Reality: /ɹiˈælɪti/
Noun
reality (usually uncountable, plural realities)
1: The state of being actual or real . The reality of the explosion became apparent when the shockwave reached her.
2: A real entity, event , or other fact. The ultimate reality of life is that it ends in death.
3: The entirety of all that is real . An individual observer’s subjective perception of that which is real.
4: A separate timeline where physical law and history may be radically different from your own. The Reality of Anglio is home to many varied species. It has a tech/magic Ratio of 20/80, which causes electronics to fail when being operated.
The advent of inter-Reality travel and the later establishment of colonies on alternate Realities relieved the strain of the masses of Erde, the so-called “prime Reality.” During 2030-65, the forced emigration to the colonies gave the GmbH over thirty colonies to exploit, not including the pacified Kondarrian and Tigré home Realities. In contrast, the other member states in the original Consortium, Imperial Japan and the Republic of Texico , founded only ten colonies during these years, both governments needing tighter control over their populations.
This is not to say that all these alternate Realities were ever fully colonized; in fact, most were little more than mining towns or massive deforestation projects or, in the case of Vredenburg, a vast cattle ranch. Nevertheless, being physically identical to the “Prime Reality” gave the colonists a more significant starting advantage than the colonists of space, whose very environment was hostile to them.
As other inhabited Realities were discovered with their own unique species, the consortium members began to limit the growth of inter-Reality travel to control their monopoly on inter-Reality trade.
Realities that did not possess inter-Reality travel were labeled “aboriginal” to denote their status as Realities that had to be given the means to travel. If the inhabitants so wished, they were supplied Inter-Reality service for a price. During the later years with the formation of the Storm League at the beginning of the Sidhe War, the means for Inter- Reality travel was slowly pried from the grasp of the Consortium members. An elitism formed within the original ranks that would exasperate tensions among younger members and eventually collapse Inter-Reality travel.
The appearance of the Supremacy of New Atlantis and the Atlan species at the beginning of the last century exasperated the issues.
from A Second Dark Age: The Collapse of the Storm League
by Katsu Ukkonen
Brennon-Fujishima Press, 2353 ESC, Erde Standard Calendar
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Reality of Shénzhōu
Jicheng, Capital of the Heavenly Kingdom
Forbidden City, Imperial Palace
3rd Month, 24th Day 700th Year, Reign of the Black Dragon
(May 14, 2181, Erde Standard Calendar)
Night breezes ruffled the deep black hair of Wang Hei Mei Lung; it swirled about his tall, thin pointed ears that framed a noble face with intelligent almond-shaped black eyes. He stood staring out over the Hall of Mental Cultivation; the other buildings of the courtyards all had curved, tiled roofs with black dragons supporting their edges. Of course, they were black Dragons; that was his symbol. He, the Emperor of All Reality, embodied the most beautiful of dragons; his long, darkly shining hair was an example of the Gods’ favor. He looked up at the moon and saw the Rabbit pounding rice cakes for Heng’e, the goddess of the moon. The common priests called her Chang'e, much to his dismay. Here in the seat of his empire, the moon’s face was unblemished by the lesser races. The humans, dwarves, goblinoids, and even more monstrous animal hybrids had been cleansed at his command during the Holy War started one hundred and eighty-seven years ago.
It had come to him that the humans would pollute the moon and destroy his world in a dream. It was a dream of a world where the double-headed iron eagle was their symbol; there were huge cylindrical monstrosities in the sky. The moon was overfilled with dirty cities and fires that shot into the night. There were fireworks that humans rode and shot other fireworks at one another in the sky. The natural world was degraded, huge smoke-belching cities covered the land, and humans ruled the world. Worst of all, there were no elves at all. The humans must have killed his people in the future.
The vision had so disturbed him that he ordered his legions of elves to begin massacring the humans before such a thing had happened. The war was unpleasant, and they had fought back, not understanding he was doing all he could to save the planet from their filthy kind. Other races began to help them and hide them, so he had to order them to the sword. They were found and destroyed through lightning bolts, fireballs, biomantically created diseases, and summoned golem.
The Dwarves of the continent to the east were the worst to subdue. They had found out his hatred of the Eagle and used it as their symbol. The golden eagle with vertical red and white stripes behind it was their symbol, and it had driven him into rages. They employed evil mechanical devices that ran upon steam, clouded the sky with their smoke, and interbred with the remaining humans, vowing to erase the elves from history for the Holy War. High magics had been worked, causing earthquakes and volcanoes to erupt along the great mountain range that spanned their continent.
The resulting destruction destroyed most of the vast Dwarven shelter cities they had used to attack his skyships and floating fortresses. Eleven years after he began his war of extermination, he was close to victory. Then on the eve of his triumph, his enemy escaped by causing a horrendous storm with green lightning. They had simply just vanished into the sky, in steam-powered skyships of their own.
It had taken a year, but his sorcerers and priests had found where they went. It was a sea of endless clouds that led to other places. Other versions of his world. Areas that he rightfully ruled. He had a floating fortress, and its skyships followed the enemy to finish the extermination of vermin. To his surprise, they found many new places that ignored his commands to turn over all non-elves and actively fought his forces.
They had rebuilt and then began to methodically re-invade these places, destroying any nation that resisted them with spell and sword. There were failures, but his people had spread and become numerous since their world had begun to heal with the generous application of magic. Using them to fuel his armies, he continued to fix the planet for the next hundred and forty years. The natural animals had returned, and his people hunted the few barbaric surviving lesser races as game. They had tried the servant/slavery thing through the millennia, but it always ended badly. The filthy things wanted to be as equals.
The wars on other earths continued unabated, making him extremely happy. Eventually, he would save not only his home but countless others. They had finally found the remnants of the escapees from his world and exterminated them. Unfortunately, however, the worlds were filled with a multitude of lesser races. They all lived and died in the blink of an eye, the longest-lived only a few hundred years. They bred like rats, using up resources, polluting the land around them, and generally were disgusting.
Their first real setback was encountering a species of beast-men that were like cats mixed with humans in form. They had despoiled the planet, the skies, and even the sacred moon. They had even despoiled their bodies with machinery and the hated electrics that were anathema to the elves’ magic. His Sky fortresses had gone in like usual, but something was wrong. First, they faltered, then the entire world’s reality had cracked like an egg and drained his sky fortresses of their magic. His magic. He felt the painful drain from here, through the ley lines that fed through his body, had felt some of the magic leave his world and transfer there. He had stopped the torrent of outrushing magic, but something had happened.
That night, he had a dream that a goddess of the cat people had come to him. She was dressed in bright gold and white cotton, like the animal-headed gods, the desert-dwelling humans worshiped. The woman had held up a finger and shook it at him. When he had responded in rage, he felt another of his sky fortresses be drained, and then he felt the magic glowing and being used against his people. When he had awoken the following day, they reported that the place they had invaded had exploded with magic. His assault was not only turned back, but his sky fortresses had also been unceremoniously dumped back into the land of endless sky and then locked out. This signaled the beginning of the fall.
The humans from his dreams began finding places he had cleansed and destroyed the Heavenly Kingdom’s outposts. They had a double-headed eagle with an iron cross in its claws as their symbol. They first tried to talk to his people to stop exterminating the lesser races. They, of course, refused; being faithful to their duty, they attempted to eliminate the foul humans. Finally, the humans returned, encased in steel machines like golems; they had small moving fortresses of iron that rode on air. It was an even battle. His mages’ spells and magically empowered arrows could bypass the foul human electrics’ defenses. So it had seemed. Finally, however, he had kicked over the hornet’s nest.
There were the Eagle People, The People of the Sun, and The People of The Star and Eagle eating the snake. The Machine People that were mockeries of elves, and beast people, so many of the vile beast people. They had decided to stop his Holy War to restore the environment and exterminate the elves. They had met other elves that were also refusing him his Holy War. They had also joined with the lesser races even, to his disgust, interbreeding with them. His people and outposts were harried, murdered, and destroyed. They use combinations of magic and electricity to bypass their defenses and armor their equipment.
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Over the last twenty-three years, his people had been pushed back into this world. He had been told a new faction, the humans of the mailed fist, had joined after his soldiers had destroyed a city of theirs by destabilizing one of their suns in a bottle that was utterly sacrilegious. They had tried invading his realm directly by appearing in his cities, clad in metal golems. Their electricity had failed, and their weapons had been useless. They were executed quickly. He had their heads on spikes decorate the gates of cities.
There had been a slight rain of rocks from the sky off and on for weeks now as the vermin of the newly formed Storm League tried to assault his world where he was Emperor of Heaven and Earth. They had appeared from the land of endless Sky, but his people’s magic had been too strong. Finally, about a month ago, the machine people had invaded en masse across the land. Still, they were reduced to using hand weapons, and their legions had been decimated in two weeks. All that was left were weak female sneak thieves that assassinated people in the dark.
Thus, he stood upon his balcony, safe in his most secure city, smelling the night jasmine and feeling the night breezes upon his hair and ears. His planet’s magic was strong; the restorative magics he had woven with his mind and body flowed correctly. Its Feng Shui was correct, and his Qi was at its peak. So why did he feel so wrong on this night?
Lights bloomed across the sky in a line. Green flashes signaled the transfer of more useless rocks that would bounce against the shields of his cities. He let out a snort of derision and smiled up at their futility.
Then the world cracked—all the fibers of his being felt like they were being torn asunder. Something had shoved its icy fingers into the ley lines and ripped them apart. Magic bled from the world, magic that he had tied himself and land to. He felt it scatter to the other worlds and change. Hastily cutting some of his ties to ley lines, he stared at the sky, grasping his heart, and falling to his knees and saw thousands of green flashes.
The sky looked fractured like a broken pane of glass, and he felt the nature of his world change. Clouds gathered, lightning flashed, and rain began falling as rips in the sky formed, allowing massive fortresses and ships to nose in.
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Althea 36935 biofem scout commando of the Argus Legion crouched naked, covered in mud, and leaves on a tree-covered hill overlooking a base of the Sidhe on their home Reality. The base itself was a square clearing that the Sidhe favored. There were two dragon-shaped attack craft with ports for their mages on the sides and front and platforms for archers that used the elf-shot to go through even the toughest standard armor. A small pagoda-like structure housed a shielding crystal and the Imperial Official that would be empowering it.
She was one of sixteen sisters inserted in a vast Gated assault that brought thousands of her brothers armed with halberds and the new anti-magic armor. They had set up a block formation battle line and attacked a significant base of the genocidal elves. She and her sisters had scattered in the confusion of the hand-to-hand battle that had lasted several weeks. Their mission was critical; her brothers, the bioman assault Argus Legion, was a distraction and test for the monomolecular crysteel weapons and new armor. The resulting battle had provided precious information on the five types of anti-magic armor that her brothers wore.
However, the real mission was to insert the scouting/commandos to find the Sidhe leadership’s major defensive installations and mark them for termination. Althea and her sisters had scattered throughout the countryside to scout and prepare for the coming battles. She felt half lobotomized here in this Reality; the ever-present battle-net was down. Mechanese like her relied on it to coordinate battle formations, allowing her people to act as one unit. What one knew all knew. The tactical information was very crucial to all battlefields. In this Reality, the magic levels were too strong to allow the built-in cybernetic data transmitters and receivers to function. Radio waves became distorted, and all she had been receiving for the last month was static.
She had stashed her powersuit and stripped out all her Mechanese equipment because their mages could detect it. She had dug a hole and buried it near a small stream in the forest to her back. She had occasionally worn local clothing she had stolen, but her appearance was all wrong to blend in. She had rounded periwinkle eyes, lighter skin, and white hair. Even her long pointed ears were the wrong shape and too mobile to be considered elven. She could only pass for one of them at a distance if she hid her eyes and dyed her hair.
The worse thing for blending in was that her people rarely showed their emotions on their faces. They only showed them through skin patterning. Hers was based upon the noble cloud leopard; she had sisters based upon other large cats, tiger patterning was incredibly charming. Unfortunately, for sneaking among the populace when she felt an emotion, her skin would color with the cat coloration, immediately giving her away. She had filed requests for the ability to turn off the skin coloration to be sent to her creator, the All-Computer Lord Mechanon. However, they would have to wait until she reconnected to the Network, the reality spanning system that Mechanon had gifted the member states of the Storm League.
She slipped down the side of the hill, her enhanced reflexes letting her weave through the trees with no more than a whisper that she had ever been there. The Sidhe that were here were highly confident in their mastery of the world, and they were lax as they made their patrols with globes of floating lights that followed their movements. The stink of sandalwood and agarwood incense, ink, and other odd scents that magicians used surrounded them and made them easy to avoid. She slipped past the small square outbuildings and into the main base.
Gripping the side of the wall with her claws, she climbed up the side of the tallest hangar with only a few movements. She ran across the hangar roof with light steps to leap across to the skyship. She pressed herself flat when she landed, staying completely still. The Sidhe inside were confused momentarily at the sudden jolt to their grounded craft. She stayed there, not even breathing until they had calmed down and continued their routines. Then, Gecko-crawling across the hull, she made her way to the first of the liftstones that gave the ship its ability to fly using magic.
She slipped into the maintenance room via an exposed wooden hatch and flipped open the panel to the sky-blue crystal. Scanning it with her inbuilt analysis computers, she found the weak spot in the molecular structure and used her crysteel dagger to push and crack it from the inside. If any power flowed through the device, it would explode rather spectacularly. Next, she found a cabin that had a sleeping elf in it. Quickly snapping her neck, she used the dead sailor’s towels to clean the dirty camouflage from herself and dressed in a spare uniform. She tied her long-braided hair into a bun and put an overly large hat on. She moved to the next crystal and repeated the procedure to disable it.
Using her eyes to see body heat, nose for their scents, and ears to listen for movements, she avoided the rest of the crew and completed this ship. She moved to the next ship when her inbuilt computer system predicted a gap in the patrols. The second ship was more accessible than the first, its crew having left for the mess hall and leaving a single guard, which she avoided easily. The next part would be the assassination of the minor Imperial Official. This would be tricky as the pagoda was well lit from all sides. She looked about the ship and found a tray with a bowl of half-eaten food on it. Maybe she could use that and pose as a dinner delivery? She was musing on this when suddenly she felt an air pressure shift and her eardrums popped. The Sidhe in the base began screaming, and her battle net came online.
PRIORITY ALERT! ALL UNITS, ALL UNITS, INVASION IS GO! ELIMINATE ALL TARGETS! SUPPORT YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS! ALL SIDHE SPELLCASTERS ARE PRIORITY TARGETS! Kill them all, my children. I am with you!
The message from Lord Mechanon was loud and clear in her mind. Data flowed from her mind uploaded into the battle net with everything she had done over the last month. All priority target locations and her kill count. She got back confirmations of her targets for incoming airstrikes and the areas of her three remaining sisters. The other twelve were silent, having been killed in battle. The night sky had all the stars blotted out by clouds, and she felt the rain begin to fall as skyships and battleships began to emerge from the Sky Hurricane. combat mode four engaged, sang across her nerves as organelles produced combat chemicals in her body. Her perception of time changed, and the world slowed down.
Losing all pretense of being stealthy, she tossed the tray aside and ran for the lone guard in the control room of the combat ship. He was slowly turning when she decapitated him with her dagger. She ripped out the panel containing the control crystals that ran the ship. Turning, she ran towards the gangplank and grabbed a sword and a buckler shield from the onboard armory. She sprinted at full speed towards the pagoda with the Minor official. The two guards on duty went to stop her, but they were not only suffering effects from what she assumed were Reality bombs, but they were also slow compared to her.
A sword flicked out at her, and she smoothly blocked it with her buckler; her other hand used the elvish blade to stab the other guard through his stomach and down to the right, cutting him open completely. Spinning as she moved forward, she raised her sword and lopped off the first guard’s head. She grabbed his sword as hers had bent and warped from its use. She turned and ran into the building, her hair uncoiling into a dirty white braid as she ran. She cut down everyone she saw, arms, legs, heads, face in a rictus of predatory pleasure, eyes huge, fangs bared, and her skin darkly leopard colored
At the top of the tower, the Minor Official was there with his hands on the shield crystal. He pointed a manicured finger towards her, and bolts of orange energy shot at her, hitting her in her torso and burning her. Her skin calcified into armor and sent repairing nanites as she turned to the left and used the shield to slam him in the face. He screamed, blood from his nose making him burble, and she grabbed his neck in her hand, popping out claws to tear his throat out. Then, tossing his body aside, she turned and used the pommel of her sword to slam into the crystal over and over at its weak point until it cracked. Guards were coming up from below; it must be the rest of the base personnel.
She was climbing out a window, rain pouring on her from the raging storms, when she heard the thrum of propeller engines through the din of screams and alerts from the base. The first dragon skyship attempted to take off. Its liftstones exploded in actinic blue plasma flares, setting itself and its sister craft alight. An electronic ping asked if she needed fire support. She responded in the affirmative, looking out over the buildings and designating the barracks, mess hall, hangar, and the base of the tower she was in.
The buildings started to explode before she heard the loud series of bangs that sounded like several people hitting metal buckets: the firings from the distant gunship. Lightning licked out from the ground towards the aircraft, but the wielder was soon torn to shreds by 40mm bullets. Next, shells from the craft’s twin 105mm began hitting buildings and making them explode. She leaped from the tower to the roof of the burning hangar as it fell. Hitting hard, she rolled and slid down the side, blood streaming from areas where debris had cut her.
She ran into the forest towards her powersuit now that it should function. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the base destroyed, fires lighting up the valley, and the short-winged aircraft waggled its wings before heading to the next target. Nanites turned her skin silver where they were attempting to stop the blood flow and stitch together damaged tissue. She would retrieve her suit and hunt down any magic users as her creator had commanded.
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Pan Xuefeng stood looking out his window with his mouth agape. His residence was on the far side of the capital. It had been the most he could afford, even working in the Imperial Palace as the third functionary secretary for the caretaker of the Imperial Doves. At the moment, he was glad he couldn’t afford to live there. The Imperial capital was burning. Massive metal fortresses hung in the sky, firing lightning, bombs, light, and guns directly at the city. Blue domes of shielding magic were projected from the roofs of the essential buildings deflecting the enemy fire into the residential parts of the city and the surrounding lakes.
Lightning shot up from the imperial Magisters and occasionally from the emperor himself. He shot the large black beam that had taken down one of the more immense sky fortresses with a Red Fist painted on the side. It had grounded itself, and troops in metal golem armor were pouring out of it. They carried arquebuses and mounted on their shoulders were two more. Those moved and sought of their own volition. Where they pointed, people died. They threw small balls that made entire city blocks go up in mushroom-shaped clouds that hurt to even look at. Wherever these golem-clad troops went, death followed. Other troops clad in grey golems jumped here and there, pointing at buildings that soon received an attack.
A small metal fortress shot through the streets, riding on air cushions. Small cannons on its surface found all active spell casters, and they caught fire or were blown to bits. Other small fortresses like it wove through the streets and joined them, and they rained death upon the city. Then, a flare came from above, and a considerable shockwave shook the city. Light flashed, and the dome protecting the emperor’s residence shattered like a bowl that was dropped on the floor. Another flash of light and the Hall of Mental Cultivation exploded, bright white then orange as a fireball went up into the sky.
The other domes strengthened their lights, and more lightning and magic bolts went up into the sky, spraying like water at the humans’ airships and fortresses. They caught fire and had explosions coming out of them. Two went down against the mountains, turning into giant fireballs of their own. Then the sky thundered again, and a metal ship bristling with siege cannons pushed through, green lightning running all over its hull and rain falling from it in torrents. Turrets swiveled on the bottom of the ship, the six siege cannons thundered against the domes, and they cracked. They fired again after a long pause, and the magical energy domes shattered, explosions wracking the Forbidden City.
The light from the fireball made him quail back and hide in his apartments. There were more explosions from above, and from the rear of the house, he saw lights coming from heaven that looked like meteors. These, however, slowed and stopped above the rooftops. They were large, rounded things that looked like houses. Their sides split open, and thousands of beastmen poured forth, sliding down on ropes carrying arquebuses and covered in armor. Most of the house things had the double-headed eagle on them. Some had a rising red sun, but from those poured forth hundreds of humans. There was a buzzing and thumping from the sky. He saw metal dragonflies filled with cat beastmen that paused and fired rockets into troops from the Palace. Some went down, but chin-mounted repeating arquebuses flashed, and his people were torn asunder. His nation, no, his world was ending.
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Six weeks later, when the invasion of the Reality of Shénzhōu was finished, Emperor Wang Hei Mei Lung was confirmed dead in the explosions around the Forbidden City. All Sidhe who resisted were being hunted down by special forces consisting of mage hunters and Mechanese commando units. The battle had been fierce, but no more worlds would be put to the torch by the Mad Emperor of the Sidhe. Althea 36935, the last of the entire Argus Legion and her bloodline, accepted medals of valor from several nations. She also received from Mechanon the title of Ventricorum d’Argus (Heartsblood of Argus), having her designation changed.