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Post by Malice on Dec 22, 2008 19:52:05 GMT -6
"The world has once again filled with mana," he raised an open palm towards the large, worn-over object. "It is time to awaken. Let us complete the process at long last..."Sub-Terra: Darkness of Man [/b] Sub-Terra is a dark world rife with strife, bathed in the blood of human conflict. The inhabitants of Sub-Terra have never seen the sun, never walked the land above, and have almost completely forgotten about living on the surface. Sub-Terra believes strongly in the here and now, but its citizens are drowning in the fuels of war, suffering at the hands of political giants and discordant nobles taking life in the name of the crown. To make matters worse, a beastly man named Maximus has rounded together a band of civilians to overthrow the feuding nobility, but even members of this vanguard have begun to pillage and kill, helping to destroy the world they once pledged to save. And as the flames of war continue to rise, a mystic brotherhood has taken to selling ancestral weapons to all sides, providing destructive relics of lost civilizations in exchange for blood money. This is the harsh environment the Sub-Terrians try to carve an existence into, whether it be taking up arms for their homeland, or scraping together a peaceful life in the middle of nowhere. What about you? Will you fight this oppressive evil, grab this tremendous burden by its demonic horns and wrestle for a brighter future? Or will you blot out the light of hope, and rot in a desolate cavern like a trembling coward? The choice is yours, my friend. But whatever your decision, I will see you on the other side.
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Post by Kaisar on Dec 22, 2008 21:03:16 GMT -6
It was hot hard and at times frustrating work. Frustrating not because the repairs she made were constant upon the Spider tank but because of the people. Like the asshole who was hovering nearby watching her work. Making comments of criticisms about what she was doing. She knew damn well how to do her work and if anything his comments only announced to those who knew what they were talking about how woefully incompetent this fellow was when it came to his war machine.
She gave the wrench one final heave pulling the bolt tight against the leg joint and slipped the tool back into her belt along with a myriad of other tools that helped her to maintain the working condition of the units war machines. Gala didn’t much care for the fighting but like her these machines merely fulfilled their purpose. She sighed and grabbed a scrap of cloth wiping what excess grease from her hands she could and then mopped her forehead. She would be glad when the work day was over a long soak in the hot springs would certainly improve her day.
The soft crunch of gravely ground beneath heavy boots intruded on her musings as she gazed up at the immense mechanical weapon commonly called a Spider tank for the motorised legs that propelled it. Back in the days of the ancients before coming here they would have used wheels but with the uneven ground and treacherous slopes that were common throughout Sub-terra wheels had almost no use. It had t be able to step over boulders and holes. The ancestors had been brilliant inventors to be certain.
“She’ll run,” Gala remarked to the bastard breathing down her neck. “But at best this is only a patch job. If you push her too hard the holding pins will snap and the leg will buckle under the strain of trying to hold the weight.”
She reached down to her belt and removed the heavy gloves she wore and pulled them on. Securing the metal clasp at the cuffs around her upper forearm and then hooked her thumbs into her belt. Turning to look at the pilot.
“It’ll do, I suppose,” he remarked walking over to examine the work and mused as he looked. “In Lower Kredatch such a patch job wouldn’t have taken anywhere near this long.”
Gala narrowed her eyes at his back and walked over shoving him neatly out the way and slamming the panel closed. “In Lower Kredatch they’d charge you ten times what it actually costs to get this kind of work done. And they certainly wouldn’t be a thorough. Aside from the Pins I also had to repair the power lines because this old girl was bleeding energy out of the cables. They would have fixed the pins and left the leg to implode right when you might have needed a swift bit of manoeuvring”
She paused and patted the leg while fixing the soldier with a glare, who had a look on his face that she could only translate as you-are-a-lowly-mechanic-and-I-am-a-soldier look. Her hand rested of its own accord on the head of her Maul and she smiled. “If however you feel that you don’t like my work Cannon fodder you can take the tank all the way back to Lower Kredatch and get her serviced there. Of course you’ll have to pass that by your sergeant first.”
Gala turned and walked off muttering under her breath as she went. It had been very tempting to take her maul and smash the recently repaired joint but she wouldn’t waste her anger on a machine. It hadn’t been responsible for her foul humour. The soldier on the other hand…it would have been very gratifying to beat the bastard into a bloody pulp.
She sighed and returned to the central hub where other Spider Tanks were being serviced. She didn’t much care if these soldiers worked for the emperor or his Son, work was work and these soldiers were paying for the services. The Master mechanic made certain of that, especially considering none of his workmen would touch a single tank until they were certain to be paid. Killing the mechanics would only defeat the purpose of coming here anyway especially when they were the only mechanical service large enough to accommodate so many.
“GRUNT!” the voice echoed through the immense hall sounding over the din made by the dozes of mechanics and engineers like herself as they worked. Sighing Gala turned towards the origin of the sound and made her way to the Master Engineer’s office.
Then all hell broke loose. She heard it first the protesting scream of metal as it was stressed beyond its endurance. And people screaming for others to get out of the way. She turned in time to see one of the powerful legs of a Spider tank tear away from its supports and begin a horrendous fall to the ground bellow. She shook her head and ignored the carnage. It wouldn’t be the last of such accidents. These soldiers expected things ot move quickly and when hurried things were missed.
Reaching the office she just strolled in and threw herself down onto an old battered lounge that sat opposite a table littered with machine parts and scrap metal. Behind that a tall burly man with wild silver-grey hair and a neat black beard stood examining piece of machinery in his hands. Like her he was dressed in overalls only he wore no shirt underneath.
“Finished already?”
“As finished as I can be,” she replied. ‘I could have done a little bit extra but the bastard was practically breathing down my neck and telling me with woeful ineptitude how to do my work.” She held up a hand and smiled ruefully as the master began to speak. “She’ll run which is all that was asked, I don’t skirt that kind of work. I just could have made her run better if I’d been given a little breathing room.”
He snorted and set the metalwork down. “Alright then. You still have another two hours or so, so get to the forge and help the Master Smith with the metalwork.”
Smiling Gala stood up and gave him a lazy salute. “Yessir” His chuckle followed Gala out as she left the main Hub to head over to the forge where she could get some quiet work done without the irritation of soldiers and be tempted to use her maul on one of them.
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