The Southern Chains [Fan-fic]

[Hulavuta]

This is my first fanfic, it was based off of an RP I participated in 1-2 years ago, and like all RPs I enter, I horribly hijack them and come up with an entire story for myself, so the fic will start at the RP and as it was never finished, I will be writing on from there. This was originally intended to be a campaign, but frankly I was not proficient enough in WML to make a campaign that is an RPG. (Due to being based on an RP it didn't contain armies on the good side) I was inspired to make it a fan-fic after reading The White Lich.

This story takes place during The Fall. (As in, the the time where Wesnoth is post-Apocalypse)
It takes place around the same time as IfTu, but they rarely coincide(if ever).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPkfLALLXKY


And now, without further adieu, let the story begin:

-------------------------------------------------

It was dark in the city. And late. Or early, depending on your choice of semantics. Although the Fall had destroyed most of the surface of Irdya, deep down South near the Sea, people had attempted to rebuild. The city of Nathus was built between mountains and a forest, and was fairly safe from attacks. You see, the ones who had taken charge and built the place was a strange alliance of White Mages and Necromancers. It was proof that a Mage of Light could descend so deep into the dark arts and still retain power over the pure elements. In the South, it could be said that life was cruel, but no one could decide if it was better with a government of depraved Magi or life in the wild with bandits, monsters, and other such things.

So in this night, a half-vampire human by the name of Kalith was walking down the street in a hat and a large overcoat. Naturally, he gained the attention of a few thugs, who were watching him from behind an alley. Five of them quickly filed out, one of them going in front and throwing a knife, purposely missing to get the attention of the vampire. It worked.

Kalith looked up at the Thug who was in his way. "What do you want?" He said.

"We want your money, of course...hand it over," came the reply.

Kalith looked behind the Thugs that gathered behind him. He saw another man wandering the streets of Nathus, one carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows. He called out to the man: "Hey! Over here!"

The Thugs turned to see who Kalith was yelling to, and as they did, he tore off his hat, and sunk his teeth into the neck of the Thug who had thrown the dagger at him. He screamed in pain, and fell over on the ground, not dead, but numb.

The man with the arrows ran over to the scene. "Hey, let's not fight here. This world's already messed up and dangerous enough without you guys. I'm sure we can work out a deal. Like, you guys leave and I won't have to kick your sorry asses. Not that you probably care, but I'm Josh, I'm a ranger."

The Thugs, enraged, charged at Josh. He quickly jumped back, loaded and arrow, and fired it into a Thug. He hit him in the belly, and the Thug fell over thriving in pain. The next Thug had a small dagger and quickly dodged all of the arrows. The Thug jumped over Josh, and jabbed his knife straight into his back.

On the other side, Kalith was fending off the other three Thugs. He fought mostly with martial arts, grabbing the enemies' weapons and giving an uppercut to the gut. But the Thugs were tenacious, and strong. The only way to stop them was to kill them now. As he dodged the swipe of a club, he reached into his coat, pulled out a large Greatsword and cut the club in half. Without wondering how he fit the huge sword in his coat, the thug attempted to retreat, as the other Thug pulled out a bow and arrow to shoot Kalith. By this time, the Thug that threw the dagger recovered, and threw more daggers at him. Pinned a few yards away from the Outlaws throwing the projectiles, he was in a losing position in this fight.

"AAAAAGGG!!!" Josh yelled as the dagger sunk into his back. The Thug smiled as he pushed his knife into Josh. But he wasn't going down yet, he knocked the Thug's feet out from under him, pinned him to the ground with his foot, and fired an arrow at point blank range. There was no way the Thug could dodge it now. He saw Kalith on the other end, blocking the arrows and knives thrown at him, and pulled out another arrow. He slowly pulled it, aimed, and fired it. It hit the Thug with the bow, directly in the head.

Kalith saw his chance. He jumped up, and landed behind the Thug with the daggers. He bit into his neck again, but this time harder, shattering his bones. The thug fell to the ground, dead.

The last thug emerged from the alley, this time he was carrying a katana. He was finished off quickly. As he engaged in a sword duel with Kalith, Josh pulled the dagger out of his back, yelled in pain, and threw it at the thug, killing him instantly.

"Whoo...that was...exciting," Josh said, partly to Kalith, partly to himself, "By the way...I didn't get your name?"

"I'm Kalith...I'm a vampire," came the reply. "I need a place to stay."

"Well, I'm just passing through town, but," he pulled out a set of lockpicks, "I'm sure I can find a 'vacancy.'"

From the shadows, another man had watched the entire slaughter of his gang members. "Damnit..."He thought, "What am I supposed to do now? None of the other gang members need a mage..." He ran, trying to catch up with Josh and Kalith, but Kalith heard him coming.

He pulled out his sword. "Are you with them?" He asked.

"Well," the man replied, "I was, until you...you know what. Anyway, the point is that I can help you...you need a place to stay? Come with me..."

With nothing to lose, and with the only other option being stealing a house, the two men followed the strange man. They went into a hotel, and the man said, "You can call me Xeni. And you can stay here. Uh, one thing, how much money do you guys have?"

"10 gold," said Josh. "7 gold," said Kalith.

"Hmm, how ironic," Xeni replied, "the rooms cost exactly 10 gold and 7 gold! Enjoy your stay..."

---------------


To be continued.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Well written and very descriptive. Personally, it's not my thing (I really don't like vampires...) but I don't expect you to change the story cause of that. Good job! I'll be waiting for the next chapter.

[Hulavuta]

Don't worry, it's not a vampire story, it's not going to turn into Twilight or anything, it's just that one of the main characters is a vampire.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Don't say the T word....

[Hulavuta]

Okay. Lol.

Here's chapter two, hoping to gain more interest.


--------------------------

Kalith awoke early in the morning to the sound of chatter in the halls outside. Not wanting to make a scene, he simply walked out of the room to politely ask them to be quiet. As he exited the room, he saw that they weren't average people, they were human soldiers. And they weren't just chatting, they were plotting.

"So...if we can just take these ones right here..."
"I heard that this place was great for.."
"There was that fight earlier.."
"Hey, somebody's watching!"

A Soldier pointed at Kalith, and then five soldiers pulled out their weapons and surrounded him.

"How long have you been out here?" One of the soldiers asked.
"Not long," Kalith said, skillfully lying, "I've only come out to get a drink."
"Hmm...okay, how about helping us then, huh? Be a good citizen? Did you hear anything about a gang fight a few hours ago?"
"Hmm," said Kalith, "shouldn't you soldiers be sleeping? Everyone else is."
The soldier replied: "Heh..well I guess it's good to tell you that the High Council has found a balance. We get all of the advantages of being Undead, but with full sentience and no drawbacks. Now...about my question?"
"Well then, no, I heard nothing about a gang fight. Now, may I go get my drink?"

"Hmm..." The soldier stared deep into Kalith's eyes. There was something unnerving about the way he showed no emotion. "Fine, you can go, but if you know anything about-" he was cut off at the sound of Josh busting open the door. "WHO THE HELL IS YELLING OUT THIS LATE AT NIGHT???!!?!?!"

"Damnit," Kalith thought to himself, "he's going to blow my cover.."

"Hey, I just took out a gang with that guy over there!" Josh yelled again, "and we can take down your sorry asses too!"

The soldier looked at Kalith. "Oh...you did, did you? Take care of the Ranger. This one is mine..." With that, he delivered an uppercut into Kalith's jaw, knocking him into the roof. He fell to the ground. As the soldier picked him up to deliver another blow, Kalith bit his hand, and he screamed in pain. He opened the door, and ran into his room. A second later, he came out with his great sword. He swung it at the soldier, who, for his large size and strength, easily dodged. It hit the side of the wall, breaking the wood.


Josh set an arrow on fire with his last match, and pondered what to do. A shot to one soldier would of course kill him, but he could do more with the arrow. Shooting it at the ground would slow or even stop their approach, but at the risk of burning down the whole hotel. Or would it? Perhaps it was coated with an anti fire coating? He took the risk, and fired it at the rug in the center, which caught on fire. The soldiers rushing towards him stopped, and waited behind the fire.

"I've got from now until the fire goes out to make a plan..." Through the fire, he could already see one of the soldiers give the other the order to get water. He didn't have much time.

Suddenly, three arrows came through the fire, and towards him. He opened a door to shield himself. He heard the noise as the arrows hit the door, and they fell to the ground and burned out. "Hmm, how do I know that the walls were fireproof?" He decided not to think about it, he still had soldiers to deal with.

Meanwhile, Kalith swung his blade once more at the soldier, who again dodged. This time however, he took a risk and went for Kalith, punching him thrice in the gut and pulling the sword out of his hand. "The name is Carmine," he said to Kalith, as he fell over, "don't forget it."

Josh watched and aimed three arrows in his bow as the soldiers poured water on the fire. Slowly, it went out, and as Josh took a glance down the stairs, he saw tons of more soldiers coming up. Knowing he couldn't defeat them all, and killing as many as he could would just get him a bigger punishment, he fired the three arrows into the ceiling, dropped his weaponry, and put his hands in the air as a sign of surrender. The soldiers surrounded him and the last thing he saw was Xeni coming out of his room yelling about them destroying his hotel, before he slipped into unconsciousness.

------

Kalith awoke again, and screamed as two soldiers emptied a bucket of boiling water on him. "Aagg!!" He yelled, but decided not to try to fight them. Around the room, he could see Xeni getting covered in hot water as well as Josh, who decided to make a commotion about it. There were other people he did not know in the beds as well, some Drake (which required a bucket of cold water) some Saurian, some even Orc and Elf, and some that he didn't even recognize.

He didn't care. He wanted to know where he was. He took a look around, but could see nothing besides a door at the end of the room. The door opened, and soldiers escorted the people in the room into another room, this one covered in many weapons.

A soldier said to the crowd: "You have five minutes to pick out any weapons in this room to use to fight. Don't bicker over the weapons...we'd hate to see you dead before you go into the arena. Heheheh..."

Kalith walked over to the wall and picked out a Greatsword similar to the one he had before. In exactly 5 minutes, the doors opened again, and the group piled out into a hot arena covered in sand. He saw a band playing music out in the arena, and saw other animals coming out of the doors lined around the walls. As the band finished playing, they left the stage. One of the horn players took a detour walked over to the walls to see a more primitive and feral Saurian that was held with the other beasts. The Saurian looked at him for a moment, with a curious look on its face. Then, it reached out with its leg, used its foot claws to grasp the stomach of the horn player, used its tail to wrap his stomach, pulled him in, and bit his head off with his sharp teeth.

The Guards stood there and did nothing to stop it. They simply stood their with their halberds high into the air and looked directly forward.

"What the hell are we getting into?" an Elf asked.
"Is this really how barbaric they've become?"
"What's going to happen to us?"

The time for questions was over. The Guards in front of the gate holding the warriors grabbed the gate with both hands, and pulled it open. From behind the group, more guards poked with their spears and forced the warriors outside, into the arena. From a box high up in the stands, they could see a Lich in dark black robes, surrounded by two Skeleton Axemen and two Skeleton Archers. As their anxiety began to build inside of them, the Lich finally spoke.

"Open the gates."

All of the warriors raised their weapons, and prepared for the fight.


------------

[artisticdude]

I have arrived (at last)!

Nice story overall, but there are a few places where some modern expressions make a debut:

Like, you guys leave and I won't have to kick your sorry asses.

and we can take down your sorry asses too!

[Hulavuta]

Well, it's only there. And this is set into the apocalypse, so...IDK?

[artisticdude]

Oh, it's in an apocalyptic time period? Okay then, never mind.

[Hulavuta]

Well, it's the Fall.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

I think you're both misunderstanding each other.

Hulavuta, he means that those expressions wouldn't be around until modern times, so wesnoth-era people wouldn't be using them.

Artisticdude, he's saying that it happens around the time of UtBS/IftU.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding everyone...

[Araja]

All the capitalization on unit names seems wrong to me. I know the units are referred to that way in-game, but stories tend not to do that. Saying this Thug while another Thug did this or the Lich had two Skeleton Axeman and two Skeleton Archers sounds like you're discussing an Wesnoth MP fight. Even then, people tend to not to use capitalized names. I was almost expecting a sentence about someone moving to 60% defence or it being the wrong ToD.

Normally, capitals are only used for names or titles. There's no need to go by the unit ID, because any Wesnoth player can take a good guess at what a thug or axe-wielding skeleton might look like. It's the same rule for the Greatsword, what's with the capital names?

The last thug emerged from the alley, this time he was carrying a katana

You even managed to use lowercase once, then went back to capitalized names later on.
I quite like the story style, just stop metagaming with all the unit IDs

[styles1005]

Huh. Trite and cliche storyline AFAICT, but meh. I'll prolly read it just because it's by you, Hulavuta, and for lack of other stuff to read. I do like the reference to ingame stuff when Kalith pulls the huge sword out of his coat . That's assuming that was meant to refer to ingame stuff. Even then, I like it.

[Icarusvogel]

Overall, quite nice. Only a few points were, um, well, they explain themselves. You realise a greatsword is actually sometimes well over a yard in size? Try to hide that in your coat.
And I have never seen anyone open a door quicker than arrows fly.
And, as Araja said, be careful with the unit names.
Anyway, now I'll stop being so pedantic, and wait for the net chapter.

[Hulavuta]

Back from camp to answer your questions!

@IV: I guess I didn't think about the door. Oh well, can't do anything about it now. About the greatsword, I know that it's impossible to hide in a coat, and that's why I wrote the bit about the thug acknowledging it. My excuse will be magic.

@styles: I'm assuming you mean the fact that they are being captured to fight in a Gladiator Arena? Because living in the Apocalypse is part of the Fall, which is Wesnoth, which I need to use as an excuse to make up stuff that I couldn't otherwise. Anyway, don't worry, they're going to escape in 1-2 chapters, this isn't the plot anyway. The Gladiator thing was just my way to get the main characters to meet the other main characters. The greatsword thing...I hadn't intended that, and looking back I DO realize it is similar to certain RPGs and stuff.

@Araja: Okay.

[Hulavuta]

Hmm...Chapter 3, here you are.

----------------------------

As the beasts charged out, Kalith stood behind and watched his fellow fighters run into the fray. Sure, the soldiers would force them out, but...they seemed a little too enthusiastic. Perhaps they wanted to enjoy their last few moments of life? He didn't know. As the last of the warriors ran out to the field, the soldiers forced Kalith out as well.

Instead of fighting, Kalith decided to simply find a way out. He found only one. Supposedly, a flying creature, such as a drake, would be able to simply fly out of the top of the roof, however, several adepts and archers waited in the stands to destroy any escapees. "Well then," he thought, "the only way out is to defeat all of these monsters..." He pulled out his greatsword, and charged into the battle.

The next few minutes were somewhat of a routine, as the imprisoned soldiers swiftly killed off the beasts or were killed off themselves. Over in the west side, an orc wielding two large swords cut down a pack of wolves, but was bitten by the last one, and left dead by a pack of feral saurians. Off on the other side, three Elves teamed up with Josh to cut down a horde of giant spiders with arrows. A drake jumped high into the sky, retracted his wings, and fell on top of a scorpion, shattering its hard shell, and blasted fire into its insides. In the middle of the battlefield, six goblins were cut up by a skeleton that a necromancer quickly conjured up from a fallen fencer. The skeleton was quickly destroyed from a headbutt by a drake clasher, who crushed its bones beneath his feet.

After a few hours, the battle quickly subsided. Only a little over half of the fighters remained. As the last troll was shot down by a magic missile from Xeni, the Lich in the dark robes raised a skeletal hand. "This battle is over," he said, "the remaining will live to fight another day."

The soldiers escorted the fighters out of the arena and back to the prison room. After an hour, food was served. The remaining fighters talked and ate.

Kalith and Josh sat down to eat, as Xeni walked over and sat with them as well.

Josh saw Xeni, and said: "It was you, wasn't it? You used some kind of magic to tell me that the wood of the hotel was fireproof."
Xeni replied, "Hmm, you're pretty smart. Yes, it was me. Using my magic to fireproof a hotel saves me a ton of money. Not that I'm ever going to see it again...because..you know why."
"Yes," Kalith finally said, "now we're stuck to fight here until we die."

"Don't be so sure, this isn't going to last forever."

The three men turned at the voice. Standing behind them was a large drake Flameheart, carrying a large sword on his back. He radiated an aura of inspiration and leadership, even though he wore little and was badly bruised.

Xeni said to the drake, "You planning an escape or something? I'd doubt it'd be easy..."
"Of course not," the drake replied, "but I do have a plan. And I saw your performance in the arena today. I think it would be very beneficial if you three joined me in my escape plan."

The three agreed. None of them wanted to stay in here any longer than they had to. Xeni asked, "but it's going to take more than the four of us to escape, I'm assuming you have others in mind too?"

"Well, yes." the drake said, "I'm going to try to enlist the help of the two physically strongest fighters here." He pointed to two different spots. "That one is Cassius, he is an abnormally strong man, and that one over there is Greck, a drake clasher who is stronger than most other drakes. I'm also going to try and convince Irix, a saurian, to join us."

"Okay," Josh said, "and once we get out of here, where do we head next? We can't go back to Nathus, the soldiers have probably taken it over by now."

"Yes, well I plan to escape a little to the east, where there is a colony of drakes living there."

"And that's all?" Kalith asked, "you're fully confident in your ability to plan and coordinate this escape?"

"Yes," the drake replied, "you can be sure. Perhaps you'll recognize my name, I'm Garrath Toa."



--------