The Flayn Invaders

One hundred years previous, the Flayn Monarchy, an intergalactic empire thirsting for more worlds to bring under Emperor Gjade VII's rule, sent Gabridarço ships to the planet of Sensour. Sensour, a pre-space travel world with unplundered resources, became an easy target.
Or so the Flayn thought.

Miguel Aguire, Adobe Stock

Picture supposedly taken of the Gabridarço expedition base ship. It looks big to me, and I have a hard time believing that no one on Sensour noticed its arrival until a Moon acolyte spied it through a telescope.
Of course, I've been dead for centuries. Perhaps my understanding of living technology is off. I thought that the leading technological countries at that time had spacecraft that could orbit the planet and others that conducted research in space.

Research:
The Flayn Invaders

by our new scholar, Yvazhera

In this Research Document:

all images by Shanda Nelson
unless otherwise stated

*Author's Note*
Lorgan is . . . gone. I don't know where, I don't know why. I thought he snuck in another Redemption, but gossip points to, um, other reasons.
I enjoyed reading his little snippets, meant to quickly get one up to speed on the Evenacht--and to bring more modern information to the older spirits. His work helped me greatly while I acclimated to ghostly life, and then took up the robes of a Finder. So, in keeping with his endeavor, I, Yvazhara, will take up his pen and his paper, and write the bits and pieces that new (and ancient!) ghosts can read for a fast dip into topics.

*FYI: What we know of the Flayn Monarchy comes from the Gabridarço ghosts. The most popular book on the Monarchy is Shattered Glass: A Memoir by Eyne Dorsteldyn, the founder of Badeçasyon.
Some view it as a propaganda tool to keep the faelareign ghosts from doing more harm to the Gabridarço by claiming a common hatred for the Flayn, but I think, for the most part, he's being truthful in his assessments.
Also: thanks to Topazine Sterze, for getting me the photos. How did he get pictures from the land of the living to the land of the dead? He said don't ask, so I didn't. But, as you all know, we nymphs are a resourceful lot.

The Flayn

An empire based on the planet Gabridarç, The Flayn Monarchy saw unimaginable wealth in the plunder of worlds that had not yet devised interstellar travel. Bloated from the previous successes and lusting for more, when scouts discovered an inhabited planet ripe for plunder, Emperor Gjade VII eagerly jumped at the chance to subdue yet another technologically unadvanced resource.
Thedeçe Suyove offered to lead the take-over. He did not anticipate difficulties, since the Flayn's technology far outshone the medium-sized target. He commanded enough ships to scare the life out of the inhabitants by sheer numbers, and sent an expedition to prepare the way.

For the ancient ghosts who don't know, the Gabridarço are a species that looks like a green-scaled dragon that walks on two hind legs, has an enormous tail, and is twice as tall as a faelareign. The have three fingers with cloven claws and no body hair.

Oddly enough, when the Gabridarço spirits entered the Evenacht, they no longer had their dragon aspect. They looked like a faun who had stopped shapechanging into a deer halfway through, with lots of fur, bit ears and really nice hair. No one knows why.

The Expedition

A Moon acolyte accidentally discovered the Flayn expedition three semma after arrival, during a pretty display of atmospheric auroras. Before the main fleet arrived, the Gabridarço, under Imsi Yeveç, began the assault.
From what Dorsteldyn wrote, Yeveç's orders were to wait a year for the main fleet, but seeing an opportunity to establish her name and reputation, she led incursions onto the planet.
She crashed and was taken prisoner, but having already begun the assault, the expedition continued their attack without her. Leadership fell to Kirte Masçyon, who, if anything, was more bloodthirsty than Yeveç.

An expected, easy victory for the Gabridarço turned into a year-long battle. The fighting was a toss-up, with desperate Sensour militaries battling against smug Gabridarço pilots who continuously underestimated their foe.
The planet's most significant countries, in a feat not seen before or since, banded together to repel the invaders. They met the enemy in orbit, on the ground, in the air. The expedition lost attack crafts, weapons and armor, which were snatched up by the Sensour fighters and taken to secret facilities for study.

The expedition, desperate for a win, made an all-out assault on the elfine citadel of Vendellisin, the capital of Bellefallis, a country in Talis. The Vendells had Yeveç imprisoned there, and the Gabridarço wanted her back.

The Gabridarço had not planned for populations that wielded magic, or that said magic would be involved in the defense of the planet. (They sent scouts. Did they not bother to scout?)
The Talin nymphs, inspired by years of research into underwater dome safety, created spells that effectively breached hulls and downed spacecraft. On the other side of the planet, the Mincardoin exclesiastical spirins relied on thousands of years of Light practice to create weapons whose beams cracked infantry invaders' armor.
Whatever magic populations had, they used.

Vendellisin Pic Credits

Vendellisin, Bellefallis

Vendellisin

For ancient ghosts, the elfine Vendells are descendants of the Fasinebelle Chantocracy. Ten thousand years previous, the Chantocracy was a powerhouse of magic, on par with many nymph cultures. Their scholars researched and studied the intricacies of spells, and their children's children used what they discovered to create a weapon called an elerial mavine, or metal carver (sounds so poetic in Elfine Rustic, doesn't it?).
Led by an elfine Earth priest named Teselleden, an elite force used the beams to tear through and melted the metal on the transport and three-man ships the invaders sent to decimate Vendellisin. Their crafts could not evacuate to orbit, let alone fly. The survivors of the forced landings took shelter in the Jiya Forest and called for help.

casing by vanitjan, Adobe Stock Images
center circle by BOT cookie, Adobe Stock Images

Big Gun

Instead of rescue, Masçyon ordered the landed soldiers to storm the city, a supposedly simple endeavor since Vendellisin had no fortifications of significance. Once they had it under their control, he would send backup to retrieve them and Yeveç.
The invaders detached the spacecraft weapons and bolted them to makeshift sleds, then drug them through the city. The carvers worked somewhat on them, but only after their shields shattered.
In three days, they ripped a smoking pathway to the citadel, destroying buildings and killing all they encountered. Once there, they detonated a device at the citadel's base, bringing down the southern cliff and the city council building with it. They rescued Yeveç, but their retreat was cut off by human and faun reinforcements, and their weapons ran out of power.

The ensuing battle was a loss to both sides; fewer than 500 Gabridarço, of an estimated 5000, fled down the remains of the southern cliff and retreated into the Jiya, and over 75% of the defenders had died or were wounded. Vendellisin, a once-vibrant city of 1.5 million and considered the center of elfine art and extravagance, was reduced to rubble.
The defenders and citizenry who remained rallied around Teselleden and a Keel kappan named Arrous Rashak. He fortified the northern city and prepared for a final defense.

No Gabridarço reappeared to do battle. After five days, and buoyed by reinforcements from Keelsland, Teselleden and Rashak sent scouts to nose around the Jiya. They returned with horrid tales of finding enemy bodies torn to shreds and left to rot, but they also brought a gift; communication devices and orders. It was the first time anyone on Sensour had access to the empire's written language, and they shared it far and wide. Researchers were able to learn enough from the unexpected boon to prepare several cities before 'surprise' attacks occured.
FYI: At the time, no one knew what had killed the enemy. Now, knowing that syimlin fought alongside mortals in the conflicts, most scholars think Nature and Darkness eliminated the threat.

Revenge

Masçyon, furious at his lack of progress, decimated the expedition, sending his soldiers to kidnap strong whizan, mafiz and the like, trying to figure out the baffling magic technology Sensour used against them.
Captured beings proved no help; none could transfer their ability to use magic to the invaders, and then they ended up disappearing, no matter the strength of their confinements. In a fit, and desperate for a win to show his commander when he arrived, Masçyon emptied the expedition's energy reserves by using a space canon to destroy the largest city on the continent of Eldive, Boun, population 3 million.
(No, they didn't call it a space canon. They called it a side-sitting sporshific beam. What's a sporshific? *Shrug*)

Gloating at his success, Masçyon turned the canon on what remained of Vendellisin, seeking revenge. He did not have a chance to fire; the rest of the Flayn fleet showed up, and he got to explain to a furious Thedeçe Suyove what was going on.
Suyove initially did not believe the tales of magic and thought Yeveç had perished due to her own recklessness. He sent envoys to capitals across Sensour. The leaders, knowing too well the outcome, defiantly sent the Gabridarço, whole or not, back to their fleet.
The envoys who survived reported on fantastic native capabilities. Fascinated, seeing opportunity in this new technology, Suyove changed his initial destructive orders and sought to capture those who used magic, as Masçyon had attempted.

Death

Before the rest of the fleet arrived, Sensour governments believed they could defeat the interstellar invaders. After the fleet arrived, and beholding an invasion force of four hundred ships with hundreds of thousands of enemies on board, they despaired.
Seeing the fatal end of Sensour's peoples, a lowly Keel soldier by the name of Verryn told his commanding officer, Kappan Rashak, that he knew of a way to destroy the fleet. Convinced that the man had discovered a magic cache of weapons, Rashak collected a small group and followed Verryn into the twilight forest in Keelsland.

Meanwhile, Suyove had heard that magical items of immense power lay in the Keelsland city of Mandebek (now part of the capital, Yimbarkaine). Anyone could use them, not just those who wielded magic.
He sent an invading force to snatch what they could find, exterminating any who opposed them. He smugly waited in his official receiving chamber to accept the plunder, idly chatting about what he would do once he became emperor using this strange technology.
And then he fell forward, onto his face, without trying to catch himself. People rushed to his aid--he was already dead.
Everyone else in the chamber, including Eyne Dorsteldyn, collapsed. And died.
And so did everyone on the ship. And in the fleet.

Verryn did have a secret magic weapon, I suppose.
Death.
Her attack was two-fold. She personally took the Gift of Life from the invaders at Mandebek, and then joined with other death deities from around the globe. Their combined assault obliterated the Gabridarço fleet, in a matter of moments.
The Flayn Empire expected to roll over soft resistance and decimate Sensour's population, taking its resources for themselves. Instead, they encountered a stronger foe and lost.

It's my understanding that the ships are still up there, in orbit. Scientists and scholars from Sensour research the vessels, attempting to understand the foreign technology.

Death Comes Pic Credits

Death Comes

still from the action picture

Aftermath

Sensour was in turmoil. Not only had they fought interstellar invaders with a great loss of life, but the beings who defeated them obliterated them in moments. Why had they not done so before? Why let the suffering continue for so long?
Ga Son had several answers, and few liked the responses.

• Deities fought alongside mortals, and were the deciding factor in many battles. If the deities had declared who they were, how many would have thought them divine, rather than powerful magic wielders with too-large egos? How many would have continued to trust them?


• Death deities' duties do not include killing on a mass scale. The Beast was the warning for all. When the larger fleet arrived and it seemed more harm than good would come from keeping that covenant, Erse Parr convinced the other death deities to intervene, and they acted. They will carry the guilt for eons.


• A message needed to be sent to the Flayn Empire, but he was uncertain this was the correct one. They may attempt an even larger attack, with deadlier weapons and far more loss of life, to salve their fury over their failure.

It cannot be overstated, how shocked Sensour living populations were, to discover the deities they thought myths and legends were alive, well, and unworshipped by the masses for centuries (since ghosts meet their respective death deities upon passing, we know that deities exist).
It cannot be overstated, how shocked scholars were, to discover several well-liked, well-respected deities were nothing more than figments of mortal imagination The shock was compounded, when they realized others, who had few, if any, tales to tell, were real and not exactly thrilled with the neglect.
It cannot be overstated, how shocked many religious leaders were, to discover their deities were real and not made-up grifts. Why had they not made their presence known earlier?
Answer: They had. It was up to mortals to decide whether to believe it or not. And the majority had not.

Several other things happened:

• a push to find lost artifacts, in case the Flayn attempted to retrieve them.


• reinvigoration of religious conviction.


• peace settlements; the Flayn was a far worse enemy than traditional Sensour rivals. Coinciding with this, beings the world over began celebrating the Day of Death on Darkfall 2:10. It is a time of communities coming together to celebrate and honor the victims and heroes of the conflict, and participate in cultural festivals to highlight the best Sensour has to offer.


• Keelsland built a research retreat for the study of the Flayn and their technology. The received permission from death deities around the globe to collect information from the Gabridarço ghosts, to learn their language and their technology. This is an unprecedented collaboration, since there are strict rules about the interaction of the living and the dead.


• a concerted effort to increase military magical research funding.

Strangely,

• instead of another invasion force, the Flayn set up a barrier around Sensour. They didn't even attempt to retrieve the ships or the bodies, just left them to float in space. From what I have gathered reading interviews with Dorsteldyn, it appears we scared the empire, and they have forbidden contact by anyone of their empire with our planet.


• yes, this is worrisome, because their ultimate plans concerning Sensour are unknown.


• the invaders' ghosts entered the evening lands associated with whichever death deity took their Gift of Life. Neither they, nor the deities, know how to get them to their homeworld, so they can enter their own afterlife--if they even have one. Due to the Flayn withdrawal, there's little opportunity on that front to gather information.


• this has led to a flurry of research conducted by Dorsteldyn at Badeçasyon, attempting to contact any beings in the Gabridarç afterlife. In a way, it's too bad so many ghosts have such low opinions of the invaders, because they've created some unique and interesting technologies in the process.