Enormous, ephemeral clouds float by, brilliant pink and orange vaporous hydro vessels on an eternal voyage . The girl passes through the atmospheric oceans as she floats high above the fragile blue and green marbled rock that is her home. Breathing deeply as she passes through a beautiful puffy cloud, she watches as the pink and orange smokey water enters her soft lips. She inhales an entire cloud. It makes her feel very full.
The pretty young woman holds the cloud in her inside herself until she feels her lungs might explode.
Vapor bursts forth billowing around the young woman as the cloud she tried to consume consumes her.
As the exhaled cloud slowly dissipates the scene around her changes to a forest full of trees, with specked light raining down all around her. Impossibly tall trees reach high into the clouds, which are now above her. Tiny drips of sparkling iridescent liquid precipitate down onto the small mesmerized girl. The luminescent droplets strike her skin with an intense tingling bursts, and then they are gone.
Twirling around and around her gaze is drawn up towards the canopy of the seemingly weeping trees, the rain exploding against her open eyes. She feels free as if her feet are not touching the ground. Moving to her inner rhythm the beautiful girl dances on air her feet gliding over the littered forest floor like a whirlwind.
A lost boy wanders through the big empty house, it seems familiar to him yet it also seems very strange. The scared boy races through the house searching, opening every door, searching in every room . But for what? The boy is desperate, he comes to a room that he is compelled to enter. The young man enters the room, but it is empty. He looks around and finds that even the door he entered through is now gone. Searching frantically the boy quickly becomes very frustrated and then exhausted.
The defeated boy screams at the strangely familiar empty room. Crumpling into a ball on the hard smooth floor he begins to cry. The sad boy sits huddled on the floor his face buried in his drawn up knees his wide glistening eyes looking all around.
No windows, no door, just the bare ceiling, four bare walls, and a wooden floor. "I will not let this room be my tomb!" He suddenly declares to himself and the room.
Curiously, the boy feels a cool breeze on his tear-dampened cheeks. But there is something on the breeze... a song! He closes his eyes and listens to the song, it slowly becomes stronger quickly sweeping him up in its smooth mellow melody and tranquil intoxicating harmonies. The newly inspired teen hesitantly opens his eyes and is shocked to see he is outside. He slowly looks around wide eyed and bewildered, as he realizes he is in a forest. The tree’s are impossibly tall, in fact they are so enormous that their towering trunks disappear into puffy pink and orange clouds. Glittering specks of light suddenly begin to fall down from the sky onto the dazed boy. Splashing against his skin each glittering drip sends a shiver of excitement through the young man's spirit.
He leaps to his feet delighted with the enchanting illumination cascading down all around him. A shivering sense of intense tranquility travels through the boys soul, soothing his excited spirit. Standing in the strobing shower, the boy holds his arms out with his face raised to the sky, exhilarated by the wondrous sights and feelings surrounding him.
Happy and curious the boy notices a whirling wisp of colors twirling around him and he is drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. For the first time the teen notices his sense of small as an alluring aroma wafts over him. The boy follows the colorful blur of intoxicating lights as it twirls between the trees. As he gets closer the swirling iridescent illumination begins to grow and warp.
Two orange appendages almost resembling legs, burst from the dancing light. Then two yellow appendages burst forth resembling arms and the boy suddenly notices a red and green light is taking the shape of a human torso. A blue head sprouts from the body as violet hair streams out of the head. The boy is very much aware of how human the dancing lights look, although they don not move like any human he has ever seen. The teen is shocked when the contorting luminescent figure spins around and he is face to face with the most arousing girl he has ever laid his eyes upon.
Enchanted the boy watches in openmouthed awe as the delightful female twirls and dances around the fantastic forest. He notices that the specks of light make a melodious tinkling noise as they hit the alluring girl's skin. Bewitched the young man reached out his arms and cups his hands as he watches the young lady. As he hoped, his cupped hands quickly fill up with the illuminated liquid light. The boy holds his glowing hands up to his lips and blows on the pearlescent puddle.
Twisters of iridescent light swirl up in a whirling vortex traveling towards the dancing female. Gleaming luminescent spirals of color envelope the girl as the forest air erupts with the sounds of the iridescent electric driplets striking her skin.
Hazy rainbows spin around the pretty girl as she drifts through the enchanted forest. Suddenly she notices the small figure watching her from behind one of the tall trees. The young woman makes her way to her observer and she sees that it is a cute boy. His hands are glowing as he holds them cupped, he then puts his hands to his face and blows on the glowing pool. Bursts of light shoot from the boy’s hands and swirl around the girl. The luminesce mist hits her like a wave of excitement. Dancing with joy she cups her hands and blows an iridescent shower back at him.
The young man is shocked by the explosive excitement that washes through him as the girl’s gift inflames his spirit. He is inspired by the graceful movement of the lovely girl’s body as she dances within the whirling clouds of swirling lights. The boy moves even closer to the physically provocative girl and as they get closer the boy is suddenly swept up in the girl's glowing wake. Drawn into her aura he finds himself dancing with the enchantress hand in hand. Surprised by the freeness of his body he becomes enchanted by the synchronized movements of his body as it ebbs and flows with hers. The two teens souls meld into a harmonious web of shared thoughts and feelings as the young man feels his spirit soar. Glancing around he sees that they are soaring as one amongst the tall trees and enchanted illumination.
The two teens have never known such raw attraction to anyone like they feel for each other right now, dream or not! It is as if opposite sides of the universe are suddenly one. They take delight in the flights of their spirits relishing the feelings of their souls intermingling like the tingling opalescent auras whirling around them. They are happy.
Colonel Nocte sits within the relatively comfortable captains ready room aboard the UFT Endeavor, one of the federation fleets medium sized natural resource retrieval ships. What the clunky black ship makes up for in size and speed it makes up for in offensive and defensive magic weapons and shields. It's primary missions are in the very heart of the jungle where not only the few rebel felacs can mount an attack, but any number of the enormous jungle predators or swarms of smaller monsters can attack the ship and its grew as well. In fact the Endeavor happens to be the primary ship still completing these missions in a time where more and more of Memnonia's resources are magically vacuumed up by the fleets newest super ships.
But it is not just the ship that is special, the crew is the most well trained jungle soldiers thanks to their Captain, Slade. Because of his knowledge of the rainforest and it's people Slade is the second in command of dealing directly with the felacs. Although with more and more of them being relocated to the city there are less chances for the diplomatic Captain to work his special form of magic.
But the ship, it's crew, nor its captain are the only things special on this mission. In a rare move Colonel Nocte, as he prefers to be addressed, the lead officer in charge of the Memnonia has decided to come along for the mission. Usually the man remains in the city meeting with federation officers and leaders of the private sector, making deals for the resources they've collected or will be sent out to collect. Having worked with Slade since soldier school the man trusts him to do the dirty work, but every once in a while the Colonel likes to show he's still boss.
The highest ranking rog officer in history and the most powerful rog by far Colonel Nocte has a particular interest in todays mission, it's directly related to his personal holdings which have also made him the richest rog in the federation's history. The resource they are retrieving is quickly running out and the powerful man knows his free ride is almost over. Of course he could quite now and still be one of the richest men in the federation for the rest of his life, but that isn't nearly good enough for Nocte. He has so many more plans.
The colonel sits at the large desk and studies the data and financial figures for the harvest. He can tell that it's not one of the largest harvests and concludes that's why it had escaped detection by the federations multispectrum magic scanners for this long. The jungle is full of all sorts of magic crystals and it takes time to sort out the valuable from the useless. Or at least it use to before the more current practices like strip mining. But then again you couldn't stip mine these kinds of crystals, that's where the Endeavor comes in.
Nocte sits back as he concludes his calculations, a huge grin spreading across his thin lips. Despite the size of the harvest the inflated prices due to scarcity more than make up for the lack of the resource. After figuring out the value over the harvest's lifetime, Nocte realizes he has just increased his own value by almost one percent. A staggering amount considering most rogs won't see a fraction of that over their entire lifetime. All in a days work for the powerful man!
Slade sits at the helm of the UFT Endeavor as it flies east over the continent of Tharsis towards the Memnonian rainforest. He usually likes having business in the rainforest, but this time the circumstances are not the most favorable. In fact the man had been dreading this day for many years. As the second highest ranking federation officer in charge of the Memnonian wildlands and felac tribes remaining in the wilderness, the man has been able to postpone this day for only so long.
The federation captain knows how much the felacs revere the sacred swamps and hopes they won't get any resistance from the local Tigris tribe. The felac tribe is at the furthest reaches of Tharsis and has been sheltered from the modern federations way of life by the vast jungle to it's west and the sea to it's east. They're not going to take this well, there have been so many broken treaties already.
Gazing at the living landscape unfolding on the large display at the front of the bridge Slade can still remember his first trip to Memnonia, as vividly as the scene before him.
He was still a teenager going through his military training when the war with the felacs broke out. By the time he graduated soldier school Slade was one of the most well trained highly advanced warriors in the history of Aryn. But all his virtual reality training never prepared him for the real horrors of war. Even now, seventeen years after his first battle, he lives with the waking nightmares of war, every day of his life. Battle scars may heal and the exact memories of men fallen in fierce fights may fade to vague, random recollections, but the wounds left upon a soldiers soul never leave, and are always as fresh as they were during the war.
Of course there are some memories that are still as vivid as the day they happened, tattooed on the minds of the surviving men as long as they still have minds, and sometimes even after their minds turn to mush.
An enormous troop transport ship crammed with freshly trained troops lumbered into the volatile rainforest. As the UFT Enterprise made it's way over memnonia's dense canopy the crew kept keen eyes glued to the ship's security consoles as they monitored the magic scans of the forest below. Although the felac's magic capabilities were limited, they did have a secret weapon that was very effectual against the federation's crystal technology. Luckily the forest people would need to gather at least a few dozen people in order to execute and effective assault against the large ship. The ship's security personnel are monitoring for the life energy signatures of a squadron of felacs.
On board, Slade was a bundle of raw nerves like all the other wargins, a name given to soldiers who have never been in a battle. The craggily old face of his rog sergeant barked that they were going to land soon. Most of the wargins were relieved to hear the news.
Slade can now barley grasp the concept... Relieved!
The primary mission was simple: land deep in the jungle, search out and kill felacs and try to discover the source of their secret weapon, liquic. Slade and the others had heard horror stories about the severely corrosive liquid crystal. They all heard how liquic melts crystal on contact and could pass through any magic energy shields, thus making their crystal armor and magic force fields useless. They had been taught hand-to-hand combat, but the chee warriors, although smaller than the rogs, were far superior as individual hand-to-hand fighters.
Slade had felt so nervous he had to make his way to the back of the ship where he puked in a dark corner. Afterwards he kept to the sweltering dank shadows in back of the ship which reeked of not just his but the contents of several wargins stomachs.
After the security monitors scanned for life forms that could be felacs, and only found some rascals around a nearby stagnant cesspool, the large troop ship burned away an enormous clearing down to the forest floor and landed.
Naive and young, Slade thought he was going to freeze up when the hatch opened, but he never got the chance.
As soon as the ship landed two dozens felacs jumped out of the "cesspool". One dozen small forest men ran towards the ship with rubbery hoses coiled in the pool. The remaining dozen felacs started using hand pumps attached to the hoses.
Felacs spray the bio-crystal liquic through the thin hoses which they aim at strategic points on the ship's crystal hull.
Liquic concentrated at the front of the ship burning through to the interior, where it started to drip onto the soldiers. The interior of the ship erupted in mayhem as all the rogs scrambled to get out of the way of the liquic. All the officers at the helm of the ship were covered in liquic and were just as frantic as their men.
Slade cowered in the back of the ship watching helplessly as his fellow soldiers are saturated in the liquic and the crystal ship as well as their crysilk armor quickly disintegrates. He watched as the small force of felacs entered the enterprise through the large dripping holes in her hull, but he did not shoot.
The twenty year old rog private was the only one with armor and he knew that the twenty felacs in the ship would cover him with liquic if he drew attention to himself. Slade watched in terror as the forest warriors used their intact crystal weapons to kill the men he had come to think of as brothers all around him. Weapons that had come from the federation!
When the felac' s weapons were destroyed by the liquic or ran out of energy they used their lethal fingernails and chee prowess to fight and kill the inferior federation fighters. Although Slade had heard of chee and even studied how to effectively fight it, with weapons, it was a secret art and he had never seen it so close. The chee combatants used their incredible balance, speed, agility, and flexibility in a synergistic fighting style making them untouchable and extremely lethal. This plus the surprise and their small size quickly gave the forest warriors an edge in the battle, even though they were outnumbered five to one.
The well seasoned felac fighters made short work of the fresh federation troops. Slade is totally shocked by the unfathomable waste as he sees boys he's been in soldier school all his life suddenly fall before their first battle ever really begins.
Slade sees that the captain of the enterprise and his first officer are still alive, but the felacs are quickly closing in. The frightened young soldier saw a look in the middle-aged equus captain's eyes that has haunted him ever since. And then he watches the captain and the old equus sergeant look at each other, he notices that they each have something in their hands that they are bringing up to their heads. The two officers smack the objects against their foreheads and with a flash, Slade realizes, as they both fall down headless, that they have used crystal impact grenades on themselves.
The ship, only a fraction of its former form, was quickly disintegrating, a large black crystal chunk melting into a pool of liquic on the charred jungle floor. Sloshing through the crystal gloop the felacs made sure all the unarmed young federation soldiers were dead.
Slade suddenly realized that he was alone in the forest, surrounded by his foe, and concealed in a hiding spot that was quickly disappearing.
He looks around the shrinking section of ship for something, anything! He wants to flee, but where? The overwhelmed wargin is trapped in what he now realizes is his crystal sarcophagus, a lone soldier surrounded by forest fighters. Curled in the dark corner of the only reaming section of the crystal ship the man is reduced to an ineffectual mass as everything he has trained for flies out of his mind.
I can fly!
Slade looks up at the dense green canopy hovering above the horrific scene like heaven itself.
Armor Fly! The lone soldier thinks as he suddenly stands up and shoot three simultaneous lasers from his crystal visor and crystal wristbands. The deadly precise shoots hit their marks, the three felacs still holding the hoses that spray liquic. Then he releases randomly strobing bursts of blinding light followed by several sonic booms which send the unsuspecting felacs scattering, ducking blindly and deafly behind anything. He then flies straight up blasting through the top of the ship's deteriorating section. By the time the felacs regain their sensitive sight back Slade is concealed in the cover of the jungle’s thick canopy. No one saw or heard where he went.
As the lone soldier slowly flew though the dense canopy he realized that his jungle journey had just begun. He was alone, behind enemy lines, and in a naturally hostile environment. But he was alive!
The United Federation called the Felac wars progress. I call the wars the worse thing that ever happened to me and over a hundred million people personally involved on both sides. Slade thinks as he looks out over the lush rainforest below, which has slowly become more perforated with the sinister signs of progress since the federation won. Of course it actually turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me... Slade thinks about their destination, the liquic filled crystal trees.
And to the victor goes the spoils. The middle aged soldier thinks as he sits in the captain's chair looking out over Memnonia as he approaches the last of the wild felac territories.
