ANOVA Mark II

[Andreas the Wise]

Cool, that was essentially what I was thinking too.

[Andreas the Wise]

It had been several months since The Dark Age had met with Clau’Udi, and those months had been busy. The Dark Historians had hidden themselves well; indeed, few even within Melangia knew they existed anymore, and that name was not known outside the island. The main lead there was to go on – indeed, the only lead – was that the Dark Historians had had the position of Dutchal record keepers, one they had been able to maintain from the days of Andreas the Wise to the present day – if largely by dint of nobody else caring enough about it. In the end, The Dark Age had ventured a trip to the Dutchal capital, Apollo City, to find some of the Dutchal record keepers themselves. It was then a simple matter of planting on them several blank pieces of paper he himself had created and originally designated. Then he had returned to Melangia to wait, giving them time to return to their base of operations, wherever that was. And each day he would prepare the following Informational Magic statement for each of his planted pieces of paper:
Locate [Original Designator of paper] in MPS; Search Kildare First
Which, quite simply, gave him the exact location of each sheet of paper in MPS coordinates (Micras Positioning System). The statements only took an hour or two to run, because he could restrict the search area to within Kildare. In this way, he had eventually narrowed down the location of the Dark Historian’s likely headquarters to one place: the Library of Hallucigrad.

And really, that was obvious when you thought about it. Where else would you expect to keep detailed records of all of the history of the Dutchy, every birth, every death, tax records, marriage records, and a host of other minute details which seemed terribly boring to most people but which The Dark Age knew was the informational equivalent of solid gold. Why, with the birth records alone, he and his follower would have the Original Designator of virtually everyone in the Dutchy! Such information. Such power. He had only now to make contact with the Dark Historians and convince them to help.

And so it was that The Dark Age and The Legend of Apollo found themselves in the port of Hau’Oli Ena, waiting to arrange further passage to Hallucigrad. The trip from Melangia had taken several days already, and it would be another day at least before they reached their destination, if they could find passage for tomorrow. It was nearing sunset, though; too late to book passage by legal means, and too early to book passage by less conventional means, so they found themselves waiting in a bar, enjoying some cabbage beer*, and catching up on the news. Being practioners of Informational Magic, the news was of great interest to them, as information is power.
“Looks like old Cla’Udi has actually remembered that the rest of the Dutchy exists, and has forgotten about us,” The Legend of Apollo remarked, as they read of the ongoing saga of bloodsports and ‘traditional’ Kildarian values. “We can hardly expect them to remember true traditional values if Melangia isn’t active in telling them.”
“Yes, but his timing could have been better,” The Dark Age said, leaning in and lowering his voice. “Remember, we’re in cabbage growers central over here; and Melangians aren’t the most popular people around just at the moment.”
The Legend of Apollo raised his eyebrows, and The Dark Age mouthed, “Two behind us, three to your left,” then leaned back, then said, slightly louder than necessary. “This cabbage beer is excellent, though, some of the finest I’ve tasted. If only we could get good vintages like this back home.” The Legend of Apollo took the hint, and their conversation took a safer turn. Then, after a few minutes, they got up to leave, to find a less dangerous place to find passage. As they did, the five people The Dark Age had identified earlier got up and left too. The two Melangians walked casually down the well lit peer, noting the others strolling behind them. Then, as they passed a post-box near a side alley, they turned abruptly into it and started to run. The others ran after them.

“Might be fastest just to take them,” The Legend of Apollo said, as they ran down the side alley.
“Not here, too many eyes,” The Dark Age said back. “Need somewhere dark.” They turned down several more sidestreets until they found themselves in a dimly let dead end. They turned around. Thinking their prey cornered, the five men swaggered in. “We don’t like Melangians round these parts,” the leader said. “Reckon we ought to teach you guys a lesson.”
“We mean you no harm,” The Dark Age responded, “but if you trouble us, there will be a lesson learnt.”
“You threatening me?” the leader quipped, his eyes narrowing. “Two scrawny Melangians like you? You wouldn’t last five minutes in a fighting pit.”
“I’d be ashamed if it took me five minutes in a fighting pit,” The Legend of Apollo replied, with a wink to The Dark Age. “Even two is being slow.”
“I give these guys 40 seconds,” The Dark Age replied back, moving his hands into a defensive position. “Go home, guys, you’re drunk.”
“40 second, eh?” one of the others said, as he drew a knife. “We’ll see about that.”

30 seconds later
Five local toughs found themselves lying in the gutter, a number of bruises starting to form all over their bodies. Of the two Melangians, there was nothing to be seen. “Did we just fight demons?” one asked groggily.
“Musta been,” another said. “Nobody’s that first.”
“Yeah,” a third said. Their collective conscience eased at their defeat (“Normal men can’t stand against demons, that’s Priest work,”) they got up and made their way home.

5 minutes later
After a while, three more shadowy figures sidled out of the dark. They had been hiding in the alley, watching the whole thing. “Have you seen anyone fight that fast, Bill?” one asked.
“I’ve seen karate, but that’s something else – like out of a movie or something. I thought the Captain said they were just brilliant, not fighters,” Bill replied. “It’s like they were moving through time faster than others.”
“You can see why the Captain is interested though. We might need a better approach to bring them in, though.”
“Well, let’s just keep following them for now. I’m sure an opportunity will present itself ... for the right price.”

1 hour later
A dustbin lid slowly spun to a halt. It had been knocked off by one of the combatants earlier in the fight, but then the Melangians had got fast and nobody had paid any attention to it. It was odd, though. If anyone had been watching, it would have looked like the thing were spinning – as a dustbin lid does when knocked to the ground – but at a far slower speed than normal, so that it only finished spinning an hour after it had fallen. Finally it ground to a halt, and there was silence in the alley. Silence, and just a hint of ... mystery.


* Cabbages are such a versatile vegetable. There’s cabbage soup, cabbage beer, cabbage fudge, cabbage cake, cream of cabbage, pickled cabbage, cabbage jelly, cabbage salad, boiled cabbage, deep-fried cabbage, fricasse of cabbage, cabbage chutney, Cabbage Surprise, sausages-
‘Sausages?’
‘Filled with cabbage, sir.’

Summary: Two Melangians from the ANOVA are on their way to the Library of Hallucigrad, where they think the Dark Historians are based. They have a brief tussle with some local toughs, as Melangians aren't so popular in Gong Li with the whole 'traditional values' thing. Several others are watching though. Also, I'd forgotten how many things can be done with cabbage.

[Andreas the Wise]

The Dark Age and The Legend Of Apollo had been in Halluci Nua for some time when the revolution happened. They were expecting it, of course - for people who planned to trade in information, not keeping abreast of political developments across the Dutchy would have been a poor outlook - but they were not expecting it quite this soon.

Luckily, their efforts to ah ... convince the Dark Historians to be of assistance had proved most satisfactory - treating them like actual Melangiangs, which was more than Cla'Udi had ever done, went a long way - and they were more than happy to accept The Dark Age's leadership. After all, they were record keepers, not entrepreneurs - but they could appreciate a man with vision. When the revolution happened, and other clerks were trying to loot the Dutchal jewels, the Dark Historians were quietly removing all records and transporting them here, to the Library of Hallucigrad - at least until other arrangements had been made. Kildare would not suffer another dark age, its history would endure - no thanks to Cla'Udi.

Still, the fool had not proved entirely incompetent - he had, at least, kept Melangia Shirithian. That would help keep attention off the Library of Hallucigrad (and who remembered it anyway? All records of its location had mysteriously gone 'missing' more than a millennia ago and the Catalogians had never been ones for ancient history, so few Kildarians would even have heard of the library now) and make space for The Dark Age's real plans. True, they had been changed somewhat by the Revolution, but Melangians are nothing if not patient, and The Dark Age was prepared to wait. The patterns were all too clear - increasing militarisation of the Empire, blamed on external factions to be dealt with (the Garllicians had played their part well), leading to the dissolution of the Seanad and one man (who controlled the armies) seizing control to establish an Apollonian Republic. Now all they needed was to start work on a weapon capable of destroying an entire County, that, despite being heavily armoured, would have a small exhaust shaft such that a one man ship could be piloted to release a blast in exactly the right place to ...

Then all that would be missing from the pattern would be a lost order of virtuous warriors in tune with strange powers and even stranger weapons - some sort of Knights of the Old Empire - and The Dark Age was more than happy to be that sort of knight.

Summary: Two Melangians are now in control of the Dark Historians, have saved Kildare's history, and are waiting for the Galactic Appollian Empire Republic to start building a Deathstar weapon capable of destroying an entire County in order to maintain control, before they make their next move.

[Raz]

[Trajan Myksos]

Are you referring to the Magical Knights in that last paragraph? Because those are still around: around 700 were in active service during the Myksos era. I'm however not very sure what has happened with them since the revolution.

[Andreas the Wise]

I wasn't actually, I'd forgotten about them - but I may be able to incorporate them in. Remind me what sort of magic they had?

[Trajan Myksos]

I wasn't actually, I'd forgotten about them - but I may be able to incorporate them in. Remind me what sort of magic they had?

Powers which strengthen their fighting abilities (attacking, defending, even against more modern weaponry). The Order has been around for ages as semi-independent order and currently has its HQ in Mons Clistiro.