How Lady Perun, Lord Saladin and Lord Radegast defended a town against Segoth and his forces, Lady Perun: [quote]The three of them picked up large, rough-hewn metal shields. Behind their shields, each held a worn rifle, wrapped with cloth and chain mail. The Pike-riders' faces were now visible through early morning gloom. A man in long red robes pulled his Pike ahead as they screeched to a halt. “Well, well,” said Segoth. “The Iron Wolves.” “Cease your insults,” Saladin barked. Perun shot him a surprised look. “That’s an insult? I kinda like ‘Wolves.’” "Begone, wolves,” Segoth sneered. “These people are mine.” "Wrong," Radegast retorted. "You abuse the powers the Traveler has entrusted us.” Segoth smiled, and shrugged. "Shields up!" Perun shouted. A hail of bullets slammed into their shields. Perun, Radegast, and Saladin slid backwards on the dusty path. But they dug in their heels, and the shields held. "Return fire!" Trapped in the narrow path, Segoth and his warriors fell one by one. Perun, Radegast, and Saladin reloaded and then Segoth was up again, his glowing Ghost at his shoulder. He fired wildly, and a bullet struck Radegast in the head. "Got him!" Perun shouted as Radegast collapsed. "Covering you!" Saladin returned. Perun, Radegast, and Saladin died many more times than any one of Segoth's men. But any time one of them fell, another would cover them until they staggered to their feet again. The shield wall held. The three gave no ground. Finally, his robes singed and ragged, Segoth signaled a retreat. “Iron Wolves!” he shouted as his warriors scattered and a cheer went up from the people in the silver ruins. “I will slaughter everyone who has ever sheltered you!" In answer, Perun shot him again.[/quote] -- Or how Lady Efrideet changed the course of City History, by bringing us a Speaker, Building [quote]Efrideet watches us. Like most of the Risen, she tries to look impassive. Unaffected. But if you listen closely, she's trying to convince us. She wants this. "Listen," she says. "Risen and non-Risen have lived in their separate corners for too long. We're all people. That's all the Iron Lords are trying to say. We should live together." She pauses. "There are things we can teach each other." Two weeks later, once we've packed up everything we can carry, we leave for the place where we'll build the Last Safe City of Earth.[/quote] And Lest we forget the training Lord’s Felwinter and Lord Nirwwn gave to a young studious warlock who later was defined as the smartest warlock to exist; Osiris Garden Progeny: [quote]And for the Warlocks, the already-legendary warrior who had studied with Felwinter and Nirwen themselves: Osiris.[/quote] They waged war against the Warlords. Protected the City against the Fallen in the Battle of Six Fronts. And fought to destroy the “threat” of the Ahamkara. Transfiguration: [quote]"You're sure you want to keep on with the axe?" Efrideet asked, reloading her rifle. The voice in her comms was barely winded, even as the Iron Lord leapt to avoid a plume of white-hot fire. "That's why she gave it to me, I'm one of the only…" A globule of flame licked past Efrideet's helmet, and she tugged at her clasp, shrugging free the now-burning cloak. "Why in the Traveler's crack did you wish to fight an actual DRAGON, old man?" Saladin Forge grinned inside his helmet. The enormous wyrm towered above them, bleeding wounds covering its gleaming scales as it reared up for another breath. The massive axe in his hands was dented, scarred, and melted at the tip. But it still held an edge. "We are knights, Lady Efrideet. Do you not want to be a dragon slayer?" He charged, and his words could barely be heard over the creature's cry. "We are what we survive!"[/quote] The Iron Lords stood tall for years; centuries if history is long enough. If threat to humanity stood; they would defy it. But that’s when it started to fall apart. First the disappearance of Lady Efrideet. Searching: [quote]"That's why you want to leave the City?" I ask instead of condoning the proposal. "You're the one who convinced me to come here." "I'm glad I did," she says, lifting her chin. "But no, that's not it. There's something about this life that isn't… working for me. Seems to me that a Guardian should have more ways of marking this world than with a gun." "That's not how I think of you." She pauses, then leans on the railing. "Sure," she says. "But it's stuck in my muscle memory, all the same. Hundreds of years of pointing and shooting, Speaker…" She shakes her head. "I don't know what it is yet, but I want to find a different way." This conversation feels so familiar. I was so young the last time we had it. "I understand," I say, softer now. "That's a noble cause." She shrugs. "And maybe I come back with a little baby Speaker." She doesn't say it, but the "if I come back at all" hangs in the air between us. "I would appreciate your help," I say finally. "I can't wear this mask forever."[/quote] And then doom befell them. Colovance’s journal entry revealed that Timur had gone mad. Ghost Fragment: The Dark Age 3: [quote]I write this because I fear none of the others knows or senses it. He has been so thorough, so right, until now. Something snapped, infected him, turned him against his own sense of logic and reason. And here I am, left behind to tend the fires and the Ironwood Tree in this budding City, while everyone rushes at his promise of another wonder from yesterday. But I ask you, Traveler, did you cleanse us from these technological disasters to prove we had gone astray? The Light you raised us with points far away from the trappings of a processed Earth, to a nebulous power far beyond the stars. Had we done wrong and this is how you hope to correct us; we, the Light to lead the way? It must be, but even your shattered hull seems like a designed system. Lord Timur has notes upon notes on your runes. Perhaps that is where his madness began. I wonder how long it will be until he thinks you were made by Clovis Bray.[/quote] -- One word spelt their doom; SIVA. A technology that would have changed the game forever if all went according to plan… Lord Timur: [quote]Lord Felwinter, I know what you are. And you are no Warmind or even one of its puppets. Come. You must see this.” He makes a gesture like he’s casting a spell over the sand. “Follow my footfalls; this area’s rigged with dirty Fallen nonsense.” They struggle up the dunes. Felwinter glides ahead. As he lands, a sandstorm rises to meet him. More shanks. Hundreds of them. Behind them, a lone Vandal sniper lays down covering fire. Felwinter, realizing his mistake, runs back toward Timur, shielding himself in the Light of suns. Timur continues forward, grasps the brass familiar around his neck, and closes his eyes. A slight hum rises and his trance takes him deep into the sea of shanks, his trusted Lash raised and tearing his path through the darkness. Felwinter is slow to follow, but fast enough to witness Timur’s focus turn shanks by the pack against their Vandal keeper, chasing him back toward the sea. Timur rushes to Felwinter, examining his head with the intensity of a Cryptarch. “Hmm. Warmind. You are certainly as stubborn as one.” Felwinter awkwardly pulls himself away and out of Timur’s reach. “With all respect, Lord Timur, whatever game you are playing with me has gone on far too long. This is just another Dead Zone.” “Oh, is it?” Timur directs Felwinter’s eyes toward the eastern horizon, where a building crowned with the initials “C.B.” is now in view. “We all have creators — humans, Exo, Warminds, even those poor Awoken. Some are just easier to find.”[/quote]