Hell's Uprising

Chapter One: In The Beginning

It was still a few days before it all begins. It was a nice, warm night, around eleven PM- my favorite kind of day. That's how it is for the Birabuto region of Sarasaland: blistering hot during the day, but the perfect temperature at night. If it wasn't for their work schedules, I'm sure most people who lived here would just sleep during the day and hang out during the night, do whatever they do for fun. Unfortunately, the other regions of Sarasaland aren't like this, and we gotta keep up with their schedule. Birabuto definitely isn't a place of influence.

But you'd better believe it's the funnest place in Sarasaland. The people who can stay awake during both the day and the night and those who can't or don't need work participate in night parties. You should see the kind of crazy places I've been to. But I digress, that doesn't have too much to do with what happened that night, and soon enough I wouldn't be doing much partying of any kind. That night I was out looking for more Redroll, since I was almost out. Redroll is this fine red powder that keeps you awake. If you ain't used to it and you use too much of it it can be nasty dangerous and make you absolutely cuckoo, but if you can handle it, it's like the way better version of coffee. Me an' some of my friends have worked with it for a long time, and we've found the perfect balance of intake to stay awake all day and all night, and not miss anything.

Redroll could be tough to get, though. See, like tonight: I had been relying on my nyololin dealer Eleme to sell me some, but she ended up getting a nasty job from a nasty crowd, and by the time I'd find out about it in a few days it'd all be way too late: I'd be straight in the line of fire of this whole crazy series of events. I spose' it couldn't be helped though; there's a good chance that just by meeting Eleme I was destined to walk the path that I do. Plus, there's another acquaintance of mind that'd be just as much to "blame" for what was to come.

Anyway, without my usual lead for a hit, I was forced to go beg off another of my friends, Zymech. She's an engineer, constantly building and tinkering with all kinds of stuff I can't understand. For instance, two months ago she had spent a week cooped up in her little work area compacting some metal and crossing some wires or something (I have no idea), only to come out with this freakin' coffee machine. I couldn't help myself from smirkin' so she gave me a cup. Damn, let me tell you, that was the finest cup of coffee I had ever had. Too bad when I came back the next day for more of that good stuff she had already recycled the parts of the machine to start work on something new. That's just how it is with her: she's always recycling parts, making better and better inventions…at least most of the time.

It was late but I knew she'd be awake. She was always awake since she took way more Redroll than I could handle. I can't remember the last time I'd ever seen a hint of her sleeping. Kind of scares me, really, but I can't argue against it. She's gotta work just as much as the rest of us do during the day, and she's also constantly tinkering with stuff.

I got to her place and knocked on the door. About ten seconds later she opened up and stared unevenly at me.

"Rough day, Z?" I asked, jokingly. If you lived in Birabuto, every day was rough.

"I'm going to kill Sandolz." She said angrily. She pushed the door open for me and headed back inside her small hut. I followed after and shut the door behind me. "That bastard cut off twenty-five percent of my pay for the day just for arriving ten minutes late." She continued. She grabbed a wrench and went to work on some bizarre hunk of metal.

I should probably explain more about Zymech. She's a light-orange yoshi who left the Mushroom Kingdom after their species was exiled six years ago. Most yoshi's headed back to their native land of Yoshi's Island, but Zymech and her mother came to Sarasaland to live with her father who had been living here for a long time under some vague governmental contract. Then life took a dive for her. She came to Birabuto where her dad was supposed to be, but she couldn't find a trace of him despite getting a letter from 'im just a year back. Her mother got caught up in some bad activity while looking for the guy and ended up getting killed by a nasty gang of weirdos from the west. I can relate. Zymech settled down here and began trying to live some kinda normal life while also working on her endless passion for inventions. She even changed her name in order to avoid direct connection to her father, and started living in the slums of Shinar to hide her moderate wealth. We ended up meeting a few years after that, but I've gone on enough already.

"Sandolz, huh?" I crossed my arms and leaned up against the wall of the hut. Much of the inside was made of sturdy tin, a fitting motif for an inventor's place. "I think I worked under him once. Dick kept spitting sunflower seeds at our backs as we worked." In Birabuto most work involves random physical labor jobs. Every day you'd be doing something different with a different manager.

"That's him." Z grimaced. She grabbed a soldering iron and began vaguely attacking the metal mass in the center of the room with it. "I swear I get him every other time."

"Damn." I offered apologetically.

Z put down the iron and turned to me. Here we go. "Alright, enough crap, Lukas. What are you here for? I know if you had an option you'd be clubbing right now, not bumming around here. I can read it all over your mask."

She was right, of course. We were friends, but watching her mess around with wiring for a few hours was not my cup of tea.

"Wait a second. You look tired." She said before I could respond. "You're out of Redroll, aren't you? And I bet Eleme is out of town, isn't she? You want some of my stash."

"Yeah, you got me." I threw my arms up sarcastically. "Listen, I'll pay you the same I pay Eleme. I know you've got plenty, you can spare me a bit." I don't know from whom Z got her supply, but I knew that they sold in crazy bulk. Probably more than I could afford.

"Yeah, yeah, I can spare you a bit. Calm down." She turned the wrench she was holding roughly, securing a bolt into place. A loud beeping sound exploded out, and I jumped ten feet. Z chuckled as she pushed her wheeled stool back and rolled over to another cabinet where the Redroll was stored.

"What are you building, anyway?" I took a bit of a closer look at the thing she had been working on. As I mentioned before, at first glance it was a large hunk of metal, but on this new look I noticed all sorts of intricate stuff lining the mass and going inside of it. Actually, the thing almost seemed to have a face…! "This thing looks a little like a mekabon." The vague shape of it anyway.

Z had begun digging in her cabinet for a bag of Redroll by the time I made my observation. It made her stop and turn back to stare at me. "You think it looks like a mekabon?"

"Yeah, sure. Look, there's like the head here, and there's kind of these arms…" I touched the odd limbs that were sticking out of it. "There's not really any legs yet, but…"

"Legs were the next step." Z said worriedly. She found the bag she was looking for and brought it back over. "Ten red coins."

"Ten red coins? You're killing me, Z. How about seven?"

"Nine."

"Eight." I finished predictably. She scowled and I gave her the coins. She handed me the bag. "What's the problem? You seem miffed that I think this thing looks like a mekabon."

Shoot…do you know what mekabons are? They're a mechanical species living here in Sarasaland. They ain't very smart and they act really weird sometimes (they call them glitches, I guess?) but they're a favorite soldier for the Sarasaland troops. Apparently they can't feel anything, and don't think much so they're perfect for battle. Sometimes I get an odd sense of something from their cold eyes, though. Makes a guy wonder what the heck they really are. There's nothing else like em' except the bob-ombs in the southeast kingdoms.

"It's not a mekabon." Z insisted. "It's a new thing."

She seemed pretty troubled. I didn't really know at the time what was happening there. Once again, by the time I found out, things were…well, actually, I suppose that I found out at exactly the right time.

"Well, alright, if you say so." I shrugged. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. Hell, I didn't even really ask her what the thing was supposed to be. I don't think she would've given me a straight answer anyway.

"Alright, you got what you wanted. Time to go." She shooed me away distractedly. She was still bothered by what I had said and it was making her look strangely at her invention.

"Love ya, Z." I grinned wily and gave her a bear hug.

"Get off!" She snapped. She shoved me away. I fell back, laughing a bit. Z glared at me.

"Alright, well, see ya later Z!" I made a small kind of half-wave and headed for the door.

"See you!" Z called back, a bit more cheerfully than her demeanor had let on. I feel bad looking back at it now: next time I saw her I'd be dragging her kicking and punching into the mess that Eleme and John got me into.

Now that I had the Redroll I needed I was set to go to the new dive I had heard about. I opened the bag and inhaled a small amount: I figured it'd last me the next seven hours. As I mentioned earlier, the stuff's great, but you gotta be careful. Too much and you're an addicted, mindless, drooling wreck.

It wasn't too far of a walk to the place John had told me about. The town I live in, Shinar, is a really scrunched up place in that most of the different "districts"- if you wanna call em' that- are all really close together. I mean, the whole town is about two square miles, and it has a slummy district (used fondly, mind you, it's where Z and I live), a wealthy district, a kind of middle-class district, and a political district. The slummy district takes up the most space (this is Birabuto after all) while the other three are basically equal size-wise. Point is I was at this new place in forty minutes. It wasn't really a new location, but it was new for me. If I hadn't been here yet it must've been a really low-down place.

So I was very surprised when the clown guarding the front door asked me for an ID.

"You're kiddin', right?" My eyebrows rose.

"If you not eighteen or up…" The big dumb nokonoko paused, trying to remember what he was supposed to say next. "…you don't come in."

"Yeah yeah…" I grabbed around in my robe pockets and found what I was looking for. I handed the giant stone head my work ID. "Here. I'm nineteen. See this number here? That's when I was born."

"Yes. Yes. I see." The nokonoko rubbed his chin. It made a kind of an annoying sound. "You can go in."

"Thank you." I took my ID back and headed in. I had teased the bouncer about his ability to read the year, but I wasn't going to go much farther than that: nokonoko's were crazy strong and I honestly felt sorry for their depressing simplicity.

Since the place had a bouncer I had been expecting to find out this was some kind of secret super-fancy club, where only those "in-the-know" went. I mean, it was in the middle-class district, so it couldn't be too terrible…

But no, it was pretty awful. Just coming in I arrived on a balcony that overlooked the whole room, and so I could see all of the trashiness straight off the bat. First, the room was dim, and not in a jazzy way- there were broken light bulbs all over the ceiling. This place would be grossly bright if it wasn't broken down. Second, the place smelled like melted plastic soaked in gasoline- the smell of bad alcohol. You might not think that's the case, but everything's on the lower side in Birabuto, and when you get to the lower side of alcohol you get the delightful smell of plastic an' gasoline. Third, the place was just plain dirty. There was garbage everywhere and visible sand and muck on the floor. I know we live in the desert region of Sarasaland but Eld you gotta at least keep up some standards with this stuff.

All in all, it was one of the better places I'd been to.

There was John, waving me over. I sighed and made my way down the unpleasantly sloped steps, making sure not to slip, fall, and die.

"You found quite the place this time." Just as I walked up to the table I stepped in something sticky. I almost tripped as my right foot continued forward and my left stayed stuck in place. "Aw Eldstar." I grabbed the table with some force, nearly knocking over John's drink.

"Lukas, you always know the best way to make an entrance." John finished his drink as I struggled to get my left foot unstuck from the floor.

John's my closest friend and maybe one of five humans I've ever seen. We've known each other since we were seven, way back when my dad was alive, and in the years we've developed a kind of brotherly bond. It's the kind of thing that's helped us to survive: if you live in Sarasaland, or at least, Birabuto, you need someone who has your back. A lot of my friends have died for one reason or the other over the years: sometimes from a random outbreak of violence, but usually something to do with the government- the Queen's reign is just about as riddled with corruption as it gets. Point is, if you've got a brother of some kind, you've got a much better chance of surviving.

"Screw you." I finally unlatched myself from the floor and managed to make a decent landing into the messily pulled-out chair. "What the hell is with this place?" I almost looked under my shoe to see what I had stepped in but decided against it.

"What? Are you tired of our 'quest to try every bar in Shinar'?" He was quoting me.

"Maybe. Damn. Where's the waitress?"

"There are no waitresses. You will have to walk up to the bar." John explained. Cool and collected as always, to my irritation.

"Great. I just sat down." I complained. I got up again and walked over to the bartender who was a koopa with an eye patch. Amazing.

"What'll it be?" He asked gruffly.

I really wanted to ask if he was a pirate. "You got hard Marine Pops?" I wasn't going to challenge him with anything too hard, considering the state of his establishment.

"Yeah." He muttered. "Just a sec'". He started pouring and mixing. I turned back to look over the bar and at some of the other patrons. It seemed everyone there was raggedy, save for me and John. Then again, I hadn't looked in any mirrors recently…

I heard the familiar clunk of a glass being set down. I paid the pirate koopa and headed back to the table, the combined payment to Z and the payment for the drink bringing a newfound lightness to my coin bag. It bothered me a little. Oh well, that's just how it was- living from payment to payment. Tomorrow I'd get the money I'd need to live again.

"You look a bit melancholic." John stared at me suspiciously. "Have you read something sad recently?"

"I look melancholic? What the hell are you talking about?" I took a big swig of the Marine Pop. Aw Eld, what did the guy put in it? I started coughing.

"I don't know…your cloak looks a little droopier than usual…your eye holes are a little more curved…" He shrugged.

"I'm not sad at all." I frowned. I lowered my voice. "In fact, I've actually been reading this rather humorous Beanbean novel recently." According to the Queen's law it was illegal to purchase or own books from the nearby Beanbean Kingdom and Jewelry Land. The growing animosity between those countries and ours had caused her to completely shut down trading.

"Oh, really?" John perked up a little. "They got another one?"

"Yep. That's why you should come back." You may not be thinking it because of the way I've been telling this, but John and I consider ourselves intellectuals- at least, compared to most of the people living here in Birabuto. I'm a big reader: I've read just about every novel I've been able to get my hands on. John, meanwhile, is obsessed with history. I don't know anyone who knows more than him about the history of Sarasaland and probably the entire known world. Feel free to disagree about me being smart, but you can't deny all of the things John's learned. It's nuts. I'd prove it, but we didn't really talk about history that night, and I've got a story to tell here.

We were about to start making it in a few days anyway.

Because of our mutual love of reading (in one form or another), we ended up getting connected with an underground group of scholars based here in Shinar that called themselves the Collegiate. They smuggle books in from other countries and keep them in a secret library. Because of its reach into other lands it's a lot bigger than any legal libraries, but it takes a while to get new books in. John and I use to often meet with the other learned people there regularly, but John had stopped going a while ago. He had begun to participate in a group he'd only explain to me as the "Organization". Ominous as hell even before I found out what was really going on with it.

"You know I'm too busy to come back." John said quietly. "In fact, that's actually why I picked this place to come to tonight."

"What?" I asked confusedly.

""This place…is controlled by the Organization, so it is the safest place in Shinar to tell you this." John glanced around the bar. "The Organization has begun picking up the pace regarding work recently. I am going to be leaving for a while."

I suddenly felt like everyone in the room was staring at me and John. Maybe they were, I don't know, I sure as hell didn't look around. "John…what are you talking about?"

"Everything is speeding up. Something may happen soon. We might be able to get somewhere."

Let me tell you what I knew about the Organization at that point: basically nothing. John joined about half a year ago under mysterious circumstances. I've asked him multiple times about joining but he's told me again and again that there are no "open spaces". His secretive crap with it made me angry for a time, but there was nothing to really do about it.

"Could you use any help?" I asked tiredly. I thought I already knew the answer.

"Maybe." John tapped his fingers on the table. "There is a good possibility."

Oh, well actually, I didn't know the answer. I really wasn't expecting any kind of a 'yes' answer.

"But if that does happen…" John looked at me seriously. "I am going to ask you suddenly, and you are going to have to drop everything to help."

Drop everything? What did that mean? Go off and help this "Organization" for a few days, maybe weeks? I still didn't even know what it was about. But that wasn't the important thing: this was a matter of trust and brotherhood. With John, of course, but as I thought more about it I realized that joining this Organization could have massive benefits: the possible protection of an entire group.

"No problem." I replied just as seriously as he had asked. "I've been trying to help you with that stuff forever, haven't I?"

John nodded. An odd clicking sound came from somewhere and he looked up at the ceiling slowly. I hesitantly followed suit to see what he was looking at, but there was only the dirty stained ceiling. Still, John pushed back from the table and stood, putting on his coat.

"Are you seriously going already?" I asked.

"Sorry, I have business." He pushed his right hand through his scraggly, dark black hair and then pulled a small book out of his coat pocket. He placed it on the table. "I know you usually only read novels but I highly recommend this."

The cover was orange and read 'Daisy', with no author. It was hardback but falling apart- from use not from age.

"Pocket it as deep as you can before you leave." John's eyes narrowed. "Consider it smuggled."

Daisy. "Is this…?"

"Do not even say it." John shook his head. "Just read the book." He was speaking rather formally. I think he was trying to avoid getting even a little choked up, though I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't know what exactly he was doing in the Organization and how fully he had to accept the possibility of a fatal end. "Farewell."

"Good…bye…?" I could barely get out before John was gone. He had practically run up the stairs and out of the joint. I sighed and headed out as well. I had no reason to stay in that nasty place any longer. In fact, I was sick of visiting these trashy bars- I already knew the best in town. No reason to keep visiting the terrible ones.

Yes, I was unaware of it, but that night would be my last night feeling relaxed and mostly safe. You could never feel totally safe living in Sarasaland but you could feel pretty safe. The next few days would be working days where I'd sleep during the night, and then that certain day I've been hinting at would come.

In just a few days where I went to get a drink would be the least of my problems. In just a few days the trouble that would kick everything off would hit me, and many of the subsequent events would pull from there, like quicksand falling into a hole faster and faster. Before much longer I'd be part of an army going up against the Queen and the forces of Sarasaland, and fighting for my life- as well as being trusted with others.

So as Lukas implies, you can kind of consider this a prologue to the actual story. Most of the protagonists are introduced here or at least mentioned. Let me know if you think this is interesting so far, and thank you for reading!