Library: The Battle of Rilynt'tar

The Battle of Rilynt'tar There is a story about a long-gone event in Furnachia's history that is rarely told nowadays - except by some of the followers of Oxtoth and Burglefloogah to scare their youngsters. It all took place just after the great flood had swept the old world into the depths of the sea. Back then, the highest deities were still trying their might upon the fresh landmasses of the newborn world. That new world was in constant change as chaos reigned everywhere - generations of faster races were born and died in a mere blink of an eye - slower races had even a slight chance to get a glimpse on what was happening around them. One thing remained the same, though. For centuries ruthless slaad, draconian and lizardmen field marshals drove their reptile hordes of the deep southern swamps to raid civilized settlements of the northern lands. The reptiles suffered great losses all the time, but the deadly swamps of their home land bred strong and able new warriors to replace the fallen ones fast - just as the nature had meant it to be. They met strong resistance everywhere they went but their sole objective made their war plan worth following. That objective was nothing less than the idea of falling the whole continent of Furnachia under one immovable, strict and cruel - yet just - order of Burglefloogah. The heart of the civilized resistance against the reptile forces was the old outpost capital of Rilynt'tar - the legendary city that was once cruelly ripped off the old world and smashed into another one during the great flood in an archwizardly whim. Rilynt'tar was a strong fortress for a city back then just as it still is these days. All the towns and settlements around Rilynt'tar were strongly fortified by the new immigrants as well. Those towns were under the civilian rule of Rilynt'tar and they were led by the very best human commanders of that time. However, the thing that kept Rilynt'tar alive under the reptilian pressure, was its impressive seaport. During the peaceful times the seaport meant a steady flow of corn, supplies and settlers into Rilynt'tar - during the war it meant a motley crew of religious fanatics, fortune hunters, mercenaries and such. Those people from northern continents were eager to weed out all hints off slithering and disease-casting from the population. The threat the seaport brought to the followers of Burglefloogah was real. Back then it was not uncommon to a single skilled warrior from the Tyr Farwyn to drive back several companies of lizardmen or a coordinated party of experienced mercenaries take out an entire battalion of an reptilian attack division. And this is where our story begins. At one stage the days of Rilynt'tar seemed numbered when a series of unexpected events took place due to a strange twist of fate. The assembly of the high clergy of the slaad race and the most prominent members of the forgotten order of necromancers had managed to call a most horrendous force of ancient, undead slaadi from the murky depths of the the great Deadskull swamp lake of Furnachia. With a skillful and timely coordination the leaders of all Orders of Lords of Chaos and several experienced draconian field marshals were about to direct their reinforced troops against the fortifications of Rilynt'tar in one, massive all-out offensive with this barely controllable division of sheer dread and disease as their spearhead. The commanders of the city of Rilynt'tar called up an emergency meeting and requested for all the help they could possibly get from Laenor and other continents. A hasty defence plan was prepared to deal with the imminent encounter with this new threat. The Sisters of Las was agreed to take the unconditional leadership over the campaign as it was obvious that only the Synod and several elder nuns of the order had any earlier experience on confronting whole attack formations of undead slaadi. Just a minute before the end of the emergency meeting a group of gnome engineers stormed in trying to catch their breath. Those gnomes were responsible of a group of automatons that took care of several everyday tasks in the city - such as keeping the streets clean from the litter, hauling the cargo form the seaport, lighting the street lamps in the night and so on. Nobody really paid attention to those automatons as they kept things going with the Jorgos golems - they just were there like they have always been. The head engineer of the gnome collegium offered to form a light, mechanized battle section of her own for urban warfare (gnomish specialty) and to modify their automatons to fight the common enemy next to the defenders. According to her explanation, the automatons were mechanical (well, mechanical, as a great simplification, but anyway) - thus immune to the ill effects of the undead slaadi. In addition to that, the automatons should be able to move their - well, rather significant - stash of exploding powder to the battlefield. This could be useful or, at least, a most interesting thing to do. Her reasoning went on pointing out that automatons could easily pass the unavoidably approaching slaad spearhead without taking too heavy losses - basically by trudging through them - and striking the living reptile divisions hard from inside their battle formation, effectively breaking their initiative. Like so many times before, the collegium of gnomes was promptly laughed out of the meeting. "This is a real war now. Your steamlephants and cleanomechs are all very fine, but we will not ridicule ourselves by standing next to your silly, shaky contraptions when we are about to meet the enemy of our lives. Take your swords and bows and help to defend our city like the rest of the good people", said the Leader of the Synod to the head engineer. "All right then, have your primitive war the way you like it, Luddites", replied the head engineer of the gnomes. After that the whole collegium walked out of the room - some of the gnomes in sheer fury and some barely withstanding tears behind their goggles. "We know perfectly well when we are not welcome here with our own ways anymore. Too sad for us all, it had to be a day like this", said the head engineer at the door of the town hall. Then the gnomes disappeared into the darkening night. Soon before the midnight the capital had the first reconnaissance reports from the field. A massive reptilian army just had marched straight through the front line of the defenders without any opposition just a few hours walk from Rilynt'tar. Only minutes after the arrival of the reconnaissance teams the first retreating defenders rushed to the protection of the Rilynt'tar walls. The front line had collapsed without any real resistance and the shaken defenders everywhere else were trying to gather their routing troops in panic. The whole Rilynt'tar defence was now grouped behind the serene battle formation of The Sisters of Las right south of city walls on a great open plain ready to take the worst of the overwhelming attack soon to come. Only occasional sounds of crying and weeping broke the silence. ...and yet it was all good until the storm begun... A little by little a constant rumble from the darkness loudened. The minutes of torture spent in the darkness of constantly strengthening roar of marching reptiles felt like a lifetime. ...and yet it was all good until the lights were lit... The pitch black darkness of the night was ripped with a dull fire of thousands of piercingly red reptile eyes. Masses of slowly approaching battle formations started to appear from the darkness in blood red glow. Suddenly numerous ghastly green figures took shape in the air in the middle of the great plain. Those were the just awoken - yet dead - ancient slaad emperors leading their just-as-dead dukes and counts into the battle once again after millennia. And when the defenders first saw them they were already much closer than anyone would have even feared. ...and yet it was all good until we all started losing it... The Synod members quickly looked at each other as they knew it was not a war to be fought anymore. There was nothing but the sheer fear to be fought anymore. The younger sisters could not hold back their tears. Somehow the leader of the Synod managed to gather her guts in this dire situation. She tightened her grip on her ruler, took a deep breath and gave a loving look at her closest sisters. She managed to forge a makeshift smile on her face and say, "If this is to be the end, be it then. We have kicked serious undead rear before. We have been overwhelmed before. (Even if not like this - and even if there have never been this many people watching.) So, for the very final time, sisters. For the sake of Las - let us kick some slaad rear this one more time. This time, sisters - make it all-out and major! One... two... three... We are familyyyy!" The leader of the Synod lifted her rosary in the air and took a firm step towards the attacking horde and somehow her courage was of contagious sort. Her whole formation followed her and the defenders behind her were able to hastily regroup their lines. They were now ready to meet the enemy, no matter however superior in force. It was the very heart of the night when the ancient slaad emperors clashed with the front line of Sisters of Las and the reptile divisions of southern swamps were just about to run through the defenders of Rilynt'tar. Then the core of the earth was turned upside down. ...and then we learned to love the bomb. Suddenly the battleground was half in the air and half in elsewhere. In a moment of sheer chaos some upholding lore of evil magic slipped and swept the whole division of puzzled-looking slaadi back into oblivion. An all-deafening carpet bombing from nowhere turned the view into a blend of dirt and snapshots of flying debris against the light of constant explosions. In a fraction of a second whole lizardmen battalions were in the air flying every possible direction. For this strange moment of time the soil and the air were the same. Even a few front line nuns were flying high. The whole battle was over in seconds. There was nothing but smoke and loud, ear-ringing deafness left. The very few remaining attackers - just as defenders - were helplessly trying to stagger up from the ground completely burnt and senseless - mouths, ears and eyes full of soil. Only a few of the luckiest were able to stand up and make any sense of the chaos around them. The succeeding moments - if not all of this - are nothing but folklore. However, some of the surviving witnesses claimed that as they regained their senses they saw a bare, partially burning wasteland of dirt, iron scraps, corpses and a horde of huge, monstrously deformed household appliances with circular blades cutting the remaining, helplessly staggering lizardmen warriors into chunks. Through the smoke they saw the head engineer of the Rilynt'tar gnomes riding to the battlefield with a her steel dragonophant cruiser. The engineer lifted her driving goggles and jumped of her mechanized mount to help a dirt covered woman back to her feet from the ground. Some claim having heard the head engineer whisper to the leader of the Synod: "It's science, baby. Learn to love or learn to stand it - You will, eventually." What is sure though, Rilynt'tar was never attacked by the reptiles of the southern swamps since then. And since then, the Jorgos golems have been keeping the litter out of Rilynt'tar streets alone.

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Library: The Battle of Rilynt'tar