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Last Words of a Caravan Guard


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This is a short story I wrote to try and get back into working on my Bionicle strategy-game (link is in my signature). As such, it follows my game's edits to the history of Spherus Magna, where I have tried to create more in-depth cultures of the Spherus Magna inhabitants. Need to know info is as such:

 

 

 

-- SM inhabitants are not ageless like MU inhabitants, they live and die like humans do; the most elite warriors are gifted with highly advanced armor that dates back to 10,000 years before, from the Core War. These peoples are not stupid, they recognize that these are relics from a bygone age, a civilization from a world drastically different then their own, and not some magical doohickeys. The historical documents pertaining this world war were mostly destroyed following the cataclysmic event, The Shattering, and continued with the age og total barbarism and anarchy that followed the next couple of thousand years or so before the creation of the Glatorian System; all this resulted in the knowledge being passed down by by oral professionals keeping the story straight, but once written down the story has morphed and became more legendary and mythological. After the Battle of Bara Magna, New Atero philologists have tried there best to decipher the legends and match them up with the revelations explored by Mata Nui.

 

-- The Agori are Monotheistic, as that is what I relate to the most. Their deity is Grunchar, which I have borrowed from the Bulgarian word, Potter, in reference to such a being molding the universe with his hands. In such a harsh environment, people will either melt or harden.

 

-- By the time of the Skrall War, the Agori have a culture that is Byzantine Hellenic (including speaking Greek with Latin influence), post-Shattering and pre-Melding their aesthetics are a blend of Hellenistic and Arabic fashions and customs with the wearing of togas robes and turbans,and lamellar, thick cloth and scale..

 

-- Ostonigosa (Ostonigosii in plural) is a combination of two Greek words, bone and hunter. I had fun creating a culture that is based off of trying to have a reason for having a name like Bone Hunter, and drawing a lot of inspiration from the Tengrist religion. Here is a description of them I made a while ago (the following is from a story set after the Battle of Bara Magna, so environmental details are a bit different then my short story here).:

 

 

 

 

“The Ostonigosii [bone Hunters] are nomadic barbarians” [These monsters are much like our Huns and Mongols in appearance aside from a couple of things] “They have elongated skulls and usage of leathers and scale armor; and they worship the sky and to thank him/it for their freedom from the ‘liberally enslaving wall-dwellers’ and their caught game, they: capture people, be it soldier or citizen, pacifist women or children, and sacrifice them upon stone column pillar altars that dot the growingly more-arid plains, the smoke from the loud sacrifice being seen as the life force, or soul substance, going into the sky for it to be eaten by the big blue entity. They collect the charred bones and shape them to be sewed unto leather armor for design purposes and use larger fragments to make elaborate arrowheads and knives. If they are unable to sacrifice a person in several months then they each take a piece of their own flesh and feed the sky deity with that, causing many to appear to have lost a finger or ear, among other things. Many times their shamans will use strange plants that make them act even stranger, sometimes calling forth a sort of holy war upon the ‘wall-dwellers’ to liberate them from their slothful lifestyle, while if they refuse then there will soon by plenty of black bones out on the market. The holy warriors would tattoo their faces with spiky designs to show their tribesmen their piety.” “As you know, like with all men, or things in their case, people will use their faith as a front for something else, and as such many of the Ostonigosii will just pillage and plunder, a Matoranche palisaded village afterwards looking like the clouds flooded the settlement with liquid mercury, when in your heart you know otherwise. Most times though, it is greed, the curse of sentience. For gold and gems the land will feed the sky. One of the most famous tribal leaders of the Ostonigosa was Fero and his dreaded giant Rock Steed that towards above other who had very nearly sacked Vulkanus but was stopped by Magnos Ackarios and many of the same warriors who would journey with Mata Nui, the Great Band.”

 

 

 

 

With the amount of lore I have been developing, I might make more short stories. This was quickly written, most of the work being on the flying piece of paper, so if anything is wrong or weird, then I apologize (not to mention I wrote all of this from 2-4 AM with breaks in-between). Without further ado, here is my short story (emphasis on short):

 

 

 

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Last Words of a Caravan Guard

 

 

An agori that was working on a water pump did so aggressively as only little amounts of liquid came out. The robed red man panted, direly in need of something to quench his thirst. Eyeing the drops coming out, he was obsessed with the idea of taking the swig for himself right here and now, but he had to remember his parents, they were entrusting him with this task. He couldn’t bear the thought of their withering demise happening so soon, and thus sucked up his thirst. To help his mouth, he put out his grasper and cup some water towards his mouth, thence lip licking in delight. Half of an hour passed until his task was completed, thence taking a single, great drink for himself. Placing the jugs of water on his small wagon, he pulled forth, commencing his journey back home half a mile away. A weathered file flew above the rocks and wastes, flying in glee as it touched the clear sky and rode the winds. Its journey ended as it spiraled down, twirling about in front of the little water-boy and graced its surface upon the loose rock-ridden ground about a yard to his left. Putting down the small wagons handle, the man, having not seen paper in a while, approached the parchment and picked it up. T’was warm, dirtied, and had some blood stains on it. While wanting to see what was written on it, the wastes of Bara Magna were treacherous and he was wise enough to not start reading out in the open, for the Ostonigosa could spot him. Rolling the paper up, opening his turban’s oral opening and stuffing it down his robe; he walked back to his wagon and continued home. Several minutes passed until he was in front of his home, the capital city of the Fire peoples, Vulkanus. After fighting off sizable critters and walking through the hustle and bustle of Vulkanus’s main street, he was glad to be home. The man was more on the poor spectrum, his parents too old to take care of themselves and not having enough currency to trade for water by the local merchants. He hailed from Tesara, but his parents lived here for one reason or another, and after getting too old to safely move across the wastes, the man had to move here to aid them. After changing into more homely clothing, he sat on a bench in front of the small condo and unrolled the letter. It read as thus:

 

 

I stand here clad in lamellar under a celestial torch, Grunchar’s chat nearing. As the flame’s rays beat upon my second skin my true dermis bakes and my eyes are blinded by sweat and light. Eternally blue is the sky above, as is the sand and rock upon which I trek brown. Over the distant dune yonder forth they come, in a cloud that disrupts the eternal static of this wasteland, those steed riders of eternal savagery christened the Ostonigosa. Their ebony lamellar and black-bone decor shines in the desert sun likewise do their steed’s scales and teeth glitter so. Soon my bones will feed their false overseer, burnt in the midst of others' remains in their savage pyre and pedestal of stone. I have failed this caravan, its crew flailing in an uproar panic, or standing stone-cold in numbing fear as a fog of stone slowly blinds us so; only our guide, our leader, stands ready for battle as his armor of ancient technology gives him false-assurance of victory. As I pen these words upon this parchment, the monsters trample and bathe the desert sands in crimson by the way of their sabers and varied arrows in ways that must not be mentioned. Oh great potter beyond star-field yonder, I thank thou for the blessings I have received, I only pray that thou remember my family. Now, I wait for thine embrace: deliver me from these wastes, and let me witness thine cool embrace, forevermore.

 

 

Reading it made his heart wrench, the last words of the nameless fellow haunting him. As if his life did not do that already, he felt depressed. The next day, there was talk of a horde of Ostonigosa by the guidance of a ruthless khan named Fero Omnod-Khanom gathering for his home, and he wandered if it was the very same one that took the life of the man in the paper. Shoulder’s heavy, he walked down the main street until he passed some crazy man that spouted so-called prophecies. Usually he ignored his kind, but this time words struck him. The stinky messenger spoke of a champion from the stars that would come to the realm of Bara Magna and do all sorts of tasks and face numerous trials without going into too much detail. “Grunchar had listened to the cries of his children, and out of evil he would make good, as their champion will be from a land turned from sweet to sour, and Bara Magna will go from sour to sweet,” he cried. Many people dismissed him as being of the crazy sort, but fortunately for our green-clad red man there had in fact been a certain mystical helm of gold locked in the realm's orbit, and, “by the will of Grunchar, he will be freed in due time”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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C&C welcome, but mostly only for review, not sure if I will change anything unless I like it.

 

EDIT: Correction of typos, and one or two instances of change for better wording.

Edited by Iaredios Paerkenon

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A RUDE AWAKENING - A Spherus Magna redo | Tzais-Kuluu  |  Pushing Back The Tide  |  Last Words  |  Black Coronation  | Blue Man Bound | Visions of Thasos   ن

We are all but grey specks in a dark complex before a single white light

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  • 7 months later...

I really like the lore you've developed surrounding the Bone Hunters (or Ostonigosii, to use your term).

Good stuff! Keep it up.

After a few months of checking back here, I thought no one would leave a comment and I actually forgot about this. :lol:

 

Glad you like it! Been thinking of doing something Skrall-based recently.

 

If you want the source of lore (which is still being built), you can check out my Spherus Magna project, A Rude Awakening.

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A RUDE AWAKENING - A Spherus Magna redo | Tzais-Kuluu  |  Pushing Back The Tide  |  Last Words  |  Black Coronation  | Blue Man Bound | Visions of Thasos   ن

We are all but grey specks in a dark complex before a single white light

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