EoR Wine Country - NNWM2k19 - 3

[atma]

WC: 8166/50000

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 3RD 2019 AD

PG&E HEADQUARTERS

The lights on the upper floors where the CEOs and their most trusted minions are dimmed. An ironic gesture given the state of the civilization below them that they stand over. Several figures fill the room, shadowed out, with only their voices and outlines to differentiate them.

They look at each other, quiet, the smell of tobacco and whiskey swirling about the room until one weak and familiar voice speaks up, his throat overwhelmed by such adult tastes dancing around his vocal cords. He wears a similar cape and cap to the one called Nobunaga, and his hands wring together like the toady he is.

“B-Boss, oh my lords, I have g-good news!” he managed to utter.

“They’ve been burned down?” one of the two most decorated and most hidden figures says. His name displays only in question marks, though his outline suggests that of an old conquistador, standing tall around a similarly clad figure.

“W-Well, no but...”

“SILENCE, MEASLY NOBUKATSU! What do you mean you do not bring the word of your sisters’ deaths to us yet?”

“I’m… my apologies sirs! I’m trying! But don’t worry, the ambush I have set for them down in the farms is sure to work!” Nobukatsu bit his lip, his eyes tearing as the scent of pipe smoke choked his face, trying his best to stay calm before erupting in a coughing fit.

“Who’s bright idea was it to bring this kid along?” the other conquistador figure spoke.

“He claims he has knowledge of Nobunaga and her supposed sister, the Archer they’ve called Atma...” grinned another familiarly evil face, his name displaying clearly as Moriarty. “You know, that little bit of a plot twist. Who’d have thought they’d had a sister hidden this whole time and all? But no need to worry, I doubt they’ll turn this into one of their silly little personal events with the gudaguda and all. This is far too serious a story for them to have inserted themselves for once for that..”

“I say we stab them!” another dark figure spoke up, a knife near him in a familiar callsign to those that grew up in the area in decades past, it having been plastered all over the newspapers back then.

“Forward, aren’t you, Assassin of Marin?” Moriarty scoffed. “Now, now. Some crimes are to be savored. You should know that; they never did quite catch you, right?”

“What good’s knowledge if he can’t just kill them and take the land as his? The boy barely looks like he can lift a rock, let alone a gun or a sword...” the conquistadors scoffed.

“Mmm. I’ll be aiding him in this one. If it’s fire they want to die in again so bad, I’ll make sure I get the job done. I mean, I did once, right?” a sickly looking figure stepped in next to Nobukatsu, albeit a much more capable looking person than he.

“Akechi! You want to make yourself known so soon?”

“Why not? It’s not like we can rely on people like that foul Caster or Assassin or that weird Berserker that have manifested as roadblocks to the supposed heroes. Fire gets it done, wouldn’t we all agree to that by now?”

“I-I WOULD BE HONORED TO SERVE WITH YOU, SIR!” Nobukatsu saluted.

“You would sell your sisters out again so fast?” Akechi smirked. “So be it. We’re off to Petaluma to survey the ambush and stall them out. If nothing else, we should be able to at least halt production of their goods.”

“Permission granted to leave. Raze the land and claim it for our glorious machinations!”

Akechi dragged Nobukatsu off in a flash, leaving the other familiar face to ruminate among the new batch of shadowed servants that had not interfered in history until now. Moriarty sat quietly for once, just smiling. This carnage was just splendid and he didn’t want to ruin it now by opening his big mouth. Well, he would, but he wasn’t quite sure his current boss’ sense of humor was, er, refined enough to say such and have them Get It without them booting him out of the story so early.

One of the two conquistadors stood up and in front of the mantle they placed in the meeting room. The old PG&E logo was on it, alongside their new one when they rebranded as the Praetorian, and around it sat a familiar, golden Goetia sigil, though of what nobody knew quite yet. He made himself known, his face coming to light. As did the other, giving off imposing forms.

There was only one problem, though.

“It’ll be a cold day in our burning hell before they defeat me, anyway, the Praetorian Avenger!” one of them spoke up.

The other took a quite immediate umbrage to this and slammed his fists on the table. “Damn you, damn you to your own hell! I thought we agreed I’m the Praetorian Avenger!”

The two drew their swords and scowled, looking to cause an incident in this otherwise nice room. Well, as nice as a meeting room of evil could get. Moriarty scoffed, as did the Assassin. A man with a rather wide visage laughed from another corner. “If we ain’t careful, you two are going to take yourselves down sooner than anything this measly Archer and her merry band of nothing can!”

“Be quiet, Caster!” snarled one last figure, this one of an older bushi with a war banner behind him, holding a book of tactics in his hand. “Lest I remind you of your own betrayals?”

“Shaddup, Berserker!” the Caster growled back.

It wasn’t long before everyone in that room was at each others’ throats. Moriarty slipped out and watched from a nearby cubicle, claiming there was nothing here but us nameless drones that the hero slaughters by the dozen on repeated quests for specific drops. Yup, nothing here but some gems and maybe a nugget. Not worth your time when there’s all these legendary named servants right here and all. It made for really great television, were any televisions still running at the time.

After a bit, the tensions died down and the villainous meeting room sat themselves back down, a little roughed up, but more or less understanding of each other now, if even so much as make one wrong move and they’d have to stab the other in the back. Like boss, like crone. Not a single mind in that entire meeting room was a calm or rational one. And moreso, not a single one was loyal to anything but the concept of gold and riches.

After all, that’s what the two Praetorian Avengers had come here for so long ago to begin with.

~ END CHAPTER 2 NODE 2

????? UNKNOWN DATE, SIXTEENTH CENTURY

THE MEXICO-CALIFORNIA TERRITORIES

Spain had so named her and so did seek her out until the end, and some descended from it all still claim her and the gold within her today. For there’s still much to be found within her, and no matter what seems to scar her surface, the inner soul of the state kept seeming to revive it and bring it into greater periods of wealth and happiness and liberty for her people. It was a land known to all the world for various reasons, but its relationship with gold itself would remain the first that came to mind, a stronger association with the substance than anywhere else on Earth, past or present or future.

In the year 1510, a book called Las Sergas de Esplandian was published, telling the tale of a land to the “right hand” of the Indies called the Island of California. Vast riches would await anyone who found themselves in this latest version of the kinds of stories of lost cities full of gold, as gold itself was the only metal or money found in any inch of its rich lands. Though one would have to brave the shores, mountains, and more than anything else, not be destroyed by the mighty Amazon army of the treacherous Queen Calafia. Their beasts and weapons shone gold as the sun, having tamed everything under their fertile soils in order to wage war against anyone whom would dare raid what was once called “the strongest known land in all of the world.”

The first to arrive after the tale had captured the minds of the royals of Spain was a man named Hernan Cortes, whom was found to be far too ruthless in his conquering that they sent another man after him to keep him in check, one named Nuno de Guzman. The two became rivals, and with Cortes the more successful businessman and ruler, made sure that Guzman would go down in history as the weaker and more foolish, leaving the spoils of whatever actual reality California would bear to him to be his for the taking instead. There was no Amazons, no Queen, but there was gold. A lot of gold. As well as fertile lands for any and all sorts of vegetation, as well as ports that could very well easily sail back left to the other major ports of trade in the world.

It was an optimal place for anyone back then.

Now, in 2019, they stand revived as the two Praetorian Avengers, summoned by whatever force was messing up the timeline, and doing nothing but fighting with each other as they once did, trying to reclaim California for themselves by scorching her down and mining her from there. It was the only thing they agreed on was the taking of this land back, and not for anyone but themselves, but it was enough to keep them going at least in peace long enough to achieve this.

Their armies from back centuries ago had become their lackies and were the first to start taking guard posts and slaughtering anyone who would get in their way of taking and rebuilding California in the image of the golden land they once believed it was.

However, the man who wrote the Las Sergas, a man by the name of Montalvo, wasn’t entirely lying about a Queen.

It’s just that the Queen wouldn’t appear to those that would use the land and abuse it so wastefully and horribly. Those that translated and twisted his words put in his mouth and writing a conclusion like anyone else of the era might have, which is that Calafia was conquered “like any other woman” and so forth.

But what of what Calafia herself, what did she have to say about this? If Cortes rewrote the history of Guzman, what else did her find in his journey through the golden coasts of California? And now that Guzman was back, would he be able to prove or disprove any of the words twisted against him? You would have to be a fool to believe either of their stories and not take a break to listen to the voice of the land itself. But with their might, combined for the first time, the land was almost assuredly spiraling towards another conquering by them and more unfair rulings and coin tossed at them lest they unleash their wrath.

Was it actually true? Was any of this real? That mattered not to them as the power that summoned them both here kept whispering promises into their empty souls of fountains of coin filling their hands and women draping off them would soon come to pass.

And besides….

As the Archer named Atma Weapon kept cutting down the two conquistadors men and making her way around the ruined wastelands of Northern California, they had to come to one conclusion. With her power, her tenacity, her inability to let go of the land or move away, instead remaining steadfast in her decision to protect it and heal it until her dying breath, one thing about the Las Sergas proved true above all other facts.

This was the strongest land in the world. And there was absolutely such a thing as the Amazons.

And they should have feared her from the beginning.

Nothing compares to the wrath of a Queen scorned, after all.

~ END CHAPTER 2 NODE 3