One Day War

Many civilizations have come and gone.

And many have fallen by sword and blood, only to rise with grace and vengeance, or to fall with honor respect. Many of these civilizations have been lost to time, and many have made their history and their name by returning from the bloodshed and the destruction that had taken them.

But only one stands above all the rest.

The grand capital city of Luxor, the capital of the country of Yesmos.

It was a bright and calm morning when the Orcs and their army came down upon the city in an attack that had been launched seemingly without provocation. They were thousands strong and had come at the behest of a Vibri witch who was on the hunt for an artifact that she had deemed extremely dangerous to the world and also extremely valuable to her and her race. The Orcs, at the ready to lay siege to the city, were forced to wait as a heated discussion took place in the early hours of the morning, between the Vibri, the city's Pharaoh Pthah-Nefer and a powerful knight named Sir Io, who had been charged with the task of overseeing the meeting and attempting to break the strain and come to a peaceful agreement between the two parties. Despite every try to de-escalate, the Vibri commander would have nothing short of the surrender of the artifact and the surrender of the Pharaoh, his army and Sir Io and his band.

Not one to give in easily, Sir Io declined and refused to hand over the artifact or surrender under the commander's terms. Although the Pharaoh was thankful, the commander was much worse for wear, and stormed off in anger, vowing revenge and war if she did not receive what she had asked for.

It was two hours later, and although the city had been cleared away and evacuated - save for the Pharaoh's army at the ready to defend the city - the Orcs descended into the streets and laid waste to whatever they could find. Within hours the fighting had escalated and killed hundreds, and even the palace was deemed unsafe for habitation, given the fact that the commander and her private legion had stormed in to find the artifact, which had been safely hidden away onboard a nearby pirate vessel named the Black Rose, which had come coincidentally for Sir Io and his collective in order to return them to the country of Opron to the east.

Unfortunately, the Black Rose and another vessel were also caught up in the fray and were forced to exchange fire before the other unnamed ship turned her guns on the city when she understood the plight of the war that was taking place. Onboard the Black Rose, Sir Io could only watch as the city was raised to the ground by fire and explosions from the Orc army, and as their commander continued her bloody rampage, searching for an artifact that she would never find. The war continued long into the day, and the great Temple Pyramid at the city's center was also heavily damaged in the battle. This alone would prove to be a turning point as a majority of a surprise group of the Pharaoh's army had been hiding within the Temple's walls to stage a surprise attack in hopes of winning the battle. 

Hopelessly outnumbered and in danger of being cut down himself along with his wife, the Pharaoh ordered a stop to the war as he declared that he would negotiate with the commander in order to save the city and what soldiers were left of his army. Sir Io had already ordered the Black Rose turned into the city river to engage the two high-ranking officials, as he had seen enough bloodshed by this point. It was nearing two in the afternoon at this time, and well over five-thousand Jackal soldiers and roughly a similar amount of Orcs littered the bodies, while hundreds - possibly thousands - more continued to fight for their cause and the hope of their side remaining victorious when the last soldiers fell. During the negotiating exchange, the Pharaoh promised that he would give himself up instead in order to preserve the city and his people who had long since fled for other safe havens around the coast. He would allow himself to be slain if the city and it's people - and the army's remains - were spared, and if she succeeded in finding the artifact she was looking for, she could take it for her own.

The Vibri, angered at the fact she still hadn't been given what she had wanted, turned wildly on the Pharaoh and attempted to kill him, but despite the Pharaoh's willingness, he would not be killed.

Instead, it was the Vibri Commander who had run her course of time. Sir Io had taken her by surprise and had declared that no side aligned with darkness would achieve their distorted light, and he cut her down in front of the Pharaoh, almost in cold blood. He then ordered the Pharaoh to leave the city, as he was going to destroy every trace of what had happened that day to thousands of innocent lives who had been killed for a senselessly needed object that was the belonging only of it's family. When the Pharaoh asked what the object was, Sir Io simply said that it was his own business to take care of, and that it was "The third and final generation of my people.". Finished with his business, he turned into the city and made his way to the ruined palace, while the Pharaoh, his army and his wife escaped to the highlands. In a prophetic display akin to the Red Sea of Moses in Egypt, Sir Io displayed his true powers as a heaven-sent angel who had come to find his long-lost granddaughter, the supposed 'artifact' that the Vibri had been searching for before beginning the war. He ordered that the waters of the ocean and it's tides be blown into the city to destroy the remains of the war and whatever had been involved in it, and since most of the Orc army had failed to recognize their leader's death and the total evacuation of it's people, they perished in the tsunami that swallowed the city whole.

Even the Valley Of Pharaoh's - home to statues of Luxor's rulers throughout history - was ruined and statues were destroyed, but the city was a complete loss. 

It followed not long after Sir Io left that the Pharaoh and his army walked through their home, examining what was left. There was nothing that could be saved, and they would be forced to move on elsewhere, but the Pharaoh recognized that the time of Luxor and it's kings had come to an end, and that future generations - whoever they might be - would learn from their mistakes and would come to understand the fruitless acts of war that had destroyed their beloved home. So the army departed to the nearby city of Besta, only a few miles to the west along the coast, to deliver the news. The Pharaoh and his wife remained behind in Luxor and the Valley, and history claims that they jumped from the highest statue and to their deaths, to end the time of the Pharaohs and the Old Kingdom that they had sustained for thousands of years. With their deaths, the kingdom of Luxor began to fall without proper leadership, and it is said that the city of Setka, to the east of the remains of Luxor, was the last of the Old Cities to fall before their time came to an end.

After that, their time became ancient history, and the adventure of Sir Io and his band came to an end, and they were never seen in Rethium, or elsewhere on Tarris Six again.