only those fortunate enough to have shelled out more money than jobs in Crookback could pay on the Sherburne apartments, would have perhaps caught a glimpse of the birds.

The third signal however was unmistakeable to all, even those in Newtown and other parts of the Regalian capital. A loud rumbling sound dominated the skies, choking out the golden tonne bells of the Allfaith Beacon Temple of Unionism, emanating from the forest behind Crookback. The rumbling sound was as loud and rushing as an avalanche, yet there was no snow to be had left in Regalia, and the city was certainly too far from Mount Agatha to be the target of any sudden surge from its snowy tops.

Many denizens of Crookback knew better than to defy the odds with ominous loud noises after all the last had seen a dark magic-filled meteor strike into one of the squares of crookback, and another had caused an eruption of the Crookback bridge that killed many, the culprits of whom were still at large, having the city consign the event as yet another self-harming terrorist act on the part of Crookback to spite itself. Indeed, few in Crookback decided to wait out and see what was happening. Those who had the legs to carry the distance quickly rushed out of Crookback Gateshead which luckily was as wide as the avenue, and others who could not rushed to their shelters and basements. Only a brave few stood on the streets, listening to the ominous noises that erupted with increasing intensity.

A daring few rogues and perhaps even Vampires decided to make use of their agility, scaling the few towers that stood in Crookback to get a better view of the object that was now very clearly rising from the forest off in the distance. Within mere moments, a massive object hung in the sky, looming over the city.



Birds continued to flee the scene away from the object, while streams of sand, dirt, and falling rocks and trees cascaded from the object that had seemingly risen from the ground. The object was so massive that it had taken part of the forest with it, trees still rising up above the surface of the object as if they had not moved. The object was metallic without a mistake, the light of the sun reflecting on the parts that were not covered in the collapsing rubble that continued to stream down from it. All over the city, alarm bells started ringing, the various outposts that the Guard had established in past disaster events to alarm the people of impending chaos or doom, and indeed, the whole city was now on high alert. Knights marched out onto the streets, the Metropolitan armed themselves, and even the defensive towers of Greygate opened fire on the object with freshly installed artillery cannons provided by the Skyborn. Unfortunately, none of these projectiles had any effect.


For a moment, there was silence, the object hung ominously in the sky, with occasional puffs of smoke and gunpowder eruptions coming from Greygate's artillery fire, which was seemingly useless against the metallic behemoth, the shots just bouncing off like from sloped armor. Then, another loud rumble sounded from the machine, with differing tones as if it was communicating somehow. Parts of the back of the object lit up with as much brightness as the sun itself, and parts of the object started unfolding, ailerons appeared from the side, and wings extended from the back.

This unfolding of the object came paired with utter terror erupting from the Elven district, wailing cries and horror came from the wisened and eldest of the elder folk, as this object looked exactly like the metal horrors of the Dewamenet-Allorn War had been described to them. Crowds trampled down the streets while screaming "Ma'at! Ma'at!" in a chaotic cacophony of panic that the Knights had trouble controlling.

Those who had been read up on the Dewamenet-Allorn War, or for as little as there was left, would surely have read of the massive airborne Battlestations that the Dewamenet Empire used to decimate the Elves. Each of them had a name, the most infamous being Ma'at, Khefa, Ken, and Sekhem, who had unleashed burning meteors and hellfire onto the Elves during the war. There was little time to consider the scholarly implications beyond the obvious observation that this machine was built with all manner of metal types and looked brand new. It was as if the current falling rubble of rock and dirt created the first scrapes on its pristinely Living Metal woven exterior. The whole object emanated ominousness, the way it blocked out the sunlight for much of the city.

Before the Ithanian Cheval de l'air could mount their pegasi and fly to intercept the object, the lit backside erupted with golden glowing flames, and the whole object slowly but surely started moving, accelerating each second with loud rumbling chimes, until one sudden cloudburst and the whole object sped up into the clouds and far beyond sight to lands unknown.