Dark Fate, Book 21 Prologue

Prologue – Trade Chat

(North American System Information Exchange Forum, formerly Community Building and Civil Defense Chat)

abby_gail, bento, RainyDayze, GringottsGoblin, DoritoMan, D.VaLuvr69, Carion, RadicalEdward, FusionGal, NotACop, Scholar, RamblingWreck, Anonymous4, Anonymous6, RedShift, SevenNationArmy, DarkLord, BagOTrix, White_Queen, Faraday, BackpageGal, FullServiceMassage, daytrader, LinaLuv, Skippy, shadow_clone23, THE_MERCHANT, jenny8675309, Rabbit, Angelus and Tracker are in the chat.

Carion: Well, I can honestly say that is the first time I’ve ever seen a mic drop moment at the UN.

Skippy: Well, we knew that as soon as DarkLord turned up, there was going to be some kind of drama, but an assassination attempt? Who expected that?

White_Queen: Almost everyone who thinks about these kind of things. There were several attempts on his life, on Ceres, where it is far more difficult to infiltrate. This was the first time since the events in the Middle East that he has been somewhere that Earth-based groups could more easily get to him. Of course, someone was going to take a shot at him.

FusionGal: Not you, though?

White_Queen: No. I would rather stay out of his way, if possible. I know better than most what he is capable of.

DarkLord: And that was when I was a warlord attempting to drive off invaders. I’m much more now than I was then.

RedShift: Hey, DL, what happened to the shooter?

DarkLord: I removed her limbs, cauterized the wounds with hellfire, and slapped a [Slave Brand] on her. She is currently serving as a stress reliever for my guards.

Rabbit: Well, that got dark. Hot, but dark.

BagOTrix: side-eyes Rabbit

Rabbit: What? Spend enough time on the internet, and you find some of the really out there porn.

THE_MERCHANT: I will point out that with Regeneration Potions, one could ‘experiment’ along those lines, without any permanent consequences. Obviously, there are limits. No helping you if you go into things like Snuff or Vore, after all. Not at Tier 1.

Redshift: Wait, you mean that kind of stuff is possible in higher Tiers?

THE_MERCHANT: In Tier 1, resurrection spells only work if the body is mostly intact, and the death was fairly recent (typically within the last week). In Tier 2, you simply need a piece of the victim, and for their soul to be free and willing to return. Also, it won’t work on creatures that were formerly undead. In Tier 3, you can return those who were made into undead to life, and don’t need any physical remains, so long as they died in the last year, but the soul needs to be free and willing to return. In Tier 4, the only limits are that the death has to be within the last hundred years, and the soul is either in your possession or free. Their willingness to return is irrelevant. Obviously, the material costs associated with the spell increase as you go up in tier.

daytrader: Why wouldn’t someone want to return to life?

D.VaLuvr69: Well, if they were being resurrected, just to be tortured to death, again and again and again…

bento: I saw a mention of something like that in one of the dungeons up by Charleston. I thought it was just religious flair for the undead tomb aesthetic.

DarkLord: That would be the Tomb of the Tortured Saint, yes? The story the tomb tells isn’t real, but what it depicts is possible, under the System.

Redshift: You’ve been to that dungeon? I thought you were too busy being Space King.

DarkLord: I haven’t been to that dungeon, this time through. I leveled quite a bit in that dungeon last time. Actually, it was near that dungeon where I was betrayed. Right, Queen?

White_Queen: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

jenny8675309: It is still crazy listening to you two talk about previous time loops through the Apocalypse.

Scholar: Going back to the events at the UN, DL really stirred things up. I’ve heard rumblings about ‘third world’ nations starting to potentially organize, and look into forming blocks to match the US-backed and Russia/China-backed factions.

bento: Does that really matter, though? It isn’t like the UN does anything, really.

DarkLord: That is one of the things I’m trying to change. But instead of talking to those who already have things like they want it, I’m talking to those who are on the outs with the current system.

FusionGal: Hey, DarkLord! What is this Operation Slaughterhouse you were talking about?

DarkLord: As I said, it is an operation to strike at the Incux threat, the best way we are able to with our current capabilities. Working with intelligence gathered by the Systems Commonwealth, the Ceres Royal Navy is launching attacks on resource worlds the Incux use to keep their war effort afloat. It is believed that crippling or destroying operations on those worlds will slow the Incux assault long enough for the Commonwealth to recover their forces and start pushing back.

White_Queen: What he isn’t saying is that the only resource the Incux require is food. Everything else they need, their bioforms can acquire easily enough. And the preferred food for the Incux would be sapient beings.

abby_gail: Then, those resource worlds?

DarkLord: You could call them cattle worlds. Where sapient beings have been ‘raised’ like livestock for so long that they have lost language and the smartest ones are barely able to conduct farming operations.

abby_gail: And it is called Operation Slaughterhouse. Oh. Oh god.

Scholar: As horrifying as that sounds, I’m sure there was a reason for it?

DarkLord: Of course. There are trillions in the path of the Incux, including all of you on Earth. Anyone not killed and eaten outright is reduced to slaves on those cattle worlds, adding new genetic stock to the mix. Actually, given Earth’s climate, they might decide to make Earth a new cattle world. You have to understand that this is not an enemy that can be reasoned with, or bought off. They are an omnicidal semi-hivemind who believe anything that is not them is food.

abby_gail: But killing all those people?

DarkLord: They were dead already. This way, they died quick, and clean, instead of being eaten alive by the Incux, so that they could make more warriors to continue slaughtering people across this spiral arm of the galaxy.

FusionGal: Surely there was some other way?

DarkLord: Not with the technology and power we currently have. Maybe if we were one of the major powers, near the galactic core, that are able to harness black holes as the power source for their ships? But otherwise? No.

Angelus: Hey, anyone else hear about a series of attacks throughout the Mediterranean? A religious commune in Greece blew up, followed by a bunch of other sites in different parts of the region.

Tracker: There were also some attacks in South America, too. Primarily in Argentina, but ranging all the way up into parts of Mexico. Professional jobs, from what I’m hearing, not cartel violence. The strange thing is who was being targeted. None of them were anyone important. In fact, the only connection anyone can find is that they were all of Israeli descent, if not Israeli immigrants.

Angelus: Wait, the same thing is true about the attacks I was talking about. The commune in Greece was known as being a center for a bunch of Israeli ex-pats in the surrounding villages.

DarkLord: I told people I would find the ones responsible for attacking me, and return the favor, didn’t I?

Scholar: How do you know they were involved?

DarkLord: I put a [Slave Brand] on the assassin, and she had no choice but to spill her secrets. My people rooted out their base in Greece, captured their computers, and used the information to take out all their other assets, both financial and personnel. Rinse and repeat until we got all of them we could find.

Scholar: That… [Slave Brand]s are so powerful?

DarkLord: Yes, and no. A Slave must obey their Master’s commands. However, there are ways they could resist, going within the letter of a command, rather than the spirit of it. But an experienced Master knows how to properly phrase their commands to prevent such foolishness.

Angelus: Well, that’s disturbing.