JVMenjivar

Astashica: Eternal Starborn Dominion

"Listen well, child of the twin suns. The land speaks, the winds whisper, and the rivers carry old songs. But there is one voice that does not sing, one truth that sleeps beneath your feet. The world you stand upon is not what you believe it to be."

The Xothek Galaxy is gone, consumed by its own hunger for power. The Asemeri once shaped the stars, bending light and void to their will. Their greatest creation, the Formicrons, built empires that stood for millennia.  

But Xothek fell—not to time, nor to gods, but to its own arrogance.  

The Azurevat fire erased them. Cities vanished. Kingdoms dissolved into the abyss. And the last Asemeri fled aboard the Defiance Vanguard, a warship of lost power, its runes still pulsing with ancient knowledge. They sought refuge. They found Astashica.  

A world of twin suns. A world veiled in Light. A world that does not belong to them.  

For three hundred cycles, the Asemeri ruled. They carved their names into the mountains, built their towers over rivers, but Astashica is awake. It watches. It remembers.  

Now, the shadow returns.  

Cosmus has returned. The exile. The usurper. The last remnant of a dead empire. His fleet blackens the sky. His armies rise from the abyss. And in his grasp? The final Azurevat missile—the fire that once shattered the heavens.  

And in the path of destruction, one man stands.  

Tlandar. Son of two worlds. A man of soil and harvest. A man who should have lived his days in peace.  

But war does not ask who you wish to be. It demands who you must become.  

Flee, and the twin suns will set forever.  
Stand, and awaken the Light once more.  

He takes the blade. He spills the blood. He walks the path of no return.  

The Defiance Vanguard looms overhead.  
The Azurevat fire waits in silence.  
The Formicrons stir beneath the sands.  
The ancient Asemeri cores pulse in the dark.  

But beneath it all—beneath the ruins, beneath the rivers, beneath the very bones of this world—there is something older than the Asemeri.  

Something forgotten.  
Something that was never meant to wake.  

This is not a war for land. This is not a war for power.  

This is a war for the right to exist.  

And so I ask, child of the twin suns—will you fight for the Light, or will you let the darkness take it?"

ASTASHICA: Eternal Starborn Dominion

Val'katl's Return to the Front

The Plains of Leipira stretched endlessly beneath the darkening sky, the land scarred by trenches, craters, and the unyielding presence of war. The air smelled of damp earth, steel, and the distant fires from Ixtiel's encampment.

Chieftain Val'katl stood atop the fortified ridge, looking over the battlefield he had fought to defend for five years. Here, at the edge of his encampments, the war had stagnated—both sides locked in a contest of attrition.

He had left to test Tlandar at Boulderkeep, to see if Salgar's chosen warrior was worthy of standing among them. Now, he had returned, and with him came Akashma, the Salgaran emissary who had guided Tlandar's journey.

She stood beside him, her dark red cloak billowing against the wind, the color a stark contrast against the gray sky. Beneath the cloak, her intricate battle plate and chain armor gleamed subtly in the fading light, the craftsmanship of Salgar evident in every etched sigil and reinforced plate.

She was silent, but her amber eyes were sharp, scanning the battlefield, reading its every detail.

For the first time, she stood upon the Plains of Leipira, seeing the reality of Val'katl's war.

The Battlefield in Stalemate

Below them, the Val'katlan trenches stretched in an unbroken formation, dug deep into the plains to hold Ixtiel's marauders at bay. Warriors moved between them, sharpening blades, adjusting armor, reinforcing barricades—they were always preparing, always waiting.

Beyond the serpentine river, Ixtiel's fortified encampments stood, their black banners fluttering in the dry wind. His army had harassed Val'katl's borders for years, striking with hover-platform raids, launching swift, brutal attacks before vanishing back behind their defenses.

Yet, for all his aggression, Ixtiel had never committed to an all-out war.

Val'katl scowled. "Five years of this. Five years of him sitting just beyond my reach." His fingers curled into a fist. "He fights to exhaust us, not to defeat us."

Something else had caught her attention.

Near Ixtiel's encampment, hovering just above the battlefield, the air shimmered.

It was subtle—barely perceptible at first—a warping in the sky, as if reality itself had begun to bend.

Akashma narrowed her eyes beneath her hood. "What is that?"

Val'katl followed her gaze, his expression darkening.

A faint distortion in the air, something not of dust or wind, not of smoke or energy. It was something else entirely.

Something unnatural.

"It wasn't there before," he muttered.

Akashma's cloak rippled as she turned to him. "That is not of this war." Her voice was steady, but beneath it was something Val'katl had not heard from her before.

They stood in silence, watching it pulse—a presence neither moving nor still, neither solid nor empty.

Val'katl did not believe in omens.

This felt like one.

The Summoning of Tlandar

"We need more eyes on this."

Akashma nodded. "Then call him."

The chieftain's gaze hardened. He strode toward the nearest communications officer, standing near the central command tent, his cloak of war trailing behind him.

"Send word to Boulderkeep," Val'katl ordered. "Summon Tlandar and his forces to the front. I want them here before nightfall."

The officer saluted and rushed to relay the message.

Akashma's gaze lingered on the anomaly.

"If this is what I think it is," she murmured, "we may be fighting something far worse than Ixtiel."

A Storm Over the Battlefield