Arkadia: Year 1753 Day 246

This is the first normal post by Amargaard, and thus it marks the beginning of Am'ar Kardos' adventure in the Kardos roleplay's storyline. It takes place the 246th day of year 1753 in the Arkadian Timeline. However, the first half of the post takes place in a portal rift, and thus not in that timeline.

Amargaard also provided four optional artistic objects for this post. On another note, Year 1753 Day 246 on the Arkadian Timeline equals to Year 8749 Day 653 on the Giethallax Timeline, Year 695 Day 417 on the Vatari Timeline and Year 231 Day 389 on the Vika'el Timeline.

It tells of Am'ar's journey through a portal rift in his spaceship, and his fear of getting stuck in the galactic void. He is on his way on to a secret rescue mission on planet Arkadia, but his ship gets heavily damaged by the void energy during the travel through the rift, and once he gets teleported through the rift and enters the Arkadian atmosphere, he decides to abandon it in order to survive. He descends towards the Arkadian capital city, Kellaroog, with a jetpack, watching the dark city in the night while smoking a Hiva cigar. While slowly closing in on the city from above, he thinks about the instructions to complete the mission silently and secretly, and the information about Kellaroog's strange violent society, that is based on traditions of old, like the super popular annual gladiator sport competition known as the Rortaillent Games. However, after a while his jetpack sets out, when close to the rooftops, and he falls to his unconsciousness in the slim streets of the Arkadian capital city, where he is finally found and arrested by a local city guard patrol...

Year 1753 Day 246
I repeatedly pushed the button with my left hand, finger moving in a more and more stressful manner each time, while my right hands' firm grib around one of two steering sticks in front of me, tightened greatly. After way too many attempts, I gave up pressing the button and grabbed the other steering stick instead. As I kept my focused sight directed out through the thick glass of the small space-vessel's front windows, I felt a drop of sweat slowly gliding down the side of my head, passing the cold steel of my beloved sunglasses, and finally leaving my chin, falling to the leathery dark brown vest of mine. The window's reflection revealed to me that it was only the first of many more drops, that were slowly shaping themselves into small dents of sweat around the bald green head of mine.

My ship was on its way through a portal rift - one dangerous coarse, that could either lead me to the targeted point where I wanted to go, or leave me, forever stuck in the galactic void, if not doing exactly the right things. I had done this several times before, and be lucky to make it every time, but never before had I witnessed my vessel's instruments acting disobedient to my every command. I am rarely doubting myself, but I wasn't even sure I would make it out alive this time.

I was evenly amazed and frightened at the same time, seeing the electric rays and misty orbs of void energy, that circulated around the slim coarse of mine. The energetic rays varied from a dark purple, to a bright blue, and I even noticed ghostly white stripes among them. The hovering orbs of shining red or any of the other colors mentioned before, which I could barely see due to the immense speed of my ship, also dotted the void barrier around me. The most terrifying about the barrier of the coarse, was the thick seemingly eternally long slim body of pure black void energy burning with undying flames, that had surrounded my ship the entire way. The way it spun around itself made it appear almost as if it was a living being only awaiting the right moment to devour my ship, with all of its contents. Of course I knew this could not be true, and that it was only a frightening nature phenomenon, for no known being had ever been able to thrive in pure void.

This brought me to the unpleasant thought that hitting this barrier could easily pull my ship into the galactic void, rumored to be one eternally huge space of emptiness, and made it even more difficult to stay attentive towards my goal of reaching the end of the rift alive and in time before it vanished, in which case I would also end up in the void. The effect of the destructive void energy have had a massive impact on the ships' control systems already, but at least the basic controls of the ship still worked. However, I feared it would soon get even worse, as most of the security systems were betraying me the longer I moved through the rift. I tried to stay calm, I am usually a very calm person who can handle high amounts of pressure, but I admit this was heavily challenging my mind in several ways. I maneuvered the small spaceship around another flying chunk of former planetary ground or perhaps a meteorite that had been caught in this rift, and below a new one - these damned flying rocks contributed a lot to the already fatal challenge.

"Nothing to do, but to stay focused, and wish for the best..." I mumbled to myself, as I was all alone in the ship. "That's the thanks you get for being one of the best agents in the company.. being sent all alone out on this dangerous rescue mission..."

The captain and his partner that had disappeared on the planet I was attempting to reach had been gone for several months now, and of course I was chosen to search for them. Honestly, this rather seemed to be on it's way to becoming a suicide mission rather than a rescue mission.. No, wait! The end of the rift finally showed itself and slowly approached. A single happy thought broke my concentration for a second - The cabin of my ship was rather messy, but I knew I had a box of delicious Hiva cigars somewhere, and mission or no mission, I definitely had to smoke one of my favorite cigars after this experience, which wasn't over yet however. The barriers closed in, as I continued forward with high speed, and I could finally see how the rays of void energy connected in one little spot at the very end of the portal rift, glowing so awfully much, that it was a pain to look at even with sunglasses. My eyes had always been extraordinarily sensitive to light, hence my habit of wearing sunglasses, but I could not look away, for I knew from old experience that this last part was to become the most difficult and dangerous of a journey through any space rift, and I could not remove my sight once, for the barriers came so close to my ship, that one move in a slightly wrong direction could cost me my life away from eternal nothing.

A quite big flying piece of rock smashed into the left side of my vessel, forcing me threatening towards the deadly rays at the barrier. More pearls of sweat formed on my forehead, where my green skin had formed itself into many anxious wrinkles. However, I managed to change the coarse back towards the spot, and as the end got closer, mere seconds away, I muttered in an agitated voice "Here... we.. GOO!!" and BAM!! I successfully got pulled in to the rift's exact right spot, and as everything faded out I knew that my ship was undergoing a teleportation to my target planet, where the captain and his partner had disappeared. Relieved, I leaned back in the comfortable seat, knowing that I was mere seconds away from arriving in the atmosphere of planet Arkadia!

...

Like all previous experiences with space travelling, it felt like waking up from a dream when my dark brown eyes finally opened again behind the thick black sunglasses, after the short teleportation process. Luckily I woke up to the dim light of a late night sky this time, so that my sensitive eyes could relax again. However, after a few seconds, and a focused glance through the windows, I quickly realized that waking up from the dream appeared to have pulled me into an even worse realistic nightmare! I had indeed reached the atmosphere of Arkadia, but I was located high, high above the planet's surface, and I was heading directly towards it with lightning speed in an already heavily damaged ship that soon burst into flames! The cabin was soon unbearably hot to be in, and the air-conditioning of course didn't work either.

I tried keep my head cool, but it was impossible in such horrible heat, and when smoke started pouring up from the control panels and spread out in the entire cockpit, the unpleasant feeling of fear spread through my entire body, every little part of it was stunned. This was certainly unexpected! I decided that it was time for me to leave the vessel in whatever crazy way possible, even though I had much personal and useful stuff in it, along with a lot of important equipment. The latter would probably be vital for the rescue mission in Arkadia's capital city - but I obviously had to save myself, before being able to save anyone else. An idea for survival rose among my precarious thoughts, like a diamond between rocks. That one crazy idea might possibly have been my only chance for leaving the doomed vessel, so I abandoned the comfortable seat, and crawled over the floor as fast as I could. The challenging bumpy journey had forced things from shelves and walls out on the floor. A broken ashtray on the floor left my arms and knees dirty and smelly, and the shards of glass from a broken alcohol bottle cut open many small rifts on my body, but I had no choice but to ignore it and continue the difficult crawl. A painting, made by a close colleague and very near friend of mine, cracked below me. Normally he would have been with me on this mission, as my partner, but recently he had betrayed the company and escaped for unknown reasons - I had secretly kept some of his paintings however, and refused to have new partners after his sudden departure. Its motive was kind of depressing anyways, but I sent him a thought as it broke below the weight of my body. On the way, I also coincidentally noticed the box of expensive Hiva cigars, and in a moment of pride I grabbed a single one, before I continued across the floor. If this was going to be my very last adventure, I surely wouldn't go through it without a last Hiva! Just a little longer - the crawl had led me all the way to a built-in closet in the cockpit's far back. I looked back out of the front window, but only for a second, as I met the stressing sight of a quickly approaching surface and thus my deadline closing in on me. I turned my attention towards the lock of the closet, opened it and took out the jetpack inside. I knew this was my last chance for survival.

There was no time to waste - I couldn't last alive for many more minutes inside the fastly growing heat, so with the jetpack in my right hand, and the Hiva in the left, I headed to the door, opened it as fast as the few fingers not already occupied allowed me to, only to watch it fall off in a small explosion of flames, that forced me back to a wall in the opposite side of the ship. It only lasted a few seconds though, so I breathed in air and took the leap of faith!

...

I'm alive! My adrenalin-rushed mind refused to think of anything else for a few seconds, as I luckily fell directly towards the capital with the wind graciously cooling off my skin. Never had I been this close to death before, silly me always used to think I had seen it all. Maybe my optimism came too early? I had not yet taken on the jetpack-device, and I had never actually used it before. Maybe it needed batteries? Several thoughts like those turned my mood upside down again, while I spun around in unpredictable directions in a sickening fall towards the surface! My former partner had always been the most educated one of the two of us, and the one to know such things. Now I had to prove that I could handle his part of the job too. Easy, I thought ignorantly. However, what was up and down, I had no idea, but after several attempts, I successfully had taken on the small jetpack on my back, strapped the belts safely around my chest, and realized to my joy that it had batteries plugged in already. The controls were difficult, but it nevertheless felt better than falling without controls at all. I was now descending slowly, with head up and legs down, as it was supposed to be.

It was then that I noticed the cigar in my hand had been lit already, apparently from the door's fiery explosion back on the ship. A touch of luck for once, as I had brought no lighter.

"Heh.." I muttered and took a drag, felt the thick smoke stacking up inside my mouth. It had that perfect whiff of some special kind of sweet vanilla, that I could easily taste with my tongue. I inhaled, and felt relieved as I slowly descended through the night sky towards Kellaroog, the huge capital city of Arkadia, while looking at my burning vessel on its way to a destructive impact somewhere in the sea, far from where I was heading. This was the moment, I remembered the instructions of completing the mission silently with avoiding being noticed, if the mission were to work at all. I remembered the limited information that I had been given about the crazy people down there and their twisted society. Hard to imagine a twisted society living here, seeing the planet's large green oceans, deep lush jungles and tall brown mountains from this high point of view. It all seemed so peaceful, compared to most other planets I had ever been to. Even the wind blew silently in a delightful cooling temperature, as if afraid to let me notice it at all. However, the lack of plant life in the wasteland stretching far around the capital that I was heading towards, in a circle of nothing, but dirt and barren land, spoke for itself. I knew from my reading, that those people cared nothing for the environment, and barely for each other. Their society was based on struggles for power, and their violent traditions of old. Most notably their annual Rortaillent Games in Kellaroog - a highly popular sports tournament, where teams of gladiators compete against each other through several rounds. These tournaments were the center of a huge economic wheel, that provided the Arkadian society with more income that most would think they deserve.

I took another drag of the cigar, while observing Kellaroog. It was strangely dark and silent for a capital city, considering their relatively high level of technology. Only a few lights adorned the long narrow streets, situated between long rows of buildings with almost entirely flat roofs, that were all painted with similar boring gray or sand-brown colors. Once in a while, huge circular monuments or skyscrapers rose up however, but it seemed I was heading towards the boring part of the city. It was of course hard to tell in the darkness of night, but the streets all looked lifeless, like I had never expected from a capital city on this size. I took a last drag, and dropped the cigar, watching it fall towards the boring roofs, that were no more than 50 meters below me at this point.

POOF! Such a sound suddenly came from my jetpack, while a cloud of dust appeared around me, only for a second though, for the jetpack had set out, and I was free-falling towards the streets! I couldn't panic for much more than a few seconds before I had reached a random roof. Pain shot through all of my body, as I crashed down upon the edge of the slightly bulged roof, felt the jetpack break off the belts on my chest, and I couldn't help but let out a huge cry of pain, but it wasn't over yet. Gravity pulled in my weakened body, and watched me roll out over the roof's edge, and fall further down to the bottom of the darkened streets, at least 10 meters to the dusty cement. I could hardly move, but felt my entire body aching, from bloody wounds and broken bones. I was at least still breathing.

The street lights had automatically turned on when I fell down, and their intense lights high above me stared mockingly at my immobilized body as I lay there, deep in my own misery - apparently movement had triggered them. I saw three men in strange uniforms abandoning their patrol route and come running towards me. Their identical outfits were halfly colored sand brown and halfly dark red. Presumably city guards or local policemen, and I knew I had no chance of escaping them in this state. Yet, I was trained for tough situations so I refused to just give up - I impressively managed to stand up and limped into the nearest alley, muttering in pain with each step. I then waited for them to get around the corner, and when they finally did, I spontaneously charged the first unprepared guard, successfully twisting his neck around, instantly killing him, and held his heavy dead body up before me, as a shield to cover for any attacks the other two guards would perform, while I thought of my next move. This would be difficult without weapons.. wait! The dead guard had weapons I could use!

However, when they noticed I tried pull up the guard's gun, the two others pulled up iron sticks and attacked me at the same time, forcing me to the ground. I was paralyzed, trying to send an angry look at their light brown and dark red uniforms, but I couldn't even turn my neck the slightest bit anymore. The same with the rest of my body. Both their faces were hidden in shadows from their military hats, but I could see but I could see that their skin was filled with small odd spikes sticking out at random places - one guard even had a spike on his lip. An emotionless huge underlip that moved as he told me with husky voice that I had broken the laws of the city by entering this specific part of Kellaroog without permission, and for prohibited manslaughter. Apparently they did not care neither for my serious injuries nor for the death of their colleague - laws were not to be broken here. I tried to move, but my body wouldn't listen, and as they lifted me up without warning, the heavy pain from their mere touches on my wounds caused my sight to fade out. I heard them talking about my odd green skin color, and prison cells, before I completely fainted...