Looking Southward and Backward, Part 18.

This is the part of the narrative which would be enormously abbreviated, or completely omitted altogether. Partly due to the fact that it is somewhat of an awkward subject to recognize that Deneroth's area of influence ends so abruptly such a relatively close distance from its walls, facing southward, and partly due to the fact that many writers find the succeeding days of travel quite empty and dull. I do mean this generally, but I can also point to the accounts of Hirmant & Steppos as personal influences of my perspective on this.

Unfortunately for my dear readers, I will not exercise the same degree of brevity.

... As if the rest of my writing career is not an indication.

We are currently half of a day out from Janskurf's Place and the spot where curious Elrusyo separated from us. The seats of our wagons are growing less and less comfortable, and in the interest of spairing ourselves as well as staying warm, we've taken to walking beside the caravan. At the rate the sluggish animals are traveling, it is not so strenuous that I am incapable of writing- though some of my colleagues and I have already begun to sweat, or in my case, exude a pasty sort of glow. The end result is that our backsides and our legs hurt, rather than feel rested, from alternating sitting and walking. This comes with the natural exception of Hraela. In fact from this point onward, whenever I refer to any sort of physical hardship, the reader can be assured that I am not including her among sufferers or belly-achers.¹

The land south of Deneroth is not empty wasteland. Not in the sense of climate or natural life, and certainly not in the sense of human population either. These regions, once struck the hardest by the long winter of the Rupture, have been reclaimed by nature and by mankind alike over the past two hundred years or so. Small farms and communities like the one where we first encountered Elrusyo exist here, dotting fields, rivers, and hills. Organization between them is present but relatively minimum, except when the rare intermarriage or dispute over particular facets of land draw them together. They do more than subsist and survive, contributing to the north-south trade which keeps the road between Deneroth and Porylus from deteriorating into overgrown divots.

The people here are knowledgeable enough of the cities to know where we hail from and where we are likely bound, but they are ignorant enough to treat us kindly regardless. They speak a language based in Ersuut, but with a heavy admixture of Esgodarran words, as is quite common up north. In fact I would venture to say that they belong to the same continuum of mixed populations living in the region. A rare noun or highly irregular verb leaves Ciudo groping for possible Gertish or River-folk influences, but more often than not he becomes tangled in his own web of morphology.

The people here also sing, and those ethereal sounds are what we now listen to, carrying clearly over the cold air farther than they would in warmer seasons.

Their style of song isn't performative, although I don't doubt that they have a time and a place for that in their day-to-day life as well. Rather, it is one closely associated with physical work. Every profession, it seems, has its own little canon of songs, rhymes, and patterns of rhythm. Many of these songs, in addition to assisting in keeping the pace of work going steady, whether alone or in a team of individuals, also possess a mnemonic quality.

The women and their children harvesting herb gardens almost indistinguishable from the surrounding undeveloped land sing to recall which plant is safe, what each part of the plant is used for, and how to spot weeds or invasive species creeping into their respective habitats. The men elsewhere in groves keep up with one another on short but thick two-person saws as they gather lumber for the winter, and a periodic shout of a refrain alerts those nearby to falling boughs. Shepherds of both sexes stream a soothing series of notes which names and numbers each animal in their flock, yet with surprising fluidity it changes into a staccato litany of curses aimed at us when the caravan gets in the way of their road crossing, or one of the horses spooks a ewe. We cannot now hear them as we keep to the road, but a knowledgeable guide explains to us that songs also exist for domestic, culinary, and even legal matters at home. Their oral tradition is a strong one, with the wars which saw the deaths of the last Haraalians being just recent additions to a landscape of folklore.

It is an almost entirely illiterate world that they live in after all, and everything must be trusted to memory.

As terrifying as that prospect sounds to someone dependent upon writing like myself, I also can't help but see a certain seductive appeal in it. An axiom associated with Laizij holds that absence is the father of creativity, just as adversity is the mother of innovation. And I believe that these people have demonstrated that, though not according to the traditional models of progress. Rather than filling a preexisting void with a new mechanical thing, they have simply negated the void's existence by re-purposing something which they already possessed and knew well. It is enticingly simple.

But I must stop before I begin romanticizing rural populations of whom I know almost nothing about, like some simpering noble from the second tier reading a popular novel. I am sure that the world has a way of delivering just as much frustration and tedium to their lives as ours. Hopefully we hurry on our way before we contribute more of either to these shepherds.



¹ Granted, none of our professional porters and animal handlers are very likely to be in significant pain either. And since Ciudo and Sarq at least have youth on their side, I am without a doubt the least physically fit person within miles. Perhaps just keep that in mind as you read ahead, and allow me to maintain the illusion of dignity by subsuming myself within a tired collective.

One Last Excerpt from Hraela's Homework.

Page 9

Evidence in Defense of the Argument

for Roberick Bertrum Litte's Mental Instability,

the Danger to Himself as well as Others,

& His Blatant Disregard for University Procedure

The following is a transrip transcript of a conversation overheard toward the end of our party's overnight stay at Janskurf's Severed Toe. I have reconstructed or recollected as much of the preceding conversation as possible, because I wasn't present at the start of the incident. I was however present for the entirety of the issue which is my concern in this piece. As the title suggests, I have further evidence for the woeful lack of qualifications for leadership or even University attendance demonstrated by Roberick Litte. It is needless to say by this point that his works will require heavy ordination. But I cannot stress enough how potentially harmful his own direct behavior has become. I will present this and other evidence to our brothers-in-thought at Porylus Mons when we reach the city for resupply, in the hopes that they might aid me in detaining Litte before we enter an even worse hotbed of political tensions farther out. He deserves treatment--and if possible, correction--before he incites an angry mob to kill him one of these days.



[The main hall at Janskurf's Place, approximately twenty-five talecks before midnight]

Man #1: So did you hear about what happened to Pellesh?

Man #2: What'd that old jackass do this time?

Man #1: Got himself taken prisoner over at Riven-Bridge.

Man #2: Really? Independent side, or ours?

Man #1: Indep.

Man #2: Hell. That's a bad deal. Why can't those bastards stay on their own side? Isn't that what they've always wanted? I wish Deneroth would just raise an army to crush them and reunite that whole mess one of these days.

[Murmurs of "here, here!" and knocks of mugs upon the bar and tabletops resound. A few pieces of clay break.]

Man #1: According to them, they were on their side. Said Pellesh was trespassing on their bridge. He was walking alone when some guards must've seen him wearing the wrong trading permit and nabbed him. Tir and his boys saw that from the other end and skipped town. Headed south down the river after hitching a ride on a raft.

Man #2: What, with one of those drop-heads? [Shuddering sound] Those people give me the creeps. Better than getting caught by Indep churls, I guess. Not by much though. I take it you heard all this from Tir?

Man #1: Yeah. They came back west after that, and I met them south of the Corridor. Said they were gonna try to send the coin to ransom him with. Otherwise he's got a year locked up there to learn all about bridges and bull-

Litte: [Surrounded by a half-dozen emptied mugs] There are only two bridges.

Men #1&2: What?

Litte: The bridges around the town. There are only two.

Man #2: Who the hell is this nosy ass?

Man #1: Just some drunk, doesn't know what he's talking about. Just ignore him.

Litte: The north belongs to the Royalists, the south to the Independents. Your friends tried to cross on the south side, which is why he was de- [hiccup] detained and the others were able to get to one of the Riverfolk vessels. They only tether or dock on the banks south of or underneath [nauseated burping sound] town.

Man #1: ... Your point being? Pellesh must've used that bridge countless times before and it never got him in trouble.

Litte: It's one of the most basic tenants of trading in the east, and both sides of the river consider it with grave seriousness. Either your friend didn't care, or he is an idiot. In either case, he finally got caught. A couple of Royals--no less stern of statutes--would have done the same on the opposite side of things. Little reason for you two to get so worked up over it.

Man #1: [Standing up] What gives you the right to insult one of our friends, you dress-wearing milksop?

Man #2: Yeah! ... No matter how true those insults might be.

Man #1: Shut the hell up, Baryl. Who are you?

Litte: My name is Roberick, and it's not a dress. It's a robe. There's a clear difference. [Hiccup]

Man #2 (Apparently Baryl): Lookit his chest, Orhen. He's got one've those walled-up belfries on it. He's from the University.

Man #1 (Apparently Orhen): I thought I smelled a damned book-rat when I walked in here. But I don't see a fancy department crest or one of those idiotic number ranks emblazoned anywhere on you. You must be one of those weaselly freshmen sent all the way down here for hazing. Is that it? You taking a break from kissing up to your saint long enough to wash the taste of his dusty old bones out of your mouth?

Litte: [Now smiling] Ooh, "book-rat". I like that. I'll have to save that for a later piece. In any case I am sorry to disappoint you, but no. I actually happen to be a dropout.

Baryl: [Scoffing] A dropout? The only thing worse than a know-it-all is a failed know-it-all.

Litte: True as that may be, I still happen to be correct.

Orhen: Horse shit. I bet you've never even set foot at Riven-Bridge.

Litte: No, I haven't. But I've read people who have.

Orhen: So you take the word of strangers? What's so special about that?

Litte: I take the reasoned, carefully put-together and peer-reviewed word of reputable people. Case in point, the comparison between similarities in jurisprudence between both opposed camps of Riven- [particularly throaty hiccup] Bridge occupies chapter 14 of the "Tales along the River Khesh" compilation gathered together and edited by the Cousins Sallal thirty-four years ago, including interviews with permanent and temporary denizens of Riven-Bridge such as a former Master of the Trade Quarter, Tezer Benj.

[A long beat of silence]

Baryl: ... My Great-Uncle Tez got published?

[A particularly long beat of silence which gives my pen a chance to catch up]

Orhen: [Moving much closer to Litte] Alright, book man. So you've memorized the things that bigger and better men than you have accomplished. What does that leave you with? Huh? By what right do you mock others?

Litte: Well considering my track record up to this point, it's probably the beer plus the meddling of a bored magician.

Orhen: So you think you're funny? Well I don't see a jester. All I see in front of me is an uppity little rat from that anthill of a city, looking to stroke his own ego lecturing anyone he deems dumber than himself.

[The crowd parts slightly, and Qe Ku Ciudo(?) appears, looking tipsy enough to approach the confrontation, but sober enough to be afraid while doing so.]

Ciudo: Associate Undergraduate Roberick, sir, do you need some kind of help with these men? I might know a lot of dead languages, but surely the language of peace is still alive an-

Orhen: [Without looking away from Litte] Piss off, whelp!

Ciudo: [Quickly retreating again] O-O-Okay, hiding under a table now...!

Baryl: Maybe you should lay off of him now, Orhen. He's not the only one who's been drinking.

Litte: It's fine, I probably have this coming for one reason or another.

Orhen: You just like to dig yourself deeper and deeper, don't you?

Baryl: [Turning away] Alright, it's your funeral...

[Litte proceeds to roll up the sleeves of his robe]

Orhen: Honestly? If it's a fight you wanted, you could have just asked me. Or thrown a mug at my head like any decent person wo-

[Litte finishes rolling up his grey and white-trimmed sleeves, only to extend both arms with hands loose and opened. He rotates both arms to most clearly show off what appears to be a series of massive, blotchy scars across the upper forearms. His right elbow is similarly marked, being completely engulfed in damaged tissue. They are dark, sunken, and severe-looking despite their apparent age. In places, they barely seem like dead skin is covering bare bone. Orhen looks put-off by the sight, and steps back.]

Orhen: What... what the hell are those? Are they contagious?!

Litte: Oh come now, they're only burns. You can't get sick from someone's scar, friend. They're even worse on my feet, if you'd like to see?

[Litte lifts a leg up as if to offer. I begin to understand now why he always wears socks.]

Orhen: No! No, I don't. What did that to you?

Litte: Fire-walking. Or, well. Fire-falling. A collapsing animal burrow sort of botched the ceremony when I'd gotten halfway across. I was told the odd color is because my flesh was actually imbued with some of the charcoal ashes. It was a strange southern tree with many properties to begin with, so I don't doubt it.

Orhen: South? Did you say you were in the south?

Litte: Hm? Oh, yes. But farther south than the south you're thinking of, I'd wager.

Orhen : [Squinting hard at Litte] ... Taqnal Commune?*

(Taqnal Commune is the southeastern-most province of the P.A.S.C.O.P.P.Y. It is closest to the River Deltas and the eastern sea, and is therefore the eventual destination for far-flung traders in the world. Our expedition will not be traveling quite so far, being destined for north-central Am'reto.)

Litte: Taqnal Commune! Oh, that place was a delight. The melange of words in those markets would give Ciudo need for a change of undergarments.

Ciudo: [From somewhere] Still hiding!

Litte: No, friend. I've seen south of Taqnal. That was just my last stop before the real journey began. I'm not sure exactly how far south, because I lost track after the first hundred leagues or so. But I went far beyond that too. I didn't stop until I saw the Transpashel Coastal Plain.

Orhen: Bullshit! Only mad Nambarish sailors go that way, bringing back stories of...

[There is no interruption here. He seems to deliberately trail off from what he was about to say, in keeping with good decorum. More people than just the immediate traders surrounding them seem to be aware of them now.]

Litte: Hmm?

Orhen: Oh don't play dumb, book-rat.

Litte: Dumb about what?

Orhen: You know what.

Litte: Say it.

Orhen: I don't need to say it!

Litte: SAY AURIKH!

[Dead silence across the entire hall. Baryl sputters his drink and coughs into an arm.]

Litte: [Gesticulating wildly, growing red in the face] Just say it! Only mad Nambarish sailors go that way, bringing back stories of aurikhs! Stooped, grey-green, copper-clad, bald-headed, and empire-Rupturing aurikhs! The ten thousand tribes from the bowels of the underworld, bane of the Haraalians, all that kind of thing! The vast stretch of world that we happily ignore the existence of! Only mad sailors and me go there! Gods, man! You talk like you've seen the world--like you've seen shit--but then when the littlest genuine discomfort comes along, you clam up like a simpering University freshman! The professors can't hear us out here, I assure you!

[The silence deepens. Also, I take offense to that freshman comment.]

Litte: I've gone there, I've weathered the elements, I've looked past the centuries of horror stories and red tape, and I've found a people with more integrity than a hundred successor cities! A people I didn't just want to study, but to know. A people I risked life and limb walking across a stretch of flaming earth just to prove myself to!

[Orhen is still at a loss for words. A few murmurs stir amid the crowd. They are not very friendly. More travelers stand up. The meadhall workers have pressed against the far walls by now. I begin to wonder if I should run for the doors now while there is time.]

Litte: [Raising his arms up again] ... Obviously I fell over in the attempt, but what is important is-

[Elrusyo appears suddenly, clasping his hands over Litte's shoulders and offering a laugh like he's salvaging a punchline. When the hell did he get here? When the hell had he left?]

Elrusyo: Yes, friend, you fell over! Just like you'll fall over here if you don't go and have yourself a lay-down, you drunk bastard! I'm so sorry folks; I warned him not to drink too much! He always gets like this, please forgive his fantastical outburst. Oh, and Poortz to all you ladies and gentlemen! Just put the drinks on my tab! Now anyway... Stitch Boy, Reed-Neck! Party's over! Gert! Stop writing!

[Elrusyo drags a stumbling Litte away while quieting or muffling him. My colleagues quickly follow suit. I must end my log here for now.]

On the Origins of Haraal.

Despite my strong feelings on the subject, I have to retain some small shred of impartiality, lest I become no better a writer than any member of the mid-tier faculty back at the ITU. In writing for a broader potential audience (all half-dozen of you), I must assume that no piece of history is universally-known. And that even extends to the life of Haraal, who incidentally was exactly the sort of figure who wanted his own name to be universally known.

According to the most common legend which supposedly stems from his own account of his early life, Haraal was not born. But he was birthed.

Upon the slopes of a mythical peak known as Yorl'di, there stood a weathered old tree which could generously be called a pine, alabaster in color and of the bristlecone variety. It was gnarled, bent and bowed by the unremitting wind and cold of those desolate slopes, such that it could scarcely grow more than a few needles facing away from the breeze. To any observer, it would appear almost completely dead.

But what it was actually doing was channeling its life inward, rather than expressing it outwardly. Over the span of a year, the tree's bent trunk swelled and distended until bark split and the integrity of the whole plant was compromised. When this massive protuberance at last ruptured, out came the body of a fully grown adult male, a bit sticky with sap but otherwise no worse for wear considering the year he'd just spent inside of a frozen tree. As popular depictions are quick to agree, he was bronze-skinned, black-haired, and possessed of a smoldering icy-blue gaze the likes of which one could see in an ice floe shattered by a sudden winter storm. It is no coincidence, I think, that he so closely resembled the aesthetic ideal of the old Ersuunians.

In all of his glory he stood up, dazed and nude, and turned to behold his dead "mother".

Instantaneously, the full scope of knowledge of life and death and the nature of the world blossomed within the man's mind. This would not be the only time the man would be known to instantly acquire knowledge- time and time again, often at the most convenient and dramatic moment possible, he would suddenly come into complete and masterful knowledge of whatever practical or philosophical issue was at hand. Whether this knowledge was gifted to him by a miraculous source, or it was innate to him and merely needed "unlocking" has been a topic of hot debate among priests and scholars alike for several centuries.

Whatever the nature of his genius, he did not however obtain the knowledge of how to walk properly in that first insight. Upon turning away from the splintered tree, he tripped and fell down a precipice, nearly painting a cliff face with his own insides.

Fortunately for this as-of-yet unnamed man, he was not killed by the fall, though he was badly hurt. Miraculously, the daughter of a shepherd from the lowlands just so happened to be gathering herbs and berries from the more mild scree-fields by the base of Yorl'di, and saw the man fall. She then took him back to her family's home and nursed him back to health, and in doing so, the man learned language. When he rose from bed one day, having healed at an astonishing rate, he pronounced that his name was Haraal.¹

This was also the moment of awakening for two of Haraal's other remarkable qualities; the Presence, and the Gaze. Both of them abilities which would be instrumental in his future successes.

Somewhat (un)fortunately for the shepherd's family, Haraal thanked them for their hospitality by testing both of these qualities on them.



¹ Officially, Haraal learned how to speak the language of the shepherds (as well as all other languages known to man) simply by watching and listening to them from his bed. Controversially, some scholars have argued that it may be that the shepherd's daughter was the one to directly teach him the spoken word, or even to name him, when he had neither before then. This theory pokes a hole in the idea of Haraal's immaculate or innate knowledge however, as well as places him in a position of tutelage--and therefore subordination--to another person, and a woman at that. To see this theory in full, as well as the rebuttals to it by Haraal's hardline faithful, look to the expanded introductory chapter found in annotated copies of Origins of Instruction: A Comparative Examination of the Earliest Instances of Formal Education in Recorded History by Apla the Elder, BR 82.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 10.

Sarq seems nearly to faint for a moment, though likely more from disbelief at what Elrusyo has done, than from actual distress at the sight of blood. He shakes off his nonplussed shackles after a few moments in a scramble of quick movement which too, in a few moments, he fights against. Something approaching a focused calm comes over him, and a not-quite-authoritative voice comes from his mouth as he requests this, that, or the other thing of Ciudo and Hraela- his bewildered, brand new surgical assistants, it would seem.

They both shift closer to the flanks of their beleaguered colleague and offer what assistance they can- an apparently permissible act in Elrusyo's eyes, and an effective utilization of the resources at hand. Ciudo looks the most morose now, being unused to such carnage, but he tries to keep a steady hand as he fishes around for the proper tools and implements packed away in Sarq's small cases. Hraela seems more annoyed that they must now dote on this disagreeable man than bothered at the blood. Before long she subsumes her distaste underneath classic Gertisch stoicism- which is to say, she offers her silent, withering glare to everyone-and-thing, and not only their patient. She does however look favorably upon the bloody blade belonging to Elrusyo which sits nearby. Whether because of its craftsmanship, or the way he handled it, I cannot say.

Elrusyo himself seems to demonstrate the greatest self-control and composure of anyone in this cart, both myself and even the draft horse included. His fingers occasionally twitch and spasm as if from damaged and misfiring musculature, but from the elbow up he remains absolutely cool and composed. He even continues to offer casual advice and commentary to Sarq, though he keeps returning to the passage of time as imperative. The dark blood running from his self-inflicted wound is now forming a small puddle in between our huddled bodies.

"Careful with that tourniquet now, boy. Do you want me to permanently lose the use of my fingers?"

"It would be admirable of your foresight to get someone looking for an artery clamp or two."

"While it is permissible in this short-term scenario, I loathe to imagine what corruption that thing could cause without proper cleaning."

"Excuse me, nurse, could I please get a warm, damp towel on the brow? I am feeling a little faint and clammy... Oh come now, you feisty Gert. I was not singling you out for your womanhood! In fact, I was referring to your mute little linguist and trying to get him to speak up finally."

"Gah, careful with that! Apply the antiseptic, don't drown me in it! And don't you hold out on me, either. A patient--and their doctor--benefit far more from sharing a shot or two than any medical institution will admit. Come to think of it, just give everyone here a round. Especially if it will shut Robber's damned quill up."

The initial time limit is beaten, with the worst of the bleeding stopping before the pool of blood becomes frighteningly large. Still, the reek of iron is strong enough for people up and down the line to turn and wonder what is happening, and Elrusyo himself seems pale, weakened, and even a little quiet. Esgodarran brandy burns my throat and stomach, but enough that I am able to pretend it is fortifying me against the cold wind which still dips down through the high, hilly valleys to whip across our caravan.

But the real work of knitting everything else together begins now, and is far more grueling. It seems to be that Sarq has forgotten exactly what was requested of him, but Elrusyo does not seem inclined to stop him if he is indeed on a roll. Muscle, sinew, and skin will have to come together of its own accord, if it will at all, but steps can still be taken to foster it.

So involved is he, that he doesn't even notice the way his assistants shift away down the bench once more.

Or the fact that the other arm belonging to the hedge magician is now raised, hand extended to receive and shake the medic's. Elrusyo smiles the sort of smile normally reserved for professional False City grifters.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 9.

The interrogation began with almost insultingly simple questions, such as how to locate a person's pulse, or what the shapes of leaves of common but irritating vines come in. But they quickly grew more and more difficult, and now Sarq has gone from from quietly suffering through the experience to being significantly more engaged. Now he actually has something to prove, it seems. Elrusyo is delighted at this, even as he produces vial after vial of strange concoctions for our companion to identify and then explain the full and proper use for. Purgatives, topical solutions, ointments, even a narrow glass tube of highly potent and highly illegal analgesic extracted and diluted from crimson honey.

A brief respite plays out now, as Sarq is finally given a chance to take a drink of water and remedy the cotton-mouth his new tutor is afflicting him with through this intensive and unorthodox quizzing. Ciudo and Hraela are both impressed by this point, both by our newcomer and their fellow, and earlier misgivings seem to be banished- or at least temporarily subsumed beneath a lively layer of novelty and spectacle. A bump in the road missed by the carts ahead of and behind us causes water from Sarq's ladle to be thrown up into his face, and so the exam break ends with a chill and some sputtering.

The farther away from the topic of medicine and the use of herbs they move however, the longer Sarq's pauses become, the more uncertain his answers grow. But he hasn't answered incorrectly yet, and Elrusyo seems sensitive to that. He's leaned in now, rapt concentration in his features as he stares almost unblinking at Sarq, as if he were instead listening to a flowing, informed lecture not of his own partial creation. All this does is cause Sarq to sweat more and more, however. He fidgets with his black hair, and one leg bounces up and down unceasingly and unevenly, with the occasional rap of his boot sole sounding dully against the floorboards.

Next comes the treatment of bodily trauma, with issues of blood loss and an avoidance of infection seeming to be of very great importance to Elrusyo. It appears that he also has an... elaborate system developed for the measurement of volumes of blood and other bodily fluids in creatures. A system in which the contents of an average-sized human are the standardized unit of measure. So, for example, as he explains to a bewildered-looking Sarq, one human's worth of blood is equal to two-and-a-half dogs, and the volume of blood carried by the draft horse at the head of our caravan is equal to approximately eleven and one-fifth humans, or "one deca-human plus change" as he puts it.

The cart-drivers within earshot of us are beginning to grow uncomfortable.

Still, Sarq eventually gains a sound grasp of the math, and with a bit of exercise in the physics of liquids, he is able to satisfy Elrusyo's questions regarding exactly how quickly one has to act and what steps must be taken if someone were to sustain severe lacerations of an artery or major vein. He produces objects of his own now, demonstrating that he did not leave home unequipped to deal with such injuries. Somehow, he had managed to obtain a surgery-grade set of tools and many, many yards of bandaging, gauze, and gut string. Neatly tucking it all away after the last nod of acknowledgement from Elrusyo, Sarq seems quite pleased.

Then Elrusyo asks if he's ready to give a demonstration.

Sarq begins to ask what he is talking about, when no one is injured.

Elrusyo pulls back one of the loose sleeves of his coat, reveals the inside of his forearm, and then draws a hitherto-unseen blade from his belt diagonally across it, cutting a fairly deep-looking gash into himself.

"You now have approximately ten minutes to treat your patient before blood loss becomes life-threatening; that's a little over four talecks, for you University kids!" Elrusyo exclaims almost cheerfully as he presents his maimed arm to my trio of horrified companions.

I quietly pull my legs in under myself in order to avoid bloodying my shoes.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 4.

I suppose that it is now a wise time to address the horking zood cow in the parlor.

The Ivory Tower University is not in the business of studying or enacting magic, as I hope would be painfully obvious to any reader located within the campus grounds or city proper. But for those theoretical readers beyond, I must emphasize this. Though the imperial ban on any form of conjuration not to the personal liking of Haraal have long since dissipated into the ether of liquidated law books and disintegrated regimes, it lives on strong in the practice and outlook of the ITU's administration. "Suffer not the witch to matriculate" has been one of the most hallowed of bullet points in the University's code, right below "say not in one word what could be said in one thousand".

But that is not to say that there aren't certain peculiarities surrounding the Tower which could easily be construed as "magic".

Laizij was a brilliant mind, and though he was deified shortly after his passing, I do not refer to the cult which formed around him, nor their rituals. Rather, I focus on a tradition which he started long before any of that. The detached perspective which the Grand Scholar possessed allowed him to take some particularly odd angles on what would otherwise seem to be self-evident truths about the world around him. He found that while knowledge is powerful, it is conviction in that knowledge which allows one to utilize it fully, or transcend it.

Take for example the time of sunrise on a particular day. Laizij and his disciples, as well as many students of the University today, are accomplished in astronomical calculations, and may come within a margin of error of seconds as to the time at which the sun crests the eastern horizon. Laizij knew that full and well. But one day, his notes and telescope were tampered with. The official narrative perhaps unsurprisingly pins these deeds on the followers of Dherna, but one blasphemous alternative is that he simply was mistaken one night over his calculations. Regardless of how it happened, Laizij's sunrise equation had the sun rising exactly two talecks earlier than it was supposed to.

And then it did.

Initially it was not noticed by anyone else, but Laizij did his calculations in batches, so over the next few weeks it became more and more clear to his students and fellow scholars that something was wrong. Or exceptionally right, as Laizij insisted. He was a proud man, proud of his intellect, and he was insulted at the idea that he could have miscalculated by such a wide margin. So adamant was he that those around him began to find their own math not adding up properly any longer, even if not a single number were changed from how it should have worked days prior. Even today, centuries after that fateful transformation, the sun rises earlier when it is being observed from grounds of the First Tier.

This adjustment to reality appears not to persist very far beyond the walls of the city's uppermost level, however. A lengthy dispute has developed over it in fact, when in AR 96 the amateur astronomer Throne-Steward Ilritus Mesyor erected his own observation deck upon the citadel's tower, which is in fact taller and higher than the crumbling point of the Ivory Tower.¹ Academic correspondence between the citadel and the University eventually revealed this inconsistency to both parties, and the dispute has been raging ever since, at least as much as astronomers are capable of raging.

Other inconsistencies and examples of "corrected reality" present themselves across Deneroth from time to time. Despite the earliness of sunrise, solar eclipses tend to occur half an hour later for the University than for the rest of the city. So much so that those highborn enthusiasts who miss such a celestial event "the first time around" have been known to catch it "again" by sneaking or paying their way onto the campus grounds. Water weights slightly less within the campus, and so the aqueducts in use there are uncommonly light, elegant, and made of materials which would otherwise give way quickly to water erosion. Meanwhile, they are substantially larger and more reinforced on all other tiers. Convoluted puns become objectively more funny the higher up one climbs, with negligible statistic impact on crowds even being recorded a few yards outside of the city walls.

Most far-reaching, and perhaps most potent, is how differently history played out from the perspective of all of Deneroth. While generally unpopular abroad, the histories written by Denerothi chroniclers become more true the closer to the city one comes, even if the events they pertain to happened long ago and far away. On at least one occasion, the Nambarish adventurer Anrar found that his own annotated travelogues of Sarq the Interviewer became somehow less annotated, and more concerned with the genealogies of Haraalians, at around the time that he had crossed the border between Outer Esgodar and Deneroth proper.

These and other curiosities too numerous to list have trickled down from the Tower and through the connected Ersuunian world, often picking up exaggerations or added elements. Over time they've woven together to present the Ivory Tower University as something mystical, almost as sorcerous as it is proud and arrogant, and willing to visit any naysayers and dissidents with a judicious bolt of lightning.

Perhaps the faculty and staff secretly take pleasure in that last facet, despite their general distaste for the rumors.



¹ The damage sustained by the Tower proper during the Rupture has famously remained unrepaired in the centuries since, owing to the building codes set in place by one of the descendants of Haraal who came to administer the city and province. Traditional Denerothi law prohibited a secular power from building or establishing its headquarters upon the highest tier. Feeling spurned, the prince erected his gubernatorial citadel to exceed the height of the Tower by the length of the tail-hair of an ox. Further, he forbade the construction or alteration of any building in the city which would exceed the grandeur of the citadel. Such a visual challenge for supremacy and authority within the city was easy enough to ignore from the ground, but when the Tremors caused the Tower's highest point to collapse, the University sorely felt the prohibition which that same prince had set in place, as if he had seen the future.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 3.

My assistants all turn to me with a variety of questions as we advance through the vast disk of lowland cityscape.

Most of them have been outside of the city walls of Deneroth proper at least once in their lives, but true knowledge and understanding of the place tends to be scarce for people who lair within. That the University where we all dwell keeps strict regulations on the availability of information pertaining to the False City does not help either. But they know that I have been outside numerous times, or at least would not be surprised to find that I did, having heard so many other rumors about my person.

One question sticks out in my mind as I write, and I will take the occasion to commit it and its answer--or the closest to one which I can conjure--to writing.

"How did the False City come to be? Why is it named so?"

Admittedly these are two questions rather than one, but their answer returns to the same moment in history.

Nigh on nine hundred years ago, according to the official Imperial Narrative¹, the city of Deneroth was founded by Laizij, who was in life the companion, adviser, and close friend of Haraal, renowned god-emperor and wooer of women who would unleash a hundred generations of sons upon the Ersuunian Basin. Laizij was the most brilliant mind of his day or any which has come after, and he was highly valued by Haraal as inventor and philosopher both. But he was also wary of the then-mortal Eternal Scholar's mind. While enormously creative, he also tended to drift from subject to subject without completing a project into which huge amounts of resources had been channeled, and he was prone to revealing state secrets in mumbled self-conversation regardless of company.

Additionally, Laizij was somewhat mistrusted by the horse peoples and Gertisch tribes whom Haraal had united under the banner emblazoned with his own image. They saw him as a moon-touched sorcerer whose mind was at risk of spilling over with magic at any given moment, eradicating any who had the misfortune to be close by at the time. That Laizij's own personal retinue of followers was at best stubbornly devoted and at worst slavishly worshipful of him and his person, did not help matters at all. Nor did the fact that there was, officially, an imperial ban on the practice of any and all occultism, witchcraft, and conjuration (read: mathematics, calculation, and rhetorical discourse).

So, Haraal decided to give his scholar a monumental task of busywork to distract him with, while he continued with his own personal crusade against the universal tyranny of governments which didn't have him as their head. A lonely pinnacle of rock in the middle of some recently de-Esgodarrified Esgodarran flatland was given to Laizij, and the Grand Scholar proceeded to have an equally grand place of learning and repository of knowledge erected upon its summit. But as his floor plan for the labyrinthine seminary blossomed and ballooned, Laizij quickly ran out of pinnacle to build upon. So he devised a way to build up the rest of the mountain around it by constructing massive concentric circles of white stone and grey earth outward from the protrusion of bedrock. Soon the nameless mountain was completely swallowed up by the edifice, and the Eight Ivory Tiers² of Deneroth were created.

"Deneroth", meaning "Leaving of the Dark/Black", has been hypothesized to refer to the dark onyx or obsidian color of the original peak vanishing under the city's construction. In the canon of the University, it refers to how the benighted minds of the Ersuunian lands would at last know the bright light of truth and learning. Alternatively, and more to my liking, folk etymology refers to how Laizij's dark brown head of hair grayed to stark white from stress and obsession over the creation of his city.

Laizij, being a decent employer despite his eccentricities, ensured that each and every servant and laborer involved in this great project was then housed within the city. But Laizij, being an eccentric despite his decent traits as an employer, adamantly refused to allow his city to be altered in any way after the final capstone had been placed. Despite the fact that the size of the city tiers exactly matched what was comfortable for their population densities, there would never, ever be any expansions or additions to this perfect city-from-a-hill.

As one might expect, populations fluctuated as families shrank or expanded, as they are wont to do, yet Laizij's administration rigidly maintained the deeds and demarcations of the city's founding. Palaces of declining families stood nearly empty for decades, clustered together mere yards away from a household perpetually filled to bursting.

But it was still a beacon of wealth and learning, and that drew outsiders. Outsiders who legally had no right to anything in, around, or related to the city, but who would damn well try their best anyway. And so, less than ten years after Deneroth's founding, the first cottages were built outside of the city's prodigious outer walls. These first "intrusions" were tolerated but conspicuously ignored, for many were farmers who would reclaim the plains from the wilderness after they had been depopulated by the passage of the Haraalians. Soon after, tradesmen and other skilled individuals came to cater to the needs of the farmers, and of the city-dwellers, whenever possible. Like a mass of camp followers surrounding its immovable vanguard, folk of all walks of life but scholastic nobility came and built the ground-level up and out.

There were once whispers of this place having the potential to become Deneroth's "Ninth" Tier, but Laizij went to his grave defaming the idea of his greatest creation being altered for the sake of convenience. Eventually one of Haraal's thousand sons was appointed as governor of the city, but the elite was so deeply entrenched and reliant upon the memory of the newly-deified Eternal Scholar for prestige and legitimacy that no one with half a desire to could change the official policies.

Unofficial incorporation occurred from the very start, of course. The denizens of Deneroth were thrilled to have such a vigorous connection to the outside world then as well as now, even if they didn't (and still don't) like to admit it. Luxury items form afar could be tidily delivered to the city's doorstep thanks to the False City and its exploding economy, as well as very real necessities of life which would otherwise have to be imported over long distances. The land on which the False City was built was incorporated into the burgeoning Province of Deneroth as the Empire consolidated and regulated its internal organs. It only took about a half-dozen bandit raids and a districts-wide conflagration to convince the city administration to include the wider area within its military and firefighting jurisdictions. Unfortunately, incorporating the land into the domain of Deneroth also meant that the denizens of the False City were considered to be squatters, and more than a few governors in past centuries have drummed up the political support of restless traditionalists by sending "pacification units" into the outer districts in order to help clear them out. Of course these have been pointless gestures up to now. Pointless, but quite adept at bludgeoning nonetheless.

And so the dogged False City continued to grow. It saw hardship and retraction just like any other province when the Rupture thundered over us from the south. But it also bounced back with the startling alacrity unique to people who seek self-validation instead of denied recognition. For nearly three hundred years now, it has provided the Successor-State of Deneroth with a much-needed buffer against the outside world, as well as a vital (if undesired) link to it.

Now that we are more than a few miles out from First Gate, the exclamations and heckling of locals  thrown in our caravan's direction evokes another question which I am far more loathe to try and answer.

"Why does everyone out here think that the University is full of wizards?"

¹ Curiously, research conducted on artifacts preserved within the Ivory Tower's Sanctum of Self-Reflection suggest that urban habitation of the Denerothi Plain did not begin until approximately six hundred years ago, and efforts to reconcile this sizable gulf in dates has been met with limited success. The University's official response to these and other inconsistencies has been "Shut up, Litte."

² An urban myth persists that Laizij was initially content with only seven tiers in his city, but that he later changed his mind after he heard tell from one of his underlings of another far-off majestic city of white stone with exactly seven layers. Not to be outdone, or gods forbid, matched, Laizij demanded that the eighth tier be created. When it was explained to him that they had already reached ground level at the bottom and completed the University at the top, he explained that they simply needed to lift everything up and then slip it underneath. This legend, though amusing, remains unsubstantiated.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 2.

The Fourth Gate to the campus grinds open ahead of us upon our arrival, the gatemasters having just completed their morning rituals.

Every day at exactly twelve talecks¹ after dawn reaches the turquoise banding of the Ivory Tower's observational promontory, the gatemasters--alleged descendants of the very first doormen and personal guards of Laizij--perform the ritual for which they are best known today. When the patron of the University lived, he had a retinue of intellectuals in his service. All were treated equally before him at first, but this changed on the occasion of his martyring at the hands of the Lie-Keepers of Dherna.² Those who were not present at the time of His death are still respected, but are considered to have failed in their final duty to him. Those who were with Him to the bitter end meanwhile, enjoy a more favorable position in the liturgy and historical chronicles both.

A scion of the lower caste arrives first, often left to stamp his feet in the cold for some time, such as the occasion is on this morning. Meanwhile, a representative of the more favored house of gatemasters with that direct and intimate connection to Laizij arrives with an armed escort, leftover from the days when the Ivory Tower maintained its own military force. Upon meeting one another at the wide bars of each of the six gates to the University grounds, the higher of the two demands the identity of the lower, who is himself barred from entry into the grounds directly. The lower gatemaster announces himself and his lineage back to a minimum of eight generations, and then a key of silver and inlaid electrum large enough to bludgeon an ox to death with is passed between the bars, as the higher gatemaster consecrates this action in the name of his own lineage, which has a minimum of at least twenty generations. On very formal occasions, the entirety of one's family history dating back to one of the contemporary servants of the Scholar is recounted.

Once the exchange is completed and the lower gatemaster uses the key to unlock the intricate series of locks placed upon each of the gates, the way is opened to those outsiders who would enter, and those freshmen who would flee their first two weeks of classes.

Our wagons were passing through the gateway while the last formalities were still playing out just to the side of the threshold, and I was able to witness it in great but fleeting detail. The lower gatemaster knelt before his superior, who then had one of his retainers receive the key from him, to be thoroughly wiped down in a cloth before being handed back to the keeper of the key, and ultimately set in its case in the fortified northern extension of the University's security offices.

The retinue quickly beats its way back toward the warmth of the buildings, while the lower gatemaster is left to get back up off of his knees and make his solitary way back home. Moments of disgruntlement punctuate long periods of resigned placidity in the man's round, pinkish face as he disappears into the crowds reluctantly emerging from their homes set upon the city's highest tier.

None of the other civilian gates in the city have such a tradition attached to them, and so traveling down through the rings is far easier, though still slow at the lower levels where markets and other congregations had already awakened. From the third tier down, my colleagues and I are given increasingly strange looks for our attire. It is rare to see a member of the ITU so far from home, and the Book and Key emblazoned on so many of our possessions like a logo paints us each as a rather undesirable guest.³

Still, we are able to reach the edge of the city before mid-morning, having to only occasionally pop our ears from the changes in elevation. Our treat with the guards and customs representatives at First Gate is refreshingly brief despite the wait we all expected, and before we can even reposition ourselves upon the carts, the False City yawns before us.

The first, bottom-most tier is the broadest, as well as located directly at ground level, but it is only a tenth of the size of the False City of Deneroth, built up around its perimeter. These districts, not constructed during the original founding of the city, and swollen with the vast majority of the population which has come to live in the area in the intervening centuries, feel as always like entirely new worlds of their own. I am able to take a brief moment of levity in watching the reactions in my assistants' faces as they see the shift from sterile grey brick walls to vast jumbles of wood and earthwork. Smells unlike any I've experienced in many years envelop us, and the hawkers swarm us to offer up their goods. They recognize the likelihood of wealth in our kind, but are not so well-versed in True City history or politics to know that we represent anathema to them in many ways. Sarq swears that he recognizes a Nambarish recipe in a nearby stand of meat-skewers, and I do not doubt that for a moment. But we cannot stop to sample the mingled local flavors yet.

Even if the existence of this city is denied by those above, there are many hours of riding left before we reach its outer limits.





¹ Also rendered as taliq, talkh, or taleg depending on the literary tradition in question (taleck being the standardized Gertisch-Haraalian spelling, while taliq, talkh, and taleg are the Nambarish, Proto-Ersuut, and rarely-seen Esgodarran spellings, respectively). The taleck is the traditional unit of measurement of time still used by the University and several other conservative institutions and facilities in and around Deneroth. It is equal to 2.37 minutes by low-tier reckoning, or 0.4 cyclical iques for my readers in the Pach-Yul region, vanishingly rare though you may be. The taleck originated with the Ersuunian nomads who came to populate the basin regions, allegedly referring to the length of time it took for a sub-chieftain's black-dappled mare to move at a full canter from one side of the king's camp to the next, favorable weather and open space allowing of course.

² Note that the exact cause of death for Laizij, according to the official statement released by the Senior Pain-Taster of the Basilica of Najis, was a bowel obstruction caused by massive collections of gallstones. The role which the clergy of Dherna played in the act was suspected at first, and the belief that they were in fact wielding black magic to eliminate a political rival has persisted into the modern day.

³ I anticipate that this and other large swaths of my travelogue will be heavily censored upon my return to the grounds of the ITU, but for my own satisfaction I will exercise my ability to deny the myth that members of the University--student or faculty--are the pride and joy of all Deneroth. Even as I write, Ciudo is still wiping the wad of saliva and other bodily fluids which was flung at him with expert, marksman-like precision from a nearby doorway as our caravan passed by the notoriously "wide-thinking" second-tier neighborhood of Lesken's Way.

Looking Southward and Backward: An Ethnographic and Historically-Minded Travelogue, Part 1.

((As I cling to the seat of a bus shuddering down 9W toward the only part of New York State which doesn't count as "upstate", two things occur to me.

One is a sense of bemusement born from a simultaneous gratefulness for the presence of bus wifi, and terror at an absence of bus seat belts.

The other is that I have never given sufficient thought to the importance, frequency, or severity of travel in the universe of the ITU.

Of course I have explicitly or implicitly explained the importance of movement and migration for the nomads and semi-nomads of the world, and perhaps that is in fact the norm at this time; the vast world has been disconnected for some time, with maintained roads and traveler culture long ago abandoned.

But now that a certain pasty academic has been temporarily ejected from his subscalanean office, the perfect opportunity arises for a few travelogues between now and his arrival at a certain dig site. For those of you who prefer his more researched articles, have no fear. Plenty of his parchments remain scattered upon the desk attached to his doorway, ripe for publication... after they've been sanitized of sensitive subject matter unbecoming of the publishing house of the ITU, of course.))



The Ivory Tower has become somehow even dingier, it seems.

Though we've left at dawn, with the sun's first rays highlighting the old city in full glory, the stains and crumbling patches along the tower's height are only more pronounced for it. An enormous sum of money has been reclaimed by the latest budget meetings by the Board of the Directorate to be put toward the restoration of the campus' namesake, but the estimated date of completion for these efforts numbers in the years, rather than months or weeks. In my first exchange with someone not tied to the University in several weeks, I heard the remark that some of the darkest patches closest to the tower's dilapidated top must date all the way back to the Rupture. I would scarcely be surprised if this were true.

Our party moves quickly to get the wains ready for departure, everyone but the Gertisch student being as unused to the cold as I am. Thanks to the generosity and relative bribeability of several professors not to be named, my study abroad has been furnished with three of my fellow undergraduates.

Ciudo, majoring in foreign languages and literature, shall be our interpreter during the times when Denerothi Ersuut will fail us, which I anticipated to be increasingly regular the farther south we go.

Shoring up our armament for the siege against the language barrier is or resident physician (technically only a botanist-in-training), Sarq. He is one of our precious few students of Nambarish stock, though unfortunately not of geographic origin. I must remember to inquire into the meaning and popularity of his name at a later date. I anticipate that it has its origins in the name of some folk hero, much the same way you might see ten thousand different permutations of "Haraal" walking the streets of Deneroth today.¹

Minoring in both historical ordination and Gertisch fencing, Hraela will be assisting me directly in the recording and analysis of everything we encounter leading up to and at the dig site. She has also elected to bring her training longsword with her, both to keep practicing for the semester's finals, as well as to ensure our getting along without any "man-made inconveniences" along the road. I am alarmed that Instructor Vogt has his pupils maintain their training equipment at shaving sharpness, and it is my hope that I never encounter anything which he would qualify as "battle-ready".²

We are joined by a hired retinue of ten porters, drivers, pathfinders, and other assistants from outside of the campus to ensure that we reach the Pach-Pahs in a timely fashion. What time that will be is unfortunately little more exact than the Board's estimate of Tower repairs, for the weather will play an adversarial role in our travels south.

Winter approaches Deneroth quickly. Even the Beige Trees of Citadel Grove have begun to lose their leaves in full this month, and a Denerothi winter is a wet and snowy one. But we must endure such hardships in order to reach the dig site, which is located beyond the first wave of peaks in the northern reaches of territory under supervision by the People's Anarcho-Syndicalistic Communes of Pach-Pah Yul (PASCOPPY hereafter). There, beyond the rain shadow of what we call the Near Pashels, the winter is quite dry. And in order to have an environment which is not bogged down in mud and influxes of breeding populations of Howler Ibexes, the locals must conduct their archaeological research in the dry cold.

Our wagons are just beginning to turn their wheels now, and it shall take some time and practice to get used to writing on the move. For now, I shall leave this parchment to dry and look upon the many tiers of our fair and introverted city before it is put behind us.

I feel a pang of affection for the city, and even for the University, as our path becomes set and irreversible.

Clearly I need another nip of Esgodarran Whiskey in order to wake up fully.



¹ Mind you, the total population of Deneroth is, as of last decade's census, scarcely higher than twenty thousand, to indicate the sheer inescapability of the name.

² It is a little-known fact that despite including it proudly in his resume, Professor Berchtold Vogt was never awarded the title of Éïsęnmễïster by any known or reputable school of fencing and swordsmanship in Deneroth or the sister cities of the Upper Lowlands. Nor is he known to have ever attended one.

Hylek's Hundreds, Part 1.

"The Hundreds stand high, unbowed and unbreakable!"
- A common rallying chant of the Hundreds.

"Tens of thousands, alike but better, have fallen before us. What chance have you?"
- Acting Commander Fextaenius, to the free-bodied masterminds of the Rioter's Syndrome Rebellion at Ul-Qib. They had precisely no chance at all.

"Hah! You think a knife in the heart will kill me? They tried that already, you churl; it doesn't work!"
- Dornarseh, Breacher-Captain of the Forlorn Heap Hundred.



It would be naive of me to assume that the entirety of my (admittedly limited) readership has not heard at least a handful of the tales passed down from generation to generation about the exploits and deeds of the legendary mercenary company known as Hylek's Hundreds. But I would be remiss not to offer at least a cursory overview of their history for the sake of outsiders, the uninformed, and those who might stumble upon this record in a day when they have passed from memory, inconceivable as that sounds and has sounded for the past four hundred years.

Hylek's Hundreds are said by the archives at both Deneroth and Nambar to have been founded in 124 P.R. by the eponymous Gertisch-Haraalian warrior Hylek. Physical evaluation records recently recovered in Serminwurth support this, giving the names of several high-profile and particularly exquisite specimens among the Hundreds dated to 109 P.R. Hylek drew upon the masses of soldiers left unemployed by the conclusion of the Third and final Trade War, which had escalated to the point of wide-scale mobilization of armed ground forces alongside the more typical naval powers which had more-or-less carried the last two conflicts along. As a result of this, the original composition of each Hundred was culturally and ethnically varied, though most tended to hail from the lower classes of Ersuunian society- independent officers from moneyed families tended to have far easier times landing peacetime careers in many parts of the empire following the War.

Beyond these few concrete facts--Hylek's first decades of activity and the original Hundreds--little else is known that doesn't read like fantasy and propaganda, even coming from the most reputable of sources. The Hundreds, always numbering ten such miniature legions and totaling one thousand soldiers beside captains, adhere to this magic number rigidly. To the point that they give the impression of their members' immortality. Each morning after even a savage battle, the ranks remain perfectly filled with the same number of men as had been preparing to fight the day before. Even in the most inhospitable of environments, bereft of a baggage train or follower camp, these spontaneous reinforcements seem to find a way- if they are reinforcements at all. None of the Hundreds are ever known to suffer disease or malnutrition, both known as sometimes supreme killers of soldiers everywhere. The remarkable physical condition each member of the Hundred showed, even from the earliest days, was what led to those valuable examination files being recorded by the morbidly fascinated bodily experts at Serminwurth.

Only, it is difficult to disprove these heroic myths. Even under the supremely close surveillance of onlookers drawn from miles around to watch the few battles which the Hundreds are contracted for, not a one in his distinctive blue uniform and armor has ever been found among the dead or gravely wounded. They come up clean, year after year, as the victories unfurl before them, and in the history of their entire company, not a single retired member has ever been encountered, or even recognized as a possibility. There are even academics among the much-reduced intellectual class of Meroth who believe that Hylek still leads the company in private, despite necessarily being several centuries old by this point.

Even now, we are to believe that he contributes to the undying legacy of the Hundreds as moral soldiers of fortune, only ever supporting the cause of those whom they deem righteous. According to tradition, the current face of the company, one Fextaenius of Porylus Mons, bluntly refuses each proposal made to them. Then, the perpetually-wandering host departs with all haste, leaving the prospective employer in their dust. In most cases, that is that. But in the rarer instances where one ultimately succeeds, it is only after repeated and spectacular efforts are made to catch up with the Hundreds once more, pleading more dearly each time than the last, until at last the person in question is moved to give a rousing speech which can adequately extol the virtue of their mission and all which it stands for. Only then does the hidden Hylek reveal himself, and give his word. In an unusually large percentage of contract records dug up from the Coin-Keepers of Abbas, the spontaneous omen of three eagles appearing before the would-be hero bearing olives and arrows is recorded no less than fourteen times within the span of forty years.

Everything surrounding Hylek and his men is unnervingly perfect and made for the grandest of narratives and praise-poems, and I cannot find a single piece of evidence to bring these miraculous accomplishments into question.

Which is precisely why I believe them to be miracles.

Tallash, the Struggling God.

"We are Friends to the Helper, and we shut out the immensity."
- Dodol Pritush, of Au-ed.


The Oron'er mountain range, despite its relative proximity to civilization¹ as well as its smallness compared to such far-off giants as the Khokhantipa Range, has perhaps the most mystique out of any of the high places of the world. From its alluvial, red-grassed lowlands and foothills to its highest and driest karst peaks, the Oron'er range has been fixed in the minds of well-to-do adventurers and explorers for centuries. The bizarre weather, legends of foreboding ruins, and natives with unusual customs guarantee it a spot in the outside world's imagination. Of course those intrepid explorers rarely stay more than a day in any place of significant elevation, and hardly interact with the locals while on such expeditions, so the impressions have not been easily shed to reveal their more comprehensive truths. The peoples of the mountains are of chief concern in this respect.

"Oron'er" is a word of uncertain origin, used exclusively by outsiders to describe the mountains and their peoples. It may be a thorough corruption of an Esgodarran word or phrase, but etymologists are in disagreement over a plausible origin.² The native languages are in similar disagreement over what to call their home, owing to a remarkable density of dissimilar language groups and regional dialects on the mountains. There are thirty-two tribes accounted for in the mountains, twenty-one settled in mostly permanent villages and the remaining eleven existing pastorally and semi-nomadically, often in much smaller numbers than their more sedentary kin. In either case of habitation, livelihood follows a strict cycle of movement back and forth between lowland grazing of sheep and collection of water in the winter, and intensive handicraft and foraging during the relatively easier months of spring and fall higher up in the mountains. The interrupting summer is legendarily dry and brutal, and tribes typically hunker down in earthen places where water may be stored for the duration. Outsiders unwisely visiting the mountains in the middle of summer have remarked at the apparent laziness of the Oron'er peoples trying to keep cool, and this stereotype has persisted for some time.

Only the day keeps them away from the outside, however. For the summer nights on those peaks make the tribes privy to some of the most spectacular celestial shows known to the southwest. Comets, meteorite showers, and the occasional green sunset or purple sunrise are known to the watchers on the peaks, and they observe these natural phenomena with religious dedication. Quite unlike several lowland cultures who deem such sights to be omens of nameless dread, the people of the Oron'er Mountains see them as glimpses into the larger truth of the world, and what lies beyond the world. It is something which virtually all tribes engage in, often in wordless or gesticulating cooperation with one another. For though they remain highly distinct in language and aesthetic and material culture, the tribes each seem to share a single major aspect of religion.

The mountain people believe in one god, or at least one god who matters. Its names are as varied as their languages, but for the sake of simplicity in this article it shall be referred to by the name taken from the northeastern Au-ed tribe, most well-known to Ersuun peoples. This name is Tallash, or Tayyash, derived from a contraction between the words "tai" and "yash", meaning "the helper". The worship of Tallash is therefore Tallash Yai, meaning "the law of the helper", or "acting in accordance with the helper". While they lack a formal term of religious self-identification, the Au-ed refer to those among them deemed most righteous and pious as a Pritush, or "friend".

Tallash is unusual, as far as Gods of a monotheistic bent in the wider world are concerned. It is without a more human avatar or identity, and its worshipers have remarkably little in the way of symbolism for it or artistic depictions of it. It is not omnipresent, nor is it omnipotent, nor even omniscient. But it is omnibenevolent, having the interests of the entire world at heart. To follow Tallash Yai is to be kind to strangers, generous to the destitute, merciful to one's enemies, and tireless in the pursuit of compromise between disparate groups (such as other mountain tribes). Everything which may somewhat nebulously be referred to as good--compassion, achievement, peace, well-being, beauty, etc--is an expression of Tallash's nature, brought about upon the mortal sphere through the actions of people. Every act or event of violence, greed, petty malice, and apathy is a shortcoming of the Pritush, and by extension a failing of Tallash to protect its beloved friends from all which is Beyond.

"Beyond" is a concept which is difficult for scholars and knowledge-seekers to illuminate in the context of the Tallash faith, because the Oron'er natives' boiled-down explanations of their own beliefs tend to stop at that point, with any deeper elaboration kept tight-lipped until the nosy and more than likely badly dehydrated traveler finally gives up and continues on their way. To remedy this, we must regrettably turn to a sole and uncorroborated source which otherwise records just such a theological exchange in remarkable detail. I write of course of one of the four commonly dismissed chapters of the travel chronicles of Sarq of Nambar (not to be confused with the modern notable Sark ad-an-Rish, also of Nambar, but several decades Sarq's junior). While Sarq conducted his thorough interviews, the transcription and publication itself was done by his friend and constant companion Isha. Considering her otherwise impeccable track record and her quite vocal stance on the taking of academic liberties in Nambar's sister-city of Deneroth³, it was perhaps too hasty for the last generation of scholars to deem this and other chapters to be entirely fictive for having merely been the first to report on the matter. Despite its common omission from most modern publications of the Travel Chronicles, the libraries of the Ivory Tower are in possession of one unedited copy.

Sarq arived in Au-ed very late in the fall. It was uncharacteristically damp and chilly for the locals and Nambar natives alike, but there was much activity as the various herders and traders prepared for the move down into the milder foothills for the winter. The interview was conducted with one Pritush named Dodol, a respected elder who was said to have surpassed eighty years of age at the time. He was a small and scrawny man, his small size exaggerated even further by how he tightly tucked himself up into a ball in his blanket in the center of the large room in which he and Sarq were meeting. Apparently at Sarq's subsequent urging, a footnote was made using Dodol's smallness in the vastness of his chamber, surrounded by bustling people going about their own business and paying him and Sarq no heed in that moment, as an appropriate metaphor for the state of the world in Oron'er cosmology.

Dodol explained that in the beginning, there was no earth or water, only a sky which was not a sky, because it had nothing else to differentiate itself from. It was a vast gulf of darkness and emptiness, filled not with matter but with sound. The sounds of planetoid flies buzzing about the rotting corpses of still-singing whales, and of laughter coming from things unseen and best left unseen. Then, at some point in that pointless, timeless time, form came into being. Through utter chance, shape and physicality was granted to the void, filling it in pockets and around the edges. Dust and smoke coalesced into worlds and living things, and their primeval blood and sweat became the waters and seas. They existed in base savagery, pack slaughtering pack, mother devouring child, and maddened dances occasionally attracting the attention of the formerly formless things from Beyond, much to the mortal's detriment. But just as random chance created the uncaring and brutish cosmic vastness, so too was it able to create something gentle.

Tallash was once one of those nameless things adrift on the astral winds, fathomless in its intent as it went about business which was oblivious to and dangerously heedless of everything lesser than it, which was everything. Until it happened upon the bedraggled animals clinging fruitlessly to the rock which we all now call home. Detached pity was inspired in it, then sympathy, and then true, heart-rending empathy, which drove it to take the whole of the world in its embrace finally. It nurtured us like children, sheltering us from the outer dark and crooning soft, accepting encouragement to us. We listened--plant, animal, and human alike--and so were raised from our earlier darkness. But we were not illuminated per se. For the Beyond remained a terrible place for things of soft flesh and fragile mind such as ourselves, and Tallash sought to shelter us from it, lest this small hope of order and tranquility be dashed upon the rocks of the deep, dark ocean.

Grief came when newly-named Tallash witnessed just that. One of its kin, passing through on a mindless ellipse of destruction, wrought misery upon the world with claws of fire and tendrils of despair. It was so great a pain to Tallash, to fail in its newly-chosen duty, that it trembled and wept for an eon. Tallash stopped when it had shaken itself to bits, forming the sky above, and the celestial sphere beyond. It shielded us more thoroughly now than ever before, and all later incursions would wound it but not aggrieve it, for it now placed itself utterly in harm's way for the sake of its chosen friends, bolstering its resolve with every fair or foul result. And a compact was made between the oldest Pritush and Tallash, ensuring that when the mortal coil released each life, it would ascend to the vault of the world and merge with the great tapestry of Tallash, joining it in its ceaseless vigil against the outer dark. Every death strengthens its aegis, and every life well-lived ensures a better world left behind than that which was entered into. And so the comets and other heavenly lights glimpsed in the late summer nights are messages from Tallash itself, continued guidance and encouragement from sent by it, our first and oldest Friend.

The core teaching of Tallash Yai seems then to be one of comforting bittersweetness:

The world is a cold and uncaring place, fraught with danger and meaningless loss.

Change it.




¹ "Civilization" referring here to any and all settled areas characterized by predominantly stone architecture, over-reliance upon underwear, and a predilection toward breeding endearingly useless household pets.
² This is somewhat of an assumption on the part of the writer, since the Board of Interpreters & Linguists has not been in session since the divisive and chaotic Lavatory Sign Crisis two semesters ago.
³ This brief former partnership between cities of scholastic emphasis is typically thought to be best left forgotten in the present, but it still represents an honest attempt by diverse parties to connect the intellectual world in ways which it has not been for over four hundred years. Perhaps the ITU should step away from its self-identification as the "lone shining candle of learning", and examine the evidence of a bonfire burning outside its doorstep.

On the Holies and Half-Holies of Yishel.

(A little something I was inspired to write after I noticed a surprising amount of interest in Yishel.
Click here for the first post about our aggravating little knowledge deity.)



"You saw the symbol of the white-dotted globe of Yeeschu as plain as day when you walked through my threshold- you should have known by that alone that the good news would be only half so!"

- Kari'tal, one of the half-holies of Yishel based in the Addas Bazaar, on his strict "no refunds" policy.



As with the worshipers and collective observers of any god, the devotees of Yishel in all of its many forms, names, and guises, are no less diverse in nature and outlook. To account for them all would be as grueling and pointless an effort as it is to try and tidy the upper left wing of the Ivory Tower's Donated Collections Library during final exams month. But, there are a few major groups which might be enumerated.

The first (and perhaps most obvious) of the groups is that which looks for the whole truth of the matter. While many do not possess the ability to call upon their god for knowledge and augury, being mostly scholars and cynical lay-people, they acknowledge as a part of their philosophical identity that all outcomes have a good and bad. When their clerics and high-priests do make predictions, they speak them uninhibited, and great care is taken in each pronouncement, lest anything be made imprecise by the human hand or tongue.

Opposite this camp, and sometimes diametrically opposed to the above, are those who may be referred to by the slang term "half-holy". These folk are far fewer in number, but have a much larger proportion of fortune-tellers among them. When a half-holy peers into the unconscious splendor of Yishel's mind, they see exactly the same as any other augur would. But what they express of it beyond that point is quite different. They will often only give one side of the prediction, most frequently the positive or desirable end. More rarely, the negative is accentuated, most often if the fortune-teller has a vested interest in seeing the individual unharmed, or unsuccessful. Countless fairy-tale tropes about the unpredictability of the future and "being careful of what you wish for" have originated from the technically true but misleading statements of Yishel's half-holies. And, because of the extremely lax or nonexistent attitude of Yishel toward the physical world--as with many gods--such behavior goes almost unpunished, at least within the context of the astral sphere.

But this duplicity was eventually recognized by various governments and collectives across the south-west areas of Ersuun cultural region, in which the cults of Yishel are most prevalent. After a few centuries of witch-burning and imprisonment proved unsuccessful in deterring both the elite and the common folk from seeking out what they want to hear, a legal balance was struck: Yishel's acting faithful may continue any practice reliant upon their auguries uninhibited, but they must both walk and work with the appropriate branding. The workplace of the truther and the half-holy alike must be marked plainly and visibly with one of the recognizable symbols of Yishel, and common knowledge of these and other icons is disseminated by a municipal government as part of its work toward public service. They must also wear the symbol somewhere upon their bodies, either in the form of clothing or a tattoo, if they are to make predictions outside of the fortune-teller's hut.

While this has undoubtedly lent a great deal of mystique and superstitious sensationalism to the public appearance of the faithful, it has not significantly deterred many from the cult. Those who give two answers are listened to with reverent caution, and those who give one are taken with a chunk of salt approximately the size of one's fist.

As always, people crave knowledge and self-delusion in equal measure.

Yishel, God of Uncomfortable Revelations.

"Fear not, for you will survive your next battle. Your legs will not."

"The raiders will be funneled and led to slaughter by your ingenious town defenses. Their children will starve to death this winter."

"Your parents shall not seek divorce, your house shall stand tall and proud. Their love is strong, and their lovelife increasingly experimental since your conception."

"Enter the tournament resolved in yourself and your abilities. None shall take heed of your failures. Or your successes."

"Soon you will become the most handsome, most desirable man in the entire village. Weeping Liver Plague has a ninety percent fatality rate."

- Various prophesies of Yishel, as they were found transcribed upon plates of tortoise shell by the back-alley fortune-tellers of Shur'nab.



Information is, by itself, mindless. It does not want to be released nor remain hidden. It is not good or bad. It exists whether it may be observed or not, even if it is somewhat pointless in that case. It is as immaterial a substance as time, and just as valuable a resource to the thinking, conscious mind. Taken into the intelligent mind, information is only as limited in its applications as the ability of the informed. Thus, among all of the things which can be counted as sacred by the peoples of the world and beyond, knowledge is among the absolute most powerful.

Of course, the gods born from knowledge and from whom knowledge arises do not tend to care much for actually using their knowledge to effect change upon the spheres of existence. Aside from making them natural candidates for the devotion of hundreds of Ivory Tower University staff and faculty, this also made them seem somewhat inactive, unimpressive, or even boring. They simply existed, in possession of all information known and unknown, as persistent and primeval a force of nature as any forest god or sea spirit.

And so, over time, those mortals crafty enough to gain knowledge for themselves developed means and ways in which to treat with these beings and personifications. The first priests of knowledge and wisdom were therefore less like clerics or shamans, and much more like scholars experienced in communicating with the comatose. Through their careful study, ritual, and astral suggestion, ancient secrets were able to be made known, and the innumerable progressions of thought, technology, and innovation were irrevocably changed. The early scholars eventually left their own imprint upon the vast, featureless godheads of information, making them more alike in small ways over many eons to the tiny mortals who prodded at them and picked their brains for wisdom

Gods of prophesy were among the first and most fabulous, followed almost immediately after by the clandestine deities of well-kept secrets and hidden things. Then the concept of illumination was wedded with knowledge by some, and darkness with ignorance by others, and ever since there has been a metaphysical war between the two camps. Firmly established upon the side of spreading any and all knowledge is one strange, tiny being who has come to be named Yishel.

Yishel effortlessly, almost thoughtlessly spills any knowledge which it possesses whenever it seems relevant to the situation at hand. Thus it is the easiest of the gods of prophecy and revelation to access, and oftentimes one of the most accurate. But that does not in any way mean that what is revealed is what the asker of the question wanted to know in the first place. Wedded with every delightfully clear answer given is a related yet often unwanted second answer, tailor-made to confound the bearer of curiosity. Through this, Yishel balance any resulting satisfaction or confidence with uncertainty, and a reminder of the infinite and uncaring tangencies which the universe has in store for all.

Yishel's petitioners tend to be desperate or cynical enough to be willing to weather the double-answers of the god. It has few allies, tending to alienate everyone who has direct dealings with it. Even those beings of pure knowledge who try to paint a more positive image of free information find it to be an unhelpful and annoying compatriot, while those who would prefer to keep something secret and safe for the sake of all simply gesture toward the disconcerting blabberer of weal and woe as reason enough why some things are better left swept under the metaphorical rug.