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SO:TLH Origins: Chapter 1

Deviation Actions

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Planet Cardianon

July 31st, 1790 AD

Thunder roared like a king lion, scaring away the lesser beings from his forest kingdom. The sky was completely overrun by ominous storm clouds; it was a humid, miserable night. It had been storming all day with vicious winds. The endless water droplets falling from the dismal sky were large enough to leave bruises if one decided to run in the rain that night. The tropical planet had been experiencing downpours for the last week or more. Lighting storms and scattered showers were the mildest of the adverse weather conditions. It rained, rained, and rained.
Fresh footprints were left in the mud. They were left by foot no larger then ten inches, no wider then three. Large footprints, ones with webbed feet, crushed the footprints that were formerly there to nothing. Loud sounds of footsteps made the water around the mud splatter onto their legs. They ran at a wild, uneven pace, their scaly nostrils expelling cold air out into the humid wilderness. Their primitive muscles tightened and quenched at the strain that their speed induced. They were lizard men, kings of the tropical planet. Their eyes, yellow, cold blooded irises with splits like cuts from a steak knife. Their tails, thick as a plank, heavier and much more powerful, slapped themselves against the thick barks of the huge trees that coated the landscape like a disease. These same plants, thorny and prickly in nature, tore at the impenetrable skin of the reptiles, causing them no harm. Their minds thought simply, nor did they care for such things.
They stopped in a circular clearing of extremely wet grass. Every plant and weed hung over from the pressure of the falling rain. It was a group of four of these creatures. They were in a singular line, like a group of kindergarteners heading to the bathroom. The leader rose his snout up and sniffed the air, shaking his head a bit, annoyed that one of the water droplets managed to land inside of his nostrils. He dismissed the strange odor, and continued on. The other lizard men following behind him, taking along their curves, horrid steel blades, looking like the disturbing quarter half of the moon, crudely shaped, crudely made. These creatures were not of a high sense of morality.
As they left the clearing, a pair of eyes opened in the darkness. His light, turquoise eyes made beauty in the midst of miserable and dread. Fear radiated around the Eldarian, his ears twitching slightly, to any kind of sensitive sound he might have heard, for any moment of delay that might save his life once more. He closed his eyes in relief, and tugged an object close to himself. It was of a metallic substance, square, not much larger then his forearm, with a black, idle screen. He managed to obtain the courage to stand up, his greased, dark hair sticking to his head like paste, weighed down by the rain and even more so by his fear. His clothes were torn, and thriftless. Once a shimmering white, they were now ripped by running, stained brown by dirt, and red by blood. The left side of his cheek was in immense pain. He wiped it cleanly, again, with the bloodied handkerchief he still carried in his pocket.
Convinced that the lizard men had traveled far enough to be out of his way, he slowly gathered himself together, and set himself down against a tree. He placed the notebook in his lap, his hands shaking deliriously as he tried to click the pen out of the slot. He hissed with every breath, and breathed at a rate abnormally fast, even for his kind. Blood from his fingertips trickling onto the black screen as it lit up to a light blue, flashing a corporation logo before pleasantly beeping to let him know everything was running fine. He ignored that beep this time. How ironic was it that mechanical device were always so cheerful every time you booted them up. With a flash, a menu screen pulled up. The middle aged man shakily tapped onto the notepad icon with his writing tool, and black lines began to draw themselves onto the device. Trembling, he began to write.

[I ran as far away from the ship as I could. I knew the repairing effort was pointless. The damn exalithium crystal was shattered, and we did not have a spare. No, we could not even afford to jump into hyperspace into the next relay station to get it repaired, because the navigation unit was completely decimated. Those damn lizards got to the ship before us! We all saw them, tearing our ship apart, like a bunch of savage...beasts. Mercy on us, we were just too afraid to confront them. None of us were warriors and we did not bring any. Who would bring warriors on an archeological expedition!?!
…I heard my companions behind me, the ones I went to school with, the ones I sat around the campfire with. I heard their screams. I didn't blame them... archeologists and geographers are not trained in endurance and survival!
I know I'm going to die. I know I'm going to. There's no way off of this planet. No way at all! But so help me if I put so much money to waste. I stated myself that I will find what we are looking for. I was the one who survived. Me! HAHAH! I know that those damn lizards in these forests know something, and I want to find it out! Right now! So I waited...now, I believe I'm closer, closer then my friends ever was to the truth behind the strange energy signals enveloping this planet. Discovering the unknown satisfies me enough, enough so that perhaps I may die for such kno--
]

The Eldarian quickly moved his head, and ducked down again, hugging his bruised head against the dirt as more lizard men ran right next to him, their feet splattering water onto him. Their feet were so close; he kept completely still. One of the lizards managed to step right onto his head. He kept silent, knowing that any sort of sound or movement would cause them to discover the last survivor of the crashed ship...more meat for their stomachs. Or, like what he'd seen...more...for their something else.
"Oh, maker…" The Eldarian wept, as he rose himself back up again, bleeding from the nose for the trauma caused by the accidental step. He sniffed the blood back up his nose, the taste of it rancid as it went down his throat. He was used to it now, used to all of it at that point. He slowly began to follow the lizard men, pushing thick and heavy branches out of the way as he carved his own path into the forest.
At last he came upon a huge, massive cave, sprawling from the front side of a gigantic waterfall that encompassed the entire side of the mountain before him. He could see it through the water, and he could feel it.
It was the first time he could actually feel it. Something was there. Something on the other side of that waterfall. He hid behind a huge plant as he saw these lizard men run towards the waterfall, as if a siren was calling them. But then, something happened that he didn't exactly expect.
The lizard men disappeared in a blinding but silent flash of purple light! Just like that! The Eldarian's eyes widened in amazement at what he just saw. He could not believe it. They just disappeared! There was no science to explain this!

[I had made my way through the forest, and I saw one of these men, these reptilian creatures-no, more then one, they just disappeared in a giant light! It was magnificent! I must discover the source of this phenomenon!]

He slowly walked himself over to where the lizard men were. He expected to disappeared, and even jousted his arms around, to see if he had to cross over anything, or envelop his body in a location. He even tried to imitate the lizard men's movements, to see if that worked. But nothing happened. He spat out water that had gotten to his mouth, and his eyelids lowered themselves in weakness. He began to shiver, cold wind with the cut of a knife blowing past him at an impressive speed, causing his wet greasy hair to fling to the side of his face. Lighting struck near him, jolting him scared, as he shivered in helplessness, beginning to catch hypothermia out in the storm. He slowly sat himself down, warping his arms around himself as he began to moan rapidly and harshly in suffering. He had been for days without healthy water, and weeks without food. Eldarians were not meant to live out in the wild in this way, and his condition was rapidly deteriorating. His face felt hot as the tears came, of hopelessness and the fear of death, looking up to the moonlight, hoping to find solace in it's splendor.
But it was a new moon out, and looking up caused him pain, as large droplets pierced into his eyes, causing him to close his eyes and whimper, lowering his head in near madness. He sat his book down, tired with it, but as he did, a giant gust of wind blew his mechanical journal out of his hands.
"No!" He cried, sitting himself up, using his last bit of energy to follow it as it was ripped from his hands. He crossed the waterfall as he watched it go through there, but fond himself with no ground to step on, as there was a gap in the waterfall.
He fell for a decent distance, his body slamming into dry ground just short of the river. He landed hard and painfully, screaming in pain as a trickle of blood expelled itself from the gums of his mouth. He silently spit the blood out of his mouth, and looked up.
It was a moist, rather large cave that he examined, naturally inclined by years of wear and tear of ancient rivers and bedrock. It looked natural enough. Sandstone and rock surrounded he cave in several layers, while a cool breeze invited him inside. His ears tightened in anxiety as he managed to get himself up yet again, ripping off a layer of clothing on his upper body, exposing part of his bloody torso as he slowly walked himself over to the journal, to pick it up.
This cave was rather, warm, and nice, mind the cool breeze, he thought, as he picked up his journal and looked around. Quite a place to spend the night. He made up his mind then and there. It was out of the rain. That was all that mattered. He forced his embalmed legs to keep moving, as he proceeded further and further inside of the cave.
What he stumbled upon then was a discovery that rocked his world. At the end of the cave, there it lay. A massive underground waterfall, with sparkling, healthy drinkable water. Marble and rock, the remains of a very, very ancient worshiping ground, was apparent at the base of the waterfall. The Eldarian opened his journal again, and approached the waterfall, scrambling down writing as fast as he could, ignoring his minor hypothermia, ignoring his internal injuries, ignoring the state his body was in by the benefit of the discovery.
"This waterfall... amazing, how the hell could this be natural..." The Eldarian murmured, slowly approaching the waterfall, stepping into the white circle of small marble stones that encompassed the small lake the twenty foot high waterfall spilled into. "This must be from an ancient civilization... incredible! Absolutely incredible!" He murmured, his eyes buzzing in excitement as his hands began to shake. Violently.
"This must be...h-hhh-hh-hh--... this must be..." He suddenly gasped as a small purple light shone through the water. The Eldarian stepped back and tripped over himself as a small, purple diamond shaped anomaly reveled itself from a groove within the waterfall. "Oh--...oh my god!" He exclaimed, his ears perking up in excitement.
He crawled toward it, staring into it and examining it with the best of his ability. It seemed like a solid encasing of purple liquid, with a pattern encased into it that moved it towards the source. It seemed alive, almost as through it had a heartbeat. It radiated as if it was alive, but...it felt...wrong.
The Eldarian began scribbling again, writing his excitement and annotations to such a discovery. He forgot about where he was, he forgot about his condition, he forgot about his situation. All that mattered was the discovery.

[Amazing! I managed to discover an artifact, possibly left over by an alien species. Perhaps fate has smiled upon me after all! It seems purple in color, and moving, although it's solid to the touch, and very cold...as far as I know, it looks to be...of great importance, and is virtually untouched all these years! It seems, lively, almost, happy...living...it's...strange, it seems to have a natural aura about it that makes you want to... I don't know...it draws you towards it; perhaps I will not look upon this artifact for a long time. It could be a trick, or a trap. I don't much about this specimen but it seems that it doesn't belong to the people on this planet... But I believe this may be the same object that caused those lizard men to disappear! Perhaps...perhaps I may be able to transmit this data to Eldar... oh...wait a moment... the object is glowing! ...Huh? My legs! I can't move my legs! What the-arm---it's!--]

Blood splattered the light, warm blue screen of the journal, as the lifeless corpse fell flat into the shallow pool of water, causing it to contaminate a light red from blood. Unable to function underwater, the journal sparked as it was submersed. The friendly corporate logo flashed again with a cute smile from a cartoon Eldarian, before it flickered from interference, and deactivated.
First chapter of Star Ocean {TLH} Origins:

I'm happy to finally release this to the public after months and months and months and two delays.

Like I said before, I don't have an update schedule yet, ^^;; but I kept my word.

Happy Anniversery, TLH.~

:la:
© 2010 - 2024 Bain-Striker
Comments1
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RollingTomorrow's avatar
*mumbles* For the beta I'm certainly late commenting...XD

Anyhow, it's great to see this chapter up! :D Your story has great potential, and hopefully you'll have the time and inspiration to work on it this summer. ^-^ I'll be happy to help with the editing!

Good work! :la: