Muhammad al-Hasan al-Mahdi



Autumn 2045

Karbala, Iraq

The minarets sounded the sacred call to midday prayer across the sand-blown city. The sunlight glinted off the golden dome of the Mosque of Imam Husayn, and the roars of the people nearly drowned out the call to prayer. Hundreds of thousands gathered, and they continued to pour into the city with every passing day, riding cars, bikes and motorcycles – even camels and horses. Black flags floated atop shouting heads. The Black Flags of Khorosan. CDPS didn't know what to make of the surge of people into the city or their strange behavior, as if drawn like filings to a magnet.

Hasan watched from the steps of the mosque. He kept himself fully shrouded in white cloth, all veiled but his very eyes. He did not say a word. He didn't need to. They just kept coming. This was the final sign he'd needed to know that the time of his announcement was nigh, when he could finally reveal who he was and lead the faithful. The last days were coming – this was what the followers of the last true prophet of God had been waiting for.

Hasan stood and raised his hands. Suddenly silence spread across the peoples like a rippling tidal wave. There is no god but God, and Muhammed is his messenger. Allah show me the way.

In silence he motioned for his four attendants. They approached, bearing four black blankets, and held them up at four separate corners, creating a partition between Hasan and the world outside. Allah answered his prayer and power sprang to his fingertips. Seen only to himself, weaves sprung out and enshrouded him. He knew now that none could see him, even if he moved among them.

When Hasan's attendants dropped the veil, he was gone. The crowd was so stunned at what they'd witnessed that for several seconds there was nothing but silence. Even his attendants bore bewildered expressions.

Hasan stepped down and made his way down the street, straight through the crowd. Southwest. He noticed the people as they began to turn, as if they were looking through him and knew he was there, though they could not see him. It was just as Umm Salama, wife of the Prophet, had said: “The Mahdi would call the whole world from where he is, with no postman, and they will hear him, and even see him.”

One day soon, he would figure out the puzzle of the Tay-al-Arz and make it work for him, if Allah willed it, and then Muslim brother would be able to see Muslim brother no matter how far apart they were separated, as had been prophesied.

His unseen passage captured the gathered faithful's attention as he drew it southwest. Straight toward Mecca. Almost as if they could feel the pull again coming from their holiest of places.

Whispers and murmurs broke out again. There was no denying what they'd seen, and what they'd felt. The Shia faithful had been called, and must obey. A surprisingly large number of Sunni had also come, signifying there were plenty of believers in the impending return of the Mahdi among Islam's dominant sect.

After suffering centuries of misrule by godless infidels, demagogues, and false witnesses, Allah had finally sent his last imam to deliver the holy prophet Muhammad's final message and lead them forth once more.

After one thousand, one hundred and four years, the Major Occultation had come to an end. The Mahdi had returned to the earth to rid the world of injustice and oppression.



Nine years ago

Medina, Saudi Arabia

The Shahadah rang through Muhammad al-Hasan's head, as it always did. There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his messenger. Hasan clung to this and repeated it in his mind as his lips struggled to move, too weak to speak the words. This was the third time he'd been laid out in bed, wracked with fevers, chills, strange hallucinations and other ailments. What was this sickness that plagued him? Was it the will of Allah that he die a horrible, painful death, or was some demon tormenting him?

A woman came in, veiled from head to toe in a proper black hijab. Only her eyes showed. Amira – the trained nurse at the madrassa. Behind her followed a man – her cousin, one of the teachers. Even though Hasan lay wasting away and Amira was only here to tend to his illness, it still was improper for Amira and Hasan to be in the same room together as he was not one of her relatives. Or he probably wasn't. Hasan didn't know where his family came from, having been abandoned at the madrassa doorstep as a young child and raised by the schoolmasters.

It was only the proper thing for the schoolmasters at the madrassa to do to bring him in, in accordance with the Zakat, the fourth pillar of Islam. The orphans and needy must always be cared for. But knowing this had not stopped Hasan's heritage from shaming him deeply – surely his parents had been horrible sinners to abandon their child that way. Perhaps he still shared the stain of their sin, and this was why he was suffering.

Amira took a damp rag and wet down Hasan's forehead. “Allah will reward your faithfulness with health – you must stay strong,” she said.

Amira's cousin glanced at her and shook his head. “This is happening to us because we let the infidels enter our land and establish their own laws. We allowed ourselves to live under godless law that does not follow the true way of Allah's will, and he punishes us by tormenting the most promising and faithful man Allah has ever sent us.”

Amira turned away from Hasan. “This is not the doing of Allah, Bashir.”

Her cousin, Bashir, sneered at her. “You do not understand. All things are the will of Allah, except for the actions of the infidel who has rejected the true way. No one can say this of Hasan, and no infidel is causing his suffering, therefore it must be the doing of Allah.”

Hasan heard the reasoning and found he agreed with it. Yes, it must be the will of God that he suffer. With nothing to do but work and prove himself and learn, he'd always been the model student at the madrassa, though it was not proper to point it out. Humility was the proper way. At age six he'd already memorized the entirety of the Koran, and by age nine he was already years advanced in his various studies.

By the time he was a teen most local sheikhs had clamped down on the stricter religious madrassas, and had driven ones like this underground. A Dominance that attempted to govern Sunni and Shia alike, amid the likes of Arab Christians, secularists, and – the Jews in Israel – could hardly succeed in pleasing all, and there was no place in the law of the Koran in such a dominance governed by a patron trying to keep all happy while answering to a godless European, with lapdog sheikhs running around doing what they thought would please him. Allah was the supreme law, not the Ascendancy.

They'd claimed the schools were radicalizing the students and preparing them for violent and rebellious behavior. The Wahhabi schools had been the hardest hit, but institutions that clung to the Shia way such as Hasan's, a minority though they might have been even in pre-Dominance Saudi Arabia – suffered as well. How was it pleasing to Allah to merely believe in the proper way of law and living, but no longer have the ability to enforce it save through the whims of a Patron who sought different goals?

The answer was easy to Hasan. It was clear through his studies that practice of faith did not mean merely espousing it. It meant seeing Allah's will done and that meant a society where His law was supreme. Not some Patron beholden to a mere man, not to mention the privilege who had the ear of the Ascendancy – A Sunni, of course, and one who accepted the persistence of Israel and tried to sweep certain aspects of Sharia law from the landscape.

Hasan sometimes wondered if he was alone in this belief. So many of the Muslim countries had simply rolled over and begged to be taken in. Would the Dominance really be so eagerly accepted? No, it could not be. There must be those who wanted a return to a proper rule – in accordance with the law of the Prophet. The loss of the last Caliphate and balkanization of the Middle East in the last century had been hard, especially to people who still bore grudges over the Crusades. Loss of autonomy – even with freedom to worship being afforded them, just wasn't going to ever sit well. Would the westerners never learn that true freedom was living in a world perfectly aligned with the will of Allah?

No. Time dulled the sting of old injustices, but it would never put out the flame of the faithful. After millennium of war over who would inherit the holy land and the right to speak in the Holy Prophet's name, it seemed to Hasan that perhaps the arrival of the Ascendancy might finally be the catalyst that brought Sunni and Shia together.

There would come a day of reckoning. Hasan was sure of it. It had been prophecised in the Koran and passed on among those who proclaimed themselves followers of the Shia tradition. They were still in the period of the Major Occultation. Some day, possibly some day soon, the occultation would conclude and the Mahdi – the Twelfth Imam, the twelfth heir to the voice of the Prophet – would return, and would restore the world to its proper alignment in the eyes of Allah.

These thoughts came and went as Hasan lay in bed, tormented. As he struggled to breathe, he found his mind pondering recent events in his own life. Things had been happening that Hasan couldn't explain, aside from the sickness. He seemed lucky all of a sudden. Six days ago, while he'd been helping restore the brick facing on the minaret, a chunk of stone had fallen from directly above, but had inexplicably tumbled to one side, missing him. Other things like this had happened. And they always happened along with the bouts of illness. It seemed on the one side he was favored by Allah but then punished.

Or perhaps Allah was trying to show him something through this sickness. Hasan resolved to look down that path as soon as he was able – if he survived this time.

There is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger.

Kicking off another fun filled thread -- you're welcome by the way *grin -- if this were the 3rd Age (set during the wot books) what would your character be? (assume the taint's still around).

Jaxen? Though he'd rock the death-walking all black asha'man look like nobody else, organized servitude is not his style, and if it were... *ponders... actually, the idea does have some merit.

In the meantime, he'd be every thief-catcher's nightmare. And probably have a thing for Taraboni women. It's the veils.

By all means, I urge you to limit being in more than one thread at a time. However, it's come to my attention that this has become something of a stressful issue for some players.

By all means, the urging is not meant to be a hard and fast rule. This is meant to avoid being in simultaneous places at once, confusing the progress of time, and potential contradictions in things your characters may have done, said, met, or experienced. Similarly, this is meant to avoid play in 5, 6, 7, or 12 places at once, which would be absolute chaos.

If you feel one thread is running for an extended period of time, don't jump ship on it just so you can move on elsewhere. Stay and finish the thread, don't break character and force yourself to leave when your character otherwise wouldn't. Likewise, if some players are MIA and you're left bored and waiting, use your discretion about whether its okay to participate in another thread elsewhere.

If you're really unsure what to do, send me a message and I will be more than happy to advise you. This 'rule' is meant to help the site run smoothly, not be a hindrance.

-A

It was an odd feeling being in regular clothes and freshly bathed. The entire ensemble was rather plain consisting of slacks, a sleeved shirt and pair of boots. It had been exactly two days since his meeting with Nikolai Brandon, the man that he sworn allegiance to when he signed his contract with Dominance VII’s military. During that time he was treated with a lighter touch than he recalled during his stay or at least that which he could recall. Still he was grateful that the clarity that has replaced the haze that clung to him during the recent past.

The room he currently occupied was one similar to the interrogation ones that he used back in D6. A square white room, with a serviable table bolted to the floor. His chair sat between two bars, again bolted, to the floor on either side obviously used to secure chains to. The chair itself was a plain thing set in a small groove to allow for movement back and forth. Cameras in each corner of the room near the ceiling watched every angle of the room though the table and it’s offending occupant were the focus.

Alric’s lack of being restrained wasn’t ill received. On the table laid the remnants of an actual meal. The heat of the hearty stew filled his body with satisfying warmth. The medical team kept his body full of the essential vitamins and proteins during his indentured stay to maintain most of his mass but for his first actual meal in days he couldn’t think of a more satisfying choice.

The most demanding thought in his mind was that of the impending meeting. Today was the day that the Amulet of Man stated that he would tell Alric what he was. The implications of that statement was jarring. He couldn’t put together a thought that didn’t demand the suspension of reality. I cannot believe that the Ascendancy himself would be directly involved. What is this madness of ‘what’ I am? Smooth logic tempered irrationality when it threatened to rattle the control that it had over finally retook. Patience would win the day and if their first encounter were any ruler to measure by he would need to hold steady in the presence of greatest ruler since the Mongolian empire.

Thalia’s studio lay in the heart of Arbatskaya, its rent – and in such a prime location, it must have cost a small fortune – covered by an anonymous patron. It was far better than her previous; the lighting was fantastic, thanks to its perfect placement of north facing windows slanting up to the pitched ceiling. Cabinets containing paint and other equipment didn’t compromise the room for a generous easel and desk arrangement; she’d never had so much space. Canvasses, a mixture of primed and stretched as well as finished pieces, lined in neat piles. None of them decorated the walls, which were plain. Books lay in odd corners, some splayed open with faint rainbow fingerprints thumbed at the corners. Other pages had been torn out completely and pinned to a board against one wall. There were photos on there too, both people and landscapes; postcards, printed quotes and brief sections of prose. A thousand memories, thoughts and ideas, layered so deeply the board itself was utterly lost beneath the clutter. When she had need of references, she generally used a screen, else projected an image from her Wallet, but she liked the chaotic tumult of all those pieces of paper.

Her main project of the moment, though it was still in its earliest stages of colour and line, dominated her workspace. Its size and scope was massive, its colours vibrant and powerful, though in her mind it tasted like shadows and smoke and change. She still had no idea what it was going to turn into, but it nonetheless curled persistent little hooks in her thoughts, like the image was desperate to resolve itself in blood, sweat and acrylic faster than her mortal fingers could work. And maybe at the expense of a little sanity. Thalia didn’t work on it now; if she did she was liable to become immersed and never hear her Wallet beep. She’d sent a message to Rune, detailing the studio’s address or offering to meet her somewhere of her choosing. Whichever was more convenient. So for now she waited, Rune’s artwork in a folder beside her on the couch, legs tucked up underneath her while she doodled faces in an old sketchpad and refused to look at the behemoth in the corner of her vision.

Blue eyes glowing with knowledge drank in the screen with all the thirst of a man in the desert. This most recent article was published in the Houston Chronicle, but reflected one of a dozen similar reports the Regus consumed these last few hours.

It was well into the early morning hours. The object of his obsessive research related to these mysterious findings in the Gulf of Mexico. It cost him blurred vision to remove his eyes from the screen, having so long toiled over digital words. Finally, when the strain became unbearable, he rubbed his eyes, seeking a moment's rest.

There was a glass of water on his desk. Carried there hours before hand, it remained untouched until now. It was gone in a few, short gulps. Fifteen seconds exactly to center his mind, followed by a minute of meditation to quell his growing excitement. He could not allow emotion to interfere with his work, despite what anticipation that drew him to send the following message, written in Formula Valetudinis since the recipient was fluent in Greek, but titled appropriately to his office in Latin:


Armande Giánni̱s polla kharein kai errosthai,

Chairetísmata.

I had the immense pleasure of being a colleague of your Archeology mentor while we were both at Harvard. I see much of him in your studies, and applaude your recent efforts, particularly your deauthentication of the Q Document.

Our interests are greatly aligned. I have dedicated my life to the collection of antiquities and a mastery of ancient languages. In honor, the Holy See has deigned me Director of the Vatican Historical Society. I offer my assistance in the verification of the cuneiform language, and am in personal possession of some documents you might find intriguing as well.

I reside in Moscow at the moment, overseeing the opening of our second headquarters. However I frequently travel to the Vatican. I wish to arrange a meeting at your convenience.


Ta d' alla, seautou epimelou hin hugiaineis,


Director, Vatican Historical Society of the Sancta Sedes,
and
Servus Servorum Papa, His Holiness,
Armande Nicodemus



Message sent to Mr. Doulou, Armande retired to recuperate the rest of the night's sleep.

Shocking Discovery In The Gulf Of Mexico


By Soren Miriam

While making repairs to one of their off-shore refineries, Smith Energies International made a remarkable discovery of the wreckage of a sea-faring vessel that preliminary testing suggests is almost 5000 years old. What might even be more shocking is that the vessel appears to be Egyptian. Could we have just discovered proof of a relationship between Ancient Egypt and South America?

While Smith Energies International owns the rig and the mineral rights, the property itself is still under the ownership of the Smith Foundation, or more accurately it's president, John Smith. The Smith Foundation has already begun an extensive survey of the site and the vessel and has begun recovering much of the ship's cargo. There are unconfirmed reports that quite a few of the storage areas of the ship are in good condition. the implication being that the recovered contents were stored in such a way that they are practically untouched by age and the elements.

Spokespersons for the Smith Foundation claim that several cuneiform tablets, believed to be of either Assyrian or Sumerian in origin and numerous tablets in Egyptian hieroglyphics have already been retrieved. Many of these are believed to be on the way to Moscow, John Smith currently resides.

John Smith was instrumental in the uncovering the conspiracy by the Chinese Government to sell the "Q" Document, a elaborate forgery by various members of the Chinese State Department. John Smith, a historian and archeologist, specializes in authenticating and translating documents of antiquity. It has been assumed by many that he is Moscow to work on his Doctoral Thesis in either Anthropology, Archeology, History, or all three. Why he chose the Moscow State University to continue his studies is a mystery.
Edited by doulou, Oct 7 2013, 10:34 PM.

Ethiopia. What a shithole. Literally. The air actually smelled like shit. The water tasted like shit. And over all shittiness was the country's prevailing export. There was only one redeeming quality to being transplanted out of one slightly lesser shithole to a greater: getting out of the fucking city.

For most of Ethiopia's violent history, all land was constitutionally state owned from border to shitty border, but thanks to CCD pressure and an otherwise shitty world economic environment, the recent Prime Minister decommissioned the long-standing leases the government contracted with tenants and plots were quickly put up for sale. In swarmed the foreign investors. Such as dad's good, ole-fashioned, exploit everything we can company. That was ten years ago. When Silas was a knobby-kneed, gangly thirteen year old. Yeah. The country's greatest ... everything ... was a far cry from Vancouver, but the rising costs of ... everything again ... meant mediocre lifestyles back in BC translated to kings of the mountain over here. Hop on the jet for the weekend? Sure! Rent out St. George's cathedral for a Tuesday? Why not! There's just nothing quite like desecrating holy ground with good old fashioned fuckfests.

Shit went decently for a while. Silas was top dog. Well, among the regular circles at least. By his early twenties, he was absorbed in the investment world himself. Sporting around in slick suits and handmade loafers. Step out of a helicopter 200 km outside the capital and smirk every time some backwood local comes by and lays a wreath at your feet? Hell yes. Simply brush the shit off the petals and tuck the best looking flower in his lapel and he was pretty damn slick-looking. There's just not much to compare to that kind of authentic love. Or maybe it was worship? Hard to tell with those native fuckers.

Silas was sure he looked like some alien douche bag to these goatherders: tall and smooth haired with bright eyes bluer than the fucking blue sky itself. That was the trip when the crew was stuck overnight in some god-forsaken village in the foothills of the Bale mountains. Secondary support was on tap to arrive in the morning with parts. Thank God for satellite phones, but that meant a night alone in the bush with those yokels. C'est la vie, fuckers.

Come morning, the pilots found Silas's hut empty. As he was honored with his own private sleeping arrangements, nobody witnessed what happened. All that was found was the hide of the tent ripped clean through. Silas's clothes still hung on a peg from the night before – nobody would want them to get wrinkled now. His shoes were still tucked beneath the cot. Not even the pottery was disturbed. It’s like he vanished into the wilderness.

After that, things did not go well for this little village. By the way, it no longer exists. Shocking huh.

But that is neither here nor there.

Before they were wiped out, the natives blamed the rarely seen carnivores of the highlands, the Ethiopian redwolf, for Silas' disappearance, but without so much as a single body part, their accounts were written off as superstitious ignorance.

Four months later, when Silas crawled back to Addis Ababa, a scratched up, peeling, broken and calloused version of himself, and pretty much naked as the day he was born – that drew a few stares – he offered no explanation. Other than evidence of a rough couple of months, and the new addition of a leering, carnal smile, he was fine and dandy as ever.

Except his cornfield eyes now swarmed disturbingly yellow. Odd.

Sure he had some shit disease AND fucked up in the head at the same time (or more than before), pretty much everyone thought it would be in his best interest to consult with higher quality medical care than the local MD's offered. No offense, they probably graduated top of their class from Jamaica's finest medical school. Problem was, Silas wasn't too fond of the idea of containment, and hospitals were very confining. After a bit of shock and outrage, and some throats that were nearly strangled and/or ripped out, everyone dropped their whining, and his life picked up where he left off. For the most part.

Fifteen years later Silas sat in a shithole CCD cell somewhere outside St. Petersburg and watching an attractive news anchor report the current events of the day....



FEBRUARY, 2045



"Two Americans escaped from a mid-security prison outside St. Petersburg. They were convicted by the Custody of Intelligence for corporate espionage six months ago and sentenced to imprisonment for an undetermined length of time while the investigation was ongoing. It is unknown who aided their escape."

He chuckled to himself.

Not unknown to everyone.

He raised his voice. It echoed on the four walls caging him in. Goddamn cages. "GUARD!"

The news screen dissolved to a live feed. The interior of a security outpost came into view. A dark skinned woman with shorn platinum hair regarded him. The clock on the wall behind her displayed half a minute to straight-up eight o'clock.

"Warden Svetlana," he said fondly. "An unexpected pleasure. They transfer you to nights?"

"What do you want seven-six-two?" She replied.

Silas shrugged. "How's that boy of yours? Still having nightmares?"

The warden's brow darkened dangerously. How an inmate had knowledge of her personal life disturbed her. Good.

He pictured the lad, frolicking in the snow, oblivious. Silas went on, "Have his eyes turned yellow yet?" He took a step back so the shadow fell upon his face. Golden reflections burned into the camera. She flashed a look of anger.

The woman remained silent, but made a move to cut their feed, so Silas raised a hand, "Oh wait, I forget myself. I had called for a reason after all. I think I'd like to go now. Yes. It is time I should be going." His English was gentlemanly.

The clock on the wall behind Svetlana struck the hour. The sound of something clicking made her swivel in her chair to see what it was. Silas watched, unflinching as fire and the screech of screaming engulfed everything. The feed broke instantly, and the concrete beneath him shook from the force of a distant bomb. How very punctual. Impressive.

His door opened. Silas straightened his jumpsuit and strolled toward freedom. Yes, it was time to be going. Literally.



FORTY-EIGHT HOURS LATER




Silas parked a heavy motorbike outside the dilapidated ruins of an ancient church. The building itself was hardly worth the land it was on. This far from Moscow, only villages populated the Golden Ring. The land wasn't worth hauling away the ruins to rebuild, let alone populate. When it came to ruins, this corner of the ring was a gold-flecked dung heap. The old stones of the church stacked larger piles of gray rock than walls at this point. All the onion domes were caved in. Formerly priceless glass windows were long ago punched out. The iron fencing protecting the grounds were more like metal trellises for the weeds than any sort of useful barricade. The place was a contender for the shithole of the year award.

Silas hefted a log of a leg and kicked the gate. A shower of loose snow fell from the bars, but the worthless piece of shit rusty lock mechanism held. He coiled back and released a second attempt. His frustrated grunt shattered icicles alone, but nobody but the rodents were around to appreciate the roar. And a few other friends, he glanced in the distance and smirked thoughtfully. The gate flew off its hinges.

He strolled onto white grounds, golden eyes surveying everything beneath the moonlight. To his right, the snow crunched as a rabbit sprinted quickly to safety. Frogs croaked around the basin of an ancient fountain now holding only frozen sludge and ancient algae. And beneath the crack of a heavy wooden door, a dim light flickered from within. His stomach rumbled dangerously. They better have real food. Any of that disgusting meat-in-a-dish bullshit and I'll rip out the nearest throat instead.

I want to let you guys know, you are more than welcome to suggest new things to the site. This can be character classes, monsters, mythos, or even forums.

The "Q" Document Proven To Be A Forgery

by Soren Miriam


The mysterious manuscript, referred to as the "Q" Document, supposedly discovered by the Chinese Government has been proven to be a forgery. It has also been made quite evident that the Chinese Government was a part of the conspiracy to manufacture and then sell this document to the highest bidder.

The reason that this discovery was so hotly debated recently is that it contradicted much of the Christian Bible. It especially called in to question many of the 'sayings' of Jesus Christ. If this document had been verified the entire Christian world would have been in an uproar. The ramifications of this would have also spread into the Islamic faith as Jesus Christ is also considered as a prophet to the Muslims. This document would have also called into question the accuracy of the Koran.

Ambassadors of the Chinese Government have been verified to have approached Not only the United States of America, and the Vatican, but the Central Custody of Dominance as well. These ambassadors made claims that the document was genuine and that the buying entity would receive all of the materials associated with the find in the sale.

The Chinese Government claimed to discover the "Q" Document when it captured a Germen monastery at the close of World War Two. They claimed that it has been in there custody ever since its discovery at the Bejing University. Furthermore, they claimed that they have diligently verified the authenticity of the manuscript before putting it up for auction.

The deception was uncovered by American John Smith, a lecturer on History, Anthropology, and Archeology. Not only has he proved the document to be a forgery, but he successfully proved that the document had to have been forged in the last 5 or so years. Causing a major shuffle in the Chinese Government as they attempt to save face with both the United States and the CCD as well. This journalist would not be surprised to hear about a deluge of resignations in the Chinese State Department in the near future.

John Smith showed how the original parchment that contained the forgery was once an inventory sheet of the Roman Empire, explaining how the paper passed the initial testing for age. The ink was consistent for the ink used during that time in history, but it was exposed to a rare chemical compound to replicate the look of aging and deterioration. This particular compound is frequently used in dating pieces of antiquity through a process referred to as 'non-destructive' testing. The inconsistency in amounts and areas affected by this compound was what called into question the authenticity of the document. Further investigation uncovered a part of the inventory sheet that was not 'stripped and altered'.

John Smith is currently in the CCD on a student visa. He has 3 masters degrees and specializes in the study and translation of documents of antiquity.




Edited by doulou, Sep 29 2013, 09:05 AM.