The House of Amric stories are in the OT forum....Blade! was the one who first coined the term House of Amric. Most of those OT stories are in my signature substitute...
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Amric said:
Very cool , thank you , sir ! I'll keep those in mind especially once mid terms are done XD
Just as an aside, this is how you can tell I've been reading this AAR too much (if that's even possible):
Today, while I was watching the news, they had a press conference with the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, William DeWitt. Of course, my immediate thought was:
"Hey, it's a Cardinal named DeWitt!"
Today, while I was watching the news, they had a press conference with the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, William DeWitt. Of course, my immediate thought was:
"Hey, it's a Cardinal named DeWitt!"
Judas Maccabeus said:Just as an aside, this is how you can tell I've been reading this AAR too much (if that's even possible):
Today, while I was watching the news, they had a press conference with the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, William DeWitt. Of course, my immediate thought was:
"Hey, it's a Cardinal named DeWitt!"
Now that is fricken hilarious!
Judas Maccabeus: ROFL ROFL ROFL WOW ! You have no idea how flattered I am now HAHA .
grayghost: And welcome back ! Now it's your turn to be indoctrinated ! Go forth and read ! har har !
grayghost: And welcome back ! Now it's your turn to be indoctrinated ! Go forth and read ! har har !
Status Report: Alright folks , about 50% done with the update so that should come tomorrow . As for our next person for an interview they haven't come on MSN yet but I'm confident it'll be on schedule this week . See you all tomorrow !
that's quite a map, good to see where the frontiers are. but holy crap, Spain has a lot on its plate in the coming years
grayghost: secret for now ! Still trying to confirm something .
Myth: Thank you ! It was a quick map to be sure , but I'm not as image savvy as our friends . And yes , indeed , there's a lot going to happen very soon !
Myth: Thank you ! It was a quick map to be sure , but I'm not as image savvy as our friends . And yes , indeed , there's a lot going to happen very soon !
Grubnessul said:So... where's the update than?
Working on it now XD just got finished with the interview too . Won't announce who it will be yet since right now it's going to be a surprise special !
good! Was just curious.
BTW Amric, the house of Amric stuff, Imperium Nova? (though the link doesn't work in your sign substitute)
Was just curious.BTW Amric, the house of Amric stuff, Imperium Nova? (though the link doesn't work in your sign substitute)
Grubnessul said:good!
BTW Amric, the house of Amric stuff, Imperium Nova? (though the link doesn't work in your sign substitute)
Yep ! it's actually going quite well today even though all of my online friends are trying to pull me away .
BTW , anyone there play Phantasy Star IV ?
Grubnessul said:good!
BTW Amric, the house of Amric stuff, Imperium Nova? (though the link doesn't work in your sign substitute)
Odd....I checked it out and it is EXACTLY the right url...but I redid it and it works now. At least it did for me....
Chapter LXVI: The Golden
7 August 1608
The summer sun graced the breezy atmosphere of the city of Constantine with an unselfish abundance of its golden beams. The noon lamp produced little shadows along the various structures of the well defined streets and the bustle of movement indicated the normality of the day. The old Augusteum provided a small relief for figures hiding among its palisades.
“Wait here, Zeren, I’ll get the minister and we can talk on the portico.”
“Leyla, wait!”
The two figures, although alone in the old Greek building’s impressive architecture, spoke softly enough that little echoed through the myriad walls. One of the figures enjoying the shade had turned with a dramatic taunt, “Is the Great Zeren afraid of politicians?” a girl’s whisper teased.
“You should be careful what you say,” the shorter shade responded although the indignation in that boy’s voice was tempered by a kind of trembling, “if your father was here he would discipline such a loose tongue.”
“If my father was here he would have already cut off your hands for being anywhere near me, peasant soldier,” the girl retorted. The shorter shade stiffened at the thought.
“I will make myself worthy,” the boy’s voice said with a flatness tagged to every syllable. One could almost see the taller figure relax and flow towards the shorter one. “Leyla,” the boy continued, “I will indeed be the Great Zeren, just for you.” He was interrupted by a sudden laugh—almost a cackle.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Zeren… this is why you’re here after all, right? My father will surely be proud once he sees the commitment you show me… but I don’t want to keep Minister Burak waiting.” With such soft words intermingling with the breeze, the taller shadow slinked away into one of the many hallways of that former grand palace.
Zeren turned away from the darkened portal where the taller girl had walked into, instead reaching up with his hand to touch a pillar to lean himself again. Poking his head into the domain of light, his ebony hair reflected the radiance back almost as brightly. The flowers around the palace seemed to rush wildly against each other in the breeze taken up by the passions of that sultry Aegean summer. His layered costume neatly tucked his muscular yet boyish frame behind rather petty garb—he was indeed a peasant soldier, but he had an advantage in one thing most young men have only a small amount of—ambition.
Carefully pressing fingertips against his right cheek and then riding them up into his bangs, he let out a nervous sigh; Minister Burak was a top official in the Sublime Porte’s hierarchy and, thanks to Leyla’s position within the ranks of spies, he knew that the Minister was also the ordinary liaison to the Persian delegation. Zeren’s handsome features coiled into a moment of doubt, but he swiftly quickened his face into a stoic wall with pursed lips. Footsteps forced him to turn quickly around and clasp his hands to his thighs. Two figures quitted the hall.
“Minister Burak,” Zeren quickly addressed with a low bow.
“Dispense with the formalities, soldier, we’re not in the presence of the Sultan here,” was the older man’s command. The voice sounded like a swamp trying to speak. Zeren straightened himself up with a small start but he managed to spy the half giggling expression of Leyla behind the burly and bulbous Burak. Finding some solace in her amusement, the young man turned his gaze to the well fed man in front of him.
“I’ve come to offer my services to the Empi—”
“I said dispense with the formalities, boy, you’re here for a Farsi assignment aren’t you?” the asthmatic voice bubbled.
“Yes, sir, the one leaving for Bagdad,” Zeren quickly recovered. The mention of the Persian city, however, drew a careful harrumph from the large body and, with some surprising dexterity, the minister turned his head to the young woman who merely nodded to his silent question.
“You do understand what this means don’t you, boy?” the half gargling man asked curtly turning back to him.
“I’m willing to take the risks,” Zeren responded resolutely.
“Leyla has personally vouched for you, soldier,” the man announced with a bit more clarity as the volume of his voice increased. Simultaneously, as if hiding under the many folds of his outfit, a silver tablet dropped to the ground in between Zeren and the Minister. “That is your proof of your commission. If you fail to guard the caravan to the Persians, it would be best if you never returned and it would be best if Leyla had never been born.”
Zeren passed a glance to that beautiful face nearly eclipsed by the larger gentleman. Leyla, despite the grave conditions, gave him an encouraging grin. “Thank you, sir,” Zeren said turning to the man before militantly giving a bow. The larger man seemed to burp before turning around and walking back towards the dark hall. When Zeren raised his head, Leyla already stood in front of him holding the silver plaque in her hand.
“Come back in one piece,” she said without losing the smirk on her face. The tablet passed quietly from her hands to Zeren’s. He kept his dark eyes focused on hers before finding himself relaxing his lips into a smile. “And they will speak about the Great Zeren,” she continued to tease him after he took the tablet from her, “who valiantly protected the great cache of gold on its way to aid our allies in Faris. My father will not refuse you then.”
“No… he won’t…” Zeren promised before turning and finding himself running towards the dock without even a goodbye to that beautiful young woman. Deep in his thoughts, however, he knew that it would not be an easy journey. Although the alliance has been secretly agreed to, he thought to himself, the Shia and Sunni radicals on each side as well as the old veterans that remember the Farsi aggression in the Levant decades before might still destabilize the situation and he would be stuck in the middle of Faris with a cache of gold miles from the nearest border. “Allah, help me,” he prayed.
---
Al-Yaqut, the most prominent coffee house on the Persian Gulf remained busy even into the yawning hours of the night. Huddling into its niches and alcoves, men philosophized and drove home the very essences of the socio political situation of their home country—a massive empire playing host to a juggernaut at its doorsteps.
“But they are distracted now,” one said quietly in the presence of his colleagues. The others, however merely remained silent as smoke continued to permeate the ether between them.
“You must be cautious,” someone from the other table spoke out hiding within a slanted compartment of the dark. “If you underestimate them, they will not be forgiving in their retribution.” All of the heads at the table rose to gaze at the new interlocutor.
“We have been cautious far too long,” the one speaking before now objected, “it is our time to take back what was lost.” As the man spoke out almost violently, some of the older gentlemen coughed quietly and turned their faces downward.
“War takes more than just religious zeal and fancy rhetoric,” the lone man at his table replied, “It also takes money and men; two things which must be gathered in secret and with stealth.”
The gentleman was a little dumbfounded by the response and reddened his ears considerably at the thought that his religious zeal had just been impugned. “You are starting to sound like an infidel!” Before his loud words could finish his sentence, one of the other men at the table reached out a hand and pressed it down against the incensed patron’s shoulder. The pressure indicated a silent request to restrain himself.
“Don’t you know who that man is?” was a quiet whisper among the group. It coincided with the lone patron rising from his seat and entering into the lamplight. Like a tall, lean tree with bark made of coarse material, the elderly gentleman who now dominated the aisle between the tables propped himself up with a staff—perhaps not so much to aid him in his walking for he indeed stood with the strength befitting his wiry yet tall frame but for some other purpose that one could only begin to guess at.
“It’s quite alright,” the standing man carefully said with a twist of the tongue. “It’s that kind of enthusiasm that will get us through this coming conflict.” His steely eyes exchanged glances with the huddled ones at the table—the man who had been restrained boldly gave him a stare but held back any intimation of hostility.
As the staffed man slowly walked towards the exit of the establishment, his footfalls gave two noises and his staff gave the third. When the sound began to subside, the quiet men raised their heads once more and marveled at the exiting presence. The one with the hand on his shoulder looked at all of them in astonishment. “Who was that?” he asked almost annoyed.
One of them stole his gaze off of the departing figure and aimed it back to his friend. “They call him Jafar; a vizier from the municipal court in Bagdad.”
“Impossible!” the younger man protested, “where was his guard?”
“Don’t you know his reputation?” the one talking to him returned the annoyance, “despite the length of his crescent beard, that man needs no guards.” The grave tone seemed to pacify the younger one slightly as he too took his turn to crane his head to look at he who had just left the doorway.
“What is he doing around here then?” he asked his companions curiously. One of them leaned inward onto the table although the rest were still straining to see the shadow walk towards the stables.
“I heard he was inspecting the border with the Spaniard controlled cities,” the one leaning in informed the others. It immediately drew eyes towards him. “He’s been touring the border provinces south of the capital and now he’s supposed to be heading to the Eastern provinces to handle some dealings with a Tork.” They heard the noise of a horse galloping away past the side of the coffee house.
“He’s an emissary to our allies then?” the younger one asked inside of the circle passing some eyes towards where the sound of the horse was last heard.
“Probably,” the informed one answered. “There have been rumours that an army is forming in Bagdad with the payment of gold from our new allies. If that’s true then that’s probably where he’s going now…”
The young man looked towards the darkness of the night outside of the ornate side window; a welling of anticipation was starting to form in him.
---
“Any other reports?” a man at the end of the table asked. There was silence that followed. “In that case, leave us.” There was a hint of disappointment in the tone of the voice. Men slowly filed out of the dim room leaving only a half dozen individuals with one at the end of a long desk while the others were standing about at different areas of the walls.
“Master,” one interjected quietly, “Roxas and his two companions—the Fin and the soldier—they must have received some kind of help from within the city.” There was a brooding silence that permitted the statement. The man who had uttered it took that as his cue to continue. “It is entirely possible that this could be the engineering of Metropolitan Andronikos.” There was still no response from the presiding shade—there was no sign of anger; no slamming of a fist against the table.
“Vasili is correct,” a figure at the very end of the small chamber concurred in a Russian accented by a Western influence.
“Ahh, Lieutenant Drescher,” the one at the other end of the table welcomed sardonically, “nice of you to join in our discussion!”
Despite the patronizing tone, the German accented speech continued, “As I suspected, the Metropolitan has been helping the Spanish for a very long time and he had planned his escape from us by choosing a cathedral see that he knew the Spanish would attempt to take from us; a double win scenario for him and his Spanish allies.”
“If you could have offered us more than vague prophecies or obvious analyses after the fact, we’d be more appreciative of your organization’s efforts to help us against the Spanish, Lieutenant.”
For a moment, the heavily uniformed man was as solid as a stone. Taking a single step into the central lighting, his aging features could no longer be hidden by shadow. “I’ve been fighting your enemy for twenty years now,” he said with a malicious slaver, “do not blame me for the ineptitude of your armies.” He allowed a moment for that insult to sink in. At the very second that he believed he would receive a reaction from his host, the Lieutenant continued: “But you did not accept my services to help you win this war, now did you?”
As if the insult was suddenly parsed, only silence remained after the final remark. The chilled atmosphere prickled against the soundlessness while the men against the walls were held by the man’s figure. “What you say is true,” was the eventual almost capitulatory response, “and it is also true that Raul taking our own Artifact under our noses was not unforeseen.”
“You must follow through and let him take all three,” was the terse response.
“He has the Χρυσόςμάτι now, so it is out of our hands. The rest he will have to get on his own… in Baghdad.”
---
Raul held dearly to the steed that now sped him away from the great nerve center of that Eastern Empire. Already pressed against his chest was a box holding the precious Artifact he promised to retrieve. He managed to turn a bit sideways to Riku who was similarly racing down the dirt path winding around different trees and obstructions. Riku could not help but return the arrogant glance. There was a strange twinkle in Raul’s eyes however, as if there was a hint of appreciation that these two had decided to continue to follow his direction. Perhaps Colonel Santiago in Novgorod had sent Willem back a few days ago with tidings of support for Raul’s quest.
“I told you,” was written all over Raul’s eyes. Indeed, Riku could not believe what he had witnessed. Never before had he thought that it would be that easy to enter into the Imperial Mint and take the object which now rested within Raul’s clothing. Willem was similarly stunned although his lack of knowledge of the way Russian counter-espionage worked spared him from the major astonishment Riku possessed. For Willem, he was more concerned with how to pronounce the name of the Artifact that Riku now possessed.
“Chrysosmati…” he had tried to say earlier, but he was puzzled by the Greek despite his fluency in Russian. “The Russians’ Goldeneye?” he had asked Riku before they engaged in the operation.
“A golden object like a filled in figure eight,” Riku had explained earlier, “with a gap in its center hence why it resembles a golden eye.”
“A Goldfinger and a Goldeneye,” Willem had puzzled earlier discussing the two Artifacts, “what in the world are they for?” To that question, he was not given an answer before the operation began; and now that he was riding away with his companions with it, he still received no explanation. There was not even any hint from the rest of the discussion they had prior to infiltrating the Mint.
“Once we have both of these,” he remembered Raul explaining, “then there is only one more Artifact left before it is complete and it is being held by one of the politicians in Baghdad. It is from him that we shall finally retrieve the Χρυσόςόπλο.”
“The Chrysosoplo…” Willem thought to himself as they started nearing their destined base where they would spend the night and begin the trek south. After that trek it would be, he hoped, their final adventure—to face the Man with the Golden Gun.
Interlude
“Noticias Zorro correspondent Teresa Nunez reports,”
“Brit, the chaos here in Baghdad is reaching fever pitch. As you know, ever since the Muslim International Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the rocket attack on the Palacio Real, the Emperor has called an emergency session of the Senate and has sent the 57th Task Force here to search out where many believe the top leadership of that terrorist group is headquartered.” As the woman spoke, the rapid staccato of AK-47s dueling with Steyr Augs interrupted the news feed. “As of yesterday,” she continued, “the local militia declared a state of emergency as fighting broke out between Shia insurgency groups and the local garrison prompting response from the 57th Task Force. Many local military officials believe that the eruption in unrest is a diversionary tactic to draw elements of the 57th away from tracking down the ring leaders and allowing them time to escape. To add to the growing confusion, Sunni moderate leaders have taken to the streets in peaceful protest to the intensifying violence but many have gotten caught in the crossfire.”
There was a second pause before a video started to commence. Images of shaky camera shots, rubble, and the occasional burst of semi-automatic fire dominated the screen. The LCD display, suddenly, was switched off.
“What other units do we have in the area?” the voice holding the remote control asked.
“The Navarra Carrier Battle Group is in the gulf right now and the 54th in Tehran can mobilize within the hour,” someone said from the rear left of the questioner.
“Send them, and begin evacuating Baghdad; don’t call in the airstrikes until you’ve cleared the city.”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” the man from the rear responded before sounds of exiting footsteps resumed.
“Make sure that the funeral of my predecessor does not go unnoticed,” the man sitting said softly. “Cardinal DeWitt was a hero, and to forget that in a time of turmoil would be to offer no cure for the ills we must face now.”
“Yes, You’re Eminence,” another one in the room replied, “of course.” The television was turned on once again.
“Casualties are estimated in the hundreds as terrorist pockets have been shooting indiscriminately in certain districts of the city. It truly is a dark day for the citizens of Baghdad; back to you, Brit.”
“Next on Informe Especial,” the anchor began, “continuing coverage of—” the display was once again switched off.
Chapter LXVII: Baghdad (coming soon)
Hmm looks like the Muslim rebellion is picking up a lot of speed, good to see Raul make off with the artifacts, LOL at the names, very nice references Canonized
Great updates, right on par!
Great updates, right on par!
Methinks young Zeren might just have got in over his head, especially if this Jafar character interferes. If there is truly a gold cache up for the taking, I imagine many might be after it.
As for Raul...from Russia with love, it would seem. But I don't know what he's doing bothering with the gold because doesn't he know that diamonds are forever? :rofl:
As for Raul...from Russia with love, it would seem.
But I don't know what he's doing bothering with the gold because doesn't he know that diamonds are forever? :rofl:
Mmm, James Bond strikes! I like it. I also like the fact that the Empire finally seems to be beginning to face some serious opposition.
The great gambles and achievements of the early days have been largely forgotten, but that time has passed, it's seemed to be a progression onto glory ever since.
Of course the Keys and intrigue have kept us interested, but it's nice to see the grand-scale stuff back.
The great gambles and achievements of the early days have been largely forgotten, but that time has passed, it's seemed to be a progression onto glory ever since.
Of course the Keys and intrigue have kept us interested, but it's nice to see the grand-scale stuff back.
:rofl:
Finally references that were intuitively obvious
Interesting to see the war is still running in parallel, in past and present.
Do the timpeieces make a single period in one world into an entire timeline in another?
Finally references that were intuitively obvious
Interesting to see the war is still running in parallel, in past and present.
Do the timpeieces make a single period in one world into an entire timeline in another?
hmm...those suspicions I mentioned to you yesterday concerning Raul are slightly more roused now...