Chapter 11 for my story, Tales of the Eternals, and I have to say, this is one of my favourite chapters so far. I really enjoyed writing this, though it was a really difficult one to go through.

And yes I know many characters here are nameless at the moment, but its done to emphasise the theme of the unknown and heighten the distrust of the species.

Please enjoy and feel free to comment and favourite, but you don't have to if you don't want to

---

Hesperos’ ship soars towards another planet. The landscape below was mostly savannah grassland with scattered trees with reddish orange leaves and rock formations in strange twisting, arching shapes. Surrounding the edge of a deep blue lake is a sprawling city of domed buildings and hive like structures made of dried earth, from which insect like beings could be seen flying in and out though others had been blasted apart and plumes of black smoke hangs on the air. Approaching a spider like building holes at each end of its stone legs, they slowly begin to touchdown in one of the depressions, guided by a creature with a hyena like appearance holding a pair a beacons.
In a grand room in a circular tower, overlooking a busy plaza, Altallo, Letia, Hesperos and their passengers are seated on soft quilted cushions, while their three hosts; a short butterfly like being with large yellow wings, a burly creature similar to a boar with four tusks and tough greyish blue skin and a small vibrant purple new with a sail and slippery skin.
“This is a complete disaster! Our economy is devastated after this brutal attack!” the butterfly says in a melodramatic tone. His stance is jumpy and wobbly, constantly jerking and fiddling nervously. “It will take possibly years to recover! The fruit orchards have been ravaged!”
“Our mines have been utterly destroyed,” the boar interjects “That’s a major source of income need I remind you and we still haven’t received extended rest periods and higher pay.”
“Nor should you forget our fishing industries,” the purple newt hisses “We’re still waiting for our payments and rights.”
“Yes yes, well the main thing is the orchards have been attacked. Not to mention the substantial number of civilians captured by these marauders and where is our ambassador, he’s late-oh!” The butterfly leaps in surprise at a loud rumbling from some nearby display panels start flashing. All three of the Kroumloikians rush over and eagerly start making notes. The Tythonian and Avralian look at them with disgust.

Suddenly, the doors to the room burst open and a sleek reptilian dashes in, wheezing and panting. His scales are a pale brown with a darker pattern down his back. His face is narrow with large round yellow eyes, thick curly hair on his head and a small beard on his chin. He wears a purple and orange poncho, similar to Altallo’s.
“Maris, you are late.”
“I’m sorry counsellors, the road networks have been damaged by the attacks.”
“Yes well never mind that, we’re busy with today’s workload; those drones are being so slow again with the harvests.”
“What about the raid? Shouldn’t we be focusing more on that?” Maris asks looking incredulous.
“Oh, those people over there will sort it out.” The purple reptile says, vaguely waving to the other Eternals.
Maris jumps as he notices the visitors for the first time.
“My lady Letia and Hesperos! I never expected to see you again this soon. And wow, is that you Altallo?” he asks, poking Altallo’s nose “You’re so tiny and weird looking. Its adorable! And I see you’re keeping the ever classy poncho look.”
“I’m not weird looking...” Altallo mumbles, rubbing his nose, but Maris had turned his attention to Shern’aath and Kiya, who he scrutinises.
“Mmm, interesting creatures. This one clearly is more adapted for survival,” he says, pointing at Shern’aath, “This one looks rather slow and weak though.”
Kiya puffs up in anger, while Shern’aath looks very proud of himself.

The rumble of the counting machine dies down and the Kroumloikians return, reading their notes.
“Are you still here?” the butterfly inquires, looking up at them.
“You’re not going to help us?”
“No I think we shall stay here. One does not wish to be a burden after all and besides we’re not savage warriors like this beast here,” he waves a hand vaguely towards the Tythonian, who growls angrily. “We’ll leave everything to you.”

“This is hopeless!” the king sighs as the butterfly leaves them.
“I have to agree with the Tythonian,” the flamingo like Avralian says with a look of disdain “We can’t rely on them. Let’s just leave, we’ve wasted enough time already.”
“Not yet, we have an idea.” says Letia who has been whispering to Maris. The two Eternals exchange a sly smile.

“Ugh, we’ll be poor at this rate!” the boar like Kroumloikian grumbles.
“Don’t worry Jur, we’ll live through this. Though we’ll also need to repair that hole up there.” The purple reptile points up to the ceiling.
“Oh wonderful, more expenses!”
“Excuse me gentlemen.” Letia says in a light airy voice from behind them.
“Do you mind? We’re in the middle of business here. And we’ve already told you to go!” Jur yells angrily at her.
“So I heard,” Letia replies drily, giving Jur a cold stare; who shuffles uncomfortably. “But we really need your help. We don’t know what we’ll run into and need to be prepared for anything.”
The butterfly person sights.
“My lady, we appreciate your faith in us but, look at us,” he gestures to the others and himself “We’re not warriors.”
“We have our mobile hospital though,” Maris interjects “That would be a very helpful.”
The others consider Maris’ words and then something lights up in their eyes.
“Very well then, we will help you.” Jur says.
“You will?!” Letia asks looking really hopeful.
“But only if we stay in the back.” the purple reptile adds hurriedly.
“Well, alright then.” Letia mumbles, looking a little downhearted.
“And then there is the subject of payment...” the butterfly says in a business like tone “The price of the medical facilities add up to two hundred ore pieces.”
“You must be joking, you’re exploiting us! You’re charging a fee to save your own people?”
“We run a tight business and we need to make a profit after all.”
The Avralian is about to argue again, but Letia puts a hand on his shoulder.
“It’ll be alright Quell,” she whispers to him and then to the Kroumloikians “Very well, we will pay your fees, after the expedition.”

Later Shern’aath, Altallo and Maris are watching from a window as the three Kroumloikian leaders supervising large teams of workers of a variety of species; beings who resemble boars like Jur, ants, hyena like creatures with long faces and more small reptilians with fins. The overseers shouted at the workers, who looked close to exhaustion.
“Its horrible!” Shern’aath exclaims. “Can’t we do something?”
“I’m afraid not my friend,” says Maris “I’ve been campaigning for drone equal treatment, but with no success. The people here only care about profits and don’t care if a few thousand people should suffer.”
Kiya meanwhile was lounging on a chair nearby, attended to by two ant like Kroumloikians who hold bowls of fruit for her and wearing a new bracelet with green gemstones.
“Ah, this is the life!” she sighs happily “Always wanted some servants of my own if I became a priestess. No more rushing around, just relaxing all day.”
“One thing I don’t understand is, why is you, Hesperos and Letia all leaders or assistants and Altallo isn’t?” Shern’aath asks Maris.
“We have a strict rule of non-intervention until the species that we observe and mingle amongst are of a high level of development and stability.” Maris says in a stiff voice.
“What he means is, we don’t get involved until the people we live with are ready to accept that we exist,” Altallo explains, noticing Shern’aath looking utterly confused. “I revealed myself to you, your tribe and the herbivores because you had shown yourselves to be, mostly, tolerant. But as for the people we met in Egypt and the caves, I don’t think they’re ready yet, do you?”
Shern’aath glances at Kiya who is bossing her attendants around and admiring her bracelet.
“No, me neither. I see what you mean.” he says with a shudder.

They were soon back in space aboard Hesperos’ ship once more, with the medical ship following behind. Inside it was getting cramp.
“I hope we get there soon.” Kiya mumbles, sandwiched between Jur and the Tythonian king.
“Nearly there,” Hesperos says “We planned to meet up near an asteroid and...oh dear.”
Up ahead is the Tythonian fleet, circling the Avralian space vessel, guns pointed directly at it.
A crackling voice comes from the column.
“We demand you return our king at once, witch worshippers!”
“Your king is not here, neither is our lady Letia. Return her to us!”
“You’d better speak to them,” Altallo says to the king and Letia “We don’t want a fight to break out now.”
“We should retreat!” the butterfly squeaks. “We should never have come here-”
“Shut up!” the king roars at him before speaking into the column “Admiral, I am here.”
“Your highness! Thank the moons you are safe.”
“Captain, I am here also. Stand down.” Letia speaks into the column.
“Yes my lady, sorry my lady.”
“We’re coming aboard on the Tythonian capital ship. Meet us there, without your weapons.” Letia instructs the captain.

The inside of the Tythonian ship was dark. The walls, floor and ceiling made of a dark grey, almost black metal. Tythonian warriors patrol the corridors. The butterfly Kroumloikian looks like he’s about to faint in terror at any moment.
He looks even worse off as the group enter a huge arena like chamber; a massive circular space with seats ringing the walls and a clearing covered in dust. The arena was full of cheers. In the centre, two Tythonians were wrestling, horns interlocked and pushing each other back and forth.
“Are you sure this was such a good idea?” He asks timidly, as one Tythonian suddenly grabs the other in a bear hug and then throws him to the ground, accompanied by cheers from the crowd.
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter?! Have you noticed we’re inside the ship of these...these….” the butterfly lowers his voice and whispers the next few words into Altallo’s ear “These savages.”
Altallo gives an irritated sigh and then looks back to the arena where the two Tythonian fighters were now hugging each other friendly and laughing jovially.
“Who’s the real savage?” Altallo says under his breath.
The other Kroumloikians weren’t doing themselves any favours either. Jur and the lizard flinch at the sight of a Tythonian coming out of a transecting corridor. The Tythonian glares at them.
When they reach the command bridge, all the Tythonians rise and salute as their king enters. The bridge is a wide spacious room with computer banks and control panels along the walls and a large window out into space at the far end. The king nods and the Tythonians get back to work.
“Look at all this!” Shern’aath exclaims, looking at the machinery and in particular the flashing lights.

“Any news?” the Tythonian king asks one of his underlings at a radar machine.
“A faint signal. It doesn’t sound like natural. Take a listen.”
He flicks a switch and from a speaker. Static crackles from it for a few seconds and then a chilling series of grating sounds in different tones, like some sort of mechanical beast growling. When the recording stops, the whole bridge remains silent, save for the clatter of background machinery.
“What was that?” Kiya asks in a hushed voice, looking terrified.
“I think it was a voice.” Hesperos says.
“Where did it come from?” Letia asks the Tythonian.
“A small planetary system quite close by.”
“Lock on course and take us there, signal the fleet. You’d better get your ships moving too.” The king says to the others.
“You want us to just dive in like that?” The lizard like Kroumloikian asks aghast, as there is a flurry of activity.
The King ignores him, looking out of the window, his face set and determined.

“Wait a minute, I just realised,” Altallo says suddenly “None of us have armour or weapons.”
“What?! You have nothing!” the Lizard shrieks wildly. “You’re leading us on a suicide mission!”
“We’ll just have to make some then,” Hesperos replies, ignoring the lizard “There’s an armoury on here, I’ll take you there.”
Later, Kiya and Shern’aath are waiting in an empty corridor. Strange clangs and crashes emanate from behind a pair of large metal doors.
Kiya, who is sitting on a nearby bench, utters an annoyed sigh.
“They’ve been in there for at least three hours.” she huffs.
Shern’aath rolls his eyes. The raptor had not enjoyed being with Kiya and was beginning to get increasingly irritated.
“I didn’t even have a chance to put on any make up. A priestess should look her best after all and-”
She’s interrupted by the doors sliding open. Tentatively Kiya and Shern’aath enter to discover a mostly empty room, bar a few tables and stands for armour and a weapon rack; holding four thin swords made of a grey metal with jewelled handles. Maris and Hesperos were working away at what appeared to be the torso piece of a suit of armour, while Letia is fashioning a red and white helmet with a long face. Altallo meanwhile was trying on a full set; with blue chest, legs and arms, yellow hands and feet. He holds a short faced mainly yellow helmet with a blue face and winged ornaments on either side of the head and glossy black triangles for eyes. The armour seemed to consist of plates resembling fish scales moulded together, giving the armour an almost seamless look.
“Amazing!” Shern’aath gawks at Altallo’s armour. “What is it made of?”
“Crystalline sheets compacted together to form sheets,” Altallo explains “Its strong yet also light. Means we can move more easily.”
He then puts the helmet over his head. The eyes flicker momentary and then fade back to their original black.
“Vision systems work wonderfully Maris.” Altallo reports.
“Very well. We should test the weapons now.” Maris replied.
He picks up a long odd looking device, with a hole in one end and a handle and trigger on the other. Maris hands it to Altallo who turns it to a set of targets and takes aim. As he squeezes the trigger, there is a bright flash of white light, a swoosh like a rocket and something sinks into the target. Shern’aath and Kiya look open mouthed; right in the centre of the target is a large sharp shard of crystal.
“Amazing! You’d be the best hunter in the world with that!” Shern’aath says happily to Altallo, but his happy expression disappears. Altallo was staring at the weapon with pure disgust.
“I hate it,” he says bluntly “I never wanted to use a gun.”
He hands the gun back to Maris.
There’s a whistle from a speaker system nearby, Hesperos presses it and a voice comes out.
“We’re approaching our destination. The King would like you on the bridge.”

The fleet approaches a pale yellow sun, which glimmers weakly. As they move closer they can see a huge planet with strange rings around its centre. Its murky, cloudy atmosphere is a sickly pale yellow colour. A tiny dot of pale green can be seen just below the planet’s rings.
“That’s where we have tracked the signals,” the Tythonian commander reports. “A small moon.”
“I remember that place,” Maris pipes up “Its got a breathable atmosphere, but high levels of volcanic activity. It should be completely barren.”

From the ships, a number of small shuttles take off and fly to the small planet. As they touch down, the doors of the first shuttle open and the Eternals, now fully armoured, emerge with their weapons drawn. An eerie desolate world of rocky cliffs, depressions, tunnels and plains greets them. In contrast the green tinted sky and mists swirling around them, the ground and rocks are a grey and brown. There are no trees or animals. In fact the only plants growing are small, withered red little hand like growths scattered around between cracks in the rocks.
The Eternals spread out and cover a wide area in a search pattern before returning.
“Its all quiet and safe, you can come out,” Letia says “We’ve found a spot nearby on the plains.”

They move out, with Hesperos and Letia leading, the Tythonians and Avralians following behind with Kiya and Shern’aath following behind.
Further away from the shuttles, Kiya is awed by a nearby arch shaped rock formation and stands staring at it. Suddenly she her eyes widen in fear. Something close to a rock formation had moved. She only saw it briefly, a black blur in the mist. She backs off and then grabs Shern’aath’s arm.
“Look there!” she whispers.
Shern’aath looks to where she pointed.
“There’s nothing there. Probably just a rock in the mist. Letia did say this was a safe area-”
“I don’t care what she says I know I was right, there is something there!”
“Its just the light and shadows. My tribe teaches us to identify the shadows of prey, predators and tricks of the light and-”
Shern’aath stops. A trickling sound of pebbles penetrates the silence around them.
“Then again, you could be right.” the raptor says in a hushed voice.
“Something is moving around over there! Oh please lets get out of here.”
“This way,” Shern’aath leads Kiya away from the canyon “I can still smell the others.”
As they run away, a dark figure emerges from its hiding place and watches them.

On the nearby plain, a colourful collection of tents have been erected. The Eternals are waiting outside the largest tent and look up as Shern’aath and Kiya run breathlessly up to them.
“What happened? Where have you been?” Altallo asks sternly.
“W-we saw s-something. Over there.” Kiya gasps.
“What sort of something?”
“Well Kiya said she saw something, but I did hear stones falling near there.”
“We’ll investigate later,” Letia says “Speaking of hearing things, we have more pressing matters.”
She gestures to the tent, where loud voices could be heard.
Inside the flamingo Avralian and the Tythonian king were shouting at each other while the Kroumloikians cower and bleat like frightened sheep.
“You Avralians are too weak willed to fight! You’ll just scatter and fly away when the enemy crashes down upon us! We will lead the attack! Straight on!” the king roars.
“And run straight into death’s jaws!” the Avralian retorts “Thats all you are, a lot of noise and no brain!”
“Couldnt we just run away and never come back?” asks the butterfly.
“SHUT UP!” the king and Avralian bellow at the butterfly who looks like he could faint.
“Can’t you do anything?” Shern’aath asks Letia, as more shouts emanate from the tent.
“We will once they’ve shouted at each other long enough and vented everything out. In the meantime, you should get some rest.”

Later inside a smaller tent Kiya and Shern’aath are lying on a pair of bedrolls. A third bedroll lies close by. Shern’aath is snoring loudly, but Kiya awakens, looking troubled at the empty bedroll. Getting up, she shakes Shern’aath shoulders and pokes him.
“Wake up! Wake up! Altallo is missing!”
Shern’aath mumbles and pushes her away. Huffing, she then moves to the tent entrance and peers out into the darkness. Pausing only a minute, she exits. Walking away from the encampment, Kiya decides to retrace her steps to the canyon. However as she reaches the edge of the plain, swirling mists begin to drift around her. Soon, she can’t see anything in front of her and she notices a wind blowing, growing steadily stronger with each breeze. Blindly she wanders around until she reaches a tunnel and hesitates, pondering whether to go into it or around.
The sound of trickling pebbles startles her and she dives into the tunnel. A few minutes later, four armoured figures emerge from the mist and make their way to the encampment. One of them, dressed in armour coloured in two tones of green sighs.
“I wonder if the King and Avralian have stopped arguing.”
Shern’aath is awoken by the tent flap opening and is startled by a heavily armoured figure in the entrance. He breathes a sigh of relief.
“Altallo! You scared me there.”
“Where is Kiya?” Altallo asks.
“Hrm? Oh. I didn’t notice her leave!”
“Maybe she’s just exploring the camp. Anyway come on, its almost dawn. We should have a meeting with the leaders.”

As Kiya exits the tunnel, the mist had grown even thicker and a fierce wind was blowing sand and dust around her and into her eyes. She clambers up a steep incline. Up and up she climbs, her dress ripped and her bare hands turning red and sore. Exhausted, she finally reaches the top of the hill and slumps onto the ground. The first thing she notices when she opens her eyes, is the sky. On the hill the sky is clear, unobstructed by the mist, which flowed around further down the summit. The stars shimmered and the planet nearby glowed like a great yellow orb. As she gets up she then notices something else in the distance; small lights in a neat line. Assuming they’re campfires, she starts climbing down the hill in their direction.
The sun starts rising as she stumbles through the rock and still misty landscape. As the sun shines stronger, the mist start lifting somewhat. Stopping for breath, Kiya looks to where she thought she had seen campfires and is amazed at what she instead finds.
Ahead of her is an enormous fortress carved into the rock. A tall cylindrical structure with tiny lights glowing dimly. In front of Kiya is a huge gateway, wide open like a looming open mouth. Kiya creeps up to the gate and peers inside to the gloom. Once again she hesitates, but with the wind growing stronger, she decides any shelter is better than none and dives into the gateway.

“We should leave now! We don’t belong here and we’ll only make things worse!” the purple lizard Kroumloikian says.
“Oh thats your answer to everything!” the flamingo Avralian sighs.
“Run away, never face your problems, just keep running. You know they’ll just come to bite you again?” The Tythonian king growls.
Inside the main tent, hostilities had resumed with the leaders shouting and arguing once more. Among them are the Eternals and Shern’aath, sitting quietly. The Eternals look tired and weary.
“Why don’t you get to know-” Altallo begins in a desperate voice, but is drowned by another roar from the king.
Outside, a Tythonian soldier was patrolling around the camp. Thick mist and bits of dust float around him and he can’t see far in front of him. Something catches his attention and he moves away from the main tent, his spear raised. Suddenly, he feels something hit him in the small of his back. His body becomes rigid and he cannot move anything, except his eyes which roll in every direction in panic...until he hears the crunch of stones. Horror struck, he watches something walk past him.
In the main tent, the arguing leaders are unaware of what is happening outside. Above them, on the scaffolding, a shadowy figure crawls stealthily until it is right above Letia. It pulls out a knife, and tenses up, ready to strike…

In the bowls of the fortress, Kiya wanders through industrial corridors, with metal floors and a ceiling covered in pipes that twisted and entwined each other like slithering snakes. The silence of the corridor was occasionally broken by the creak of metal or the hiss of steam. The girl moves cautiously, fearful at the noises and is startled as a jet of steam hisses right in front of her. As the steam clears, she notices a light up ahead and moves instinctively towards it. Turning a corner, she is startled and amazed by what she sees. In stark contrast to the stark metal around it was a mural depicting a large tree made from white gemstones with graceful wavy branches and purple, pink and red flowers against a pale blue sky. Beneath the tree are two seated figures, which looked almost like humans, but with skin made of silver and milky white eyes. The figures seemed to be a male and female, holding each other in a loving pose. Kiya continued to stare, awed by the mural. She did not want to leave it, it was bright and comforting unlike the dark foreboding corridors. Eventually though she departs.
Soon she is in yet another featureless metal corridor, but this time with less dense piping. Halfway down the corridor Kiya stops and looks around anxiously. She has an unnerving feeling of being watched and stands, frozen to the spot for a few minutes. As she gets the courage to move again, she hears a sound.
A giant figure jumps down in front of her and she leaps in fear into the wall of the corridor. The figure rises up to its full height, taller than a man. Its moves gracefully, with a slim body, arms and legs, but it was a terrifying sight to behold, covered in dark armour with no flesh or face visible. The helmet has no facial features; no mouth and nothing else human and comforting, save for two red gashes for eyes and a tall forward facing crest covered in metal spikes. The creature lunges forward, grabbing Kiya by the throat and then raises its other arm. From the wrist, a sharp blade slides out and the figure points the blade directly at Kiya’s forehead.