Savages of the Sacred Salvage
"I just wish we didn't have to do this on foot," one of them grumbles.
"Hush. You know our orders," says the one that seems to be their leader.
The men move ahead with surprising quickness and you have a difficult time keeping up with them. They follow basically the same route you took getting here and many of the obstacles are difficult to get across with any kind of stealth. You find yourself having to hang further and further back to not be heard or seen. It doesn't take long before you realize that the real problem here is that you have no way to get ahead of them to warn anyone.
A few of times you think you spy a route that will be a shortcut, but you misjudge the difficulty in getting through it every time, and once you're forced to backtrack when trying to slip through one of the tower buildings instead of climbing a fence only leads you up against a door blocked by a fallen tree on the other side.
The rapidly approaching nightfall brings its own set of difficulties, and so when you do finally reach the site of your tribe's main camp, you find the place in chaos. Goats run about bleating frantically, a few tents have been set on fire, and worst of all, from what you can piece together from all the weeping and uproar, the Chief and his family as well as most of the tribe's elite warriors were murdered, all just as they had sat down for dinner. There is a great deal of confusion and stunned disbelief; there are no tribes at war with one another and even if they were, no one around here operates that way.
Although you saw the outlaws and know where they're headed next, you at first can't find anyone willing to stop and listen to you, and no one is in charge right now to put a party of warriors together to seek them out. You do make sure Bainto and Paita are all right, and eventually remember to ask about Chameek. No one has seen him.
Your people are able to send a party out to the neighboring tribe by dawn, but they arrive to a scene similar to the one that you found here, and it's too late to do anything. All the next day and night everyone does their part to vigilantly guard each village, and none of the search parties sent out can find any trace of the attackers.
Mourners from both tribes meet outside the Pavilion of Oaths and perform ceremonies in the field full of Bright Gods next to it. Pale blue remembrance crystals and many other varieties have been brought up from the underground and amassed together, and these offerings festoon the Bright Gods, their many facets glinting in the sun. Each contains prayers for protection and good luck, and the hopes and wishes of the survivors. It's a necessary tradition to give people a sense of safety and strength to carry on in hard times, and it's interrupted by sudden flashes of blinding blue light.
"The locusts!" someone cries.
"Protect the gods!" shouts another.
"What the--what are those?" you hear from someone else.
The locusts have arrived and begun busily stripping the gods of their newly-gifted crystals in their usual single minded way, but arriving with them this time were a group of shiny and black humanoid creatures. They point black staffs at the angry crowd surging towards them and lances of red fire burst out, tearing through flesh. You hear sizzles and screams as you dive for cover behind an overturned cart, and people are now running in a panic every which way.
With a sense of dread you realize two of the creatures have now walked quite close to you.
"Marvey ought to be paying us for pest control," one of them remarks, in your own language, but strangely accented.
"Call him 'Marvey' anywhere he can hear it and I at least know I'll be getting your cut," answers the other.
You suddenly realize you've heard these accents, and these voices before. Stealing a peek from behind the cart, you rapidly count all the red and black humanoids you see. There are eight. Their heads are so smooth and reflective, but could those be...some kind of helms?
"Got all the energy crystals?"
"Yeah, boss!"
"All right, we're done here, everybody out! Let's not give the natives time to get feisty."
Before you can think of any way to act on the sneaking suspicion you have, they disappear along with the demon locusts in the usual flash of blue light, leaving only barren gods stripped of your magic and the dead and the dying behind.
In the end you don't share your theories with anyone, since after all, men or not, the attackers clearly came from Hell. The consensus among the shaken survivors is that while you had all been growing complacent about Hell, it had been learning some new tricks. Only time would tell what else it had in store for you all, as long as you remained here.
"Hush. You know our orders," says the one that seems to be their leader.
The men move ahead with surprising quickness and you have a difficult time keeping up with them. They follow basically the same route you took getting here and many of the obstacles are difficult to get across with any kind of stealth. You find yourself having to hang further and further back to not be heard or seen. It doesn't take long before you realize that the real problem here is that you have no way to get ahead of them to warn anyone.
A few of times you think you spy a route that will be a shortcut, but you misjudge the difficulty in getting through it every time, and once you're forced to backtrack when trying to slip through one of the tower buildings instead of climbing a fence only leads you up against a door blocked by a fallen tree on the other side.
The rapidly approaching nightfall brings its own set of difficulties, and so when you do finally reach the site of your tribe's main camp, you find the place in chaos. Goats run about bleating frantically, a few tents have been set on fire, and worst of all, from what you can piece together from all the weeping and uproar, the Chief and his family as well as most of the tribe's elite warriors were murdered, all just as they had sat down for dinner. There is a great deal of confusion and stunned disbelief; there are no tribes at war with one another and even if they were, no one around here operates that way.
Although you saw the outlaws and know where they're headed next, you at first can't find anyone willing to stop and listen to you, and no one is in charge right now to put a party of warriors together to seek them out. You do make sure Bainto and Paita are all right, and eventually remember to ask about Chameek. No one has seen him.
Your people are able to send a party out to the neighboring tribe by dawn, but they arrive to a scene similar to the one that you found here, and it's too late to do anything. All the next day and night everyone does their part to vigilantly guard each village, and none of the search parties sent out can find any trace of the attackers.
Mourners from both tribes meet outside the Pavilion of Oaths and perform ceremonies in the field full of Bright Gods next to it. Pale blue remembrance crystals and many other varieties have been brought up from the underground and amassed together, and these offerings festoon the Bright Gods, their many facets glinting in the sun. Each contains prayers for protection and good luck, and the hopes and wishes of the survivors. It's a necessary tradition to give people a sense of safety and strength to carry on in hard times, and it's interrupted by sudden flashes of blinding blue light.
"The locusts!" someone cries.
"Protect the gods!" shouts another.
"What the--what are those?" you hear from someone else.
The locusts have arrived and begun busily stripping the gods of their newly-gifted crystals in their usual single minded way, but arriving with them this time were a group of shiny and black humanoid creatures. They point black staffs at the angry crowd surging towards them and lances of red fire burst out, tearing through flesh. You hear sizzles and screams as you dive for cover behind an overturned cart, and people are now running in a panic every which way.
With a sense of dread you realize two of the creatures have now walked quite close to you.
"Marvey ought to be paying us for pest control," one of them remarks, in your own language, but strangely accented.
"Call him 'Marvey' anywhere he can hear it and I at least know I'll be getting your cut," answers the other.
You suddenly realize you've heard these accents, and these voices before. Stealing a peek from behind the cart, you rapidly count all the red and black humanoids you see. There are eight. Their heads are so smooth and reflective, but could those be...some kind of helms?
"Got all the energy crystals?"
"Yeah, boss!"
"All right, we're done here, everybody out! Let's not give the natives time to get feisty."
Before you can think of any way to act on the sneaking suspicion you have, they disappear along with the demon locusts in the usual flash of blue light, leaving only barren gods stripped of your magic and the dead and the dying behind.
In the end you don't share your theories with anyone, since after all, men or not, the attackers clearly came from Hell. The consensus among the shaken survivors is that while you had all been growing complacent about Hell, it had been learning some new tricks. Only time would tell what else it had in store for you all, as long as you remained here.
