Cabal Siena The Queen Story Teaser 3

Here is the conclusion to the amazing story behind the upcoming patch for the Philippines' top MMORPG, Cabal - Siena the Queen.

Maku Sha's charge towards us stopped abruptly, shadows lifting up from the cracked stone floor, weaving through and around those huge legs. The beast roared at us, a loud, animal noise that had nothing in common with the speech that came from its mouth only moments before.

"It will not hold for long." The Force Blader spoke, and I thought I detected the tiniest amount of strain in his voice. "I really suggest we take care of this as fast as we can." He stepped past me and the Warrior, his left hand moving through the forms of binding and weakening. I've encountered those before, on the field of battle, and barely escaped with my life. I remember that terrible weakness, my blades suddenly almost too heavy to lift, unable to move...

I hate these guys...



Now, however, that dark use of the Force was on my side. I leapt past the Force Blader, blades extended. Maku Sha had the smell of rotting plants around him, a thick, sweet stench that made my stomach turn. His axe came down towards me, but for all the power behind that swing it was simply not fast enough, and the weapon crashed into the stones behind me, spraying out shards of stone fragments. I felt them glancing off my armour, meaningless minor damage. My blades glided through the air, following movements that I have trained and repeated over and over and over, making them a part of me. Maku Sha wore no armour, but it had a thick, fibrous skin that would no doubt have served as good protection against lesser weapons.

Sha roared again, this time in pain, as I opened two deep cuts across its left leg, and came up behind it. Its tail flicked towards me, narrowly missing my legs, and I jumped out of range. It could not turn to follow me however, with those solid shadows still twisting through its legs, holding it in place. And it had more than just me to worry about. Incandescent Force flared around it, elemental power exploding from the hands of the Wizard and burning across its upper body. My Shielder had moved to the right, drawing another attack from Sha as she moved within range. That huge axe drifted through the air, and everything seemed to slow down as she raised her shield, I tried to jump to somehow stop the axe from impacting-

-and bright blue-white sparks rained down from the lattice of Force around her shield as she absorbed the blow, and coolly deflected the axe into the ground, her expression not even changing slightly.

So they were good, these companions of mine. The Sage had chosen well.

The Shielder held that axe down, somehow, stepped back slightly, power flaring bright yellow from the shield, pulling into the hilt of her blade, and she jumped high, came down driving her blade straight into the ground. The floor shook and cracks spiderwebbed out from the impact point, and Maku Sha stumbled back from that massive impact, tearing loose from the binding shadows around its legs. I moved to the side, opening two more long cuts on its bulging lower back, green blood spraying out around the cuts, building up attack on attack that left Maku Sha's back and legs a bleeding ruin.

The Warrior shouted, driving his Greatsword into the cracked stones left by the Shielder, and ripped that mass of sharpened Mithril upwards, actually containing the broken stone in a web of Force that exploded across Maku Sha. He gave the beast no chance to recover, launching into an spinning attack that destroyed it completely, cutting through skin and flesh and bone with a sickening ease.

Maku Shao collapsed in front of us, those huge taloned hands slowly relaxing their grip on its weapon.

"... Beaten... by Humans..." Its voice was fading, almost inaudible. "But I am not the only Sha..."

I shook my blades sharply, cleaning off the worst of that thick green blood. The Warrior looked at the fallen beast with some concern apparent in his face.

"This was too easy. I don't trust this, not one bit."

"So what?" I smiled mockingly. "You don't hear me complaining."

"Caution does not imply complaints." The Warrior returned my smile with a flat stare, turned to the others. "There might be more of these... Sha, in here. We can use the same tactic we did just now."

"Same tactic? And what if we have more than one at the same time?" My Shielder asked, stretching her left arm. That blow she took had to hurt.

"We deal with that if it happens." The Capella Wizard spoke. She moved past the Warrior, and looked at the broken body of Maku Sha. "Even five of these will not trouble us."

"Idle speculation. We deal with it as it happens." I tried to keep my irritation from my voice. "There might be none, or one, or five, and there is no point in worrying about it."

The Wizard stared at me for a long moment, and I tightened my grip on my blades. Raw power was impressive, but I was very sure that I was faster than she was. She looked at the Warrior, and he nodded.

"Let's move. No point in standing here."

My Archer appeared to be recovered from the power he expended in the previous corridor, and he and the Force Blader brought up the rear of our little party. There appeared to be some quick conversation between them, but I could not make out what was said. That was something to take note of, for sure. We were still enemies, and even under these circumstances there was nothing to be gained from forgetting that little fact.

The Warrior led the way, moving into the corridor where Maku Sha had appeared from. The corridor was long and narrow, and it twisted from left to right, making it very hard to keep track of which direction we were moving in. It also became hotter and hotter as we moved further down it, and the omnipresent humidity vanished, replaced by a dry heat.

"I don't like this, it feels as if we are walking into an inferno." My Shielder was proved somewhat correct as we turned the next corner. The corridor ahead of us had widened, but stretching as far as the eye could see blue-white flames burned from circular vents in the ground, with a soft hissing and crackling noise.

"How do we switch these off?" The Warrior looked around, but there was nothing obvious that could serve as a switch.

"This seems to be the way forward, impassable as it may appear at first glance." The Force Blader was also studying the area in front of the first fire-vent. "There were no markings or writings anywhere on the way here that appeared different from the inscriptions of whoever constructed this temple."

"What are you suggesting?" I moved closer to the fire, close enough to feel the heat. "We walk through this?"

"I am not sure yet. Allow me a moment," and that burned and scarred little journal I had found as we entered appeared in his hands, as if by magic. "Perhaps there is something clue in here."

"Or perhaps this fire is the reason that book is in the shape that it is in now."

There had to be a way through here though. There was more to this temple than what we had seen up to now, and something had spoken with Maku Sha before it attacked us. Nothing behind us, fire in front of us...

"Nothing in here." The Force Blader snapped the journal shut, and it vanished again, somewhere into his armour, I was sure. "Something about speed, but nothing conclusive."

"We can go through here." The Shielder's voice was soft, but firm. "It's is possible."

I understood what she was talking about, but even so... Extending protection to Capella? This was the last thing I expected from her. That scar on her right arm was most assuredly the result of an encounter with Capella on the battefield.

"I can protect us, hopefully for long enough to make our way past this."

"Are you sure?" The Wizard glanced at the fire stretching out in front of us. "This could be much harder than it appears."

"Stand close." The Shielder did not waste words. "On my word, we move. Do not waste any time, since we do not know how much ground we have to cover."

We gathered around her, and she closed her eyes for a moment, moving her hand slightly, shaping and binding Force. I felt her presence reaching out to me, and saw the momentary flicker of her shadow moving, even as she stood motionless. There was another flicker, almost too brief for the eye to see, of all six of us covered with an inky blackness, before the Shielder opened her eyes again.

"Move!"

I turned and sprinted, not waiting to see if the others followed. Increasing my movement speed was a basic skill, but using that technique correctly was much harder than it sounded. I entered that passage of fire, felt the heat as nothing more than a distant presence. Silver light flared around me, a perfect sphere with me in the centre, and I caught a glimpse of the Wizard appearing right in front of me, vanishing again into the distance, another silver bubble in a world of fire.

The corridor seemed endless, filled with wall after wall of blue-white fire. I ran, hoping that the Shielder could keep up this protection... Suddenly the fires died down for a moment, revealing what appeared to be the end of the corridor only a short distance ahead - and then all the walls exploded upwards, burning fireballs that almost knocked me to my feet. I stumbled forwards, feeling a sudden burning as the silver bubble around me vanished to the fires, and dove forwards, crashing and rolling past the last firegate, and I heard and felt my companions doing the same.

The Wizard was standing there, waiting for us, and for a moment I really hated her. She appeared to be completely unscathed.

"Speed..." It appeared that the Force Blader had also made it through in one piece. "That's what it meant, obviously."

"Ah, hindsight." I came to my feet, trying to see if there was any obvious damage to my armour or weapons, and restrained my urge to make further comments. All five of us - not counting the damn Wizard - appeared to be moderately undamaged. I saw a burn mark on the face of the Warrior, and the Archer had a vivid red burn across the back of his hand where his gloves did not protect him.

"That was... unpleasant."

I looked around us. Some stairs were leading up and to the left, appearing far to deep for humans to comfortably use them. That was the only way to go, unless you counted going back through the hell of that firegate corridor as a viable option. We gathered ourselves, and started moving up the stairs, weapons ready. No words were needed now - we could not be more alert.

The stairs opened up to the largest room we had yet seen. Spacious, with large statues lining the walls, and more stairs raising up from the far corner. The only problem, as it were, was that it appeared to be filled with copies of Maku Sha.

I exploded into action, before the beasts could react. Force flowed across my body, extending my awareness all around me. This ability was hard to master, and you needed the speed and reaction of long training in order to use it to the fullest potential. I flowed past the Sha, my blades an extension of my arms, bound to me. The Sha were too slow, and I could read their attacks before they even tried, moved past and under massive arms and weapons, leaving gaping cuts and bright green blood behind me, building attack on attack, looking for and finding that instinctive combat rhythm that allowed me to move from one attack to the next seamlessly.

The Sha were big, and powerful, but they were obviously not used to fighting as a group, and this helped me. As I punched a hole straight through to the centre of the group my companions joined in the fight, and despite the power of our opponents they were untrained, and no real match for us. Force flared and exploded through the room as we unleashed our combined power, ripping through the Sha. It was over in moments..

The temperature in the room suddenly dropped, as the last Sha died under the sword of the Warrior, and I could sense a terrifying presence, suddenly real and horribly close, all around us.


"Humans."

The voice was quiet, and low enough that I could feel it rather than hear it.

"You dare to step into this place?"

Our giant adversary stood calmly in the middle of the room, and it had appeared as if from nowhere, a huge armoured figure that was easily three times taller than the big Warrior standing to my left. The giant hefted the strange weapon it was holding in its left hand, and rested it against its shoulder.

"You dare to challenge... me? Six of you, when an army would not have been enough?"

It looked down at the wreckage between us, the strange greenish blood and the broken bodies of the Sha that ambushed us only moments before the giant appeared, with an apparent disinterest. It was already very clear that this opponent was going to be far tougher than any we had faced thus far in this corrupted temple.

"Come then." Its weapon made a whistling noise as it swung through the air and came to a stop pointing straight at us. It appeared to be a massive spear, but the blade that tipped it was bigger than a GreatSword, and glowed with a disturbing orange light. I would not wager on anyone being able to survive a direct hit with that monster, and that was without even considering the fact that we had no idea of the capabilities of our opponent. My two blades seemed almost weightless in my hands as I stepped forwards, my companions spreading out behind me.

...Veniti...

That voice again, vaguely female, appearing from everywhere around us.

"They die here, my Queen."

... do not fail me...

The giant warrior gave no other warning, and its attack was shockingly sudden, a diagonal slash that I barely avoided. If that blade had hit me my armour would have been of as much use as a sheet of paper. Even Mithril had its limits. The air around us was getting colder and colder, and I could feel my movements getting slower. The giant did not hesitate though, and attacked again, another slash that would have decapitated anyone it hit. We had to stay out of range.

The air was really cold now, cold enough for frost to form a feathery line across the back of my blade, and I stared at it with disbelief. What in the hells is this?

"Do it!" The Warrior shouted out behind me. "We will keep it off you, but get ready!" He came up on my left, his sword held high. "Take the right. We have to keep him away from the others."

I forced my mind into calmness, ignoring the cold around me. Force could not be bound while the mind was not perfectly clear, and able to concentrate. The cold was weakening me, weakening all of us, but we could compensate for it. Shadows rose from the ground again, twisting through the air below Veniti - the Force Blader was already busy.

My Shielder came up to my right. "I'll get his attention, so be ready." She ran past ducked underneath another decapitating slash, and took up a position right behind Veniti. I could feel the Force she summoned, reaching out into the stones underneath her, drawing up power around herself, a tight, solid mass of woven power that would protect her better than any shield ever could. I knew this ability, had seen it in action many times before, but I also knew that the concentration needed to keep this up means she would be unable to move at all.

The Warrior shouted a loud challenge, and dashed past me, jumping towards Veniti. Light and power blossomed behind me, the Wizard and the Force Archer focusing their control of Force to the point where their weapons changed again, into their more powerful forms.

This was it, then.

I steadied my hands, removed my awareness from the cold, placed knowledge of any discomfort far away. It was interfering, and I could not afford it right now. Force came when I opened myself, shaped along my blades and melted the building frost in an instant. I had to compensate for whatever damage the cold was doing. I ignored all the warnings from my training, about over-extending myself - theory was well and good, but there was no place for theory in the here-and-now, extended my awareness out around myself.

Veniti had spun around, impossibly fast for such a huge creature, his spear whistling through the air to crash into the side of my Shielder, and impossibly, she just stood there, absorbing the power from that blow. I felt a sudden savage pride, whatever Veniti was he would not have expected his attack to just be... ignored. Her shield spun out, becoming a weapon in itself, one that ripped through the air to crash into Veniti. At the same time the Warrior's attack hit the back of the armoured Veniti, and even though there was no visible damage Veniti turned around, snake-quick, whipping out his spear, leaving a glowing orange streak behind it. The Warrior simply turned with the blow, deflecting it with his Greatsword. Force started hammering into Veniti, ranged power from the Wizard and Archer, tight, impossibly fast precision from the Archer striking Veniti's helm, compared to the simply awesome flow of pure raw elemental power from the Wizard that ruptured the air around our opponent with fire and ice. The Force Blader was staying out of range as well, and I could see him perform bind after bind, while at the same time attacking with flows of pure crystallised Force that gleamed dark blue-black as it punched into Veniti again and again.

My turn.

Everything seemed to slow down, momentarily, and I stepped lightly into range, saw Veniti's head turning towards me, keeping track of a possible new target. His weapon had struck the Shielder again, and he was bringing it back in my direction, but slowly, way too slowly. I had enough time to study his armour, magnificently made, but with crucial spaces here and there, essential to allow him to still move. There was no point in me taking on that armour directly, but those small gaps and spaces... Leather, or skin, gave way beneath sharpened Mithril, and then I was past him again.

Movement, keep moving, never give them a stationary target to attack, move over and under every attack, make use of every sense you posses, become like the wind. You are insubstantial, you rely on speed, deception, avoidance rather than brute defensive strength. Lessons drilled into me, repeated over and over, long years of training making them second nature.

I wove my blades into a blur around Veniti, striking and cutting again and again and again, flowing around him. He was suddenly hard pressed, and I wondered how much remained of that earlier calm arrogance. The Warrior had managed to slice through that thick armour, substituting sheer power in place of finesse. I used to laugh at that particular Battle Style, but the sheer animal strength of the big Capella was on an inhuman level.

Veniti, however, had more than just a massive spear as weapon. I wonder, now, if we had not been too confident, if there was something we could have done, if we could have known...

Spikes, made from plant-matter but hard as iron, ripped up through the ground without warning, puncturing and shattering through the stones underneath us, striking towards the ceiling. I twisted out of the way, felt one of them score a deep cut in the armour on my right leg, but I avoided it. The spikes pulled back into the ground, just as rapidly as they had appeared, but they had done their job. There was a sudden shocking silence from behind me, where the Wizard and Force Archer had been attacking from, and I turned, dreading the inevitable...

They were both down, the Wizard lying on her side, and the Archer thrown back, crumpled against the wall, both of them lying at unnatural angles, blood slowly pooling around them. The Force Blader was down as well, huge rents in his armour where the spikes had cut through it, but he was at least moving. The Shielder was still standing, blood flowing down her armour, but she was upright and attacking.

The Warrior... This was fury unleashed, when he saw that the Wizard was down. I got a quick glimpse of his face, and his eyes were actually glowing, a bright, deep red, mirroring the blood on the ground behind us, Force boiling inside him. He seemed to have cast aside the need for defense, swinging that Greatsword as if it was weightless, opening massive gashes in Veniti's armour, driving even that huge monster backwards. Veniti's spear came whistling around, heading straight for the Warrior - who simply met that glowing orange tip with his own Greatsword, stopping it in a shower of orange sparks. Then, impossibly, he simply drove his Greatsword to the ground, cutting clean through whatever metal had been used to forge the spear. In that instant the Shielder punched her blade into the ground again, and the earth shuddered, staggering Veniti - and the Warrior's next attack was another series of spinning cuts, ripping his opponent into pieces.

What was left of Veniti slowly collapsed in front of us, bloody wreckage as shattered as the stones underneath. We looked at each other, and there was no room for words. The Warrior silently moved back to where the Wizard had fallen, his back to us as he knelt next to her.

The Shielder and I moved to the fallen Archer. I closed his eyes, looked at my Shielder.

"He was one of the best." Her voice was oddly emotionless, but her eyes... I looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

"Let's go." The Warrior rose to his feet, and there was nothing in his voice. Nothing at all. "If we stop here they died for nothing. We have to end this. We can retrieve them later, after we are done."

If we can even finish this... I left the thought unspoken.

"I will stay here." The Force Blader's voice was weak, but he was sitting upright. "There is nothing alive behind us, and..." He swallowed, took a deep breath. "I cannot continue like this."

It was a miracle that he was even alive, with wounds like that. Gaping holes in his armour, and his left arm hung at his side - it appeared that he could not even move it.

"We will come back for you." The Warrior's voice was still completely emotionless. "Take care of her, until we get back here here." He looked at me, and the bleeding Shielder. "Are you ready? We finish this, now. Siena dies, today."

The Shielder nodded, and I closed my eyes for a moment. If it would only be that easy...

There was another passage that opened up at the far end of the room, just up the stairs I saw when we first entered. There was a gate, but it had collapsed when Veniti died. I looked at the Warrior, and took the lead.

The passage was a nightmare, one that I will never forget, ever. The stones were barely visible, covered under a thick layer of slime and growths, making walking treacherous. Strange, bulging pods hung from vines that crawled over the walls and ceiling, and the pulsed as if they were alive. The air was almost unbreathable, and it could be compared to walking through a corpse. I had to fight to not throw up, in that darkness. The light and cold from the room where we fought Veniti was a distant memory, lost in heat and stinking humidity.

...you will die here...

...turn around...

That damned voice was whispering from all around us, all the time, and we were unable to block it out.

... you will be ripped into pieces....

...slowly torn apart...

The attacks, when they came, were almost a relief. I could not even make out exactly what we were fighting. Dark wings, whipping vines, and inhuman screeches and roars, the passage became an endless nightmare of blood and pain, one that we had to cut our way through. I kept moving, instinct saving me more than skill, a blind determination to not give up, a knowledge that we could not stop, stopping meant dying, here in the darkness, lost in a hole in the ground underneath the Mutant Forest. I was bleeding from dozens of minor cuts and wounds, blood and sweat making the hilts of my blades slippery, but I never let go. Things, beasts in the darkness, mutated creatures, died in front of me, cut to pieces, and I was fighting on instinct and training alone.

Light was sudden, and almost blinding, after what felt like an eternity in the darkness. I staggered slightly, then stopped when I saw what was waiting for us.

Impossibly huge, a bloated mass of twisted flesh and plant, the entire end of the room we were in was taken up by a monstrous form. Thick vines drifted through the air, apparently moving under the control of the monster, and there, high up and exactly in the centre was what appeared to be a young human woman, or at least the upper body of one - the lower body was hidden, merged into that twisted mass below her.

... you've come then...

I looked at my companions, and hoped I looked better than they did. We were battered, bleeding, covered with green blood and gore and plant growths, and in no apparent shape to fight... But this would end here, one way or the other.

.. come then, Humans... Death awaits you...

Spikes rippled through the ground in front of Siena, because this was her, I was sure of it. Going closer appeared suicidal, if those spikes were the same as the ones Veniti summoned.

There was no other way, now. I opened myself to the Force, allowed it to fill me, drew even more power, throwing caution to the wind, it was reckless to do this when this tired and worn down but I had no choice. This amount of power needed a catalyst of some sort, a release point, and I offered my blades, felt that shaping and changing that I've known a hundred times before. Pure Force blasted out around me, and I fought to control it, to keep it from obliterating me. Bit by bit I struggled to control that power, taming it, bending it to my will, and finally it almost snapped into place.

I stood up, facing Siena, my blades gone, and in their place... Solid Force was shaped along my arms, extending up from my lower arms, forming into three three short blades that extended past my hands. Solid, condensed Force, sharp enough to cut through anything, but I had to get close for these to have any effect.

The Warrior and the Shielder had followed my example, and their weapons were gone as well, replaced by shaped Force. The Warrior was wielding a huge scythe that glowed and crackled, blue-white power visible on the edge of the blade, and the Shielder was holding a single shield, multiple blades extending from the edge.

... come then...

There was only one way forward, now. None of us would be able to keep up these forms for very long, and without them we would die.

The first strike was mine, as I used Force to push myself away from the ground, a jump that was higher than any human could hope for without assistance, and I came down in a dive with those claws extended in front of me, slicing through vines that moved to stop me, opening a cut all the way down the body of Siena. I rolled upright, and saw that I had managed to clear the spikes she had around herself.

The Warrior was cutting a way through, a reaper, scythe flashing as he simply cut down anything in front of him, leaving bleeding stumps where the spikes came from the ground to meet him.

The Shielder was throwing that bladed shield, a spinning weapon that she controlled with crackling arcs of Force, and it cut a bloody swath through Siena's spikes.

I moved, faster than humanly possible, jumping across the body of Siena, using those whipping vines as steps, cutting through them again and again, spinning through the air as Siena tried to stop me. One of the vines slashed across my arm, ripping off my armour and leaving a cut that burned like acid, I ignored it, kept moving; and scored another deep wound on the body of Siena.

My two companions had fought their way past the spikes, and were also attacking Siena directly now, the scythe biting deep into that twisted mass of plant and flesh, the spinning shield leaving terrible cuts across her body.

Siena screamed, and the sound was a physical pain. A vine whipped down, smashing the Shielder into the ground, and it came down for a second blow - only to be cut in half by a glowing scythe. The Shielder struggled upright, and I could see that she was in very bad shape, but I had no time to even look closer.

"Attack the human part!" The Warrior shouted, narrowly avoiding another whipping vine. "We are not having enough of an effect!"

I immediately understood what he meant. Siena was taking some pains to protect that small part of her that still appeared to be human, and there was a dense mass of vines between us and that human figure. I knew what I had to do.

I pushed past my limits, drawing even more Force into myself, ignoring the pain and the price I would have to pay for doing this in my condition. Pure power blasted out around me, crackling like fire, an elemental strength that would certainly kill me. Time became meaningless, now. I jumped again, cutting into Siena's body, launching myself even higher, grabbed a vine that slashed towards my face and used that momentum to propel my self higher again. Vines cut into me, ripping through my armour, but I pushed on, cutting my path towards Siena.

Her movements became frantic, a mass of vines whipping towards me, too many to avoid - and they were cut apart by a thrown scythe that blurred past me. The Warrior had sacrificed his own weapon to open my way. Siena appeared in front of me, or at least her human part, but there was no humanity in her face, and she screamed at me, pure hatred and rage and pain. Shaped Force claws ripped into her, but the blood that appeared was a sick green, not red. With the last of my strength I punched the claws as hard as I could, and cut outwards.

The light in Siena's eyes slowly faded, as everything around me went black, and I was helpless to stop my fall as the world vanished around me.




Some time later...




I woke up in what appeared to be a clean, white room. This was such a cliché that I wanted to laugh, but moving hurt too much.

"He carried you out of there." The soft voice was next to me was that of the Shielder. I slowly turned my head, to see her sitting there, un-armoured now.

"I would not have believed it myself, but once Siena died - and she did die, you killed her - that whole place seemed to collapse. The Warrior actually carried you all the way out, and the Force Blader was still alive as well, if barely so. We managed to find the exit, and there were about 20 Capella waiting out there. Three squads, and if that Warrior wasn't there it would have gone really badly. He stopped them, and ordered them to take care of our wounds."

She stopped talking, stared into the distance.

"I cannot remember much of the next part. We were cared for by Capella healers, I know that much, and the Warrior somehow managed to retrieve our fallen from inside the temple. We were delivered here under a flag of truce, at least." She reached out, took my hand.

"That was almost a month ago. The Sage has ordered that we stand down for another month, to rest, before we are to join the Task Group in the outside sector of Pontus Ferrum. There are talks of a new discovery, and we should move before the Capella Federation does, so..."

I closed my eyes, and could not keep that bitter laugh away even if I tried. No rest for the wicked...



For the good news, Siena the Queen Patch will be released in the Philippines on October 2009. Watch out!

Credits: Cabal EU and Cabal PH