274 Fallen Angels III : Larkin, The Josagn, & The Toroth

Galadriel and her Nephilims offered to lead us to a safe place. The aviary as it stands was not really at peace, but we needed to have a sit down with her and understand what the fuck was happening in as much detail as possible.So we flew, Asha and me had to rely on our aura, and Bobo had to carry Siren in her claws as we made our way upwards.

The thirteen islands were separated in between the thirteen clans of the Nephilim, with each clan having a stint at being a royal family for a minimum of three hundred years and a maximum of four hundred before the mantle of ruler gets switched to the next clan in line.

Much in the same way that the pit was a prison, the Aviary also had a functioning society. Though they had it much better than the vampires, seeing as they were left mostly alone, and the guards and warden here only messed with them when they felt threatened, or any of the rules that they had set aside for the Nephilim had been broken by anyone of them. Those rules were the main shackles that the guards had on the Nephilim, and any time it was broken, even by a child; there was no iota of leniency involved. They were all killed.

The Nephilim also had seals placed around their necks, and theirs was still very much active. But it was similar to a slave seal, rather than the absolute lock of a seal that was the one placed on the vampires. They couldn't see or access their systems, but they had classes and could use the skills and abilities from those classes as long as they trained and practiced hard enough.

These were the explanations they quietly whispered to us, as we flew underneath the floating islands. Galadriel and her people were now considered rebels and insurgents, so flying outside openly was nothing more than flashing a giant beacon, yelling that weaver that he could come find them.And he was dangerous enough as a weaver, but somehow he had a significant amount of the Nephilim population under his control and serving him, as we've seen from those two Nephilim guards he sent to meet me and Asha when we arrived.

Galadriel led us in a round about manner around the islands. And seeing how big the damn things were, it took quite a while to canvass a significant portion of it.She led us close to the central island, the biggest one around, and flew close to it, practically hugging it's frame in an impressive display of finesse and skill, as she maneuvered beautifully with her snow white wings. Her soldiers flew in a formation, and the captured Nephilim was placed in nets in between two of them, and based on how easy it was for them to carry the prisoners, I can safely assume that Nephilims are quite powerful in the physical department also.

A tiny amount of mist or clouds was gathered around the base of the main island, if it was any thicker, I don't think I would have been able to find the aviary in the first place. The body of the island, even with its massive gears, and glowing rune circles, had very thick traces of vegetation growing underneath it. I could see trees, like an entire grove of them, growing across it, with water streaming through a predetermined path, unaffected by gravity as a whole, but still releasing random droplets to the ravine below and rushing river within it. After about fifteen minutes of careful flying, we came upon a cave at the side of the island, safely and very well hidden from any prying eyes. Heck if you didn't know what you were looking for, you would have gone right past the place without being none the wiser.

There was a thin curtain of water falling in front of the cave, like a waterfall. There were vines with bright red and neon green glowing flowers growing on them. The vines clung to the very edges of the cave, and also fell down like a curtain behind the tiny waterfall. The arrangements was to peculiar to be likened to a natural phenomenon. And it proved my point when Galadriel went towards the front of the curtain of vines and water and spoke out loud, flapping her wings amidst the sounds and flow of buffering winds.

"In nominee patri et filii et spiritus sancti."

"What the fuck!" I exclaimed as the curtain of water and vines retracted back up into the.....well into nothing. It just disappeared. But what really shocked me was the phrase she just used, it was Latin, and very famous one back on earth.

My outburst had drawn everyone's attention to me, but I just coughed and smiled at Galadriel, signaling with my head that we should keep on moving forwards. She flew into the opening in front of her, and I followed being with the others following close behind. Thankfully the cave was big enough to let in Bobo, even with Soren clutched In her claws.

We came up into a huge sewage pipe, I wasn't really surprised by the size, because I had bigger one back in Ethernalia Leonis, with the secret underground mechanical city Malek had built in an effort to make Ethernalia Leonis mobile. The pipe wasn't really long, just about sixty to seventy meters, before it came to an end at a metal gate. From this point on, we started walking as Galadriel opened the gate by inputting a security code into a key pad at the side of the gate, and even went as far as having her handprint analyzed.

The gate slide down, and spread out before us was underground world, made of pipes, steams, and tents. Lots and lots of tents. Galadriel took flight, going over the entre population of famished children, sick individuals and dying Nephilims. This place was like a refugee camp, even with how much Nephilims I could see, it was entirely and completely desolate, there was no hope to be felt or even seen, no laughter, just pain, and the smell of sickness and death.

We drew attention to ourselves, after all it was not everyday you saw two people flying without wings, and having a glowing outline on their body as they flew, and as if that wasn't enough, there was giant dragon, that seemed to be flying, however it's wings weren't really moving and it was covered in a green aura just like the two people in front. Also the dragon had a massive metal lion clutched in it's claws, and based on the offer dad look on the lion's face, it felt embarrassed.

Galadriel led us across the entire camp, and it was about the size of three foot al fields, and almost every square inch of it was filled with suffering Nephilims. At the end of the camp, she took us through another gate, going through the same procedure, and leading us through another tunnel, before we came out of what I would call a military base. It was cleaner, obviously and the soldiers here looked better fed and well taken care of than the people at the camp, and to be honest it left a bad taste in my mouth.

She led us toward a cargo container, well actually it was a couple of them that seemed to have been welded together into some sort of building or command center. As soon as she dropped in front of it, all of the Nephilims around, saluted by slamming their clenched fist across their chest. She gave them a simple nod, and moved forward to catch a two year old Nephilim girl that came running straight into her arms. Galadriel hugged her tightly, and in front of my very shocked eyes, the girl fell asleep almost immediately."

"This is my daughter Ariel, she's just two years old. And much like many other children before her, she's been unfortunate enough to watch her own mother kill her father to save her life. But that's a story for another time, I believe some explanations are in order, please come in."

And with that said she went into the ingeniously fashioned house, built from ship containers. I wonder where they would even get those from. The interior was Spartan, and quite drab. Anything that was here was just the bare essentials, which led me to believe that this place was built for functionality rather luxury.But at the very least it served whatever purpose it is she requires it for.

"About 4 years ago, the Aviary was given a new warden, since the old one was quite advanced in age. He was young, handsome and kind and he claimed to be different from every other human that had come before him. We at first found that hard to believe because he was for all intents and purposes a weaver. The very same kind of person who put collars on our necks, and clips our wings with a single twitch of his finger. Larkin was....is a very charismatic person, and with the ability to remove our seals, granting freedom to a few random Nephilim, we all thought that he was the next best thing. Some of us, got a little closer to him than normal, maybe even a little too close.

And then that's when Nephilim started disappearing, at first it was just the commoners, the ones people won't remember. The beggars and the homeless, and when people who actually cared about them noticed, they raised an uproar. But of course these were the beggars, the dregs of the society, so who cared what happened to a couple of unproductive individuals, when it didn't hurt anyone in the long run.

Just about a year after he came here, he invited a few friends, and by few I meant an entire battalion of the alien race known as the Toroth, or to be more specific, an offshoot variation of them called the Josagn. A species of featherless bird man like alien, that hunted exotic races for sport, and were big players with the inter-planetary slave trade market.

At that point, there was no need to hide his true intentions anymore, as scores of our people were captured, hunted, sold, and even bred with other species. I was one of those bred, and it was a terrible experience, but the gift I received from it is one I would never throw away or regret having. But this was a sin against my people that I couldn't allow to continue. It was my duty as queen to protect mg people, and I failed, miserably.

Larkin and the Josagn have total control over all thirteen islands, and Larkin is a weaver with mind control soul runes, his runes as so powerful he could practically rewrite the very soul of a person, changing the fundamentals of their existence forever.And to make matters worse, he has control over the sealing array that monitors and administers our seals. And with it, he can magnify the power of his runes, and weave on any Nephilim that he can reach.

This bunker and the entire engine rooms, are running on an entirely separate power grid, built over countless years by Nephilim who came before us. This place is like a supernatural Faraday cage, that isolates us from the reach and control of the sealing array, at least for a little while. And the effects seems to linger on for about an hour or two when we go outside. But at this point, we're already at our wit's end, you're our only hope now.

And ever since the oracle foretold of your arrival four days ago, we've been waiting, and when I saw Larkin talking to you, I feared it was already too late. Please, we're running out of food, ammunition and we're all seriously too weak to put up much of a fight against Larkin. He has spies everywhere, so much so that no decision taken against him escapes his awareness.

Please I'll do anything, to save my people, to save my daughter. And you've done it once before, so I'm asking you to do it once again. Please free us from this bondage, I beg you."