The Nelaga Territories

(Let's get an RPG started. Who's in?)

ic: backstory:
Cerune was sitting at her desk, in her office, in the newly built headquarters of the Nelagan Marine Corps. It was a multi-story beast of a building that resembled the giant castles of old. "The Castle" as it was nicknamed had three ways in and out by ground level, and was protected by steel and concrete reinforced walls and even a moat (some question the effectiveness of a moat in modern society, but eh...). Construction was only about half way done on the rest of the base, but the "Castle" had been completed first, and all that remained was to dig the underground portions.

The blueprints called for an extensive underground network of bunkers and tunnels. Cerune and her generals remembered the harsh lessons they had learned on Amity and Mirioth in regards to being bombed, and swore that such a fate would not befall Aquata. She was finishing up some paperwork when she heard the ring of her phone. "Commandant Russell" she said. "We have a problem, Cerune." the other voice replied. Cerune's eyebrows furrowed. "John? What's wrong?" John, the assistant Commandant sighed and spoke. "Not over the phone. I've arranged an emergency meeting in the High Command Meeting Room in ten minutes. We have big problems." cerune nodded as a reflex, even though no one would see it. "I'll be there."

The High command meeting room, or HICOMMER for short, was where all the important meetings were held. It was on the first level of the Commandant's area of the "Castle", and commanded an impressive view of Camp Aquata. Seated on the far side was Special Operations Command Major General Natasha Rose. To her left was Colonel Noel Mason, the commanding officer for Task Force Serenity. To his left was Lt. General Gamemalvin Usa, the CO for the Marine Expeditionary Force. On the near side was Assistant Commandant John Murray, and next to him was an empty seat obviously meant for Cerune. As she entered the room, the guard who opened the door saluted her. She saluted back and the officers in the room stood and saluted her in turn as well. After a return salute to them, she spoke. "I don't know if I should be thanking you all yet, but you DID get me out of a few hours of nasty paperwork, so thanks for that at least." Cerune smiled foolishly and sat down next to John. Everyone seated at the table laughed lighty, save for Natasha, who never laughed unless someone was hurting or dead.

John nodded and his smile faded. "Let's get down to buisness. While digging the pit that will eventually become our lift system for the under-hanger (the hanger that would hang below the island down at the very bottom), our engineers ran into a... problem." Natasha scoffed and Noel grimaced. John continued. "There's something... down there." cerune's eyebrows furrowed again. "What do you mean, 'something's down there?' " Noel shook his head and spoke up this time. "We don't know for sure, but something had been imprisoned down there. We found evidence of broken chains and an entire cavern system completely cut off from the surface." Natasha cut off Noel and continued. "We started finding the bodies soon after."

Cerune shook her head. "Damn." She thoughtfully stroked her chin, and spoke up again after a few seconds of silence. "I assume you sent a team down there?" Gamemalvin spoke up this time. "Several. At first we sent in some Task Force Serenity teams, but they're all MIA now- presumed KIA. So we sent down a full company from the 1st regiment. Three made it back alive." Cerune perked up alittle at the thought of some potential intelligence. "And?" Gamme shook his head. "They've all been sent to the bughouse." Cerune let out a frustrated sigh and looked upward. "Tell me we got SOMETHING?" Natasha shook her head. "Nothing of use. They're all stark-raving mad. One claims to have seen actuall honest-to-gods demons down there. Another swears his own shadow got up and stabbed him. The third guy says he saw cthulhu." Cerune shook her head and Natasha spoke up again. "The ONLY credible thing we can take away from their ravings is that the second soldier really doesn't have a shadow anymore." Cerune's eyes widened. "Seriously?" Noel nodded. "Yeah, no shadow. It's the weirdest thing- defies all known science."

Cerune shook her head. "This is above our experience. We need some outside help. Some people with experience in old Jasonian lore and/or the supernatural in general." Natasha nodded her head. "I think I have some people in mind..."


(If your interested in this, post something below and i'll send out some soldiers to get you here. )

Andreas had been looking through some tunnels on Nang. Despite having got all the anti-grav motors functioning, there was still much under there they didn't understand, and when he had a chance, he had a look down to see if he could find more. Today, there was no luck. He made his way to the surface and was going to return home when he sensed something ... odd ... underground. Very odd. He hurriedly made his way towards where he felt the disturbance, hovering slightly above the surface and zooming along it. He was paying more attention to the Astral Plane than the Material when he heard a shout and was stopped by several guards. He had accidentally walked into the Aquata Military base. This could be awkward ....

OOC: I'm so in, just not thinking very creatively this morning.

ooc: Awesome. I had been hoping you would bite. I'll give this another two days to keep it open to everyone, then we'll begin.

OOC:i'm in, Kathy is LOA but still in unless he says otherwise (i.e. we ask his brother on Gralus)

OOC: Also not feeling particularly creative, but I'm in. Gman, I've left it open for you to take some marines if you want to develop their characters.

OOC:Visit http://docs.google.com/View?docID=drwj4wm_23dvxj4hdk for info on the Magic stuff we'll probably reference... Nick's a werewolf, Andreas' a vampire, I'm a Demzus, North's a Wraith, feel free to pick one!

Allright kiddies, I think that's all ashore that's going ashore...


Andreas:

ooc: That's ok, as long as your having fun hm?


ic: The guards shouted to the hovering man to stop, JARs aimed and fierce looks cast, slightly amazed that the man was hovering, and furthermore, so out of it he got up and over a 6 foot barbed-wire fence. "You are in a restricted military base! Hands in the air and no sudden moves, or we will open fire!"

"Gentlemen, stand down. He is expected." A random Lieutenant yelled as he ran up to the unfolding situation. "The Major General is expecting him." The guards lowered their weapons and began to walk away, leaving Andreas in the hands of the lieutenant.

"Welcome to Camp Aquata, Minister Andreas. Please, come this way..."






Demon: Good to have you. I'll have everyone assemble in the HICOMMER so we can brief. Thanks for the link it's helpfull.

...and you watch too much Doctor Who.


Nick:

ooc: Thanks, chief.

ic: The room stood at attention and saluted the Commander-in-chief as he entered the room.




Cerune nodded. "I don't think any of my marines are capable of dealing with whatever is down there anyway, honestly. Their a fine combat force in regards to conventional warfare, but not when we're dealing with the supernatural." She turned her head back to the others in the room. "I don't want the entire senior command staff going down, just in case this turns deadly. We need to keep the chain-of-command intact." There was a general agreement, but Gammemalvin spoke up. "I'm going with you. I made your brother a promise when I left MASS to keep you safe. Where you walk, I walk. Ok?" Cerune opend her mouth to speak, but closed it and simply nodded. "Ok, Gamme... thanks." Assistant Commandant Murray spoke up. "Are we sure harvey or Bill will be ok with so many important people going down there?"



John simply nodded. "Allright then, good luck."



ooc: FYI, for anyone who is not familiar with Cerune's backstory:

She descends from the Pinky family (of FioJ fame). Gman's daughter went mad and killed her mother and sister, with Gman himself vanishing soon afterwards. As it turned out, Gman's daughter had become haunted (then possessed) by a deamon of Balgurd. A strange creature known only as the Angelguardian soon appeared (coincidentally right after Gman's disappearance) and fought the deamons of balgurd to free her soul. He was succesfull, but because she was still wanted for murder in jasonia, they travelled to Mirioth where she eventually married the count and had kids. Since then, their family line has been plagued by the deamons of Balgurd as part of an ongoing curse on the family line (which is still watched over by the Angelguardian). Cerune herself manifests this curse by being permanently bonded to a deamon that looks and sounds exactly like her. Most of the time it is kept asleep by the magic of the Angelguardian, but when it wakes up, Cerune can manifest distinctly deamonic powers (and a distinctly deamonic moral attitude).

OOC: Fides, you're not half demon by any stretch of the imagination, and I know it. You're a Demzus, currently.

...bodies.

Good gods, they were everywhere. Strung up on the walls, split in half on the ground, all the faces frozen in terror... at least what faces were left. Gammemalvin grimaced and cocked his gun as a reflex.

"These were good men..."

The party nodded, but Cerune was distracted, seemingly looking at the ground, inaudibly muttering to herself.


Ahead on the far wall, written in blood, was one word.

"Destiny."

ooc:

Cerune looked entirely shaken. She simply sat on the ground with her body propped up by her hands where she had fell. It had been a bad idea for her to come down here. A bad, bad idea. Her past history with the deamons of Balgurd meant she was safe from harm, but what they had in store for her was certainly NOT the better alternative.

"I'm... i'm sorry guys... that was my fault, I shouldn't have come. They... they knew we were there because I was there. I've endangered this mission..."

She trailed off, and the look on her face suggested she was talking to... something... in her head.

OOC: I have read the Illumination thread but can't remember all the fine details of why Cerune was demon possessed. IC, I visited Illumination soon after those events (time lock and all that) and would have heard that she was somehow involved with the demon cult and summoning, but wouldn't actually know much more or many clear facts.

Ever watch Batman? She kind of has a Jason Blood/Demon Etrichan thing going on.

*Gralan backstory (which come to think of it probably only exists in my head) has Hell as a separate dimension to everything else. There are particular subsets of hell devoted to each world/universe. Thus the entry to hell near Gralus goes to a different hell than the entry to the Treesian Hell on Istvanistan, or any of the demon incursions into Shireroth (all of which would go to Balgurd). High ranking demons can travel between the different parts of hell, but normal people can't, and so think they each see the only Hell, not different parts of an overall conglomerate.

Also, for the Gralans - whatever this shadowy thing is, it is NOT shadows in the Fortuna Queen of the Shadows plagued the Etruri sense. It's some demonic thing involving shadows. After all, they've used shadow dragons in our expeditions before (well, once). But this has absolutely no connection with the shadows in the Dreaming or the Items of Fate or anything like that. Clear?

OOC: Sorry, had to do sometihng. Fides and Andreas, try to do some research on this and come back later or whatever.

OOC: This is before the destruction of BONE...

Decide amongst yourselves whether you want the Lich to come or not(he isn't evil)

OOC: Fides, which or what Lich is this? Are you talking to one of your memories of a past life? Or are you trying to talk to the Lich that's trapped in the Seven Hells (because you can't get in there (at least, not if you intend to get out again) unless I take you, security and all ....)? Or some other Lich entirely?

OOC: Just some old Lich, not all necromancers are bad people, same with the dead ones...

OOC: Fair enough - if you can write more about place and background it'll make it easier for the rest of us to follow.

OOC: Behold, I have been summoned!