Eodem: A Rifle And Sword Adventure

  "Are you sure they'll…" Kayin tried to deter the daring Iris but the Vampire Witch only held her finger to his lips to shut his trap up.

"They will not stop me. Not us." She reassured him. "After this then we can go see Samantha at the Hospital."

In her Gliesian Society, Ladies were expected to be courted by whomever suitors would be willing to step up to the stone for, alas her Vampiric heritage only seemed to doom her to a life of eternal solitude and hated for her becoming. Until she had met Kayin a year or days short of a Gliesian 'cycle' indigenously speaking ago. 

They had met each other, under precarious times in Iris old hut back in the Verden Valley Woods. The ferocity on her 'Nightman's' eyes had aroused her heart when he, despite having the odds against him fought her off. The second time was when she had agreed, under coercion to collaborate with the Federation with her necklace on the line. Kayin was her liaison who had helped her understood the Federation and introduced her proper to her former home-robbers. He was patient, caring and even if it was just out of professional courtesy, she couldn't help but admire the Nightman's ethic in his dignified stance. Interrogative conversations on the sciences became of about the arts, then about cultural exchange before finally they spoke of their personal lives and feelings. Of how she wanted to gain the aspiration denied from her so-called wretched birth, the ability to create something stupendous. It was come to a surprise to her of just how so similar she was to Kayin's own wanderlust and devotion to uncovering the lost items of pasts and rebuilding them from its rubble. They slowly spent more time together from that point on, now outside of their typical working hours at her home. It was then and there, Kayin felt something back.

Their first escapades was decorating Iris newfound home, then refurbishing with her new found enchanting equipment with his engineering guidance, then came the experiments. One such experiment however was peculiar to her. It was mostly hidden from everyone, Iris knew quite well what happens when a known vampire is scene in an embrace with another human behind closed doors, she worries what her own people would think too! A Cadohagan marrying a complete outsider, let alone an alien from a far-off world would have been scandalous to such a point her life is to be forfeit to maintain the Vampire's masquerade.

If not for today.

Kayin and Iris now walk side by side to the budding village that was charitably partitioned by Clovich for the Sochairfuil Clans to be able to live in peace with their unique tastes taken care off in exchange for their intellectual support in his Amelioration. There her grandfather, her cousins and her own mother now lived there. Iris held onto the official poster she had taken off a wall in the Tavern back at Tyr Rian. Its content detailing the announcement of Clovich's Victorious Speech today. She had encircled a specific section on the poster that detailed that it is no longer taboo, nor criminal, and is now in fact a protected right to have people of such differing races to engage intimately with one another. 

Holding Kayin's hand, Iris knocked on the door. From that moment onwards, Iris Cadohagan was now Iris C. Mudwin.

[-]

Aliathra raised the necklaces of those Fallen Elves onto the branches of the tree. She and Diaz were across the woods a distance away from Tyr Rian's hustle and bustle. It was a short walk from his Mustang to the chosen Oakwood where she built a makeshift shrine to Neneth with her Alteration powers. She held a moment of prayer as she suċkŀėd the souls of the dead countrymen into her heart. They may have been her enemies, but she still knew that there were still loyal to her homeland of Ethuilen to the end in spite of the odds. And now her homeland lay in chains, by the yoke of the Black Tree Pact.

The world could bind her, grind her and burn her with fire. They can damn her soul upon Tivna's blackened sea. But she has escaped, now she aspires… that one day she shall arise to make all Elves free.

"Ladui Lareththor?" a voice, one bellowing of imperial humility rang her ears.

She turned around to see several Elves along with an escort of Federation Parole Officers. She recognized these Elves as those whom the Federation had managed to incarcerate over their long campaigns against the Empire as Auxiliaries, Mercenaries or Expeditionary forces. She had personally saw to their well treatment despite the spats of ire her countrymen had shown to her mercy, thinking it was some ploy to 'corrupt their souls'. But witnessing what Aliathra is doing, performing a sacred Neneth Funerary Rite had awashed their doubts. They knew of the fall of the Empire, the fall of their homelands but if there was one light shining on the darkness, it was Aliathra's hand reaching out in amnesty to them.

"Do not call me by my last name as if I am still the Princess. I am now… we are all equals here under Neneth's prescence." She humbly beckoned them to sit.

"So it is true, you have never forsook the Goddess and us!" the Elf proclaimed.

"I… I… we…" another Elf trembled. But Aliathra held her hands and smiled. One smile was enough to show that she had forgave them all.

"Please… sit down all of you. There is so much we need to do. Our homeland maybe in ashes and its peoples under the yoke of their fallen kin's tyranny." Aliathra hummed. "But it only takes a cinder for a Phoenix to rise."

"That's my girl!" Diaz leaned over a tree lackadaisally.

"You are on your best behavior right Corpo?" the Parole Officer turned his head.

[-]

The Amelioration's victory caused a chain reaction across all of Gliesia. Modernization and Industrialization spread like a plague across all directions from its birthplace in Tyr Rian, the first place amongst them was the Mountains of the Ostalrocs. The Dwarfen Clans, for centuries many it was an enclave that cut its ears off from the rest of the world's whispers, only content to further isolate itself in its dominion to maintain it social order. Like the very mountains they set their civilization, their culture and peoples on. They were a stubborn folks. But alas, living in stagnancy had its consequences when disaster decided to rear its gaze upon them.

No more were there Hold and Terrace Dwarves but now there were only Dwarfen Clans united by whatever Judges could muster the charisma to rally behind. When the very ground erupted a half-cycles ago, the upheaval forced the Dwarves Out, many perished, others resettled across there neighbors but there were some brave few who returned to their homelands to see a ruinous bounty had appeared before them. 

The Volcanic Eruption brought forth newly opened veins of precious minerals riped for plucking and the Maximov Engineering Corporation was at the forefront of devouring the bounty all for itself… if it could get the manpower to become its teeth in such gluttony. Fortunately, there was a half-solved solution. The Dwarves themselves, despite their homeland being in geographic ruins, their knew found freedom from chattel slavery by their Hold-dwelling masters have brought forth a new leash in life of which the opened wounds of their shattered homeland shared an unerring optimism for. That and the numerous Horax Insectoids who love to harass passers by for their fleshy bits whenever anyone tried to mine the fissures.

However, the reasoned why the problem was deemed 'half-solved' was the Dwarves themselves. It took an significant investment to get a handful of Maximov Engineering's smallest sized Mining Suits to be modified to accommodate their stature.

But there was one hairy problem that stood in their way. And there was no way around it to fix it but to take the most radical of permanent choices. 

Robren, a Dwarf from a family of Terrace Bondsmen arrived at the Maximov Engineering sponsored Barber today to fully commit to this new future.

He sat atop of the Barber and allowed the Maximov Employee to grab his electronic sheers. It hummed of echoing ancestral cries for the Dwarf. Some trying to dissuade him, others cheering him onwards. But even without their wails, he had already made his decision.

In about ten minutes, Robren's red and braided beard would be cut off. In Dwarfen Society, it would be seen as humiliation. A scare tactic by rivals to dominate their defeated opponents in the customs of disputes, especially for the malehood honors of his now defunct former Hold Masters. But for Robren and about 500 hundred of avant-garde minded kinsmen after him. 

The Dwarves who will make up the new bloods of Maximov Engineering would be making five times the amount of income relative to living standards they had endured in one year than they ever could under the chattel yoke of yore.. The additional hazard of the Horaxes, and their expertise in their studies of their hive-minded behavior secured their positioning power amongst their Martian Corporate Patrons that they would not be treated as expendable bodies, but as esteemed equals.