Annals of Red Catastrophe

Here's a little piece of fiction I wrote, hope you enjoy it.


The Annals of Red Catastrophe
-----------------------------

To those who read this: welcome. These are the annals of our lord
Silverius' planet Red Catastrophe. Within these annals you will find a
description of our culture, our planet and our history. I am Chronos
Archivaris a humble historian who our most beloved lord has been given
the honourful task of writing these sacred annals.


=================
The Great Arrival
=================

'Tis now 12 cyclos ago that our great lord first set foot on this
planet. Though I am very old those great events occured long before I
was born and thus I can only repeat what others have said and written.
The following is the account of an old soldier who served in the
personal army of our lord during the Great Arrival. It was written
down by one of the first priests of the Holy Glazed One:

"""
Oh Symo, thou great guardian of life, hear this story of courage and
hope. When I was a young recruit in the army of our most magnificent
lord our captain came to us one day. He said "Our Lord, may Symo
protect him, has ordered us to prepare for a great travel into the
unknown. We shall be searching for a new world so that we can escape
from this crowded moon. May Symo protect us.".

So we began preparations. We were not at ease, for we knew that the
Dark Three - the Unwelcome Guest, the Devourer of Worlds and the
Master of Storms - were ever present and hungry for new souls. Many a
prayer was directed at the great Symo and the holy Arzeyka that day.

In the morning of the next day our lord summoned us to stand around
him and started chanting words of great magic. The air began to
shimmer and move around us like in a tornado. The light coming from
the air became stronger with the minute and we started to notice fog
around our feet. Gravity appeared to weaken and we lost contact with
the ground. We started to float up, faster and faster. After a while
we began to slow down again and stop. Then we moved back down, as with
the floating up we started falling slowly first, then faster. Just
when we thought we were going to hit the ground like a meteor we
started to slow down gently. When we hit the ground nobody got hurt.

Our lord didn't look around him, instead he sat down and closed his
eyes. When he opened them again he stood up and proclaimed: "My
friends, rejoice, this is our new home.". And we cheered, and danced,
and drunk all night long. The next morning the trumpet blowers
announced loudly, too loudly, that it was once again time to work. The
great general Trojus, his lordship's military right hand, announced
that a lot of work laid before us and that we should get to work.
After sending a thank you prayer to the gods we started on our new
home. 
"""

Now I have to place some footnotes with this account for
completeness. It is possible that the great difference in elevation
the soldier described wasn't that great at all but just a leap of the
imagination. A soldier from the army of a visiting lord once described
the travel experience as "the air twists a little, you get some light
effects and you float a little above the ground, that's all".

Also it appeared that either our lord in his goodness granted the men
a full day of sleep or the travel took a complete day. We know this
from the klok, a time measurement device that was among the goods
transported.

Historical evidence suggests that 40 cyclos later our lord returned to
the moon to pick up the remaining men and women. This time however the
tornado effect was not observed.


=========================
Red Catastrophian Society
=========================

We pride ourselves on our advanced society which is based on a form of
government we call boomvormige democratie. Our society is based around
three main groups: werkers, denkers, vechters.

The first group, the werkers, are the workforce of Red Catastrophe.
They do all the farming, building, manufacturing, etc. Within the
werkers group there are three subgroups: the primairen, the
secondairen and the tertairen. The primairen extract good from the
land, they are mostly farmers but also miners. The secondairen
transform goods, for example they produce cloth. The tertairen are all
that aren't engaged in either production or transformation of goods,
merchants belong to this category.

The second group, the denkers, are the brains of Red Catastrophe. This
is my group by the way. We denkers are always trying to improve the
quality of living on Red Catastrophe, either directly by inventing or
indirectly by discovering how the universe works or producing cultural
objects.

Not all denkers are the same, therefore we too have three subgroups:
the vincies, the einsteins and the rembrandts. The vincies are
inventors, they try to construct the most amazing machines and often
blow things up in the process. The einsteins are scientists who
attempt to understand how and why things work. The rembrandts are
artists who produce great paintings and statues.

Finally the third group, the vechters, are the military. Given the
threat of the Dark Three and other dangerous lords it's vital that we
keep a strong defense ready at all times. The vechters only have two
subgroups: the luchtmacht and the landmacht. The luchtmacht is
probably the most impressive of the two. We are people of Sky and
therefore rule the air above our lands. Our valiant airknights ride
giant eagles and valcons, which is really a magnificent sight. The
landmacht uses the weird constructions of the vincies called tanks
which are basically just heavily armored boxes that can shoot
exploding bullets.

Now to our governmental system: the boomvormige democratie. Each
village has a village council from which representatives are chosen by
the people to sit in the regional council. The regional council choses
members from it's own ranks to represent them in the Kamer, the
central assembly. Note that the amount of representatives each village
and region has is dependant on many things, mostly the population
number.

While the Kamer is for all the people the Denkers and Vechters have
their own structures. The Denkers have the Conclave which is a
septally conference where just about every denker comes to chat with
others and to help formulate advices to the Kamer (though that's more
of a side matter usually). The Vechters have the Command Council, a
panel of five leaders: the General of the Landmacht, the General of
the Luchtmacht, the High Commander of Dinil Septum (the secret agents,
also known as the Unseen), the High Commander of the Catastropian
Guard (the police force) and with our Lord as the leader of the Council.

Our judicial system was originally very simple with our lord being the
one and only judge. As our numbers grew however this became an
unworkable system as our lord only has a limited amount of time and an
ever growing backlog of cases developed. After many lengthy debates a
new legal system was created. In the new system people are judged by
their peers in first instance with the possibility of appeal in case
of a major punishment (anything more than 5 tempos in prison) or
judicial errors. Appeals are handled by a panel of three judges. Above
the appeals courts stands the supreme court that mainly deals with
constitional matters.

Oh, and there's the priests too. Our planet has two great temples, one
dedicated to Symo, one to Arzeyka. The priests do not only provide
spiritual guidance but also heal the wounded and sick and keep
historical records.


=================
Myths and Legends
=================

Little is known about the Lords and Gods and most of what we know is
from rumours. However we do know that there are three classes of
higher beings: the Lords, the Archangels and the Gods.

The Lords are who rule us. We have the honour of being ruled by our
most marvelous lord Silverius. The Lords are immortal for we have seen
a lord die and return through one of the gates of heaven. There are
rumours that the Lords are actually spirits from another universe,
this could explain why most of the time they walk with their eyes
closed.

The Archangels are divine beings who are even more powerful than the
Lords. We don't know how many Archangels there are, but we do know
there are at least two: the Great Lord of Energy and the Great Lord of
Lightning. The goddess Arzeyka is also believed to be an Archangel by
some.

Of the gods we know little and most of it is either rumour or
faith. The worshippers of Symo say he is the Great Glazed One that in
his sleep in heaven watches us and helps his followers. The
worshippers of Arzeyka say Symo is just a dead lord who some Lord
started worshipping out of boredom.

The worshippers of Arzeyka say she's the creator of the universe and
the writer of a secret book named Logos. They say she sleeps within a
dream and dreams the universe. The followers of Symo say Arzeyka is
just a fairy tail who some Lord started worshipping because he
couldn't stand the magnificence of Symo.

And then there are the Dark Three, the feared lords of darkness. These
are the Unwelcome Guest, the Devourer of Worlds and the Master of
Storms. The Unwelcome Guest is said to constantly jump around the
universe, searching for worlds to conquer. The Devourer of Worlds is
the master of dark magics who's prime goal is to destroy as many
worlds as possible. The Master of Storms is reported to have fought
with the Lord of Energy who empowers the universe, should he have won
it's likely the universe would have collapsed.


====
Time
====

Our largest unit of time is the cyclos. A man in good health has a
good chance to live 4 cyclos. A cyclos contains 35 tempos. When we
refer to a tempos we formally use a notation like "Second Pomegranate"
or "15//2". When the cyclos doesn't matter we just use the name or the
number.

A tempos is divided into 7 seasons or septals. Some of these septals
are short, some are long.

Our year starts in the middle of the winter. We have two winter
septals straight after eachother. The second is called Nawinter.
Nawinter is the coldest part of the year, but it's relatively free of
storms. As Nawinter is a quatern it lasts only 26 nua.

When the ice begins to melt the Voorlente begins. Voorlente is very
rich on rain, which is a common theme of complaints from farmers who
have to sew in that septal. During the 35 nua of the trine voorlente
the temperature goes from freezing to moderately cool.

After the voorlente comes our first summer septal, the quatern
Voorzomer. Voorzomer is the hottest septal of the year and most people
take a vacation in this period (we have a law that every employee is
entitled to at least 30 nua of vacation each year).

After Voorzomer the temperature drops again for the second sprint,
Nalente. The trine Nalente is a pleasant time to work, with
temperatures that go from slightly chilly to slightly hot but are
mostly just moderate.

The quatern Nazomer is our prime harvesting septal as most plants grow
best in nalente and nazomer. With only moderately hot temperatures
it's generally agreed to be the better of the two summers.

When the trine of Herfst arrives it's time to harvest the really late
crops and prepare everything for storms. Herfst has a lot of storms
that kill a few unprepared fools each year. As many houses are not
safe in the storms many people flee to the temples which are build to
withstand even the wrath of a god.

The quatern of Voorwinter is a bit of a mix between Herfst and
Nawinter. The heavy storms of Herfst have passed, but the new
snowstorms are in some aspects even worse. It is in these days that
people leave the temples again and hope their prayers to their
god(dess) have worked and their house is undamaged.

Each septal has either 26 (for a quatern) or 35 (for a trine) nua,
each with a name (Pomegranate) and a number (15). Each nua is divided
into 21 tias named in order: "First Black", "First Red", "First
Yellow", "First Blue", "First Green", "First White", "First Purple",
"Second Black", "Second Red", etc. Each tias is formally divided into
100 centias which are divided into 100 micrias but most people don't
use these and just use things like first half or first quatern.

For notation we have two forms as was to be expected. Using names you
get something like: "First Black Forest of Voorlente of Second
Emperor". That means the First Black tias of the nua Forest in the
septal Voorlente in the tempos Emperor of the Second cyclos since our
arrival. The numerical form is: "1:22/2/14//2", in other words
"tias:nua/septal/tempos//cyclos". There is a convention that "1/4/"
means first nua of fourth septal while "1/4" means first septal of
fourth tempos.


=====
Units
=====

Our main unit of length is the ra which is defined by the length of a
tungsten stick. It is said that in the beginning of our tribe our Lord
got annoyed with all the incoherent units at that time and took a
stick roughly half the size of our largest man and said "The length of
this stick is a ra, that will be our only length unit from now
on.". In order to preserve the standard length for generations to come
a long lasting tungsten stick was modelled after it.

We define all other length units in term of the ra, such as a centira
(1/100 arm), a decira (1/10 ra), a decara (10 arm), a hectora (100
arm) and a kilora (1000 arm).

The unit of weight is the wi. A wi is defined in terms of the arm and
of water. A kilowi is defined as the weight of a cubic arm of water.


=========================
The Shape of the Universe
=========================

After spending many cyclos on philosophy, astronomy and physics our
scientists agreed on a theory of how the universe works. In our theory
the planets are very big islands that hover above the void. The void
exercises a pulling force known as gravity against all matter, which
explains why a ball that's thrown up comes down again too.

The planets are surrounded by a substance called aether. The aether
gives light, but not in a constant fashion. There seem to be two
cycles within the aether. The light of the aether slowly increases in
strength and then decreases again over the course of a nua. The length
of the light part of a nua increases from Nawinter to Nalente and
decreases from Nalente to Voorwinter.

Above the planets lie the heavens. The general assumption is that the
light we see comes from the heavens and that the aether only spreads
it around the universe.

Now you may be wondering why the planets don't fall down into the
void. We expect that's because they are charged. Experiments have
shown that objects with a high enough charge tend to float up. After a
while they stop floating and stay at their new position until the
charge decays. Our theory is that heaven attracts charged objects but
that the gravity of the void increases when objects move away from
it, as if gravity is a rubber string. Unfortunately it's very hard to
charge objects, having floating ships and castles would certainly be
extremely useful.

About the shape of the universe our scientist don't have a common
position. Some say the universe is flat and infinitely long and
wide. Others say the universe is spherical with the void being the
center. A third theory says the universe is spherical with the
heavens being the center.


===========================
The Tale of the Dread Lords
===========================

This is an account of what happened long ago when I did some note
taking in a small exploration group of the army.

"""
It was early Voorwinter in the tempos of Tenth Dust. The night was
dark, the moons were thin and even the little bit of light it gave
were adsorbed by the clouds in front of them. It was during this night
that our greatest battle yet was fought.

First we heard the howling of wolves, then our birds started to
screech, the earth started to rumble and we thought we saw spirits
dancing the dance of the dead. Suddenly lightning struck a great tree,
splitting it in half. In the short shine of the lightning we saw great
armies on the horizon.

We prayed to Symo, we prayed to Arzeyka, we prayed that our fears
hadn't become reality and that the Dark Three had come to take our
souls. Lightning hit again. The armies had moved closer. In the flash
we saw unfamiliar markings, not the black sword that is the symbol of
the Dark Three. For a moment we were relieved, then the attack started.

In war it's conventional to attack when there is sufficient light,
either daylight or torches. These armies didn't bring torches and just
wielded their swords against everything that moved, often themselves.
In this chaos we got away, many of us holding on to the claws of our
eagles and falcons because there weren't enough to carry all of us on
their backs.

We travelled that way for about a tias until we reached the nearest
fort. First they did not believe us, saying we drank to much Violet
Beer. Then the armies started showing up there too. Pidgeons were send
to warn adjacent forts and the central city where our Lord resided.

Our fort was well equiped and it housed some of the finest most
courageous troops I've ever seen. We weren't going to surrender. By
the time the enemy was in range the barricades were well manned, the
cannons were put out and the birds were up in the air.

First they just tried to storm us. That failed miserably, thanks to
the oil distribution system of my college Brandblaar and our excellent
archers. Then they tried to shoot through our walls with cannons. As
our fort was made from hardstone from the blue mountains that didn't
really work very well either. Next they started storming us again and
after that wave they used their cannons again.

It seemed our opponents didn't care about losses and soon we
discovered why. Our archers and eagles took out many men. Our cannons
delivered blow after blow. Yet for each men, each army we destroyed
another one took it's place.

This lasted for a septal, then two septals, then three septals. Though
we were very well stocked our supplies went down and we had to do with
half rations, then fourth rations, then eight rations. Our men died
too, though for each of our men a hunderd of our enemies died.

After a whole tempos few of us were still alive, but we hadn't lost
yet. Then, in the morning of the tempos of Sun we witnessed something
truly amazing. Out of the fog a white light seemed to shine. As we
looked through the telescope we saw what appeared to be an army
marching.

As the army came closer we saw that it was all in white. The leader
sat on a white horse with wings which could easily beat any of our
winged horses in a beauty contest. He had long sligthly silver hair
and wings coming from his back. All of the men and women in his army
has wings too. Looking further we saw a lightning draw on their
shields.

When the white army approached the enemy armies the leader shouted
something, from what we heard he told the enemy soldiers to surrender
or die. Some surrendered but most didn't seem to think about giving up
now that they were so close to victory.

A lord of the enemy army began to speak. He bragged about his strength
and about how he would never be defeated and how his army is
infinite. The reaction of the white leader was as suprising as it was
effective. First his hands began to glow in a white light, then
lightning came from the tops of his fingers and struck down half of
the enemy army. Only a few moments later lightning struck again. Only
a few men survived, and those were quickly dealt with by the white army.

When the work was done fog began to surround the white army, when it
was gone again they were gone too. No more enemies appeared. A quatern
later our lord came to visit us. He told us that we had done well and
that not many forts had lasted as long as we did. He also told us who
the mysterious white leader was, it was the Archangel of Lightning
himself. To be honest, we already suspected that.
"""


=====
Birds
=====

Red Catastrophe already had a well developed fauna before we
arrived. The king of nature in Red Catastrophe is the Gigantica Rex in
it's various forms. The Gigantica Rex, or Giga as we call them, comes
in three forms, distinguished by color.

The White Giga or Whita is the largest variant, with a wingspan of 10
ra. Whita's hunt for the big animals like cows, which they can
devour with ease. With their large wingspan they can travel enourmous
distances, unfortunately they lack manouverability which makes them
fairly worthless in close combat. We mainly use Whita's for transport
as they can carry a quite a load over large distances.

The Red Giga or Rega is a whole lot smaller than the Whita. These
birds have a wingspan of 'only' 6 ra and can only travel medium
distances. However they eat a lot less and can carry pretty heavy
objects with their claws, which makes them pretty good bombers.

The Brown Giga or Broga is the smallest of the Giga's. It's wingspan
is 5 ra and it's range of flight is rather short compared to the other
Giga's. However it's very fast, manouverable and extremely well
trainable so that it's perfect for close combat in the sky and quick
reconnaissance.  


=============================
The tale of Reinard Dubbelvos
=============================

This is one of our oldest stories, it was recently chosen to be the
best short story of Red Catastrophe.

""" 
Once upon a time, somewhere in the Second Cyclos, there was a small
civil war between two groups of villages. The reason? Well we asume it
was because of rights to a river, but we don't know really and wars
have a tendency to become their own reason after a while so it doesn't
even matter that much. Anyway there were two armies, the Red Army and
the Blue Army, and they bitterly fought for every piece of land.

Now the armies were pretty much balanced and based upon two
hills. Neither of the armies could survive an attack again the other's
base as the defenders would have the superior uphill position.

One day a young man walked into the Red camp and asked to speak the
commander. He told him his name was Reinard Dubbelvos and that he was
a spy of great talent. He also gave him some interesting information
about the Blue army. If the commander gave him shelter and food, he
promised, he would sneak into the enemy camp and get more information.
The commander, impressed with the info that Dubbelvos gave him,
accepted the offer.

In the next weeks Dubbelvos often went out for a few days and gathered
information.  However his price steadily increased, first it was just
a simple shelter and food, then he started requesting little things,
like a few extra grapes, a more comfortable bed, some gold for his
retirement chest. As the information of Dubbelvos was so important and
his requests were so small nobody had a problem with them.

It was also during this time that the Red commander started noticing
the enemy behaving rather more intelligently as usual, as if they knew
the weak spots of the Red army. Sometimes they would attack the
support convoys of the Red army, even though only the highest and most
trustworthy officers knew about the route those convoys were going to
take.

Everybody trusted Reinard Dubbelvos, except a young lad named Pietje
Spitsoor. He noticed how Dubbelvos was getting richer and richer, at
the expense of the rest of the army who had to do with even less
rations than before. One day Spitsoor decided to follow Dubbelvos and
say how he walked along with some enemy soldiers. He heard them
complimenting Dubbelvos on the secrets he had managed to gather from
the Red army.

Spitsoor then hid himself while Dubbelvos came by. Later in the camp
Spitsoor asked to speak the commander, in private, and told him about
what he heard. Now the commander was quite impressed by Dubbelvos and
he wasn't going to believe a young chap just like that. However he
knew that Dubbelvos did indeed have access to important secrets that
were leaked. So he decided to test Dubbelvos.

The next day during the meeting of the staff the commander told
everybody that due to recent events he wouldn't give out the
information about the route of the convoy bringing the gold and food
that they so desperately needed to all at once. Instead he called each
of the staff members to him. All he told the real route, except
Dubbelvos. He also told Dubbelvos that his presence was badly needed
during the planning session of the next days.

When the carriage arrived over the fake route the Blue army didn't
find food and gold, only a chest with a letter in it titled "For the
Blue commander". The letter was from the Red commander and explained
that Dubbelvos was a spy, for both camps. It also noted that a message
left under a certain stone in a certain well would find it's way back
to the Red Commander.

The Blue commander knew that while the Red commander was his opponent,
he was a man of honour who wouldn't lie and he knew that the seal of
the letter was indeed that of the Red commander. So the Blue commander
set a similar test for Dubbelvos and got a similar result. A
conversation ensued.

One day the Red commander called Dubbelvos. He told him that his
services were of extraordinary value to them and that they'd like to
hold a big celebration in his honour. And a big celebration it was,
there were roasted pigs, beer and lot's of female admirers of
Dubbelvos. In the late hours while Dubbelvos was bragging with a
rather red nose, one of the men said that he may have been great, but
that he doubted wether Dubbelvos could master the most great challenge
of those villages: the Corral. Of course, Dubbelvos accepted saying
that the Greatest of All Men would master that challenge with ease.

The next day they didn't waste time and by noon he was in the
corral. The corral was a round area surrounded by a high palisade. At
one point the pallisade wasn't closed but formed a kind of uncovered
tunnel of about 10 ar long and 4 ar broad with at the end a
portcullis. From above the whole construction looked somewhat like a
round bottle with a long neck. On the bottom of the tunnel were wooden
planks. At the other side of the corral was a system of pullies which
allowed easy raising of the portcullis.

The villagers said Dubbelvos that he should wear the cerimonial mask
of Greatness, which he did, although he had a bad feeling about
it. The key they said was hanging on the portcullis, each to
reach. His only task was to raise the portcullis and walk
out. However, they warned, the planks were mounted on an axis and if
one of them moved to much the portcullis would fall down. Having said
that they left Dubbelvos alone.

Dubbelvos thought the challenge wasn't that big. Sure the mask was a
little heavy, but he was good at balancing on small dead trees and
from a few careful tries he learned that the planks didn't trigger the
portcullis quite as easily as he had feared. However practice proved
to be more difficult than theory. Whenever he walked a few ar onto the
planks he would be pulled to the left by an invisible force. When he,
by great effort, managed not too fall there he would be pulled to the
right again, but with a much greater force.

After a few hours of trying and laughs from the public he spotted a
few familiar faces on the other side of pallisades. The two
commanders, standing side by side, were laughing at him. Realising
that that meant no good for him he turned to them and asked "Am I a
prisoner?". The Red commander answered: "No, you are a free man, you
just need to cross the planks. We assure you that it's possible.".
Then the Blue commander asked people to hold up their mirrors. In the
mirrors Dubbelvos saw something unexpected, the back of his mask. Now
the mask of Greatness was a special creation, just for him, it had a
face on the front and a face on the back.

Though Dubbelvos tried and tried he never escaped and eventually he
died in the corral, wearing a two faced mask. While working together
on the punishment of Dubbelvos the commanders and armies had become
friends and the war was soon over.

Now I guess you want to know why Dubbelvos didn't manage to
escape. There is a certain kind of rock named Magnetia which attracts
iron. At various places on both sides of the tunnel Magnetia rocks of
various sizes were placed, the Magentia attracted the iron of
Dubbelvos' mask when he tried to cross the bridge, spoiling his
balance.
"""

The Challenge of Dubbelvos became somewhat of a tradition and many
people have attempted to complete it. So far three people have
succeeded, proving that it's indeed possible.


==================
Currency and banks
==================

Our standard unit of currency is officially called a Silver
(Si). There is historical evidence that in the early days some of the
coins were indeed made out of silver, but in modern times we use a
much cheaper and much stronger alloy for it.

The value of a Silver is about so that you could buy 10 breads with
it. Old people like to complain that in the past you could buy even
more breads with it. Our economical denkers have noticed this too and
have a plan ready to introduce a new currency, should this ever be
needed.

These are our coins, from large to small values.

Quitensil (50 Si)
Dutensil (20 Si)
Tensil (10 Si)
Quisil (5 Si)
Dusil (2 Si)
Silver or Sil (1 Si)
Quitens (0.50 Si)
Dutens (0.20 Si)
Tens (0.10 Si)
Quicent (0.5 Si)
Ducent (0.2 Si)
Cent (0.1 Si)

For things larger than a quitensil we have special hexagonal
discs. These discs are made out of special materials conjured by our
Lord and cannot be imitated.

As our economical system is quite sophisticated we have a number of
banks. There are many banks of which one is special: the Lords
Bank. The Lords Bank is not a company but a state organ. It has the
job of offering basic financial services with fixed prices and high
security also it's in charge of the production of coins and discs. The
point of having the Lords Bank offer savings accounts is that in case
of an economical crash the money in the Lords Bank is guaranteed to be
safe. The point of having the Lords Bank offer loans is that it kills
the business of providing loans with extremely high interests. Note
that the Lords Bank must offer loans to anybody except in rather
extreme circumstances and that cheating on the Lords Bank is
considered a crime against the state, punishable with a fair prison
time.


=========
Tricolore
=========

There isn't a most popular board game on Red Catastrophe, but
Tricolore comes very close. The origins of the game are largely
unknown, but from historical records and archeological digs we know
that it was played as early as the First Cyclos and may even have come
from Yellow Moon.

Tricolore seems to be based on the five element dominating system of
nature. However the five colors have been reduced to three, possibly
because it would otherwise make the gameplay to difficult or because
it's hard to evenly distribute five colors on a board made of squares
or hexagons. The colors are Red, Green and Blue, where Red dominates
Blue, Blue dominated Green and Green dominates Red.

Tricolore is normally played by two players, white and black, on a
hexagonal board with a radius of 6 hexagons (so with a diameter of 11
hexagons). Each player has 30 stones, 10 in each of the colors. The
stones are arranged in triangles, with one nearest to the center
hexagon, two below that, three below those and finally four against
the edge of the board.

When the game starts White must move a stone. A valid move is either a
move into an adjacent empty hexagon, or a jump sequence. A stone may
jump over a stone of it's own color, but only once in a sequence. A
stone may also jump over a stone of a dominated color, removing it
from play if it was an opponents stone, and optionally jump again. A
stone may not jump over a stone of a dominating color.

The game ends when a player loses the chance of taking all the stones
of the opponent, logically this means that when a player doesn't have
at least one stone of each color anymore that player loses. 

Many variants and alternative rules exist. A popular rule is that a
stone may jump two squares if the first of those squares is occupied
by a stone of a dominated color and the second is not occupied by a
stone of a dominating color, in such a case the dominated stone is
never removed.

It's possible to play Tricolore with three and with six players. In
the three player variant each player simply gets only two colors and
in the six player variants each player gets one color. In the three
color game there's a possible end situation where two players are
undefeatable, in such a case the player who caused the undefeatability
would win.


=========
Geography
=========

[Note from the author: I took the liberty of asuming that a single
peep in the web interface translates to a 1000 peeps, this to preserve
the coherency of the story.]

Red Catastrophe is huge, not as huge as Yellow Moon reportedly is, but
still huge. Our best estimate is that it's about 700 kilora from the
most northern point to the most southern. Of that space we currently
use only a relatively small part even though we already occupy this
planet for slightly more than 12 cyclos. 

The center of our world is formed by the Three Temples on the Sacred
Platform of Divinity. On the platform the first things one notices are
two great temples, that of His Holy Glazedness Symo and the one of
Arzeyka, the Mother of the Universe.

On the north of the platform stands a marble statue of a bearded man,
naked except for a rag around his waist, his muscular arms raised
towards the sky. Across it, on the south side, is a small temple, also
made of marble. It has six pillars of white marble that support a
slightly conic round roof, also of white marble. Carved between each
pillar, on the edge of the roof, is the sacred symbol of pentagram in
pentagon that symbolises the five elements. It is this small temple
that's so vital to our planets existance, for this is where our Lord
channels his energy into the world, protecting it from the void.

To the southeast of the Three Temples lies the Great Mountain.  The
Great Mountain is the highest of all the mountains. Around it are a
whole lot of others mountains, some being pretty great themselves. It
is here that the Giga's come from and it is here that they return to
breed. As these mountains are so vital for the luchtmacht they have
delved into one of the larger mountains and made a large cavern base
there which over time has become their primary base which known as
Mount Victory.

Looking east from Mount Victory the Tower of Science is well visible
at the horizon. The Tower of Science is actually just part of the
Catastrophian University (commonly known as the Catastrophical
University). The tower is the highest building on Red Catastrophe with
it's height of 400 ra. It has a diameter of 100 ra, ensuring a stable
base. The scientists have come up with some pretty innovative tricks
like hanging a metal ball in the top of the tower to keep it stable
during the Herft storms. Around the tower there are some buildings
that house the more dangerous research departements such as alchemy.

South of the Tower lies our capital Alaxis. It is in this city that
more people live together and more goods are manufactured than anywere
else on the planet. Highlights of Alaxis include the Palace of
Government where the kamer resides, the parks and the many statues. To
the west of Alaxis lie the farms, to the south the forests, to the
southeast the great venerable old forest and to the east our quarries.


========
Quatball
========

The by far most popular sport on Red Catastrophe is Quatball. In
Quatball four teams of 5 players each play on a octagonal field. On
four sides, North, East, South and West, there is a goal made out of
two wooden poles placed next to eachother on the border of the field.

The object of the game is to get a ball through a goal. Should the
ball move out of the field a player of the team opposite (North-South,
East-West) of the team that last touched the ball may throw or kick
the ball back into the field. There are no rules regarding how to move
the ball except that one may not run with the ball in ones hands.

Quatball has somewhat complex scoring rules. Basically a team gets one
point for scoring and the team opposite of the team that's scored
against gets one point too. So North scores against South is 2 points
for North (score+opposite) but North against West is 1 point for North
(score) and 1 point for East (opposite). In the case of a goal against
oneself all other teams get a point.

Now the scoring rules add a tactical dimension to the game. Take for
example a situation where North is trying to attack South. South, East
and West would be disadvantaged by a North->South goal. North sees
that the resistance of all three teams is too big and decides to play
the ball to East. If East scores both North and East benefit. However
it's entirely possible that North will try to backstab East again as
North->South is better for North than East->South.

Competitions of Quatball tend to be rather unpredictable as one strong
team could find itself fighting against three weaker teams that all
want to prevent it from winning the game. On the other hand a strong
team might ally with a weaker team giving it a chance to reach a
higher position than it otherwise would.

At the moment the global Quatball competition is mainly a fight
between four teams: Gigantica from the farmland in the East, Moss
United from the forests, Alaxis Rangers from Alaxis and Rockheads from
the Great Mountain region. These four teams fight each tempos for the
Golden Compass (which is just a round plate with four arrows carved
into it).

Quatball is gaining popularity on other worlds too, which has led to
the institution of the Worlds League where teams from all over the
universe play for honour, money and a plate made from the ultra-rare
Quintessence. There is even talk of a so called Krida Cup (after
Go-Krida, an ancient word which means 'the universe') where each
planet will send in one team. Our most magnificent Lord seems to dream
of victory in such a cup already.


========
On Magic
========

Magic is basically a collective name for the more uncommon
manifestations of the Light. The common belief is that the Light
shines from heaven through the elemental gates where it's formed by
five holy artifacts. The Light is not like normal light in that it can
be observed by the human eye. Rather it's a kind of field that flows
through stones, planets and living beings.

Some people have the Gift, the ability to feel the Light and use some
of it to change things. For example the Light can be used to make
plants grow faster. The Lords are the best example of that and a lot
of their power depends on their ability to shape the Light better than
any mortal. Some of us can channel the Light, as it's called,
too. Such people are called mages, wizards and sorcerers, collective
spellcasters.

Now it's not quite easy to channel the Light. For one nobody can
channel infinite amounts of the Light, except maybe the Archangel of
Energy. The channeling ability of a spellcaster is measured in Soltos,
which is defined as the amount of mana a spellcaster can channel in a
tempos. The Lords all seem to have a channeling ability of 1
megaSoltos, so 1 million Mana per tempos. The best mortal spellcasters
have achieved without is 300 kiloSoltos.

The Light is in it's purest form white, angelic. However to enter
manifest chaos it must pass the elemental gates which each break down
the light in one of five colors that correspond to the elements. Once
in manifest chaos the light once again consists of all five colors,
but in a different way. In heaven all colors are aligned with
eachother, forming white, in manifest chaos the colors are unaligned,
forming chaos. 

Spellcasters can normally channel one of the five colors much better
than others, they are said to be aligned with the element of that
color. Some spellcasters can channel all the colors, making them
Chaotic spellcaster, often proficient in all forms of magic but master
of none. Others can channel all the colors too, but realign them too
so that they once again form angelic white. These spellcasters are
usually quite bad at all the element specific magic but excel at the
general magics and certain more angelic magics such as healing.

Not only spellcasters can channel the Light, certain materials can do
so to. I'm talking about the seven elemental materials: Quintessence
(Angelic), Moonleaf (Leaf), Teardrop (Water), Earthbone (Earth),
Starstone (Sky), Adamant (Metal) and Koldstarium (Chaos). These
materials act like a kind of window through which the Light can shine
upon the world. However elemental materials in a normal state are like
a window made out of coal, light can't go through it. Only through the
careful intervention of a spellcaster can the coal be turned to
diamond and the light go through. Furthermore like diamonds the
materials can refract the light in many way which affects what the
effect the light will have on the world. For example starstone can be
used to connect two places by a magical portal, but can also be used
to create an elemental gate of Sky (though the mana required means
only Lords can do that).


====
Quin
====

Quin is one of our favorite games. It's played with 50 cards, divided
in five elements (Earth, Sky, Metal, Leaf, Water) numbered from one to
ten. There are three variants of Quin: Soldiers Quin, Farmers Quin and
Philosophers Quin.

Soldiers Quin is a fast and easy game. At the start of the game each
player gets 10 cards. First comes the betting round, each player has
to decide how many money to put in the pot. A player has three options
during betting: drop, match and raise. Drop just means giving up and
losing all the bet money so far. Match means raising ones bet to be
equal to the highest bet on the table, this is needed to stay in the
game. Raise means surpassing the highest bet (thus forcing others to
match yours or drop). When everybody either matches or drops the game
starts.

In Soldiers Quin the last person to raise or match starts by playing a
card. To win the 'trick' other players must defeat that
card. Defeating the card can be done by playing a card of a higher
number in the element of the first card or the dominating element of
it. If there's tie between two cards the dominating card wins. The
next trick the player who won the previous one starts. The player who
wins most tricks wins the game and the money.

Farmers Quin is a bit more complex. Before the betting fase comes a
bidding fase where a so called contract is bid on. The contract is
something like 7 tricks in Leaf, meaning that the player who won the
contract will win 7 tricks with Leaf as trump. The rule of contracts
is that each player either passes or raises the contract. A contract
can go from 1 to 10 tricks and uses a ranking of elements where Metal
is the lowest and Sky the highest, above Sky is Sansatu which is a
special Quin term for no trump.

When the contract is made the betting is handled like in Soldiers
Quin. In Farmers Quin the role of the dominating element is replaced
by the trump (or by nothing in the case of Sansatu). So in a Seven
Leaf contract when Sky Four is played as the first card Leaf Four
trumps. At the end of the game if contract wasn't made (the set number
of tricks won) the money goes to one of the other players that has won
the most tricks, possible dividing the money between multiple players.

Philosophers Quin is the most complex variant. Contrary to the other
variants this one isn't played for money but for points through a
complex rating system and also it's always played with five
players. Philosophers Quin has not one but two trumps, a greater and a
lesser. Accordingly the bidding goes like Metal Metal (Metal for
greater, Metal for lesser), Metal Leaf (Metal for greater, Leaf for
lesser), ..., Leaf Sansatu, Leaf Metal, etc. Note that there is no
Sansatu Leaf as that's equivalent to Leaf Sansatu.

In the bidding a player may propose an alliance to another player. In
case of an alliance the combined tricks of the two players count
against the contract. In addition there are two special bids: Dusniet
and Duswel. Dusniet is a bid that can be made by a player who is not a
candidate for the contract (has the highest bid or is in an alliance
with somebody who has the highest bid). Dusniet basically means "I
don't think so" and doubles the score that can be won or lost. Duswel
can be bid by a candidate in response to a dusniet and doubles the
score again. Dusniet can also be played in response to duswel which
can result in quite high scores, but only up to three times (so after
the third duswel the doubling ends).

During the game the minor trump can be used to trump the initial card,
but the major trump can be used to overtrump the minor trump. At the
end of the game the tricks are counted and the points are awarded for
the contracting alliance or player if the contract is made and to the
opponents if it isn't. Also points are awarded for things like extra
tricks made or required tricks not made.


===============
The Two Temples
===============

On the Platform of Divinity two great temples announce the greatness
of their respective god(dess). As the only thing separating the
temples is a plaza the strife between the two religions is most
concentrated there. However there is no violence as our most wise Lord
has made it very clear that in case of a holy war he would personally
throw all involved into the void. Instead there is a kind of constant
bickering which is most apparent during the Ritual of Dawn.

The Ritual of Dawn is a showoff contest between the two religions.
When the dawn breaks five believers from each side show how strong
they are. There isn't really a strict plan for this but usually both
religions chose for a kind of martial arts dance involving lot's of
coordinated movements and acrobatics. Also not uncommon is the use of
swords and other weapons in a kind of blade dance.

At the first day of Herfst of each tempos the Festival of the Gods is
celebrated. In this festival all kinds of contests are hold between
all religions. The highlights are always the Broga air stunt contest,
the song and dance contests and especially the martial arts contest.

To the west of the plaza stands the mighty temple of Symo. The temple
looks from above like two octagons connected by a tunnel. The second
octagon is stretched out so that it's double as long as broad. Both
parts of the temple have large stretched out octagons as windows. The
windows are painted with a somewhat transparent paint and have light
shining through them from the inside though a complex system of
mirrors and crystals that collect the light falling on the roof and
send it through the windows. Painted on the windows are the images of
saints and important events.

The first, smaller, octagon is the portal to the temple. In front of
it stands a great golden dragon with his wings spread out and his
mouth wide open as a challenge to the Arzeykans. The portal has two
great wooden doors at the front that are rectangular with the upper
corners cut off. Inside there are many wall and ceiling paintings
showing the scenes of saints helping the people and off the great
heavens. The purpose of the portal is to collect the offers of the
people, be it money or food or something else. It is considered good
practice to bring a small offer like a Silver or a few potatoes before
entering the main temple.

After the richly decorated tunnel and through two great wooden doors
one enters the main temple. The main temple looks like the portal from
the outside but has many rows of benches in it. This is where the
people pray and listen to the priest. In front of the benches is the
central altar where the ceremonies are performed. After the altar is
room for the singers and musicians, the Church of Symo believes
strongly in the positive influence of music.

On the other side of the plaza lies the temple of Arzeyka. In front of
it stands a giant white statue of a lizard with his mouth wide open as
a challenge to the Symoans. The temple is rectangular in form and
supported by many decorated pillars of white stone, it's build upon a
platform with steps carved out in it. The front part of the temple has
no walls but a lot of statues, here offers can be brought to the
priests, which are suspiciously often good looking young women.

Behind the strong wooden doors the actual temple starts. On the front
side of the temple people can sit on a stone tribune to watch what's
happening on the stage. The stage is a rather big flat area where the
Arzeykans put up their religious plays. The Arzeykans believe that
giving the right example through theater is way more effective than
just chanting and praying like the Symoans. Behind the stage is an area
where the plays can be prepared and materials stored.


============================
The Landmacht and it's tanks
============================

Red Catastrophe isn't exactly known for it's mighty walking beasts, we
don't have legendary beasts like Mammoths to fight for us on the
ground. Instead the Landmacht has turned to science to get an edge
over attackers.

The Vincies have, over time, developed a number of so called tanks in
various sizes and forms. What all tanks share is a good protection for
those who are in it and the ability to move by wheels or by tracks.

The smallest tank is the Wasp. It's a three person tank where two
soldiers propel the tank by treading in pedals and a gunman fires
bolts from a turret. The turret can be rotated and has a crossbow
inside with a semi-automatic loading and readying facility (pulling a
handle loads an arrow and prepares the bow to fire). This tank has
only a weak armor but is pretty darn fast and cheap, making it the
tank of choice for patrolling and scouting.

Next comes the Hedgehog. The Hegdehog is basically a mobile wall with
holes in it for the archers. When it arrives where it's supposed to be
the sides of the tank open so that the tank looks like a hexagon from
the front. The tank has a double floor allowing the archers to stand
on the tank floor and not on the ground where their feet might be
shot. The tank is pretty heavy with good armor which means the pedal
propulsion won't work. Instead two big levers are used, each lever has
two teams on each side pushing it down in turns.

The Cutter is one of our most complex and most dangerous tanks. It has
two big sawblades mounted in front of it which can cut down the
enemies legs. A popular strategy is to have cutters guard a pass, as
the enemy is not able to get around the back of the cutters they have
no choice but to retreat. To power the sawblades the cutter has a
third lever. To defend itself the Cutter has a few holes for
crossbowmen in the front.

The pinacle of Red Catastrophian warfare is the flamer. The flamer is
basically a big Wasp that fires bolts that have flames bursting out of
them on impact. As the flamer requires a big turret for it's big
arrows it's mounted on the body of a Cutter.

The arrows of a flamer are about 1 decira in diameter and consist of
two parts: the ignition and the payload. The nose is somewhat flexible
and has a small stick with a chemical on it attached to it on the
inside. About a centira from the nose stick a small cross is mounted
inside the arrow, in the center of the cross is a circle with a second
chemical on it. When the nose is pushed inwards by impact the two
chemicals meet and a reaction developed in which a lot of heat is
released. The heat in turn ignites the payload, usually finely grinded
charcoal. When the charcoal ignites the pressure in the arrow goes up
rapidly and causes some wax seals in the sides of the arrow to
open. An explosion occurs and fire shoots out of the arrow.

The military advantage of the flamer lies in two elements: sound and
fire. The sound and light of the explosion will distract the enemies
troops and horses and the fire will wreak havoc wherever the arrow
lands. As the bow in the Flamer is very strong we can, with good
aiming and weather, hit an enemy camp from a kilora away. A few arrows
in the tents and the enemy should be severly weakened.


=======
The Lab
=======

Far away from everything else a bunch of mostly not very interesting
structures stand on black, burned, ground. These structures are known
as the Labratory for Highly Dangerous and Very Complicated Experiments
or just the Lab. It is here where the smartest and most couragious
scientists work on making our lives better, or that of our enemies
worse.

A black rectangular building with some weird crystals on it houses the
luminology research. Luminology is the science of the light (not the
Light). Currently the researchers are busy with two major projects:
light logic and high energy light.

Light logic is based on the strange properties of a very rare material
called Solarium. Solarium can under certain circumstances merge two
streams of light but only when both streams are active (be it just a
little bit). It can also temporarily store light and release it once
light falls on the right spot. There's also talk about other
possibilities, but those haven't been confirmed yet. The scientists
believe that Solarium can someday be used to solve complex problems
automatically. Before that time arrives they will have to find a way
to produce it that doesn't require large amounts of Quintessence
though.

High energy light is simply a large amount of light together. Using
Solarium it's possible to create a trap for light to which light can
be added constantly. In theory one could use this to create a weapon
that fires an incredible amount of light at once, causing everything
in it's path to burn. However there are two problems: the Solarium
tends to explode when too much light goes through it and the
scientists haven't found a way yet to let the light out of the trap.

Related to the light resource is the solar alchemy research. This
research builds on an old craft of the Lords that turns starstone and
some other materials into a bomb that when it explodes stupifies
everybody in range. The researchers are working on reducing the
requirements for such a glitterbomb and on making an activation
mechanism that doesn't require a very skilled mage to help.

One of the more safe buildings is ironically the fuel and explosion
research center. It's a common knowledge among the denkers that if we
have better explosives we could probably build machines that don't
need to be powered by humans or at least make machines that cause
other humans not to be powered anymore in a spectacular fashion.
However the best so far is a concentrated extract of violet nectar,
which does burn well but only releases it's energy fairly slowly,
which isn't very useful.

In the past the Finsternis project was also part of the lab. Finternis
was a fairly secret project that revolved around the extraction of
charge for military purposes. Our physical theories say that charge is
needed to prevent matter from falling into the void. If one could
extract the charge from an area it should fall into the void, if it's
not carried by charged matter.

Now the problem with making such a weapon isn't extracting the charge,
there are ways to do that, it's extracting the charge on a large
scale. However the researchers found out that when charge is extracted
from uncharged matter the matter would become negatively charged, it
would start to behave like the void. Such voidmatter would exercise an
attracting force on other matter and "eat" it. The scientists found
out that while eating positively charged matter would weaken the
voidmatter eating uncharged matter would make it stronger.

Further experiments and calculations showed that if enough voidmatter
was dumped in the middle of a medium or low charged area it would eat
up most of the area. Their logic was flawed however and that showed at
the first big test. In that test voidmatter was released in a desert
area. First it seemed to work fine, but while after some time the
voidmatter should have been neutralized due to all the positive matter
it ate it kept on growing. In the end our Lord, who was luckily
present at the test, had to intervene to neutralize the voidmatter.
Shortly later the project was canceled, the lab was destroyed and most
of the papers burned. One of the scientists noticed however that the
second prototype bomb and some copies of vital research papers were
not destroyed, when he brought this matter to the attention of our
lord all he got was a strange smile as answer.


====================
The Enchanted Forest
====================

Long, long ago in the mythical times when the planet was young there
was a forest full of magic and legends. One of those legends is that
of the ten outlaws. It goes like this:

""" 
Hear this story for it tells the truth, the truth about magic, the
truth about action and most importantly the truth about reaction.

Near a forest long gone there was once a village, a village full of
peace and love where the people were happy with eachother and
nature. Nothing went wrong there, nobody suffered, the young were
playful and the old were wise.

One day a band of ten outlaws came to the village. They heard of a
treasure in the forest nearby and wanted to rest in the village for
the night. They were stupid and arrogant, impolite and mean, the kind
of men that gives men a bad name.

They went into the tavern and called for beer, but they did not pay in
money, they paid in life, by not shooting people. While the aether
went dim they got more and more drunk and even more impolite than they
already were. They were offering romantic rendevous to the ladies in
no uncertain terms. And sure enough some ladies accepted the
proposals, but it wasn't because the outlaws were such lovable chaps.

One by one the outlaws left the tavern for a romantic meeting and one
by one they didn't come back. But one by one they got a good whacking
and some ropes around them too. For the villagers were not stupid and
had devised a plan, a plan of cunning and bravery, of intellect and
wisdom and well just plain old common sense. For the ladies were not
ladies but men wearing dresses with clubs underneath them which they
used to whack the outlaws when they closed their eyes for a kiss.

When the bandits woke up they found themselves in the forest. As they
could not see a way back to the village they decided to just walk on
hoping to find the treasure and a way out of the forest. They were
migthy angry about what happened, not only because of the whole
whacking business but also because they lost their swords. But as true
outlaws they had a backup, hidden knifes which they used to cut
their way through the forest.

After a while they began to notice that there were ever more rose
bushes on their path. Now roses may be beautiful, but rose bushes
certainly aren't fun to walk through with all those thorns. And what's
worse, the thorns actually seemed to try to hit the outlaws on their
faces and hands.

Things became even less fun for them as one outlaw saw a bees next
hanging low on a tree and decided to cut it off so that they could
have honey for lunch. But as anybody who ever saw a bear in action
knows, the bees don't like they honey to become someone elses
honey. And the bees in that enchanted forest were especially nasty,
with their stings being two centira long and capable of piercing the
leather armor of the bandits.

So when the bees started stinging the bandits did the obvious and ran
for it, straight through the rose bushes. Now you can say what you
want about enchanted forests, but it's hard to defend the position
that they aren't at least a bit sadistic. As the outlaws ran through
the bushes the forest took care to place the thorn branches at face
height. After about 300 ra the rose bushes began to become more rare
and after 400 ra they were gone entirely.

Now the outlaws were at an open place in the forest. They heard the
sound of a young board nearby. It was a weird little boar, with what
seemed to be stone covering most of his face. Now the bandits who were
quite hungry thought a young boar might make for a good lunch, at
least it couldn't sting them like the bees. So they ran after him and
soon got him.

Seeing that the boar had a wounded leg which prevented him from
running they started to 'play' a little with him. They formed a circle
and put the boar in the middle of them. The boar would of course try
to run away but each time he came near a bandit he would kick
him. They did this over and over again until suddenly the situation
changed quite a bit.

If the bandits had used their brains they would have been aware of the
high probability that a little boar would not be alone. And indeed it
was not alone. The cries of the little boar had alarmed his herd,
which was now making an impressive speed in the direction of the
outlaws. The leader however didn't figure that out until after he
heard bells sound. So once again they fled.

500 Ra and again quite some thorns further they saw a small group of
girls playing tag on an open spot covered by gras. The girls were
beautiful with green hair, blue eyes and wearing dresses of green
leaves. They saw the bandits and giggled at them, signalling them to
come near. But as the bandits approached them they ran away over the
gras and through a river nearby. On the other side they stopped and
once again winked the bandits to come.

But the bandits didn't come, for their feet got stuck in the stream,
which reached about to their middle. Now an enchanted forest of course
has enchanted mud and this enchanted mud did not intend to let
go. Tias passed, naus passed, septals passed and the bandits were
still stuck. But they didn't die, for the river lessened their thirst
and the fish their hunger. Legend has it that through eating and
drinking so much of the enchanted forest they have become themselves
enchanted and have gained the blessing or the curse of a long
life.

This all goes to tell you, nature gives everybody what they deserve
but not what they expect.
"""


============================
The Prism of Unity: Prologue
============================

Once more a tale, about how a single man saved us all from destruction.

""" 

A few cyclos ago John Heldus was the greatest hero of the
Luchtmacht. He and his Broga Vleugelzwaard were the bane of every
avial enemy. With fast flying and quick slashes they won every
battle. But Heldus was not only a good fighter, he also was gifted
with a quick working brain and fast legs. He was simply the greatest
Brogarider of all times. 

But Heldus' greatest challenge was not in the skies, but under the
ground. One day when he came back to the base after a training the
Commander and someone he didn't know was waiting for him. The
Commander behaved rather slimy towards his companion, which was odd as
the Commander would normally behave quite rudely to even the
Commander-General. He introduced his companion as "our Great Lord,
Silverius the Magnificent". The effect was rather spoiled when our
Lord remarked "Just say Chief, much easier.".

Our Lord told Heldus that he needed his services. He explained that
unknown to most people there was a underground temple located under
the Platform of Divinity. This temple houses the Prism of Unity, a
device consisting of seven crystals that splits the Light into the
five elemental Colors and then reunites them again. The power of the
light is then used to prevent the elements from breaking apart.

Under normal circumstances the elements exercise a repulsing force
upon eachother, preventing anything to be composed of more than one
element. However the world that we live in is composed of all the
elements in various compositions. The Prism of Unity uses the Light to
allow the elements to be bonded together.

Our Lord explained that a few nights ago a small group of enemy
soldiers and mages managed to sneak into the temple and attack the
Prism. The only reason that they did not succeed was that the Prism
has a built-in defense mechanism, when it's attacked it breaks up to
prevent damage. Now the seven crystals are locked in special magical
containers but as the Prism is now broken up the repulsing powers of
the elements are awakening again which will cause everything on the
planet to literally fall apart in less than 5 nua.

To unlock the containers a man will have to go down the temple and
pass seven quests. However that man will have to be a mortal as the
temple has a magical field that prevents any Lord from entering
it. Our Lord explained that after long and due contemplation he
decided that Heldus was the right man for this job.

Now Heldus was not the kind of man to refuse a challenge and
especially not when it came from our Lord and the fate of the planet
was at risk. So he accepted the quest and our Lord took him to the
Platform of Divinity and down a small hidden staircase under the
Temple of the Planet there. At the end of the starcase was a kind of
portal, a doorway filled with white light.

Our lord said to him that he could not cross that doorway, that for
him there was no white light but only a doorway with stone behind
it. Then he gave Heldus a gift, a sword of white steel. He told him
that the sword was called Lart and that Heldus could change it's form
to that of any other weapon by just focussing on it. Then Heldus
stepped through the portal.

As he stepped through the portal he was momentarily blinded and then
he was standing in a large octangular chamber lit by a strange white
crystal located in the top of the room. Behind him was the white
portal that he came through. Above the portal a symbol was carved in
the rocks, it was an arrow pointing upwards, obviously meaning exit.

There were seven other portals in the room, each with their own
symbol. In the middle of the room stood a kind of pillar with a
crystal construction on it. The construction seemed to be designed to
hold 7 balls in a classical view of the elements, angelic above and in
the middle, chaos below and in the middle, the five elements arranged
like a pentagon. It was clear that this was the holder for the Prism
of Unity.

Once he had taken a good look around Heldus walked through one of the
portals thinking that any place was a good place to start.
"""

====================================
The Prism of Unity: Guardians of Ice
====================================

""" 
The portal Heldus walked through had a drip carved out above it. At
the other side was a slide made out of ice causing him to slip and
slide down in a rather inelegant fashion. The room he slid into was
just like the center room circular, big and high. There were a few
differences though, of which the spiked ceiling and the hourglass on
the wall were probably the most significant with regard to his
continued existance.

At the other end of the room was a big stone slab blocking what
appeared to be a doorway. The floor of the room was covered with ice
under which he could see a lever that, so he reasoned, would probably
move that stone slab. Unfortunately the quest didn't seem to be as
simple as just cutting some ice as there were ten giant warriors of
ice forming out of the floor and moving in his direction.

Ok, he thought, 10 I can manage. So he grabbed his sword Lart tight
and started cutting some ice men in a way that would certainly not
have misfitted in an ice theater. But it didn't help much for each ice
man he cut through would just merge back into the floor and another
one would emerge.

After a little while he saw that this approach wasn't going to
work. And besides, the ceiling appeared to move down as he expected,
leaving him not too much time. So he looked around the room for
clues. There! Up near the hourglass there were some burning torches
in alcoves in the wall.

He changed Lart into a long spear and tried to use it to polejump over
to hourglass. But the ice seemed to be sentient and moved out of the
way of the tip of his spear so that he could not get a good grip. But
Heldus wasn't a man for giving up and his brain always worked better
when things became nasty. He figured that a grapling hook might also
be considered a weapon, under certain circumstances, so he changed
Lart into a grapling hook and threw it up against an alcove. Then he
climbed the rope and and took a torch.

With the torch he intended to melt the ice to that he could get at the
lever. Unfortunately while the torch burned hotly the ice regenerated
itself fast, freezing the ice he melted again, and the ice men didn't
let him work in peace. After a little while the ice managed a suprise
attack on his torch, closing off that avenue of escape.

Now Heldus had a big problem, the ceiling was coming ever closer and
he didn't have any idea what to do. Plus the ice men were constantly
trying to turned him into sliced ham. He looked around the room, and
again, and again. Nowhere he saw something of use.

Suddenly he noticed something, the sand in the hourglass didn't look
like your average yellow hourglass sand. It was more of a white sand,
resembling salt. But what if it really was salt? Salt and ice don't
mix very well he recalled, when you put salt on ice the ice will melt.

He figured that if he could reach the hourglass and smack it the salt
would run out and mix with the ice, causing it to melt so that he
could pull the lever. So once again he tried using his grapling hook,
but this time an ice man grapped the hook and pulled it off again,
together with some stone. The next attempt yield the same result and
so it went on for a while.

Then Heldus tried a risky and daring approach: he changed Lart into a
mace and jumped on one of the ice men and on to another and so forth
until he was near the hourglass. Then he grabbed the edge of the
alcove of the hourglass and pulled himself up enough to smash the
hourglass with Lart.

And true enough the sand was salt and it started to fell down on the
ice, causing a rather quick exit for the icemen. And as salt tends to
spread in water all of the ice was soon affected. Heldus then jumped
in and pulled the lever, causing the stone slab to move up. 

In the next room he once again faced a spiked ceiling but no
hourglass. At the other side of the room was a trove, but no matter
how hard he tried he couldn't open it. There was also a doorway in the
room, but it ended in stone.

The middle of the room was occupied by what appeared to be some kind
of puzzle. A set of hexagons and circles formed together a bigger
hexagon. The circles were of many colors, the hexagons only of
blue. The arrangement was such that there were hexagons in the six
corners and in the middle of the puzzle. The circles filled the gaps.

The from the top to the bottom this was how the puzzle looked like:
first row: hex, red circle, hex
second row: yellow circle, green circle, black circle, blue circle
third row: hex, red circle, hex, red circle, hex
fourth row: green circle, red circle, black circle, blue circle
fifth row: hex, blue circle, hex

When Heldus stepped on one of the hexagons that all stuck a bit out of
the floor the circles next to that hexagon magically changed color,
apparently in the order of domination of the elements. He tried
stepping on various hexagons and they all seemed to behave like the
first one. After a fair lot of steps just about all circles changed
colors to form the setup of when he entered the room, also the roof
came down. Further experimentation showed that this always happened on
the 15th step.

A hint to the goal of the puzzle was given by the inscription on the
trove, it said in a very old language: "The biggest sea yields the
biggest treasure.".
"""

TO BE CONTINUED