Release

'You know. I was once a young man, much like yourself I think. I didn't really care that much about other people. They were just people who I had the misfortune to run into. Never set much of a mark by them, if you know what I mean. I suppose... I was a bit younger, probably a bit better looking, but I am not gonna hold that against you.

'But back in my day I was just doing what I always did, mining. Yeah I know guy like me a humble miner, but thats life. As I was saying just minding my own business when someone came up to me, and tried to put a stake though me. I know! Someone actually tried to kill me. But anyway, I hadn't spent all that time mining for nothing. I had fairly good size muscles, and a sturdy pick. But most of all I had ore. Now I don't know if you know this, but ore is really small and really hard. So when I though my backpack full of it at him it must have really winded him because he ran away.

'But anyway you are probably wondering why on Earth I am telling you this story, probably thinking that I am wasting the time that you could be outside razing hell with the other guys, but I have a meaning to this story. You see in the time after I though the backpack at him I sorta guessed that he had ran off because there was at least a few hundred coins in ore alone. That made me thing about things. I realised how pointless mining was. I was getting maybe five hundred for a full days work. I thought about becoming a robber like that guy but that didn't seem to be any good. He was happy to get that backpack so there couldn't be that much in it.

'But eventually I got down to what I am doing now. Yeah thatÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s right, I now own that iron mine, I now own the whole south of this town and beyond. Do you know what my secret was? Politics. Nah nothing like those fancy Kings and Queens, just good honest lying. I mean I turned the story of my fight into a newspaper storm. Suddenly people knew who I was, and because of that I did something I have never regretted. I wrote another story, not about my fight but about something else that once happened. About a time where there was lawlessness and people were afraid to go outside. You know what that did? It made people see what was right in front of them. How poor innocent people were attacked in the past for nothing more than a jangle of change.

'Overnight I became huge. I had letters writing for a follow up. I did it of course, and thats when I got rich. I wrote about the world today, as it happened. People couldn't believe it. They walked up to me in the streets and asked me what was going on. I looked round and saw what was happening and showed them a women being ripped off by a fur seller. They stared at him and turned into a mob. I never seen anything like it, they carried him right off. Next day came and the stall was still there, nothing stolen, but no seller. I used my new "looking" skills and there was the same mob, but now they had little buttons sewn on. They had a "CP" on them. They had made the lands safe again. People followed the law, and I was the law.

'Maybe two years later was when it really happened. I got what I needed, backing. I mean my militia was great, it kept order but outside our reach we knew that crimes were going on. Once we got our backing we extended our reach, shops joined up just because of our little uniforms, brown with little blue trim I think it was. That made us great, those little uniforms. The crimes dropped and we noticed that people didn't lock their doors, or attack people at random. The whole town had got its freedom.

'Again you ask why am I telling you this? Well you are gonna go out, you are going to go to the north, where the big business is, where people are paided to watch each others backs, and you remember what happened to me. You remember to lock your door and remember to carry a knife, hell carry a sword. Most of those folk don't bat an eye, even if you draw it! They are expecting you to attack them. Just waiting they are. Just remember will you?'

Grandfather

'So I did, all these years later, after he had gone and died I still remember what he said. I went south a few times after I moved, but it was never felt the same as in the north. I couldn't concentrate on doing anything, without the threat of attack looming at every corner what could I do? I stayed north, it was better I think. Yeah the prices were a rip-off but at least you could run your sword though the stall keepers head.

'Course there was always..."Talk" about the south. It felt like some sort of a plague almost. Everyone was talking about it but no one seemed to want to say exactly what it was that made it so wrong. Many an occasion that I would walk into a bar and someone would be talking about it, loud enough to hear every word. It was always like that. Then there were the rioters. They just wanted to "Go down there and give them a right seeing to, like." Never happened, well if did then we lost because nothing happened. They just sort of stayed there.

'When the city expanded it completely cut them off. We all expected them to give up this silly idea of "Protecting the common good" as they put it. We always had...more "Colourful" ways of putting it. But anyway they just stuck it out, like some huge welt that refused to heal. We tried everything but somehow they still managed to survive. Cut off their supplies and they grow their own, not only that they have the cheek to try to sell us some. So we cut of their resources. They had the only Iron mine, but we had everything else, and Iron was pretty useless now anyway, there was steel but that was only good for cheap stuff. We had better stuff so... Somehow though they did it.

'Heard this funny story once. Heard that they had smuggled a pair of bears into their "Section". We had no idea how they did it, but sure enough there was fresh bearskin and fur a month later. Seemed strange to smuggle a bear in, just to kill it. But it must have been huge because they never ran out, and they only seemed to use bear...maybe because we cut off their other cloths but, who knows? It wasn't the only time something like that happened though. Only weeks after the bears a huge Oak tree was erected at the heart of their section, and a number of pines around it, on the streets no doubt.

'By then we had had enough. We didn't just blockade them, we barricaded them. No one got in, and no one got out, except of course people like me with family. Though I never visited. Those years after it started, thats when it really did become separate. See the king said that every man was going off to fight a war. Now everyone in...Well not there, jumped at the chance to get some good old fighting done. Those inside didn't even notice. Well I went off and did my bit. Sort of expected to be killed, but I got lucky, and met a nice girl out by the border. Married her and she came back with me.

'Now I had got to...what...Thirty maybe. I was already old by our standards but by theirs...well it was unnatural to live past forty and they seemed to all do it. We simply had to act and after a good old war we were spoiling for another one. We formed up and started our attack. Nothing prepared us for the horrors of that summer. You see out in our pure land there were roads that got you where you wanted to go, not round trees and stuff, we just cut them down. This lot though...oh no, they had every place filled with flowers of some kind or another. Just sickening really. Worse was still to come though. We were expecting to find some wide street and kill their men and well pillage the rest of the section. But no, those...I don't know how to describe them. But whatever they are had women and children and those forty year olds that still make my skin crawl. We couldn't just kill everyone like this. They outnumbered us two to one.

'Now we were much better equipped and could have held our own easily, even at three to one. But there was something unnerving about the women, as though they were somehow equal. Thats when we realised it though, it was physiological. They didn't really have flowers and trees in the middle of the roads because they wanted them, their women didn't really know how to fight. It was all an act. They weren't gonna frighten us. Thats when we dug in. We had made only a few meters gains in the first few weeks, and had lost less than a half dozen men. So we fell back to the Barricade.

'That summer had been bad, but just knowing that they were suffering as much as we were was enough. There was the odd party that cracked and ran back to their houses. I have to admit even I felt sort of uneasy there, I thought about returning home but my wife soon put pay to that. See she was pregnant, we sorta thought we might not see each other before the summer so...anyway I know what women are like. My mum had shown me that so I wasn't getting near her. I suppose thats what kept alot of the men there...Well that and good wage, nearly 200 daily. Times of war and all that we were only spending half of that. When the war ends we will be rich.

'Winter slowly dawned and after we missed the harvest we sort of felt the cold a bit deeper. There were no extra rations, in fact half the time there wasn't rations. We ran sorties against them though. The flowers turned out to be actually quite good, but where gone in days. The trees were full of stuff...but no one really wanted a pine cone. But blessed was he that found a bird's egg. I remember climbing that tree and seeing it, like pink gold it was. I didn't eat it of course, sold it. That egg got me nearly 1000 on the first day. If I had kept hold it...well by the end of the winter even rations went for that much. Its only natural to be staving but rich.

'They never seemed to be that affected but we knew. Down there somewhere there were oppressed masses just waiting to be liberated. We slowly made advances though out the spring, till at last we reached one of their check points...It was then we realised we werenÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t dealing with anything Human. We were faced by one man. We saw a target and went for him. By some luck I was in the second wave. I saw it a moment before it happened. Our spears were pointing straight at him...when they charged us from the sides out guys just couldn't turn to face them. It was terrible. A mass slaughtering of our righteous warriors.

'After that we seemed to just send more and more in. We would attack buildings to find them deserted and then be attacked as they crawled out of it behind us. Whatever they were doing they were doing it well....We lost over two thousand men. About a quarter of out forces....what did we have to show for it, twenty kills. Two of them were caused by accident and the other eighteen were more caused by overwhelming them. But two full divisions were taken just to kill this one thing. In a battle like that we were doomed.

'So we withdrew again. We ripped and pillaged all the way back, but to no avail, two weeks later there were reports that it had been repaired. Since then...there have been a few teenagers foolish enough to actually go attack them. None have come back. The monsters killed our own flesh and blood. I know that you will do the right thing and follow in my footsteps. Destroy those monsters before they come an overrun us here. I lived there for nearly sixteen years, it was all nice on the outside, but then there was the stuff they didn't tell you. The stuff that out here is well-know. Like their fiendish murders to keep their peace. They kill anyone that doesn't listen you know. Anyone who raises an objection is hung to death. Its barbaric, to kill people by suffocation. We have always had these "deviants" from the law. We "Converted" them, now they accept our ways. War is what makes us strong and them weak. In a few more years we will crush them, and I am only proud that my son will be fixing my Father's Father's terrible mistake.'

Jaz Fai

Two years later Jaz died. On his death bed he proclaimed that his death meant nothing, and that he wished he could have killed a few more of them before he died. His son, Faya, finally lead an assault on the section and died in the line of duty. Faya's wife was carrying a child, who grew up to be Novik. Novik famously rallied the forces behind him and charged down from the barricade and killed two hundred men women and children. The attack had cost over five thousand lives and was called off for the harvest. His first son defected, but his second son stayed strong and thanks to him the line survived over three hundred years, and finally saw the destruction of the barricade when an Earthquake destroyed it. With it gone the eldest son, then fifteen lead a huge attack and managed to retake the Iron mine, for three days. The counter-attack killed the entire army and ended the 'Fai' line in the old north.

Inside the section, Fai was one of the holiest names, and thanks to Novik's son, Eysope, the line continues to this very day.

Weird, this story seemed to not settle with me, and I don't know why, some undercurrent I'm missing...

Not your best work but written well enough for it not to badly written. Quite frankly, you could improve it greatly if you just broke up that mass of sentences called a paragraph.

I liked the ending though.

(by the way, I hope you are not offended by what I said on Runescape Above and Beyond, I realize I spoke harshly, but the idea is the same. I apologize.)

Ok, I'l go back and maby split it up a bit more.

Undercurrent we perhaps:

The adressing the reader, in the sort of interview style.

The sort of fakeness because I was delibrately taking the mick out of what I was saying.

Or perhaps just the sheer racism that PC has stamped out in the modern world.

I wouldn't leave my door unlocked!!! Someone might steal my Xbox 360!!! lol

Also, I would so run a sword into a shop keepers head. CHA-CHING!!

Going on-topic, This story is really good!!!

Good story that drew me in. Does it by any chance talk about ardougne or falador, because of the mention of holy knights? It's probably ardougne, and the mention of "it felt sort of like a plague" seems to confirm this if you were trying to create a pun. Tell me, at least.

This is one of those moments that rarely happens...to anyone. When a story takes on a new meaning, that had prevouisly not been thought of. I am honoured to have it happen in my story.

Anyway no it was not planned like that at all, if anything it was planned around Varrock, because of the mines... But still I wasn't really refering to anywhere in particular, just sort of came up with the idea.