Dhalikastra

I saw a forest made of trees whose roots were made of hundred of fingers, each one with a thousand knuckles; sprouting eye-fruits and ear-flowers; trunk with a bony bark and teeth instead of thorns; great locks of hair in place of leaves.

 -Litua Kortos, lilim of the Dhalikastra's garrison.

     This fortress' role has been to lure nefilims for the last four hundred years, drawing the evils of the Unquiet Lands. If something conquers it one day, the garrison has the duty of warning the world of this. Dhalikastra is shaped as a titanic hexagonal prism, red and bright amidst a land of an opaque, dead grey. The radiance pours out of the goddess Dhalila herself. It sustains, protects and heals the defenders, at the same time attracting nefilims like ants seeking sugar. And when they come, the guardians gather in walled balconies and shoot from arrowslits, protected by heavy adamantine armors. The latter are reinforced with leather and cloth to portect their users from the toxic elements and the ocasional vacuum of the Unquiet Lands. Every helmet must have a glass-sap visor and miasma filters.

    The current castellan is Volya "Smeyas". A blond shardokan, with dark circles under his eyes and grey spots in the arms, wielding a flintlock grenade launcher. Like all which stay here, he adopted a new name for a new life, leaving his old self outside the Unquiet Lands and the terror that they create:

My babuskha, Valeria, told me how the man she loved was attacked from within his own guts, and how she had to kill what was left. She told me of a voyage which lasted a year more than it should, being awakened in the midnight by a feeling of pain and finding saliva and bite marks where it hurt. May Corallin forgive my baba for burning down a forest to escape the Thing That Laughs. When baba died, I sacrificed ten sheep to Corallin so her soul would reincarnate into a better life. Then I came here. Volya means "freedom". I spent my entire life afraid of the stories about the terrors and carnages she saw. I was tired of being afraid, of being a victim of these bastard things with larval teeth. Now, even amidst this hell, I'm happy. You can't imagine how good it feels to be free of the fear which was more intimate to me than my own parents. My nickname here is Smeyas, which means "the one which laughs", because I can laugh in the worst situations. Half of it is due to despair, the other half for the happiness in finally reacting upon my fears, all of it for the chance of exploding a nefilim.

     Like Volyas, most of the defenders had their life marked by nefilims in one way or another. Many came from exile colonies for those which suffer from nefilim leprosy, administered by the Lazarus Order.

Anyone may be a volunteer, no matter the race, beliefs, crimes or status. As much honor as can be had among men and gods, amidst enemies on the battlefield, there can be no honor nor peace among mortals and nefilims. The lilims themselves agree with this. We're all equal when facing nefilims, just food and fun for them. They will regret teaching us to be equals.

     Here also lies an observatory meant to identify nefilim falling nests and the place of their crash. Most of the nests come from the Gharian Planetary Ring, therefore having rich adamant veins. Dhalikastran expeditions depart to eliminate the infestations and claim mining rights over these asteroids. Part of the extracted adamant goes to Dhalikastra. The rest is sold to sustain the exile colonies and the cult of Dhalila.