Originally published 1/30/2019.
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Entho's Onslaught
In the 2880s, three siblings had decided to continue their career of developing man-made islands somewhere between New York and Normandy. They had many projects before then, but this was their largest endeavor. Development of the island took seven years, and numerous caverns and an underground system were slowly formed. The island had no name at the time. The island was up for sale for a few years, until somebody finally purchased it. This person was named Entho.
Entho was the name history has given him, and by now his birth name is unknown. Entho was a warlord who had taken the island so that he could silently use it for illegal businesses. He named it “Entho’s Island,” likely due to his pride in himself. According to some studies, Entho may have been the leader of a religious cult and gang previously, but these studies have not been proven correct yet. Entho primarily used the island for human trafficking and storing weaponry, but he slowly gathered followers with promises of wealth and protection.
While much is unknown about his religion, Entho had created his own set of beliefs for his followers and told them that the gods want him to rule. Entho started to attack and fight countries, and the war was known as “Entho’s Onslaught” due to him naming most of his property after himself.
Entho’s followers abducted people in other countries and sent them to his island. He had a fortress built near a seaside cliff and developed some facilities on the island for his soldiers. He used the strength of underground tunnels to easily transport between areas quickly.
The most dangerous weapon Entho had was a man-made plague that he engineered to use as a weapon. However, since it was in early stages during the war, the weapon was not used very often. It was known as “Entho’s Plague,” for obvious reasons.
Clones and regular soldiers were used in the war. The clones were raised from birth to fight, and the only clones used were Dolly-type and female. They helped greatly against Entho’s forces.
A notable hero was Encre Garen. Encre was the general of one of the armies fighting against Entho, and most successful attacks were done under his command. Encre managed to fight and even kill Entho in combat. As a result, prisoners on the island were freed and the Universal took control of the island. The Universal named the island “Garen” after the general, and the island became a small country with the main location being Garenburg.
Entho’s defeat caused the liberation and peace to be regained on the island, but it allowed what would happen a few years later to happen: the most destructive war to occur in history, the Lunacy.
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The Lunacy
Now liberated from Entho’s rule, people imprisoned on the island celebrated and slowly built the island to become greater. The people on the island decided to become a singular country rather than a part of one of the neighboring locations.
Very shortly after Entho’s death, his remaining followers issued the final onslaught: a more perfected version of Entho’s Plague. The plague caused insanity, mania, hallucinations, and of course death. However, the plague killed their victims slowly and had little to no symptoms until it was too late.
Encre Garen had married the clone soldier Violetta Avana, and they had two children. The children were Marjory, the eldest, and Harold, the younger brother. They all lived in Garen Manor, which was built into the side of the Encre Mountain Range. When Harold was only a few years old, he was killed by a few of the remaining followers of Entho. In his rage, Encre hunted down and killed each member associated with his son’s death. To make the murderers suffer more, he used an iron to torture them. Encre was sent to an asylum shortly afterwards, and he died a few days later of Entho’s Plague.
After the death of her son and husband, Violetta started to lose her mind and she grew sick. Marjory was left to be taken care by their maid, Victoria. On occasion, Marjory’s aunt Lavender would visit the home. Lavender never stayed for a long time however, and Marjory felt lonely and slowly gained depression.
Around that time, an orphan boy named Russell would appear around an old carpenter named Garry Lowod’s shop. Garry treated Russell like a grandchild, and occasionally his actual grandchildren Daniel and Katherine would appear and play with Russell. Russell was adopted by a stranger eventually, and in his free time he visited Garry’s shop.
However, Garry was killed by bandits who invaded his shop a few months later. Garry had ordered a knife for carving wooden sculptures with Russell’s name on it, and it was used by the bandits to murder Garry. Russell found Garry’s body, withdrew the knife, and murdered his stepfather. On that night, he ran into Garenburg Woods and found Garen Manor. Victoria decided to let Russell stay for the night, unknowing about Russell’s crimes.
Russell and Marjory became close, and Russell was taken into their home. Shortly afterwards, Violetta died from her illness. Marjory grew more broken and started to have anger issues. Russell bonded with her due to his similar feelings. The two started to grow angrier and wanted people to suffer like them, and they would start a massive war soon afterwards.
Russell became fascinated with astronomy when he discovered a black book in manor one night. He loved the stars and space, but he felt that the moon was tainted by humans due to the construction of cities above the planet.
Marjory had some military access when she grew older due to links to her father, and with this she was able to gather access to some weaponry along with having more information on the military of the island. Russell gained access to confidential information about Entho’s Onslaught this way.
Russell first gathered followers across Garenburg through similar ways to Entho, but he also kidnapped children and raised them into believing a belief system he formed known as Sartolg. Sartolg states that Russell is the one who must free the Celestial King, a deity, from the moon. The only way to do this is by destroying the sun. There was also statements about how Russell is to fail, someday he will return in a new form and continue his onslaught.
After collecting followers, he had the devout go to different countries and try to assassinate figures while under pledge to a different country. There were numerous riots and political arguments between countries from this, but eventually after a member made a mistake and didn’t successfully escape the blame was placed on Russell.
Once Russell was revealed to be responsible for the assassinations, Marjory unleashed Nitrogen Nukes on various sectors of the world. Millions died from the attacks. To prevent an all-out nuclear war, countries were prohibited from attacking Garen via nuclear weapons. Garen also had important technology developments that were critical to most countries’ economies, so destruction by nuke would cause a loss of income and advances.
Nitrogen Nukes were banned from usage and creation prior to Entho’s War, but there was a recorded message found between likely Russell’s forces and a supplier for the nuclear weaponry. The supplier remained anonymous and was never found. It is unknown how he or she gained access to the weaponry.
Russell reused many tactics that Entho did, but where Entho failed, Russell succeeded. He modified Entho’s Plague to be more contagious and even have a vaccine that protects his soldiers from contracting the plague and it was used very often during combat. This was extremely effective and deadly and was a major contribution to Russell’s forces. Russell also used clones in battle, unlike Entho.
Russell and Marjory were dubbed the Lunar Lunatic and the Riflebird due to Russell’s obsession with the moon and how the Garen cress displayed a riflebird. The war that the two started caused nearly 2 billion deaths total, from casualties in combat, assassinations, bombings, and enslavement.
Meanwhile, there was one critical line of defense against the Lunatic. Daniel and Katherine Lowod, coincidentally the grandchildren of Garry Lowod, led forces against the warlords. Similarly, to Russell and Marjory, Daniel was the leading fighter and more iconic leader while Katherine planned out attacks and strategies.
The finishing onslaught that was done against Russell’s forces was broken into two parts. The first segment involved Lavender Avana, the aunt of Marjory, in a long series of years so that she can be moved to a cloned body of herself. Since Lavender and Violetta were twin clones, having Lavender looking exactly like Marjory’s mother could give them an advantage. Marjory had missed her mother’s death due to being busy and not knowing about her mother’s state as she passed away, which resulted in her having a guilt for never saying a goodbye. Lavender was able to use this to the advantage and successfully slay Marjory while she was distracted.
The second phase was known as the Battle of Garenburg. Daniel Lowod went in battle with his troops to Garen Manor to fight Russell, and while many of Daniel’s forces were slain in combat, Daniel was able to make it to Russell and successfully fight against the Lunatic. The two dueled, and in the end they both took each other’s lives.
Shortly after losing both their leaders, Russell’s forces dispersed and collapsed. The Solstice, Daniel’s military, took control of Garen soon afterwards. With Katherine wanting to manage a family, she passed down the role of being the second president in her brother’s place. The job went to Vincent Caris instead, one of Daniel’s trusted military leaders.
The war had ended, but not without its cost. There was still major destruction and ruin worldwide from the reign of the two, and to fix the mistakes of Russell and Marjory, there would have to be major new developments.
Except that never happened, because with the end of the Lunacy was the beginning of a dark age for the world and the impending end of the world.
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Post-Lunacy: The Witch Hunt, Russell Lives, and the Invasion
Shortly after the end of the war, there was a massive shift in government due to the Solstice taking control of Garen. With Vincent Caris as the new leader of the country (besides the Solstice Council), the country started growing back to what it had intended prior to the Lunacy. However, there was a heavy lack of funds and debt the country owes for damages from the war. Garen became often referred after the war as Garenburg despite Garenburg being the main city to distinguish it from Encre’s name. Encre remained a respected figure but was criticized for his daughter, despite being dead long before the Lunacy’s beginning.
As the country recovered, there was a confidential leak about how somebody had supplied the Nitrogen Nukes to the Lunatic. There was a large scare as the extended healthcare could allow somebody to live past 200 years and still be in a good mental condition, meaning whoever contacted Russell could still be alive and use the bombs themselves. A hunt was caused known as the Witch Hunt, in which the supplier was called the “witch.” The hunt ended in a failure, with the fright causing chaos and lack of trust in the country for a long period of time.
There was an incident in which some soldiers were murdered by a traitor in 3098. The traitor was successfully murdered, but he claimed to do it in the name of Russell Garen. It was discovered shortly afterwards that some remaining Sartolgians, known as “RUSSELL LIVES,” had been plotting an attempt to find a candidate to turn into a “Russell,” or the person to free the Celestial King. The reasoning as to why the traitor attacked under RUSSELL LIVES’ orders was labeled confidential by the Solstice, and until somebody access Oval Tower, there is no way of knowing why.
On the topic of the structure, Oval Tower was built on a small island close to Garenburg. The tower was made to hold confidential experiments. However, Vincent Caris secretly did illegal experiments inside Oval Tower. Marian Carfling, a member of RUSSELL LIVES who had access to Oval Tower’s logs, betrayed Vincent and revealed everything he had done in the tower, specifically the [REDACTED]. This caused him to lose his role of being president and he was sent to serve a sentence in Victoria’s Prison for his treasonous acts. He died two months later in prison.
After Vincent left, Katherine Lowod decided to take the role as president since she had now grandchildren. She had the most reform and economic developments the country had seen since the end of Entho’s War.
As time passed, the country slowly grew better but still had issues. There was a large amount of gang violence in the 33rd Century, and this caused less technological advances. However, gang violence came to a halt and there was a major scientific advance towards the end of the century.
A man supposedly “of another world” was found trying to access logs of Oval Tower to locate something. He had been dubbed “Anubis” by many people. Police and Solstice military forces found him in cave on a beach. He managed to escape, but he left behind a shard of something bizarre and a book with some notes.
It turned out that the shard was of a device called the “Retrograph,” an object that came from a distant world. This confirmed the Geovanni Theory of multiple worlds, and some notes gave detail on names. The worlds, not including ours, are Pixario, Blendaria, Illuathor, Minutrize, the Vignette, and Darklore. Travelling through worlds uses an incredible amount of magic energy, which is why Anubis can enter our world, but regular humans can’t exit to another. It was discovered through further research that Minutrize allows time travel to anybody who goes there but travelling there requires much more power and strength.
Scientific research and experiments to travel from our world to Minutrize started to undertake development because if somebody could stop the Lunar Lunatic from causing the Lunacy, over a billion lives would be saved.
However, the lead scientist, Erin Aarwhile, contracted Entho’s Plague. She continued to work as she was essential to the project and the plague has no treatment, she started to lose her mind and mistakes were made in experimenting.
Since the Retrograph shard was only a fourth of the total power, a mistake was made and instead of creating a portal to Minutrize, it made a portal to Darklore inside the Garenburg library. Darklore contains a large amount of magical and dangerous creatures, and soon after the portal opened the world started to collapse. The event has since been known as the Darklore Invasion. The portal was successfully closed by an unknown person who had a shard luckily, but creatures of the other land remain on our planet.
Due to the colonization of the Moon, Mars, and Pluto, humans and animals still managed to survive after the invasion. However, due to laws passed on the planets, there is no travel allowed from the planets to Earth or travel from Earth to the planets. This was done to ensure that no monsters start to cause chaos on the other planets, and the rule has been retained. It was violated a very low amount of times, and when it was all passengers were exterminated by the military. Resources didn’t need to be sent between planets due to farms created by humans.
Five main beings rose, each named by most people after the five senses: Touch, Sight, Hearing, Smell, and Taste. They divided and conquered different areas, with Touch notably taking refuge in Oval Tower. Touch filled the tower with various otherworldly beings and proceeded to protect the area with a shield.
The portal was able to be sealed shortly after being opened, but the damage was already done. The world had ended.
And now… all that is left is ruin…
For information on history post-Darklore Invasion, please refer to Volume 2 of the Garenburg History Series. It is hard to write these stories and sell them considering money is hard to come across, so thank you for your purchase.
Thanks for reading, and good luck out there.
~Oliver Faernthi
Unknown Year, presumed 5930s