Meanwhile at Cape Newport

[Nathan]

The Cape had been increasingly busy the last several days with the influx of material and personnel. Caport, as the local population calls it, is a unique city, entirely devoted to one industry: space. The population is entirely dependent upon and connected to the spaceport built here years ago and maintained throughout the ebb and flow of tumultuous Natopian history.

The people here come from all over the Dominion. Sororiyans across the strait stream over, as do the Klaasiyans from Borders City seeking employment after graduating from the prestigious Borders Institute of Technology. The ever-present Mehl are here too, where ever there is a new frontier for Natopia to conquer, still inspired as their ancestors where by Nett Opaegh to push the boundaries of their society. The culture was so heterogeneous that there was almost no discernible characteristic about Cape Newport at all, the workers were transient, the service industry had high turnover, and the entire city was effectively governed by the space program as its personal office space, stifling any natural growth.

However, the recent excitement did provide what passed for Cape Newport cultural elite with something to talk about. Rumors of metal-men from across the ocean had spread across the country, but had yet to be seen. Exotic envoys from Athlon were seen in restaurants and cafes to the astonishment of some of the more rural Klaasiyans and Sororiyans. The Athlonians always provoked a primal reaction in other Natopians, they were aloof of the Dominion, rich from oil and fishing, and fiercely independent. Despite being the home of The Church, the Athlonians abroad showed little spirituality, and verged on the sensual. They still, however, showed fealty to the Butter Bull and his Prophet, and thus obliged the Dominion with the crude oil for plastics for the remodeling of NISS.

Absent were the native inhabitants of the duchy, the Hazel. Secluded in the Woods and the one modern city they allow themselves for trade and resource, Oakham, the Hazel have expressed their extreme displeasure at the resurgence of the space program. The Druid-Duke, a Hazel by blood but born to the worldly pleasures of Hazelwood City has voiced the concern of his people that "probing the skies shall surely anger him." These statements have been dismissed despite the Hazel being the first people who witnessed the return of the Butter Bull, who one would assume they are referring to. Indeed, the voice of the Butter Bull has given assent for this program.

Little attention is paid to the Hazel's warning as each day, shipload after shipload of material is brought into Cape Newport and people fill the apartments waiting for their mandatory space readiness training before they can ascend to NISS to begin Operation Reconquista.

[Nathan]

Huieri Nightpine was a rare sight in Cape Newport, for he was one of the indigenous Hazel. His pale skin and slightly enlarged pupils marked him as a resident of the perpetual twilight of the Sacred Glade in the Great Hazel Woods. He had made his way by foot, through the Woods to Oakham where he took a boat to the Cape. Even in Oakham, he drew the attention of onlookers as he was the protege of the great Jaies Timberpine. But in Cape he drew attention from merely being a Hazel.

Huieri, despite having obvious pale skin, was a master of shadows, as he belonged to the Nightpine clan, renown for their shadowmelding. Thus he was able to gain access to the large stores of space-borne material. In his satchel he carried several of the Hazel's most potent hazkisi figures representing the oldest ancestors. In the middle of one of the warehouses, Huieri established a circle with sacred dirt from the Glade and began his incantations. When the sacred earth began to sprout tiny buds, he took out the hazkisi and placed them in the circle and allowed the budding plants to overtake them. A barely visible glow was emanating from the figures now, being fueled by the power of Micras and all ancestors of all people who came before. The young Nightpine brandished a gleaming silver mallet from the satchel, inscribed with runes from Rian Grass. In the presence of such mach, the runes began to glow and coursed through Huieri filling him with the strength needed for this task.

The ancestors of the hazkisi screamed into Huieri's mind, for they knew what was to be. Any sense of hesitancy was rebuffed by another voice, almost as loud as the combined ancestors, that of Jaies Timberpine. The innate telepathic connection between the Hazel was impossible outside the Hazel Woods, that is why Hazel carried sacred dirt with them to allow them to stay connected to the Woods and the Hazel. Jaies was encouraging him to finish his job, his task, his calling as the savior of the Hazel.

Huieri raised the silver mallet over his head, with the oldest hazkisi in his sights and forced the mallet down upon it with more strength than he had ever felt, being propelled toward the ground by the same spiritual magic that was screaming in his head. The connection between the mallet and hazkisi figure was so forceful Huieri's hands were instantly broken, shattered, and in tatters - but there was silence for exactly one, sobbing breath as Hueiri fell to his knees.

And then....

[Nathan]

The hazkisi shattered with such a powerful force that the other two hazkisi shattered as well releasing the most powerful spiritual forces the Hazel had at their disposal. Huieri was immediately vaporized as was the warehouse, street, and city district in a half mile spherical radius.

In the Sacred Glade, the Hazel were bombarded with the telepathic screams from the forest spirits having just felt the death of the oldest and wisest of their own. The forceful combination of the pure ancestral magic in the hazkisi and the corrupted magic of the mallet created a temporary pocket of null space, removing everything within radius from our realm to that of the Ancestor's. High druids apply this technique on a small scale to allow communion with the ancestors by briefing allowing their thoughts to enter the Ancestor's world. Slightly larger instances of this spiritual weaponry were used strategically to keep outsiders from Hazelwood City from encroaching too far into the Woods, giving rise to the myth of the Woods as unforgiving and lethal to the average Natopian.

But now, with no noise, smoke, or movement, an entire section of Cape Newport was gone. On the edge of the new crater, homes were sliced neatly in half, and on the verge of collapse. Unlucky few had limbs torn to the other world, and for those who had more parts of their body torn from them, lived on in a comatose stupor, innards exposed, but not dieing.

The space program appeared doomed from loss of the dominion's pooled resources.

[andreasthewise]

Oh no! What will you do?