The Conflagration

[The Federation]

Ben Avon, a small city on the edge of civilized Sylvania, the last stop for supplies on the single road cutting through the mountainous forest wilderness to West March. Home to the rugged Bantyric and Boreasic immigrant settlers who came to Sylvania looking for a life to be made in a new home. Here the motor vehicle shared the road with the horse, old and new clashed within the city’s limits creating an environment unique to the area. Many people of Ben Avon often looked to the wilderness wondering what lay within the dark and dangerous depths of the forest, afraid to venture in and discover it for themselves, content to stay within the confines of the world they had already tamed. However, there are always a few, imbued at birth with a spirt that can never be satisfied by the pleasures of civilization. These select few ventured off into the wilderness to make a life separate from the chaos humanity. Many were never seen again, thought to be dead, but nobody would ever know for sure. Others came back with stories of their lives within the forested mountains, though many of these 'Forest People’ never stayed longer than the time needed to trade with a local doctor or farmer.

It was a month and a half ago that a local adventurer came back from a trip deep into these woods, he was delirious, screaming incomprehensible things at whoever would listen. The local physician took this poor man in and nursed him back to health. Reporters from the city paper made their way to see him, he spoke of his time spent with a group of descendants of these Forest People as they are now known. His stories of them were mostly omitted from the papers, to make room for what they had found to be much more interesting. “Oil!” The headlines simply read. Oil, seeping right out of the ground in the foothills of the forest covered mountains. It was only a week ago that a man of great wealth had shown up in our sleepy little corner of the world, he brought with him a small assortment surveyors and prospectors. The finest hotel in Ben Avon was bought out to house them as they began to plan their expedition. This “Refined Man” as they called him, was said to be a “Captain of Industry,” he spoke with the airy accent of a man from Charleroi, but his mannerisms were that of a Whitehall native; tough, deliberate and most of all reliable.


Leroy Duval stood at the top floor of the hotel looking past the waking Ben Avon toward the mountains basking in the morning sunrise, here he would make his money and become more than just a Captain of Industry, he would become a legend for all other men to envy.

“They say nobody can claim this wilderness. That nobody can tame it. There isn’t a thing on this planet that can not be bent to the will of a strong man.” He said, speaking to his Foreman. The Foreman nodded silently as he looked at the window as well.

Duval watched as his surveyors and prospectors set out from the Hotel on horseback with their equipment heading out on the single stretch of road into the wilderness, they would step off the beaten path into history. Where it would lead him he did not know, but he dared to dream it would lead him to the power only industry could provide.

 

[The Federation]

The morning sun could be felt on the backs of the surveyors as they rode by horse down the road toward the edge of town and to the looming forest, the warmth was pleasant giving the riders encouragement for the new day. A light wind came from the west carrying with it the sounds of the waking city and the sounds of the forest ahead. Fully employed and getting paid to venture out into the mountains to map the surrounding area and verify oil seeps instilled the men with a high morale and the mood was jovial as the men neared the forest. As they finally came upon the dense forest, the voices of the men became hushed as the darkness of the forest dampened their spirits, the group stopped as they positioned their horses around head surveyor. He gave them their objectives and the men split into groups of two heading different directions with their equipment into the forest to cover more ground.

The silence of the forest was the most unsettling thing about the place, compared to the city it was as if they had become deaf as a group of two men headed Northwest into the forest. Even the sounds of the birds seamed to be muted by the oppressive atmosphere they now found themselves in.

“So I heard there be elves in this forest.” One of the two began, attempting to fill the eery silence with small talk.

“Reading those idiotic pamphlets again, Gerald?”

Gerald as he was called made a face toward his partner. “Hey Jan,” Gerald called out again, ignoring Jan’s jab, “seriously though, you believe that crap about people going into this forest and living some kinda alternate lifestyle n’at?”

Jan sighed, “Of course not dumbass, nobody goes in this forest, that guy in the city newspaper probably hit his head on a rock and imagined it all, he probably imagined the oil too.”

The two continued their journey in silence for a few minutes.

“Hey Jan.”

“Christ, Gerald, what do you want now?”

“Don’t you think it kinda weird Duval would come out here even if there was oil like the paper said?”

“I don’t ask questions, don’t get paid to answer questions. Questions get men like us replaced. You’d best be keeping quiet Gerald lest you wanna end up on the street.”

Gerald looked around seeing nothing in the trees.

“Yea, but like, Duval couldn’t do anything with the oil if he found it! All the infrastructure he has is over in Baldwin, that’s several hundred miles from here!” George said, baffled at the entire situation.

“So you think it’s some kinda conspiracy?” Jan replied sarcastically.

“Yeah! I bet Eye On Conspiracy would love to write a piece on that! Too bad nobody knows how to contact them.” Gerald said with a defeated tone.

Jan lightly smacked his forehead with his hand, amazed at how stupid his partner was turning out to be.

“Hey! Did you hear that?” Gerald said in a excited hushed tone.

“Twas me slapping myself, wondering how you even got this job as dumb as you are.” Jan said only half paying attention to Gerald now.

“Nah wasn’t that, sounded like horses in the distance.” Gerald suddenly had the dreadful feeling he was being watched from not far off. “Jan,” Gerald’s voice was shaky, “I think something’s following us.”

“Maybe it’s one of your elves!” Jan exclaimed, trying to contain his laughter. “Alright, I reckon we have gone far enough.” Jan dismounted and pulled his compass out of his pocket, checking their position.

The trees would make it difficult but Jan determined this would be a good place to start their portion of the mapping survey. Over the course of several hours the two men set up their equipment and began taking measurements for topography, direction, barometric and altitude data. Eventually half a notebook had been filled with data for mapping as the worked quickly but methodically. Gerald had yet to mention weird sounds, luckily the work they were doing kept each other apart but in sight relaying their information to each other with hand signals.

Then Gerald came across a discovery of his own, yelling from his far off postion he began to wave to Jan, telling him to come over to him. Jan climbed into the saddle of his horse and rode over to see what the fuss was about.

“I found it!” Gerald yelled repeatedly as Jan came within speaking distance. Indeed, Gerald had found it, a small seep of oil coming out of the side of the hill. Jan looked it over and then over the landscape of the surrounding area.

“Something is pushing it to the surface.” Jan thought for a moment. “Alright, get setup to start a new survey in this area.” Jan began writing in his book, waiting for Gerald to move. “Hey!” He yelled, Jan looked up at Gerald. Gerald’s face was struck with fear, staring at something behind Jan.

Jan turned his horse to face what Gerald was looking at to be greeted by two hooded figures, their fur clothing obscured their bodies making the mysterious figures look inhuman in form. What seemed like an eternity passed by as the two groups stared each other down waiting for the other to either speak or make a move. Jan’s horse became unsettled and he calmed it, setting the reigns down and rubbing the horses neck. One of the figures was carrying a bow, arrow in place but not drawn back. Jan moved his hand closer to his holstered revolver.

“Now I don’t want any trouble.” Jan said. “Ain’t know need to be sneaking up on us, we ain’t dangerous folk. We are just here to map the area.”

Jan’s explanations were met with silence by the two figures. Seconds passed as he began reaching for his weapons, but before he could draw then the figure with the bow took aim at Jan and let loose an arrow. In the split second Jan had to react the arrow traveled through air and penetrated into Jan’s throat. His attempts to scream only elicited gurgles as blood began to quickly seep out of the wound, his horse bucked wildly flinging him off and onto the ground where he bled to death in less than a minute.

Gerald screamed an idiot’s scream as he fumbled with his own revolver, another arrow let loose by the bowman ripped through his arm disabling Gerald’s attempt to grab at his weapon. Gerald’s screams turned to screams of pain as he grabbed at the arrow now lodged in his arm. The two figures were suddenly upon him when he looked back up to find his assailants, the larger of the two reached into his fur cloak and pulled out a large knife. Gerald was reduced to whimpers as the figure before him moved to plunge the knife into Gerald’s chest, but a voice disturbed the deathly silence stopping the knife from finishing its deadly journey.

Gerald was on his knees looking up at the bulk before him. The voice came again, speaking an unknown language in a quiet tone, despite the hushed nature of the other figures words Gerald could tell it was feminine.

“Enough! One death is enough to get our message across father.” The female voice called out. “Let him go, he will tell them what happened here and they will surely leave us alone.”

The large figure standing before Gerald stepped back, the knife now at the man’s side. He too spoke in the unknown language. “Young one, you do not understand. You are naive in the ways of the outside world, these men did not come here on their own free will. Someone else sent them and they will send more parties into our wooded home sure enough.”

The female protested her father’s reasoning. “Father, if this is true then we must go to the outside world and speak with him. Killing this man will only bring more trouble, the others now scouring the woods will surely find their bodies and want even more retribution for two dead rather than one.”

The woman’s father removed his hood revealing his wrinkled face and gray hair. “They will not listen, this cry for peace will only show us to be weak. Even now your prey attempts to escape.” Indeed Gerald and began running deeper into the forest. The young woman drew another arrow and shot him in the back of his calf muscle. Gerald screeched at the intense pain as the arrow ripped through the muscle of his leg and rendered him immobile. The woman removed her hood as well surveying her accuracy with icy blue eyes.

“What will we do then?” She asked, turning back to her father.

The large man pondered for a moment before letting out a sigh. “I knew this day would come. It is why we teach you their language, but I did not wish for it to be like this. We will do it your way, though I do not see this ending well.”

The woman nodded and walked over to Gerald who was whimpering from the pain. In heavily accent English she began to communicate to him. “You will not die fool, we will spare your life. Listen closely, you will never return, this is our home. Tell your master to cease his incursions into our homes. There are many of us in this forest; we will fight to remove intruders. Understand?” Gerald nodded shakily.

The next hour was spent removing the arrows from Gerald’s wounded arm and leg, he was tied to Jan’s horse and the horse was spanked causing it to run wildly toward where Gerald and Jan had come from. When Gerald was discovered by another survey team, he was taken to the Ben Avon doctor straight away. That night, Duval could be heard ranting and raving about the attack on his men. The next day’s trip was canceled as they interrogated Gerald for information on the forest people.

 

[Caelia]

"Tell me one more time, if you and your comrades witnessed this altercation how is it you remained unseen?"

"Well sir like I said were hiking up a hill in the deep woods and I climbed a big pine to get the lay of the land. That was when I heard a man screaming. It took me awhile to spot them, and I wouldn't have been able to see thing, 'cept for the scope on Baker rifle. The way I judge it they just couldn't see me that that far off in the trees. After I had seen enough I climbed down and we marched out of there in a real hurry, didn't stop once until we were back in town."

The RBR officer scribbled more notes on his pad. "And what was enough, exactly?"

"Well I saw the man lying on the ground with an arrow stuck in his thigh, and those two forest folk, then the shorter one began walking towards him, to finish him off I imagine, so I decided it was time for me and the boys to get before any more of those forest folks showed up."

Constable Griffin frowned. "Now these 'forest folk' you keep referring too, you are absolutely sure they are not native warriors?"

The surveyor emphatically shook his head "No sir. Absolutely not. I grew up in Boreas you know, I know a native when I see one. If those forest folk are natives they aren't like any native I ever saw. They were white folk."

Griffin frowned more deeply. Like everyone he had heard tales of white's who fled deep into the forests to live like the natives, but like everyone he had always assumed they were just tales. Still all he had was the word of three prospectors, he did not relish how his superiors would interpret his report.

"One more thing sir: were you by any chance intoxicated during these events?"

"No way, no how! I'm a mormon you see."

"Thank you for reporting this so promptly Mr. Mills, you've done the March a service. That will be all."

"Don't even mention it! I'm a Marcher too the core!" he flashed a gapped smile.

 

[The Federation]

Duval had yelled so much the night before his voice was raspy in the morning, but despite this fact he continued to berate his men as loudly as his tired vocal cords would allow him. The whole survey team was in a chaotic state, many threatened to quit but were quickly reminded of the contract they had signed. Gerald was hysterical, the attack had done much more to him mentally then physically and he babbled all through the surgery to midday. The doctor had done an excellent job of patching the man up and he soon sedated the panic stricken man. Duval had trouble getting information out of him when he awoke in the morning, but a moment of lucidity from Gerald had given Duval all the information he needed; the location of the seep they had found.

“I don’t care how many forest freaks are out there, we will go out there and kill them all if they try to attack us again.” He yelled in his raspy voice. “We cannot let a bunch of dirty freaks with home made bows and arrows run us out of the forest! Man has conquered that natives before and just like back then we will conquer these traitors to our way of life!” Duval coughed and hacked after the end of his speech, he grabbed a glass of water and drank it as fast as he could to relive his throat. “Now tomorrow we are gonna go back out there and refocus our scouting effort to were Gerald and Jan found the seep. This is our best lead so far on this trip, I can’t wait any longer, lest I lose my claim to some other guy from Baldwin or some smelly prospector from West March.”

Duval paced around the room taking a moment to glare out the window. The people of Ben Avon scurried to and fro on their midday business, but then his heart skipped a beat. Outside in the middle of the dirty street he saw her, the blonde one Gerald had talked about, dressed in furs and a bow slung over her shoulder. He turned to the group of surveyors and motioned for his Foreman, Brian, to come to him. “That’s her! The one who attacked Gerald and Jan.” Duval raspily whispered.

Brian nodded, “But where is the old man he talked about? Why would she come alone?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Duval said angrily, “Get a few men to grab the Jackhammers and get out there and kill her, make them pay for killing my men.”

The Foreman did not question Duval’s orders, he quickly left the room as Duval ended the meeting. The Foreman grabbed two of his best men and lead them to a room with equipment in it. He grabbed a few cases, inside were M1919 Jackhammers with 50 round drums.

------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, the young woman from the forest was walking through the streets as people passed her either on horse or on the somewhat rare motor vehicle. She had come alone rather than with her father who instead was hunting, the myriad of things she had never seen before had given her a bit of a shock. Her mission to find the leaders of the men they were forced to attack was forgotten as she took in everything she saw. She hadn’t noticed that everyone noticed her odd attire and the wondrous look in her eyes. Everyone had heard the story of the killing of the oil surveyors and many people where now going about informing their friends of the spectacle she had inadvertently become. She continued her walk along the street when suddenly she was pulled from her path. For a moment she was angry until she realized the person who had pulled on her had prevented her from being hit by truck. She turned and was face to face with a man not much older than her.

“You almost got hit! You need to be careful walking on the street like that.” He said to her slowly, not sure if she could even understand him.

The driver had stepped out of his vehicle to yell but stopped when he realized just who he had almost hit. One look at the furs she wore and the bow on her back was enough to know she came from “out there.”

“My name is Craig, uhhh... can you understand what I am saying?” His voice louder now.

“Yes,” was the only word she could manage to say.

Craig smiled, “come on, we will go to my store for a moment, you look like you are going to have a nervous breakdown.”

Craig led her to his general store down street and let her in, he closed the door and locked it. Nobody had been inside since he had closed for lunch. He pulled up a chair for her and then fetched her a glass of water. She gulped it down quickly, suddenly realizing how thirsty she was.

“So,” Craig said as he sat on a chair across from her. “What is your name?”

Finally finding her voice she was able to speak, “Ellie.”

“Just Ellie?”

Ellie nodded yes, eying Craig suspiciously.

“So are you really... you know, from the forest?” He asked, a hint of wonder in his voice.

“I was born there, yes.”

“Wow, and your accent is like nothing I have ever heard and those people in Charleroi have some crazy weird accents! Oh, um, not that you are weird or anything.”

Ellie kept quiet, not sure how to even respond to him. A few moments passed as they awkwardly stared at each other.

“Thank you for pulling me out of the way of that... thing.”

Craig blushed, “oh it was nothing, it’s funny because a few years ago you would have never seen those motor vehicles this far out into the Sylvanian back country. So why are you here anyways? I always heard the stories of people from the forest visiting to trade, but I never imagined I’d actually see one of you out in broad daylight like that.”

Ellie shifted uncomfortably in her seat, suddenly remembering why she had came to town in the first place. “I’m looking for someone. I’m looking for the man who sent those outsiders into our forest.”

It suddenly dawned on Craig why Ellie was in Ben Avon, he had forgotten about the story of the surveyors who were attacked in the woods. “Are you the one who killed that guy?”

Ellie’s looked away from him as he asked the question, “Never mind, I should leave. Thank you for your help.” She quickly stood up and began to toward the door as Craig protested, but as she came closer to the windowed store front she saw two figures approach outside.

Outside the two burly men the Foreman had sent to kill Ellie shouldered their M1919‘s. Inside as Craig saw what Ellie saw, he yelled for her to take cover. They both dove behind the thick wooden counter as the armed men began to dump their entire magazines into the store. The thick 45 caliber slugs ripped apart the shelves and lodged into the counter with loud rapid thuds, the guns themselves drowned out all sound from nearby as they spit lead into whatever the men aimed at. Ellie and Craig were trapped as wood splinters rained down upon them, their escape route to the back door cut off from the bullets ripping at the air.