Hoplite had been disappointed to discover that the Harkhall knew nothing of Terna, but he supposed that was to be expected. He had been far more disappointed to find out that they possessed no radio equipment whatsoever, at least that’s what they had claimed. The Harkmother had asked that Lance recite the ‘Watchers Silence’, an oath to keep all discussed in here a secret. Why they had to bother with such a ritual, Hoplite had no idea. Wouldn’t it be assumed that the watcher brought in wouldn’t talk about whatever happened inside?

He did not bring it up though, for he had other more pressing matters to discuss with these elves. More specifically, the Harkmother, who spoke for all members of the Harkhall. Somehow the other elves present - save for Lance, were capable of some kind of mental communication with one another. He had heard that such technology was used by the higher ups in the Ternan government, but he himself had never seen it used until today. Certainly it had to be some kind of brain implant, it wouldn’t make sense otherwise.

So what did the Harkmother say when Hoplite brought it up?

It was magic.

Hoplite had actually shaken his head in disbelief. Magic? That was preposterous. He had told her that exact thought, and she smiled at him as if he were a clueless child. He had felt something very close to indignant at that insufferable smile. Perhaps it was something to do with those strange eyes of hers. Apparently, they were ‘magic’ too.

Hoplite had argued with them about it for some time before he finally gave up on the subject. If they wanted to call science magic then let them. He had other questions that he needed to ask, all of which the Harkhall had been happy to answer, all save for Terlin of course, who stared daggers at him and Lance with those angry red eyes.

Well, just Lance after Hoplite cocked his helmet toward him. Terlin had not wanted to maintain a glare with him after that. Hoplite had dealt with many marine lieutenants that way, something that the soldiers under their command had laughed about after it had been done. Hoplite never understood why they considered it funny.

One of the things he asked about was the shape of this planet. Why was it shaped like an eyeball? How did that come about?

The answer: ‘The gods made it so.’

Of course. Gods.

What are the fiends?

‘Poor souls possessed by the Death Spiral curse.’

First time he’d heard of this ‘death spiral’. Must be some kind of nanotech if it can revive corpses. Of course though, when he said the word ‘nanotech’ they all stared at him like he was from a different planet. Which… Well, he supposed he was at that.

Where was the nearest human settlement?

‘The city of Akan-Dar to the east.’

Hoplite had figured that if these elves had laws against humans coming into the Harkhall, then there must be an unmutated branch of humanity on the planet. He deeply desired to seek contact with them when he could, even if they were primitive.

Do they possess any means of transportation?

‘Yes they have horses’ Despite the fact that he knew the answer, Hoplite asked if this Akan-Dar had radio equipment, to which he was of course told ‘no’.

How had he been teleported to this place?

‘The Hark crystal, its magic is powerful enough to do so.’

That ruined his plans for confiscation for now, whatever tech was in that crystal, it was much too large to move even in his armor… in fact he hadn’t even been sure how he would have gotten it out of that chamber. Perhaps the crystal itself wasn’t tech, but maybe there was some kind of device that harnessed whatever that glow was? Could the Hark crystal be a new element that made teleportation possible?

‘No, Foundation made it for us to summon those seeking an audience to the Harkhall.’

Who was Foundation?

‘The Pillar god Draoi.’

Of course.

He wished that he could have questioned Geravall about his knowledge of CHIMERA, but Hoplite had been… conditioned to not speak of it by name. Hoplite had to word it carefully, phrasing it as ‘how does he know about my blood?’

‘His eyes can see the twisting ladders of the blood’

Hoplite’s frustration with these backwards bumpkins had grown significantly after hearing that. The twisted ladders of blood surely had to be DNA, but when he said that they again looked confused. Hoplite had merely dropped the subject. Geravall had opened his mouth for a second, looking ready to ask Hoplite a question directly. The elf caught himself however, and his mouth snapped shut. If he didn't know what DNA was, then he couldn't possibly know about CHIMERA; that and the fact that this was a colony lost long before the first-contact. CHIMERA hadn't even been established until around a hundred years after first contact after all. Hoplite still would question him of course, and if he did know about CHIMERA...

Geravall likely did not. But if he mentioned it by name to these elves... well, then Hoplite wouldn't have any choice for what would come next. He returned his focus to the questioning, pushing project CHIMERA and Geravall to the back of his mind.

Did they possess any ballistic weaponry?

‘Yes we do have ballistas, as does Akan-Dar. We've heard of thunderstaves such as the one in your possession.'

That peaked his interest. If they thought of his shotgun as a 'thunderstaff' then either there were humans with ballistics or these elves had somehow heard of Ternan soldiers. He pressed them on the matter.

'Yes, the dragon-men of the Blastlands have implements almost like yours, though Pago informs me that they do not share these tools with outsiders.'

He didn't know which elf above was Pago, but Hoplite didn't really care at the moment. Dragon-men? Hoplite almost shook his head again, but he supposed that this could simply be another mutated branch. He could almost picture them, humanoids with scales but purely human features otherwise. So no guns then… At least not around these parts. These 'Blastlands' seemed to have some kind of ballistics, though what type remained to be seen. Would it be primitive muskets or automatic rifles? Maybe these dragon-mutants remembered their Ternan heritage? Hoplite didn't know where these Blastlands were, but he would be going there if he couldn't find any of his fellow Ternans first.

That was just to name a few of his own questions, they also had several of their own.

Where did Hoplite come from? The answer: From space, next to the green moon. They had all stared at each other in expected silence for a long time before they had asked if he had come from the monster next to the moon. He explained that ‘the monster’ was a ship piloted by the Final Kind but they still didn’t know what he was talking about. That further solidified the thought that these people had been lost long before the first contact era.

‘Were you the falling star?’

That was his escape pod, not a falling star. He explained to them exactly what an escape pod was, and Hoplite informed them that they were to stay away from its contents as they were Ternan property. In truth he really wasn’t worried about them pilfering the contents of the pod, those doors were capable of withstanding atmospheric entry, nothing these people had access to should be able to breach the doors… unless there was some other ‘magic’ they could use for that purpose.

‘What is the Final Kind?’

A cosmopolitan alien imperium dead set on conquering the galaxy by any means necessary.

‘The galaxy?’

It had taken a frustrating amount of time to explain the concept of a galaxy to these people, but they still didn’t quite seem to understand what he meant when he was done explaining it. He had been told by marines that he wasn’t exactly the best at explanations. Hoplite wasn’t supposed to be, he was a soldier, not a professor.

‘You are a human from the outer planes?’

He was from Earth, the home planet of the human race.

‘Humans were made from the infinite blood of Zodd, as were all the races on Ahkoolis. If you are not of the blood of Zodd then you are from another realm of existence.’

Alternate realities weren’t real, these people were simply too steeped in their own backward mythology to see it. He didn’t argue the point, it didn’t seem as if there was any way he could get through to these people.

‘Can you depend on what you know as fact any longer?’ A small voice in the back of his mind said ‘It could have been that the anti-matter bomb did send you to another-’

He shut the voice down. They had been about to ask him another question when another watcher, a tall man with bright blonde hair, simply appeared right next to him without warning. There was nothing to warn Hoplite of this elf's arrival, he hadn’t shown up on his motion tracker at all. That almost made the hair on his neck stand on end. This crystal could somehow teleport matter based on the intent of the person wanting to be teleported, not the press of a button, not purely based on proximity, but intent.

The elf had immediately fallen to his knees before the Harkhall, sweat beading down his face. His pitch black uniform was the mirror image of Lance’s.

“The Fiendwall is fallen!” He had shouted in terror “We barely keep them away from the bastion! We must send for aid!”

Indeed, the whole Harkhall had fallen silent and Lance had stiffened, going wide-eyed. In very little time, Lance had been given new instructions and Hoplite had been asked to provide aid to the elves to keep the fiends back. Hoplite had agreed with no reluctance, it was his job to protect humanity and he would do so until he died. The Harkhall indeed seemed surprised by his immediate acceptance of their request, looking between one-another with their faces unreadable. He didn’t quite understand that. Hoplite had just agreed to do what he had done all his life, so why did they look at each other that way?

Lance’s instructions were somewhat of a surprise.

Watch Hoplite.

That was all the Harkmother said to her and she did not argue the matter. Surely it was so Hoplite could not go around unsupervised, but he didn’t argue with this either. If he wanted to go somewhere the Harkhall didn’t want him to go they could not stop him either way. Lance actually seemed… eager to go with him, as if she had been told to spend time with a friend rather than keep an eye on an outsider. Especially the way she grinned and flashed a thumbs up at him when the Harkmother was looking at another member of the Harkhall. Likely that was how she felt about it, considering how he had helped her keep her rank as watcher.

That was why he was out in the Faewood now, three days later, shooting and stabbing shambling fiends of all shapes and sizes alongside Lance wherever he could find them. As soon as this threat was eliminated or at least reduced, Hoplite would return to the Harkhall to question them further, he was far from done with them. Before he had left they attempted to put him under the command of some 'watch-lord'. Hoplite firmly informed them that no such thing were to happen. He would find fiends and eliminate them far more quickly on his own (Or at least just with Lance) than if he were to be placed under the command of someone outside Terna's influence that wouldn't understand his capabilities.

They had argued briefly about it, but Hoplite dug his heels in. The Harkmother had then told him that he didn't know his way around the forest, and that he would need someone to guide him through it. He did not argue this, but pointed out that Lance was going to be with him during this skirmish, so he could not get lost. Lance actually seemed embarrassed by him saying that, face going red as she grimaced at the floor. The Harkmother gave him a wry look but argued no further. Why the look? Had he said something funny? After they conceded to him, he and Lance had been teleported back outside to fight this little campaign.

In these three days he and Lance alone had to have killed around two-hundred of what the watchers called ‘lesser fiends’.They were definitely easy to put down, lesser was right. Those rotting teeth and claws were still deadly enough as he had seen a watcher pulled down by a trio of rotting hounds. The man had sustained grievous yet treatable injuries after Hoplite had blown them all away with his pistol, but the man immediately drew his blade and slit his own throat. Hoplite had been surprised by this, but Lance had merely dragged the corpse to the foot of a nearby tree, leaving it there ‘to be taken back to the roots.’

Apparently, this Death Spiral curse could spread through wounds caused by fiends. With lesser fiends, there had to be multiple open wounds to spread the curse, but normal fiends could spread it far easier. These ‘normal’ fiends were apparently far worse than the lesser fiends they had been facing. Since that man had sustained enough wounds to turn into a normal fiend, he had taken his own life, something that seemingly every watcher had no reluctance in doing; should it come to that.

These 'normal' fiends were actually humans that had gotten this disease, but they weren't 'undead' as these lesser fiends supposedly were. Apparently, these fiends retained their sapience and could not die; something that Hoplite outright refused to believe. Lance explained that fiends didn't cross the 'shot' between the Faewood and Fiendwood, which was why they only fought lesser fiends now. This 'shot' was in fact one of those massive veins he had seen in orbit when he had mistakenly believed that the planet was an eyeball. There was a shot between each of the continents, each one as wide as a sea and each connecting the ocean surrounding the continents to the swirling ocean in the center of the world.

Since this was the case, Hoplite marked these undying fiends up to simple superstition. Lance had confirmed that she had never even seen one before, and that most watchers hadn't either. It made sense then, why they thought humanoid fiends were unkillable. It was pure and simple exaggeration. Perhaps they were difficult to kill, but unkillable? Ridiculous. He would prove that to her if ever they found one wandering the Faewood.

The sun was just now beginning to set over the Faewood, the dim orange light slipping between the broad leaves overhead. After three days of fighting in this forest, he noticed something: Almost every species of tree he knew about was within these woods. Everything from willows and pines to cherry blossoms and maples. The result was a garish mixture of colors above his head, a sight that wasn’t… displeasing to him.

It was the same with all the other plant life in the wood, radiant with colorful flowers and bursting with full ripe berries. The exposure to all this color was strange to him. Hoplite was used to gunmetal gray and the different splashes of blood in war, with some brown wastelands here and there when he was deployed planet side.

“So…” Lance said, following close behind him “Can I see what’s in the star- er, pod next time we go back?”

He had been making routine stops at the pod to restock on ammunition, keeping Lance and every other curious watcher well away from its contents.

“No.” He replied simply.

She grumbled but didn’t argue the point. Other watchers hopped around in the trees above them, all wearing a color-blending variant of Lance’s garb. There were many of them, most going about the same task: to hunt for intruders and to watch them until they left. Or more likely with the recent development of the Fiendwall's collapse, hunting for fiends to put them down. Day-watchers were given those garments to blend in better with the surrounding forest, while night-watchers such as Lance were given light-drinking black garb to better blend in with the darkness.

He didn’t quite understand why they simply didn’t give night-watchers the same color blending garb as day-watchers, but he supposed that the color blending version was a fair bit harder to make than simple pitch black clothing. The explanation for why day-watchers' clothing could color shift was of course: magic. Hoplite had nearly given up asking why certain things were the way they were on this planet. Three days of constantly being told ‘magic this’ or ‘the gods that’ was really beginning to frustrate him. There wasn’t a shred of common sense among these elves, that was all there was to it.

“When do you have to…” Lance started, trailing off.

“When do I what?” Hoplite asked, checking his rear cameras to see her expression.

She looked somewhat embarrassed? He had no idea why.

“When do you… I mean to say, when do you… pee?” She asked, rubbing a hand through her long black hair.

“I don’t have to yet.” He replied.

“It’s been three days Hoplite! Have you even slept?” She asked, bafflement on her face.

“No. I don’t need to yet.” He said matter of factly.

He would like to keep it that way for as long as he could. Thankfully he hadn’t eaten or drank anything prior to suiting up, the result however was that he was severely dehydrated and practically starving. If he stopped to remove his helmet to eat and drink however, he would have another problem on his hands later…

He could go far longer without food or water than a normal human, but that didn’t mean that it was healthy for him to go without it for this long. At this rate he’d be dead within the next few days. Five at most, but he should take care of his needs before that point. He couldn’t protect anybody if he was recovering from severe dehydration alongside starvation. Hoplite again was wishing that the phalanx suit had come with a built in waste disposal, but there was no use in lamenting the fact that it wasn’t there.

He dreaded it, but it would be time to remove the suit when he returned to the pod this next visit, or at least just the helmet so he could eat and drink. When he inevitably had to take the suit off is what he dreaded, for the process of reattaching the individual pieces of his armor on his own would be hours long. Even with the tools he procured from engineering. He glanced at Lance, seeing that despite all the time she had spent awake with him out in these woods that she had no dark circles beneath those green eyes.

“I haven’t seen you sleep Lance.” Hoplite told her.

He hadn’t either of course, not since they had both set out patrolling through the Faewood. She had to take breaks here and there to eat and drink,, but she had not slept a wink. Lance didn’t even seem the least bit tired.

“Elves don’t sleep nearly as much as you lazy humans do.” She said with a small laugh “Besides, I got a full two hours of rest before I found you, I’m good for the rest of the week.”

“I don’t need that much sleep either.” Hoplite said “So don’t worry about it.”

“Look,” Lance started, fists on hips as she walked “You need to take care of yourself before you fall over dead, simple as that.” She sniffed “I can forage up some berries and bag some bunnies for you and it's no bother if you want to drink from my canteen.”

“I can’t put the suit back on easily once I take it off.” Hoplite said “I want to keep it on as long as I can, it will take hours to put it back together.”

“Well that’s just silly. Who makes a suit of armor that hard to put on?” She said with a shake of her head “Honestly seems stupid to me, and I thought simple human plate armor was enough of a bother.”

Hoplite couldn’t exactly say she was wrong, but with how complex the phalanx suit was it was simply impossible to put it back on quickly without an engineer or an assembler. On the flip side though, it was surprisingly easy to take off… all it took was a bump of his chin and several sections of the armor would open. After a few minutes he could be out of the suit in its entirety. The helmet he could take off and put back on, but he’d rather keep wearing it till he was back to the pod.

“Just let me know when you're ready to come out of that armor, I’ll get a meal ready for you.” She told him.

He didn’t say anything. Hoplite then paused, noticing that his shotgun felt… light. It was already time to go back to the pod again to re-stock. He still had plenty of rounds for his other guns, but he wanted all the shells he could carry. His stomach growled hungrily at him and he did his best to ignore it.

He hadn’t even eaten before entering cryo…

Again he tried to ignore the thought... and failed. It was time to eat and drink. There were canteens and calorie dense ration bars stored beneath the seats of the pod, as it was for all escape shuttles. His throat felt like burnt paper and his limbs felt leaden. His eyes were growing heavier and heavier by the day. He needed to take care of himself before his body suffered permanent damage. He turned and scooped up Lance without a word. She only gave a small gasp as he sprinted headlong toward the pod. She was well used to this by now, but he saw that the other watchers in the trees overhead flinched at his sudden speed.

Their surprise at his speed could only be matched by their terror of his weapons. The other watchers genuinely seemed to be scared witless of them, but Lance had grown used to his ‘thunderstaves’ by now. It only took an hour to reach the crash site at his top speed, and when he put down Lance he saw that her hair had been blasted back by the wind. He had set her down behind a huge tree next to the site, peeking around the trunk to see if anyone was around his pod. To his surprise, there indeed were people around the shuttle, but they weren’t watchers.

Five people and some horrific kind of mutant were all staring at his shuttle. The mutant had drawn his attention first due to just how severe the changes were. The top half was a handsome long haired muscular human, crossing his arms and looking down upon Hoplite’s pod with a curious glint in his black eyes. The lower half was a horrific monstrosity, the upper half’s body ended halfway down, ending in another, larger body. A massive face with a gaping maw and three tongues sticking out of its mouth made up the center of this second torso, one of the tongues reaching up occasionally to lick one of the creature's two big black eyes. Its bold nose hung slightly over the gaping three-tongued maw, which masticated the back of the lolling tongues.

Another set of inhumanly large shoulders stuck out from above this second horrific face, each with a long ape-like arm ending in two broad furled fingers that each ended in a point. The thing held itself aloft with two thick squat legs, using its two lower arms for better balance. Hoplite had never seen such a massive mutation in his life.

A tall blonde handsome man stood next to the mutant, seemingly not bothered by the massive open mouth just a few paces away from him. Hoplite could see that this man's ears were round… another human at last, but a local to this planet based on his dress. He wore a blood red headband on his forehead, the color complimenting the black and red scrollwork on his shirt. At least, what Hoplite could see of his shirt beneath a set of gleaming splint-mail. His trousers were of a pure white with more intricate scrollwork, with the rest of it stuffed inside a pair of well-made leather boots. Broad shouldered and holding his back straight enough to impress any officer, he gave off an air of sure confidence in himself.

The second man, another mutant, stood close to the pod, inspecting the door. Compared with the first, this mutant's change was a small thing. He possessed bright red skin and white hair behind a pair of curving black horns, like that of a goat. He too was handsome of face, and there was a mischievous glint in his fiery eyes. He wore no shirt, but a pair of huge baggy white trousers ending in slippered feet. His right hand and forearm were marred by some kind of scar or birthmark. It was a gray patch of skin, spread out like a bulging vein from the tips of his otherwise red fingers to his elbow. He was of a slight build, showing off all the lean muscle that Hoplite knew female marines would love, based on those strange magazines he’d seen them reading.

The third, a woman this time, stood a bit further behind the rest of the group. Her face was… eerily symmetrical, so perfect that she seemed almost uncanny. Another kind of minor mutation perhaps? But she looked like a human? Long brown hair was held back in a loose ponytail, and with his enhanced vision he could see even from here that she had heterochromia, one eye blue, and one eye brown. Her clothes were simple compared to the others, with a simple brown woolen shirt and cotton pants of the same shade. A very short and slight woman, she wouldn’t even come up to Lance’s shoulders if they were placed side-to-side.

The fourth was a man of average height and looks, but held himself like a compressed spring, seemingly ready to leap in any direction with the long sword at his belt. Another human, but his skin was of an extremely pale complexion, like he hadn’t seen the sun in years. A lot like Hoplites own skin really. His long black hair was swept back from his hard square face, revealing a pair of normal brown eyes. He wore a simple shirt and trousers with two pairs of belts hung loosely around his waist with a distinctly bright red sash worn across his middle. A long dark green cape hung around his shoulders, falling over a large backpack that just barely touched the forest floor.

The fifth and final person was another elf like Lance… or perhaps a human? Those ears certainly looked like they may have a point from here, but it was far less prominent when compared to the other elf ears he had seen. She was well-muscled but held herself slightly hunched, looking mostly at the ground beneath her feet. The most heavily armored of this group, she wore primitive (to his standards) shining plate-armor. Curly blonde hair was held back from her face in a tight ponytail, revealing a pretty face marred by a small scar at her lip.

He could see only now that a sixth humanoid shape was making way toward the group out of the forest, but he ducked his head back before he could discern any details. The square-faced man had turned toward Hoplite's position. He could have just been discovered.

“Stay here.” Hoplite told Lance as he clipped his shotgun to his back.

Lance seemed confused before she heard the drifting conversation between the strangers, and she drew her dagger. Hoplite then dug his fingers into the bark of the tree, and began climbing straight up the trunk, the bark crunching lightly beneath his fingers. It wasn’t likely that any of the strangers heard it, but it was still too loud for his liking.

He pulled himself up on top of a high branch thick enough to support his weight, looking down to see the strangers all looking up at him wide-eyed.

Time to see if these locals were the aggressive type.