Spooktober 2023 Collection

Scepter

Founder's Honour

Founder's Honour is the large, gold and white standard, standing about 3.2 meters high, carried by the King of Anakrion during peacetime. It depicts the staples of Anakrionian iconography, the circle-and-star, and is covered in String Jewelry. Unlike, say, the Crown of the Sovereing, it has no special features or abilities.

Stalk

One of Mad's Organization's assassin squad members, Edward Kayane, carrying out another hit in Corinthin. It isn't uncommon for him to stay in a place for hours and days stalking his target.

Sniper man on the roof

Edward is a spectacular marksman, equipped with a rail-rifle. While most railguns in infantry use are often large, cumbersome, anti-tank weapons, this one has been adjusted for lower strength and less weight. It is still a supremely powerful sniper rifle, able to punch through even decent armour with little effort, one which he uses with great efficiency. His foot-claws are also equipped with Layered Chain Generators, giving him an efficient weapon in melee, if need be. Ideally not.

Despair

During the events of the main story, the main gang end up assaulting Mad during a trade deal in New Suterr. Specifically, Jon and Tarno fight him. This being their first encounter with him, they are unaware of just how absurdly good at fighting he is, and the two get absolutely curbstomped. They can't do shit about it.

Mad got hands by MadToxin

Thunder

Pushed to extreme, unsafe levels, use of Synthetic Battery Overdischarge begins to form electric arcs all over the user's body, making for a very imposing visual. These are caused by a sort of "filling up" of electricity in a given area of the synthetic, causing the electricity to leap to another place on the synthetic's body or the ground, where there is "space" for it to go. Due to passing through the air, since the body just can't fit it, it forms an electric arc as it creates short-lived plasma as it travels. Due to short life of these arcs, they are often fairly harmless.

Sharp

Layered Chain Blades are sharp, sort of. Well, not really. The way they work is more of a chainsaw, with several layers of teeth moving back and forth. These teeth are rather fragile though, and while they will cut through nearly anything very easily (depending on their quality and amount), another layered chain blade will interrupt that, as it were, and disable the blade on contact, allowing layered chain blades to block others, allowing for more interactive melee combat. This has also lead to the near-complete abandonment of blunt weapons in such combat, save for specific gimmicky weapons, like the Slamhammer. Mostly.
This interaction has a special property, however. The layered chain blade can be nearly anything, any sharpness, strenght, or layer count, and it will destroy opposing chains. This has lead to the existence of "layer-blocks", weak chain blades incapable of cutting anything durable, but able to destroy chain layers. This mostly sees use in non-lethal weapons or weapons like axes or spears, with one relatively small cutting edge but a long shaft, such as Tarno's Soul of Terenk- very long layered chain blades are expensive, and a weak one for protection alone is much more feasible.

Claw

Iota-Delta-5BD is one of Gvanhla's many experiments, largely testing how strong something can get while still having vaguely standard synthetic parts. It even surpasses Mad in sheer physical strength, though lacks agility and, due to an animalistic intellect, has no technique or experience.

Iota-something something

Cryptic

Gvanhla's deal with Mad's Organization is a different one from the other generals. He is nominally a general, the fourth one, but unlike the others, Anni, Chaer, and Olitsionceda, he is not in command of a division. Indeed, the fourth division lacks a leader of any kind. He is, however, in command of a squad, though he is the only real, sentient member, and thus is also a strange case. He also spends an overwhelming majority of time in the Lunag Ri Base, experimenting and researching various things.
In truth, his involvement in the criminal group is mostly a mutual trade deal than anything. His position as a general is because in the rare times he is around, his incredible mental ability and extensive experience is invaluable to Mad. He instead spends his time on Earth, occasionally creating weaponry and equipment for Mad's group, in exchange for its funding for him to continue his personal research. His lack of contact also leads him to be a fairly enigmatic and cryptic figure to most within the group, except for very few, mostly Mad, his boss, and Chaer, a good friend of his. Chaer especially visits Gvanhla now and then, mostly to check in on what he's doing and collect the weapons he owes, but also to visit a friend.

Moon

Ochtotne Prime lacks a moon. This isn't very meaningful for the planet's ecology or enviroment, aside from a lack of tides, as the planet would likely never have developed life on its own with or without a moon. There is one major effect, however. With how sparse settlement on the surface is, combined with the lack of any moon, nights on the planet get very dark. Ambient light and/or light pollution is only really present near the few cities, and vast stretches of land lack infrastructure of any kind. The asteroid belt in orbit reflects light a little, but only very little, and nowhere else but near the equator.

Void

The void of space is cold, yes. This is fairly common knowledge. The average temperature of a given area of space nears on absolute zero. However, the common perception of things freezing in space is inaccurate; an object in space will lose heat, but only slowly. Why? Space is empty.
Mini-rant time: There are three ways for heat to transfer from one thing to another. Conduction - physical contact, convection - air heating up and then tranferring the heat through it, and radiation - the object emitting electromagnetic waves, often infrared (though not always; the reason something like molten iron glows is because the radiation it emits is partly in the visible spectrum of light.) Everything emits some kind of radiation, we just don't see all of it. That's also what infrared cameras work off of.
The thing is, space is very, very, empty. It's not too easy to comprehend just how empty it is, but here's a comparison. The average molecule density of sea-level Earth atmosphere is somewhere around 2.7*10¹⁹/cm³. That's 27 000 000 000 000 000 000 molecules. By contrast, the best laboratory vaccuums developed boast a density somewhere around 10⁹ particles, or one billion.
The densest parts of space, molecular clouds (where stars are born, similar to nebulae), have a density of between a million and a hundred particles per cubic centimeter. The most diffuse regions, various ionized coronal gas clouds, have a staggeringly low density of 10^-4/cm³, at lowest. In one cubic meter, or a thousand liters' worth, there'd be about one hundred particles. It's jack shit nothing.
Convection and convection rely on particles to work, and with comical lack of those in space, radiation is the only way to transfer heat, and thus cool down. Radiation just happens to be really slow. In fact, the reason most space-anything is so white is to reflect the sun's radiation, as that can really heat stuff up. Many large panels you see in hard-scifi (and real life, the ISS has a couple) are just for radiation. It's one of the best ways to lose heat in space. In the same vein, heating up too much is an actual danger with space travel, while freezing really isn't.
Anyway, that's that over and done with.
This was way too much effort for a simple spooktober prompt.

Pale

The inhabitants of the Halven, such as Tarno, and other habitats surrounding Jett are rather pale. This is due to how they live, as their habitats differ from most you find in human space. Instead of a large, hollow cylinder with a large area of land on the internal surface, they are more reminiscent of large, pre-FTL interstellar spaceships. They have long, winding corridors, often with dim or no lighting, with the occasional large room or space. Due to this complexity, many areas tend to be somewhat in disrepair as well.
The reason for this lies in the Flight of the Halven and the Halven being a former interstellar tradeship. When the people who live on it now reached their destination of Jett and started expanding, they built the various habitats, like Koros or Kosmaellon, to be like the ship that saved them.

Hopeless

Human space is a big place, shocker, I know. Within the 1.7*10⁸ cubic lightyears (or 1.4*10⁴⁷ km³), nearly a million star systems, and two thousand significantly inhabited planets, there will be all sorts of extremes. One of these, most relevantly to the (currently) four stories, is combat ability and skill. Due to how the stories work and their focus on combat (especially melee), these will be more present than in other elements. It's the people who've honed their skill for ages, achieved exceptional physical ability, and combine all of it with advanced upgrades to become something beyond human.
Fighting these people is, in the majority of circumstances, excluding stuff like Quaken pushing Synthetic Battery Overdischarge beyond reason, a fool's errand. Impossible, suicidal, hopeless. The gap between them and even other skilled fighters is immense, and often impossible to surpass in the time one has to survive in a fight with one.
To the people more familiar with my stuff, especially my stories' contents (mostly from discord), a few names will have popped into your mind, correct? Stringer, Mad, Rexilis, perhaps someone like Scintil, back in his day. You'd be correct. These people are all incredibly competent fighters, each with centuries of history. Fighting one is akin to swimming in a great rapid. In a sense, Quaken becomes one in the sequel, as he uses SBO nearly constantly in combat.
Though at the end of the day, they are all human, synthetic or organic. They have their faults, no one's perfect, and they can make mistakes. They're not invincible, and cannot do anything against something like a orbital weapon firing upon them. Their positions have generally been permitted by fortunate circumstances or good lots in life; many were in places of power where they could get expert enhancements and upgrades, and superb equipment. However they had to work for their position. A rare few, and none of the ones I mentioned, were born into these circumstances. They've trained their bodies (the ones that can at least) and their most dangerous aspect; their minds, their skills, have all been honed over centuries of training, combat experience, reflection, and so on. Attempting to reach such a position without the necessary mindset in, in a way, hopeless.

Anyway, this ended up way more disjointed than I intended, I apologize, I lost the plot there a bit near the end. TL;DR: fighting Mad or Stringer is, well, hopeless.

Epitaph (Main Story spoilers)

As his long-time friend and enemy (both, realistically), Mad personally buried Stringer after he killed him. He laid his body into the ground of a hill near Lanfal City, preformed an ancient, long-forgotten Cellean ceremony, placed Swift Stroke, Deadly Blade, Stringer's sword, onto the grave, and inscribed an epitaph:

Stringer Ventan
A soldier, warrior, duelist.
A conqueror, subjugator, oppressor. A strategist, a master of warfare.
A masterful duelist, unparalelled by most.
A Cellean, until not.
A friend, an enemy.
A man with a mission, now over.
Rest, you have more than earned it, Stringer.

Eventually, Quaken would return to this to pay his respects to his short-time mentor, and place Mad's Shoulderpad decoration next to the grave as a sign of some distant, begrudging respect towards his hated foe.

Drown

Your average Sapient Synthetic does not float. They're far too dense to do so, and would just sink to the bottom. Most synthetics are also waterproof, though only about 70% or so.
Of course, synthetics do not need to breathe, so they're fine. Mostly. Saying they don't need to inhale oxygen to keep their cells going and alive is true, but synthetics generally run off of a Fusion reactor, which needs consistent hydrogen input to run. The amount of it isn't much, but is still a factor. Underwater, of course, hydrogen can't be drawn in without also taking in water, which is bad for electronics. That's not necessary, though.
Synthetics have battery reserves. These can power a synthetic for a time, usually ten hours or so of standard activity. Many also have storages for hydrogen to keep the reactor running for longer, though this isn't too common, as the storage takes up quite a bit of space. Though still, none of these allow for any long-term time underwater. There is another, however. Some synthetics have auxiliary systems that allow them to separate hydrogen from water, mostly via electrolysis, allowing their reactors to remain on for functionally without end. Eventually of course, the water will degrade the synthetic's body, but that will take longer. This system is one of the many upgrades available, one known as the Verti-Eino Electrolysis Fuel Separation System, or colloquially known as "machine-gills".
The first tester, inventor, and initally the lone developer of the system, the namesake Verti Kicco, a synthetic, unfortunately had the machine-gills malfuction during a test and draw in water into his reactor, causing it to evaporate instantly and explode. This didn't kill him, but allowed more water to flow in and eventually his batteries ran out of power. His notes and body were discovered by his friend Eino Järvenpohja, who continued his work and finished the project.