Manhunter Revelations

by H. F. Daniels

  “Which is why they must not be used, but we will find a way to destroy this creature” stated Serona

  Just then a shimmering of the air in the room started and a round circle appeared in the air that looked somewhat like the surface of a pond. Out of that stepped Tessia followed by four of the largest men, opps, largest anything I have ever seen. They were over seven feet tall and huge. Not muscular huge, blocky huge. They must have been at least five feet wide and almost four feet deep at the chest. They looked like male hybrid Muraii, but something was off. For one they did not have the alien beauty one would expect for a Muraiin male, and I was told the males looked just as good as the females. For some reason they just didn’t look right. Once they were all in the room with the rest of us looking on Tessia walked over to the window and while pointing out toward the building where the women of the village would be sleeping at night, turned to the four giants and said

  “Across the court is your assignment. Under no circumstances is that creature to be allowed to get to any of the women”

  “Yes Seer” rumbled one of them and then all four marched out the door toward the women’s safe haven. Each of them head barely cleared the top of the doorframe, and these doors are larger than usual. After they left we all looked back at Tessia. Out of the corner of my eye I could see sheer shock on the faces of the younger ladies. Serona looked very stressed, but composed.

  “Serona and I must return to Muraii for further research on this matter. The guards I placed on duty will insure the woman will be safe if the creature does return. He will not get to any of them.

  “Who are they”

  “They are special guards sent by the Elders to safeguard the woman. Let us all settle in for the night. A good night's rest will be good for us all. We will discuss your findings with our elders back in Muraii, and somehow we will find a way to destroy this creature once and for all. Major you need to make preparations to pull all the women and men into the pavilion and other halls for their protection, as well as that of your men. The creature might feel compelled to attack anyone after it’s battle with Conrad here.

  "It will be done" stated Hennings

  "Fine. I ask that you all please be patient with us"

  Even though she was speaking to all of us, see was staring expressly at me.

  "Serona be aware the use of the Power Torches is a last resort. Command may order us to us them if we do not find another way to stop the creature"

  "I understand Major, but please do all you can to not let that happen. We will be back with a solution"

  At that point another shimmering oval appeared in the air and both of them stepped into it and were gone. As soon as they both stepped through, the oval disappeared. Talk about freaky. It was going to take me some time getting used to their method of traveling home. Judging from the looks on Hennings and his men faces, they felt the same way. Major Hennings gave final instructions to his men and then asked me to accompany him to his command post. Nodding to him I went over to Sessa who seemed to have gotten over whatever was bothering her before, probably due to the recent but still unexplained turn of events that had occurred.

  "I am feeling out of my depth here. I seriously need to talk to you later. It is important"

  She nodded absently and left the hall with the other Ladies.

  I spent the remainder of the night planning with Hennings, and his staff on defense preparations in case the creature showed up. We went over the fine details of my trip and encounter with the creature during my trip to the woods. We watched the four Muraiins stand guard at their posts. They stood like statues with the only thing moving on them was their heads as they surveyed everything happening around them. Even though there was a lot of activity going on around them I got the impression they missed nothing. At one point some metal containers fell over causing a racket. The Muraiin giant closest to it, turned its head around to the left in what had to be almost 120 degrees to see what the racket was. At the time Lt. Forne and Sergeant Danvers was next to me and was as shocked as I was on seeing that.

  “Did anyone else see what I just saw?”

  “Yes, Danvers we saw it” Stated Forne

  We all looked at each other and wondered what the hell these guys were.

  “The sun will be up in a couple of hours so I'm going to get some sleep. Let me know if anything comes up. I would also suggest you let Hennings know what we just saw”

  Getting a nod of agreement from Lt. Forne as he continued to watch the Muraiins, I went back to my cottage and got a few hours sleep.

  It was late morning when I woke up and I was up for about an hour when Sessa knocked at my door. As I let her in she was covered in a lightweight but elaborate and beautiful cloak that covered her from her shoulders down to her ankles. This seemed unusual to me as the weather was still very mild outside. As I closed the door, Sessa walked to the middle of the floor, turned to me and dropped her cloak to the floor. I immediately almost followed it. She had on a very beautiful and sheer gown that revealed all of her amazing physical attributes. The gown also reflected the light from the lit globes in the cottage as if she had hundreds of little lights built into the gown. She stood there looking like a dreamy fairy with a multicolored aura around her. She didn't say anything. She just stood there looking at me, melting me down like butter over a flame. It took me quite a few seconds to get myself together enough to croak out

  "I really need to talk to you. Just that, just talk"

  My libido and animal wild side was up in arms and punishing me from the inside judging from the internal pain I was experiencing. I was strong though. Superhuman in my resolve not to give in. I just looked like a drooling idiot standing there. Finally Sessa took pity on me and turned off the charm. At least I think she did. My desire for her dropped down from a I don't care if the world dies, I just want her to a painful but manageable banging my head against the wall, but don't give in level. She slowly walked towards me, if you can call it walking. My mind described it as a sensual floating.

  "Before or after?"

  "Wha…t?"

  "Do you want to talk before or after I have you?"

  "After, no..before and pleas..e turn off the mojo"

  The woman smiled wickedly, but immediately my desire dropped down to a jaw hanging level. She started walking towards the kitchen table setup, stopped as if she had a second thought, turned, stepped back and picked up her cloak and draped it around herself. She then continued to the table and sat down in one of the chairs while curling her magnificent legs up under her.

  "What can I tell you?"

  "Thank you" I said as I walked to the table and sat down.

  "I am not going to lie to you. There is something very disturbing about your people and this whole situation here. I can’t put my finger on it but something is definitely not right here, and to be clear, I am not referring to the situation with the creature. I need to know more about your people. Exactly what you are, are you really descendants from furry elves, how come you all look almost human, your power and abilities, all of it"

  She looked at me quietly for a few seconds and I felt the desire inside me drop down to a really manageable level. Apparently she wanted my mind clear for what she was about to tell me.

  "Let me explain some things before you ask any questions. There are words in our language that if I use them, they could confuse you. We have dealt with humans long enough to know using some of our native words in a conversation could get confusing or misunderstood. So we have decided that all our conversations with humans will consists of words you will fully understand. There will be some words from our native language we will have to use because there is no human language equivalent. Just stop me for clarification if that happens. Now as to my people. Yes my people are descendants from what you would call furry elves. Our lifespans are around three hundred and fifty to four hundred years depending on one's lifestyle, although the lifespan of our human hybrids, of which all of us you have met so far, is around two hu
ndred and seventy five years. Our original Muraiin, male or female are about as strong physically as a human even though they are smaller. A Muraiin male hybrid though is physically twice as strong as a human male. A Muraiin female hybrid is about fifty to seventy percent stronger than a human male, making us much stronger than a human female. Internally we are almost the same as you humans, with certain differences. Certain organs that you have we do not have. Our digestive system for one is more compact and consists of a stomach, which performs the same functions as a human stomach, liver, pancreas and spleen. Another example is our lungs which are twenty percent larger, and have the capability to screen and expel toxic gases we may come in contact with which makes us extremely resistant to a lot of airborne toxins and gases. It also allows us to hold our breath for up to fifteen to twenty minutes at a time, which by the way makes us excellent swimmers. As stated we are sexually compatible with humans, including the original Muraiins, although it is very rare occurrence. For a male human to impregnate a Muraiin female, the Muraiin female has to want to get pregnant by a human male. The same holds true for a Muraiin male. He has to want to impregnate a human female. That is how we, the hybrids you have met so far have come to be. Even though our original brethren live longer than us, we are physically stronger, faster, more adapt at seeing and battling The Xantu. There are more examples, but the bottom line is that although we look basically human, we are not as our bodies are much more efficient, hence our longer life spans. Centuries ago, our Seer at the time advised us to mate with humans as the offspring's from such a union would be stronger and more capable of fighting The Xantu. That has been proven true. Even though we are more physically able to combat The Xantu, we are inferior to our original Muraiin people as their Muraiin abilities are greater than ours. All Muraiins abilities as they are, is due to identical organs on both sides of our heart, about four inches long, one point three inches thick, shaped somewhat like a banana. These organs allow us to feel and harness the thermo-dynamic and magnetic energies from within the earth, or when we are home, from Muraii. We can harness it and use it for our purposes. The original Muraiin’s organs are larger, and thus their abilities at harnessing the earth’s power is greater. The ability to harness this power was much greater in my people before the Atlantus devastation. It allowed my people to accomplish many amazing feats. Our ability to harness these energies fall under different classes, or as we call them Clans. I will henceforth refer to these abilities as just Powers. Let me now explain the different classes of powers we have, which will apply for all Muraiins. The clan's designations I will explain in more detail afterwards. All Muraiins are born with very little to no abililty to harness any of the earth’s energies. As we grow older, usually around the age of four to six we slowly acquire the ability to start harnessing our power. At this age all Muraiin children receive a power level grade to show how much power they have learned to harness. This level is either a two to a three. At the age of ten and above our power level will usually be around four to five. When we are in our teens to young adults we slowly start to learn which of the different abilities we are good at. Once we reach the age of adulthood, which for us is between sixteen to twenty one years, is when our power has fully manifested itself and we now know which of the different powers we are good at. This determines which clan we will become a member of. At this time most Muraiins power level will be around five to seven. Now for reference each power level is about twice the strength of the one below it. So a level seven is powerful enough to go into combat against most of the different Xantu creatures. Now an explanation of our clans. Each clans consists of many family clans within it. Each clan was created for the unique ability its members have shown its strengths in. The Imoquains Mages are a clan of Muraiins who have learned to harness their power for healing and life study of all living things, plants and animals. There are the Sastquains Mages who are our artisans, musicians, philosophers and creators, growers, etc. They compose roughly seventy percent of our population. Then there are a very few Muraiins among us who have mastered all of the before mentioned abilities. These are Muiquains Master Mages. They are usually the oldest and strongest among us with power levels from eight to ten. Right now there are only a dozen Muraiins with a power level of nine, and only four with a power level of ten. Very few Muraiins ever attain that level of power and ability. Most Muiquain Mages go on to become Elders, which is our ruling council. The next clan are our Seers. Although they are part of a clan, there will be only be one to three Seers alive at any one time. This is due in part to the fact very few Muraiins born have this ability. It is the rarest power among us and they are revered above all others. They can to a degree see outcomes of possible actions that have or can occur. There were other abilities my people use to have, but as stated before they were stripped from us for our irresponsibility in preventing the Atlantu devastation. Now as to us, the hybrids of which you have met so far. We cannot harness or utilize any of the before mentioned powers. The only power we hybrids can harness or utilize is projecting force energies from ourselves, which is strictly for offensive and defensive purposes. We have no control over any of the life energies, although we all have been taught some healing ability to help us while in the field of combat, since no healers are allowed to go into combat. That is strictly our domain. We are known as Sakquains Mages. We are the exclusive warriors of the Muraii against The Xantu or any threat to Muraii. Some of us hybrids have taken on the role of understanding humans science and technologies. The reason being to find out how our ability and humans science and technology can be combined to help us in our fight against The Xantu. They are Sakquains too, but are called Tech Mages. Your human scientific knowledge of these energies within the earth are very incomplete, and in some cases outright wrong as your people have not yet developed the technology to fully understand what is happening within the earth and around them”

  At this point she stopped talking seeing I had some questions.

  "Who stripped your people of their power, and I do not understand how you were at fault for what happened. From what Serona told me, your people prevented the annihilation of the human race as well as your own"

  As Sessa started to answer my question, she bolted upright and her gaze seem to go out of focus. At first I thought she had detected some danger I hadn't, and remembering how the creature had surprised me, I immediately went to the rack where my 44C was hung and drew it. My 40C was holstered next to the bed. After a few seconds I didn't see or feel anything. Thinking she may be having a seizure of some type I started to go to her when she raised her hand towards me and said,

  "Wait"

  She froze in place and her eyes at that point really went out of focus as the iris got bigger and it was apparent she was not seeing me or anything else around her. She remained like that for a few minutes more before shaking herself and coming out of whatever trance she was in. She then looked at me very intensely, with a very puzzled look on her face.

  "I have already told you more about my people then I should have. Yet I have now been instructed to tell you all about my people and our history, which is very unusual and against our laws”

  It was then she noticed the gun in my hand and smiled. I went back to the rack and re-holstered my gun.

  “Told how, and by whom?”

  "Our Seers have methods of communicating that is unique to them. That was one item of information I wasn’t going to tell you about, but now it seems I can. It is also one of the powers our Seers have. What humans call telepathy. Yet the use of this power is limited within our Seers as to distance and localities as certain areas have natural properties that hinder this ability. To continue, my people was graced with the ability to use the earth's life force from our very beginnings, albeit only sparingly at first. Over the centuries we learned how to use our abilities more and more until we reached the level we were at before the war. We also developed a great understanding and knowledge of life and nature. This allowed us to shape our environment to our
needs and benefits while at the same time preserving nature in its true form. With that great knowledge also came great responsibility, which we had and used for all living things. We allowed the terror and horror we saw in the Atlantu, to cause us to cut off all relations and contact with them. We should have maintained contact and tried to reverse the path they were on. We didn't and that was my people's greatest challenge and we failed. After Atlantus was destroyed, my people was devastated almost beyond reason for what we had to do. There are a very special group of my people, which did not have any interaction with any of the intelligent life that existed on earth at that time, including us. In a way they were our spiritual advisors and counselor, although through the centuries we have had very little contact with them. We do not talk about them or refer to them for their existence was and still is one of our most sacred and profound secrets. So you can imagine our great surprise when they came to us in great distress. They informed us that our failure to preserve the people of Atlantus was a disgrace to everything we had stood for over the centuries. As punishment for our failure they informed us that we would slowly lose our ability to harness the earth's energies for we no longer deserved it. My people did not try to dissuade then from this action as they too felt we were guilty. Then without any further word they left us. The emotional strain alone afterwards on what we had did and had failed to do killed some of my people, mostly those of us who were healers. The rest suffered a great emotional depression and breakdown. As a nation our life practically came to an end. So over the next few hundred years my people slowly lost the ability to harness the earth's life force and all new babies born during that time, which in fact was very few, did not have the ability either. My people survived and as the years passed, we eventually started to rebuild our civilization without the use of our abilities. It took many more years for my people to overcome emotionally what we had done, but nothing had prepared us for what was to came afterwards. Without our abilities we had to rebuild our civilization in normal ways, which required us to make frequent trips to the various mainland's for much needed raw materials. These supply parties usually consisted of fifteen to as many as a couple of hundred individuals depending on the raw materials they were to gather. It was during this rebuilding period that one of our supply parties came across a group of humans who were literally torn limb from limb. To fully understand the implications of this let me point out that our people took great pains to make sure we were never discovered by the humans in our travels. So the decision to quietly bypass the injured humans should have been made. Yet finding these humans in this condition, triggered within the travelers our inbred creed to preserve all life. The condition of these humans was also so unusual and horrible that they could not abandon them and stopped to help. There was a party of about a hundred or so individuals, most of which were already dead. They all had been savagely injured but had somehow manage to escape and held onto their spark of life. My people made camp and cremated the dead humans. Over the next couple of weeks they nursed the injured ones back to health. Half of our party was sent back to Muraii with the supplies and to inform the Elders as to what they were doing. Although the Elders at first was upset, the reasoning behind the travelers actions were fully understandable. So supplies was taken to them to help in their endeavors. The humans slowly healed and upon waking was totally shocked and scared of my people who were helping them because of their appearance. It took awhile for the travelers to convince the humans they were not going to eat them as this was their greatest fear. It was some time later in the healing process that the humans told the travelers what had happened to them and their village. It was at night and the villagers were celebrating a successful hunt for meat. During the celebration they were attacked by what could only be described as monsters. People of the village was grabbed, torn apart and eaten right there on the spot. The villagers fought back but it was a futile effort as the monsters were too powerful. The survivors my people had found were those who had been attacked but had managed to escape the carnage only to have most die later of their wounds. The surviving humans healed but were scarred to a point where they would no longer be appealing to other humans. As they also had no other place to go, permission was asked and granted to bring them back to Muraii. It was there these humans lived out the rest of their lives. Upon returning to Muraii, the Elders were informed of what had happened to the humans. This caused the Elders and others of Muraii a lot of distress because what was described to them was very similar to the actions of the inhabitants of Atlantus back in its degrading years. The decision was made to find out if survivors of Atlantus were committing these attacks or was it something else. What was discovered scared the Muraiins to their core. The Xantu horror had re-appeared, and with a vengeance. Scores of human villages and nomads were being found ravaged, some beyond where the bodies could even be identified as humans. My people had a great debate, and it was decided that they had failed in their duty once before. They were determined not to do so again. So the decision was made to hunt down The Xantu creatures and to eliminate all of them. This campaign was spearheaded by one of our most studied explorers at the time. He was one of the explorers who had found the first slaughtered humans. He theorized that for us to win this battle, we would have to re-shape our thinking as to life and how sacred it is. We would have to train how to fight and learn to kill and to do so effectively. His name was Sakquian Ta. That is how our clan started and why all warriors of Muraii are thus called. So Muraiins studied fighting techniques by witnessing the wars between humans. They managed to pay some human warriors to train their people on how to fight. Trust me that was an interesting time among the Muraiins being trained. They had to live and train on the human continent since the trainers could not be allowed to enter Muraii. The trainers thought we were gods and was more than happy to help us. We felt very bad about not correcting them, but we needed their cooperation in training us. So we trained, and the best of us went home to train the others, and we started hunting down The Xantu. Yet during this campaign it became very apparent to them that The Xantu had gotten a lot stronger and a lot more powerful than was remembered. The threat even arose that The Xantu could have the technology and power to destroy Muraii. That one horrible fact spurred my people to try to re-harness their lost powers. So over the next few dozen years that followed, hundreds of Muraiin lives were lost in their endeavors of hunting down the Atlantu creatures, and very few of the creatures were killed. The Muraii knew they badly needed their powers back. Luckily over the next hundred years or so no attack by The Xantu and their creatures was ever made against Muraii. The Muraiins made good use of the time they were given. They slowly but surely started to regain some of their powers back, but with a difference. The powers they attained seemed to be of an offensive and defensive nature. Some were of nature’s utilization and healing powers which was of little use in battle. The powers that were returning was attributed to the need they had to fight The Xantu, although some speculated the unspoken of members of the Muraii who had stripped them of their powers may have something to do with what powers the Muraiins were able to reacquire. So over the years the battle against The Xantu continued, and our people got stronger in their use of their abilities. Then many years later, what was considered a miracle by my people happened. It was discovered that some of our most powerful mages were slowly reacquiring nature life force powers. Nowhere near what we use to have, but there none the less. So over the following centuries, Muraiins who reacquired this power, as well as being one of the most experienced Sakquian in battle, were selected to be an Elder, chosen by other Elders. The Elders are called Clan Elders. Then one of our most powerful mages at the time, who had mastered his use of his abilities discovered by accident, a new dimensional world. He figured out a way to safely travel from our dimension over to this new one. Other powerful mages were taught this new method of travel between dimensions. They found that at first the strain of such a transition rendered the one who did it unconscious for a short
while ranging from a few minutes to a couple of hours. Yet our healers determined that the effects of such a transition was not lasting or dangerous. So after years of studying this new dimension by our most powerful Mages, a way was found to move Muraii to this other dimensional world. One that was completely uninhabited, but livable. In addition it was almost beautiful beyond belief. It was determined that to move the whole island of Muraii and it's people to this new dimension and put Muraii out of reach of The Xantu would require the power of hundreds of mages who were also masters of their abilities. That was a lot more mages than they had at the time. It took another one hundred and sixty seven years for them to get enough mages powerful enough to move Muraii to the new dimension world. Those mages tested their ability to move between the dimensions for almost two years before they were convinced they could move Muraii and it’s people and do it safely. The plans to move Muraii was finalized, the people, animals and plant life prepped and then the move initiated. The shock of moving Muraii to this new dimension rendered most of the population unconscious, not for a few minutes or hours, but for a few days. The healing mages who were not part of the transport process, although conscious were very weak, but as the dimension was uninhabited by any intelligent or dangerous species, they were all safe. They did their best to determine if any of the populace had been injured or even killed during the transition, but it appeared all were only knocked unconscious during the event. So the city was protected until the populace awoke. When the populace slowly woke up they were astounded almost beyond speech at the unfamiliar surroundings. Although very concise descriptions of this new dimension had been given to the people over the years, it was another thing entirely to see it in person. It was an unbelievably beautiful place, but lonely for during the few preliminary journey there it was discovered that we would be the only intelligent life in this realm of existence. There was other small animals, but they were all harmless. There was also no avian or insect life of any kind in this new realm, which showed the uniqueness of the plant life and how it thrived. In the distance there were other landmass that was seen, and as we later discovered, there were three other smaller islands to our world, all within ten to a couple of hundred miles from the island of Muraii. These islands were all of a good size. All together including Muraii the total of all the landmass was a few miles smaller then the whole of this country. All the other animal and plant life we found on these islands were docile and non-threatening. So my people accepted their new home, and through many years of healing we slowly rebuilt our civilization on Muraii and the other islands and prospered"