ROLEPLAY

2620, summer of third AC

Here we are, we leave tomorrow. So much has happened here I forgot this journal.
To summarize very quickly... in case I'll lose my memory.
Arrived at the Outpost. They grabbed our meat, we crashed there for a few nights wondering what we could do, then we got hired at the inn as cooks. We started stashing meat to prepare for the rest of our journey. They noticed. Ostini, the chief of the guards, jumped on us. Azazor had the brilliant idea to tell him that we were trading the meat with the Akatorums for poison. Then I had to show my poison to that bastard Ostini,. A Matis. Of course, he immediately saw that this poison did not come from the Akatowhatevers... Then, the Trykeri we thought was merely the tavern keeper turned out to be the leader of the local clan. She made us spill the beans, but was relatively understanding. Which goes to show the Marauders here are not like the ones back home. Here, one can talk with them.

As a result, we agreed to make a delivery for her, as payment for our mistakes. Well, our actions, not our mistakes. They were kind enough not to throw us over the cliff, or anything else. At the time, the situation was pretty exciting, I didn't realize until later we were really gambling our lives.
The good thing is that O'Teelo is ready to provide us with equipment for this job. Marauder's armors, local. Just what we need to hope to get to the Citadel a little more unnoticed than with our naked Fyros dazed faces. She gave us a map, the way to follow seems simple, at first sight. First, go along the cliff to the south, to find the delivery point. Then, there, we are supposed to meet other Marauders. They will be able to tell us more about the dangers that await us if we decide to follow the big mountain range that leads to Sentinel. It's either that or turn around, find the Outpost and go back to the Rangers's path.
And this is the less good thing: whatever we choose, we will be compelled to make a detour of several weeks, maybe several months…

What we have to deliver? I've never seen anything like it. O'Teelo brought us a small box, and opened it in front of us. She knew our curiosity would have led us to open it anyway. She carefully took out three objects, with slightly greenish edges, decorated on one side with strange, shiny inscriptions. Lines, in all directions, dots. Up close, I noticed that they were engraved patterns, not merely drawn. The dots are tiny picots, inlaid. On the other side, how to describe… a multitude of ornaments, small objects, clumped together. Like pieces of jewels of different colors, connected by small shiny threads. Rectangles, circles. At first sight something chaotic, and yet revealing an incredible organization, each element seeming to find its place. As if it were a miniature city.

O'Teelo quickly wrapped them in fiber cloths, to wedge them into the box, recommending that we not open it. Not too often, anyway. She thinks the wind and sawdust of the desert might damage them. We promised to take care of them. I then asked: this is Karavan, isn't it?
The Trykeri then looked at me with a distressed look: "No, it has been laid by a lumper". Azazor didn't waste an opportunity to make fun of me, before taking the box and waving us to follow her to the stable. I would have liked to ask her a lot more questions, but my first one having been totally stupid, I didn't dare to add any more. Really, sometimes I'd better keep my mouth shut.

She took out armors for us. Color of desert sawdust, gleaming. One for Azazor, one for me. Already worn, obviously, but incredibly well made. We had negotiated those. Well… Azazor managed to negotiate. He bluffed me on that one. Oh yes, I forgot: before that, we had to go and get the famous meat stock. We felt like two idiots anyway, even if we were relieved of the outcome of all that. In the end, we even understood that they were going to miss us in kitchen.

I must write this, too: I have to admit that I was wrong. We were all wrong. The Marauders here have nothing to do with what we had expected. Akilia is only a clan leader among others, and all do not recognize her authority, nor her fight, nor her ideals. Far from it. The war she leads is not the war of the Marauders of the Old Lands.
Barmie knew that, no doubt. I can't remember if he told us, but we were probably too sure of ourselves, of our knowledge, we wouldn't have believed him anyway. What ? Marauders who don't pull out their sledgehammers to solve any problems, who know listening, and who are more concerned with containing the kitin threat than with the tomfooleries of our New Lands empires. Almost like Rangers, in fact. You'd think they'd be the same. We've only run into a few Rangers so far.

We go from surprise to surprise. Barmie had warned us about desert frahars. They are mostly Fraiders! I keep the axe that I hold from those of the New Lands on my belt, but unfortunately I did not have time to create a bond of trust with any of them. We'll probably run into more of them in the desert. I need to know more about them.

Oh, and Azazor decided to send all his notes to Pyr. I think that's silly, he's more likely to have them stolen or the carrier to be eaten by whatever bug is on the way. I told him to make a copy. No time for that, he says. Well, that reminds me, the letters I sent when we were in Fort Beacon may have arrived. I hope they are all well, over there.

To sum up… Actually, no, there's not much to sum up. We are just to get back on the road.
Yes, there is something. I must add… and confess: I would so much like to spend more time with the homins here, to discover their richness and knowledge, to understand them better. To come back one day to the New Lands with their message. But come on, this is not the time to stop, we are so close to our goal. A new desert awaits us.

I resolved to send to the New Lands all my reports written between our departure from Fort Beacon and the time we left the Diplomatic Outpost. On O'Teelo's advice, I gave them to a trusted Ranger who was to go to the Halt. Let's hope everything goes well. The way through the Sea of Wood is much more risky. At worst, too bad if the package gets lost. All the information we collected is in my head and I swear to come back alive to share it one day.

So, as already mentioned in my previous report, we have three artifacts to deliver to the Marauders settled near the Wide Puddle in the south. They are supposed to be used to build a zinuakeen in the area. The Marauders are settled below some cliff. But a priori, we will not find there neither elevator nor staircase. So it will be climbing, sweating and elbow grease. If they have established themselves at the bottom, without any practical means of descending, this can only mean one thing: that the region is very dangerous and that this is a means of defence for them.

I will try to describe as best I can these artifacts that make me really uncomfortable. First of all, we can see right away that they are not homin creations. They look like some kind of green and orange dragon scales, on which are painted or maybe engraved lines that cross and crisscross. Inlaid on the scales are black square, round or rectangular things and some kind of shiny, solid, cold drips that connect them to the scales. Eeri talks about jewels. To me, they look like black pustules of an unspeakable creature oozing a gray, shiny liquid that would have solidified. There are also some symbols on it. Letters, numbers, but without any meaning. Symbols that breathe life like those of the Kamis' drills? But there is nothing kami about them. Just touching this thing disgusts me. At least I didn't see any traces of goo on it. I'll write down all the symbols on a separate page and try to draw the biggest artifact, to give you an idea. But you know my drawing skills…

Drawing of an artifact part.


We weren't told the name of this thing, O'Teelo just calling it 'trinket'. In any case, it's clearly Karavan produced to me. I don't imagine the Marauders creating these kinds of artifacts. I'll have to find out more about the connection between Marauders and Karas. In the New Lands, there are sometimes alliances of circumstance during outpost battles. One can imagine that it goes the same here. The Karavan provides the technology to make zinuakeens in exchange for resources harvested by the Marauders. A rumor I had once heard spoke of dissidents from the Karavan. Eeri may know more about this. In short, all this reinforces the hypothesis of a mechanical Fyrak of the Karavan whose scales would be this kind of artifact, even if in this case it is not a dragon but a zinuakeen.


To change topic, let me briefly describe the desert we are traveling through. At first sight, there is no difference with the imperial desert. Same dunes, same sawdust, same plants, maybe a little bit hotter. Olash, olansis, savaniels, botogas which help us not to draw too much in our water stock. We haven't seen any bothaya yet. I presume that the relative proximity of the Wide Puddle allows a hydration of the subsoils which prevents its appearance. But I don't know anymore, I am probably confusing with another plant. I should have listened more carefully in botany classes at the Academy. We did not find, for now, no papalexi on our way either. Nor any loojine either. It seems that they are of the same family. Maybe the one explains the other… Regarding the fauna, for the moment we have only crossed varinxes in the distance. According to the Marauders, we should not cross Fraiders, not passing on their territory. That seems to displease Eeri, but let her be reassured, it will be for the way back, in some years.
Par ailleurs, j'ai stocké dans une bourse une petite partie de sciure pour analyse ultérieure, quand je rentrerai. Si le maitre xylologue Ulyton Meros accepte de se pencher dessus, on aura peut être une surprise.
In addition, I have stored a sample of sawdust in a bag for later analysis, when I will return. If the master xylologist Ulyton Meros agrees to look at it, we might have a surprise.
Oh yes, an interesting point to note: the day star is much higher than in the New Lands. This is a fact. I could measure it with the sextant. I note all my measurements on a separate page. By estimating the number of kilometers traveled to the East, I think we can give an estimate of the curvature of Atys. But I'm not good at calculations, so I'll leave that to the Academy masters when I return. Could the fact that it is a bit warmer be due to the fact that the rays are less oblique than in the New Lands? The further we progress on the route, the more I discover, but the more I ask myself new questions too. The search for the Truth is an endless path.

We should reach the meeting point in a few days. Hoping not to be devoured by a varinx by then…

What had to happen happened. This morning, we met a group of four homins accompanied by a varinx. ramèch! A pet varinx! A magnificent beast, as high as a homin. A little like Aen's ones at home. Except that they were obviously not Marauders. They didn't even introduce themselves. They are not Atakorums in any case, but surely an umpteenth tribe of desert nomads. They demanded that we leave them all we were carrying and the mektoub in exchange for our lives. We tried to negotiate some meat for them and their varinx, but nothing to do, it was all our stuff if we didn't want to, and I quote: "… end up in Razor's stomach". I assumed that was the name of the varinx. Still, we could not afford to give them the object of our quest. Our Honor was at stake. So for the first time since we left Silan, we had to fight against homins to save our lives.
Result: we killed two of them and the varinx, the two others ran away. Well… Eeri killed the varinx, a homin and wounded another one seriously. I only finished off the latter, getting in the process a nice gash on my right thigh when a spike managed to pierce the Marauder armor at a joint. If it had not been for Eeri, it would have been my thorax it would have pierced. She's a real fury when she fights, this one. I had seen her do it before in the New Lands. But never with such rage and determination. She looked like a goddess of war. Lopyrèch had warned me, this homina is dangerous. Fortunately, I am her friend. At least, I guess so.

Anyway, today I killed a homin. Definitely, I mean. It's not the same thing I have been used to, not at all. I hadn't noticed it until then, but when you kill someone, usually, you always know deep down that it's not, or rarely is, a real killing. When I plunged my axe into my enemy's skull, I knew he would never rise again. It was as if I had sucked out his soul. I felt dirty. It reminded me of Celiakos Lyan Cexius dying of a heart attack after he got mad at me. At the time, I felt some guilt. Except that this time I can't be comforted by telling myself that the homin was very old and that his time had come. I am responsible for the axe blow that struck him down. I thought of our ancestors who, in battle, have had to experience this many times.

Everything gets mixed up in my head, I have a lot of contradictory thoughts. It's really a different relationship to life.
How weak we have become because of the protection of the Powers! How we have lost all this, I would say, philosophical aspect! All warriors, and I first, have been wrong from the beginning. Killing is not a harmless thing. That gives a real force that can drive you crazy. This force has been taken away from us by the resurrection the Powers offer us. These now have this force. And I am not sure that this is necessarily a good thing.

It's definitely the law of series. Today, as we were moving south, I had a fall in a crevasse. A nice fall of about ten meters. It was however not indicated that there are crevasses in the area. It's supposed to be farther, towards the east. In short, we spent one hour so that Eeri manages to pull me up with a rope and the mektoub. Supposedly I was too heavy. It must be the bag, it is loaded with leather of varinx, that weighs its weight. We are going to have to be more careful. As much we have no difficulty to look after ourselves here, contrary to the Sea of Wood, but we are not immune to mortal wounds. If there are crevasses of ten meters deep, one can imagine that there are much deeper ones. I may be tough, but I'm not unbreakable.

                                   
Eeri barely described the interior of the Marauder camp to me. Let's just say she wasn't very talkative. The important thing to remember is that the Marauders hide their Zinuakeen under construction inside. Impossible to know how it works, since Eeri has not been given access to it. However, the Marauders told her that there was a path leading to the Wide Puddle by the south. A slight detour. So, we went there.

After several days of walking through the southern cordillera, made of giant roots emerging from the ground and twisting like braids, we finally reached the Wide Puddle. It was a particularly trying vision. Imagine an expanse of water as far as the eye can see. Wherever you look, nothing but water up to the horizon. I tried to see the end of the range to the east, in vain. This one comes to die on the horizon, suggesting that it does not end before the mouth of the Munshia river and the hypothetical Reef of Baldos. Passed the amazement, we approached the water and we even bathed there. Not for long though, this soup being relatively cold in winter. There were some fish that I did not especially recognize. But well, I don't know nothing about fish. No predator on the horizon apparently. Maybe some come to drink in the Wide Puddle but not this place in any case. There are no paw prints on the shore. Oh yes, an interesting phenomenon to note: the presence of waves! Bigger than the ones you can sometimes observe in Trykoth. Even if I don't see what the root cause of this could be, I suspect that the size of the Wide Puddle has something to do with it, . Anyway, we had a lot of fun with Eeri jumping among the waves, some of them reaching us at the level of the head.

For the following of our journey, although according to the Ranger map, no access is listed there, we could perhaps avoid the passage through Sentinel by following the Wide Puddle and then climbing the plateau south of the Citadel. I'm curious to know if there are any homins living there. But given the help the Marauders have given us so far, we would be depriving ourselves of essential information for the rest of our journey in the ancestral desert. So, after some discussion, we decided to cross the cordillera again and follow the small trail described to Eeri by the Marauders, which leads to Sentinel through the northern part of the mountain range. This path is not marked except for the area called the "Scattered Desert" where beacons have been placed to indicate the safe places to walk. The area is indeed filled with crevasses and moving sawdust that can swallow a homin in a few minutes without him being able to do anything to escape. However, we will have to avoid crossing the varinx packs haunting these aeras. According to Eeri, the Marauders spend usually a good month to reach Sentinel. So we'll depart tomorrow morning, leaving the Wide Puddle and its fascinating waves behind us. As for whether they will let us pass, we'll see how we can be useful once we get there.

Sentinel is within our reach. We see the lights of a camp a day's walk away. It is a relief and just as terrifying. The situation is tense between Azazor and me. I have a premonition that something is going turn out badly, for one or the other of us.

If I disappear and by chance someone comes to read this journal, it is not the image I want to leave of me and our trip. But I have to admit, I screwed up, big time. Azazor now only talks to me to give me orders, and we've lost trust in each other. He tried to kill me a few days ago. Or to scare me. It worked. He treats me like I'm an orskos. Me!

It's my fault. ney. But I didn't lie, dey! I hid things. Is it a lie not to say anything? He didn't ask me any questions. When he asked me if I was a Trytonist, I said yes. If you ask me, I answer. I don't lie. Yes, let it be known. Give this to the Kuilde and let them come to me, if they dare.
But toub, Azazor, you are as stubborn as I am... Yes, I should have said everything, revealed everything from the beginning. But could you have heard what I had to say? Even before we left, you wanted to do your own thing, you criticized my positions, my friendships. You didn't even bother to listen or to be interested in what I could have given you. And now you have to tell yourself that you bet on the wrong mektoub. But if I disappear and you read this, know that my respect for you is still alive. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you, and you wouldn't have gotten this far without me.
If you had asked the question, "Eeri, do you have a Marauder crystal?" I would have answered yes... Yes, I got a Marauder crystal from Mazé'yum. Without compromising my real name. No, I don't want to join them, especially not those from the New Lands. Even if some of them here have my respect.
Another question you could have asked me, and never did: "Am I the father of Uzykos?" I think the answer is clear enough, and that deep down you already know it. But it's not enough to want the truth, you must be able to accept it. One day you will know it, and you will explode, as you do every time you are interested in something other than your own plans
And dey, I'm not immortal. You forgot, for a crystal to work, you have to be able to activate it. And after ten days of walking, we're just too far away for it to work. If I fall, I die. Just like you. If the distance had nothing to do with it, I could have simply returned to Fairhaven, as if nothing had happened. But this is another truth you don't want to hear. By the time you read this, it will be too late to realize it.

Besides, if the little you told me about what happened at the Wide Puddle is true, so far this crystal has only served to keep me from being totally gobbled up by a big fish. Eeri, dead, guzzled and digested by a prakker. I hope my true ending will be a bit more glorious, I still have that Fyros trait at least.

Tomorrow we'll go to the Marauders, to Sentinel. Hopefully they already know we're coming. I have a feeling that these homins are much more ingenious than we might think, and that they have a quicker means of communication than sending a simple messenger. I will let Azazor speak. Anyway, if I open my mouth he'll find something to pick at. And I promised, a few months ago, when we arrived at the Cloudy Cliff Outpost, to let him what he wants. If it goes wrong, I'll try to make it right by taking out my crystal. However, I have the impression that the dice are cast already and that Azazor knows exactly what he is going to do. And that he won't hesitate to abandon me, as soon as he doesn't need me anymore, or as soon as he feels that will save his ass.

We set up our camp high up on a root. It reduces the access in case of a predator attack. There are few of them, but they are much bigger and more tenacious. There is also less game here than in our country, maybe it's related. From here, we have a view of the desert to the north. To the east, we could already make out, in the daytime, the presence of this mountain range that separates us from the desert of the Old Lands. We are so close to our goal and yet nothing has ever been so uncertain. I never expected that we would want to kill each other. Maybe that's the strength of the homins here. The fact that we don't go crazy knowing that whatever one does, it might be the last time. Although, now that they're expanding their Zinuakeen network here too, it must totally change their their view of things.. This fear must probably only be valid for us, who have just never been used to this feeling. It makes us lose our minds.

I'll keep it short. As soon as we arrived at Sentinel, the Marauders confiscated all our belongings. I am writing this text with a piece of coal on the single leather I managed to hide before arriving here.

We arrived in sight of a kind of giant tower built in a tree also gigantic. It is not like the tower of Fort Beacon in the sense that it is not built in a root but in a real tree of phenomenal dimensions. It's more than a tower in fact, almost a circular city with several floors, with a few dead branches at the top reminding us that we are dealing with, basically, a tree. I have never seen so thick and high a tree. Yet, it seems to be only a part of the original tree. The tree is now probably a dead one because there is no foliage and it looks like it was burned by some ancient fire. Scarce bare branches only remain in addition to the trunk.
So it is inside this huge tree that Sentinel is built. There is a main entrance covered by a canopy and various secondary stairs outside. Halfway up, we can see balconies where homins are stationed, apparently armed with firearms. Above, there are some more floors in what reminded me of the Imperial Palace, a kind of pseudo-dome, there where the top of the tree must have been. 

As we came within sight of the tree, Marauders came up from behind us and made us lower our weapons. They asked us what clan we were from. I told them the truth. That I was a patriot of the Empire in the New Lands, that I had come as a researcher to study the Road of Oflovak and the land of our ancestors, that I owed this Marauder armor to O'Tello, the head of the Cloudy Cliff Diplomatic Outpost, and that we had just returned from a delivery mission to build a Zinuakeen, mission to make us up for the misappropriation of some jerky. In short, the truth, raw and unvarnished. I didn't say anything about Eeri. She didn't even say anything, leaving me to speak all along.

They then separated us and I was questioned by two homins. I repeated what I had said. When they asked me who Eeri was, I told them that she was a Tryker citizen who was accompanying me. They then explicitly asked me if she was a Marauder. I told them I didn't think so. They told me about the Marauder crystal found in her belongings. I explained that I didn't know about this crystal until a month ago and that Eeri had lied to me. She had sworn that the crystal did not mean that she was a Maraud'. I told them that she had probably stolen it from someone or that one of her contacts had given it to her. At their insistence, I gave them the name Mayé'zum or Mazé'yum. I don't remember exactly. A shady guy from the New Lands an I don't know which Maraud' clan. They then took me to a kind of cell where I waited for several hours.

A homin came for me and I was questioned again. This time there was a Fyros of obviously higher rank. I was asked about my intentions. I had to repeat what I was doing here, that I wanted to go to the other side of the ridge. Thinking that I was dealing with the real leader of the Sentinel this time, I added that my goal was also to establish a first contact with the Marauders so that when I returned to the New Lands, we could exchange knowledge. To make my request credible, I had to tell them that I was an akenakos and a student at the Imperial Academy. I also offered them my services as a butcher in order to pay for my stay here, that if they could contact the Diplomatic Outpost, they would learn that I excelled in this art and that they would not regret it. The Fyros noted all this and had me escorted back to the cell where I am waiting without food for a while now. So I take the opportunity to write this. And I don't know where Eeri is. Let her deal with her lies. 

Day after my arrival D+1

I finally was allowed to get my stuff back. They went through all my writings and those of Eeri. According to the Fyros, whose name I still don't have, I seem to them quite honest about my intentions. What is not the case of the homina who accompanies me. He wouldn't tell me more and I don't care. They can hang her, it's not my concern anymore.
So the Marauders agree to host me for a week in exchange for a job in the kitchen. I have had my Marauder armor confiscated and my weapons will be returned to me when I leave. So I put back on my Fyros armor. It's not so bad after all, even if I would have liked to bring back a Maraud' armor in the New Lands. The Fyros is waiting for the orders of his superiors to know if he should make me turn back or if they agree to let me continue my way to the Old Lands. 

D+2
I was able to talk to a Maraud' who works in the kitchen with me. He explained to me that The Citadel is not really a city such as one imagines it. It is in fact more of a fractured part of the great root ridge that surrounds the desert of the Old Lands and that forms a kind of maze. There are crevices everywhere that the Marauders travel on a regular basis. You should rather imagine an agglomeration of small temporary camps built and dismantled in response to the kitins moves. The Old Lands are literally teeming with kitins. The strategy for containing them is to let part of them enter the maze and get lost in it, for then kill them or get them out again. Forget about the idea of a big wall that the kitins would crash into. The constant battle of the Marauders against the kitins is mostly hide-and-seek. The Maraud' who told me this can't tell me much more than that, alas. The cult of secrecy is quite prevalent here, and people are suspicious of me. I understand them. We are also very suspicious of them in our land. It's only as a fair return. 

D+5
The Marauders agreed to accompany me to a first Citadel encampment in three days. From there, I will receive further instructions on how to move around The Citadel until I get out. They would not tell me more at this time. I was asked with a smile if I like climbing. I have a feeling I'm not going to like it...

D+6
One of the Marauds who had taken me into the cell on the first day came up to me today and threw a batch of papers on my bunk. He said that I should be interested, that these were Eeri's writings and that I could keep them because they had already made a copy. When I asked him about her fate, he couldn't answer me. But it seems that she won't be coming out any time soon. Too bad for her. All she had to do was listen to me and play it fair.
I started to read, and I have to admit, at least in writing, that I feel a little guilty for having been so tyrannical. The toub is secretive and has a major issue with trust, but her intentions were good. I should finish reading tonight.

D+8 

I joined a small convoy towards The Citadel and we left early this morning. The further we go, the more gigantic the ridge seems. Next to it, the cliffs of Scorched Corridor seem ridiculous. Will I really have to climb all this...? And... I saw Eeri. From a distance. Chained to a toub and well guarded. She is part of our convoy, in the back. Of course, I am forbidden to approach her. According to a Maraud', she is going to meet an important person of The Citadel and I don't have to know where. "Akilia?" I asked. He growled in answer. So not Akilia. And clearly, this one is not in odor of sanctity here either. We are told on and on in the New Lands of Akilia being the leader of the Marauders, but after what O'Tello said, and that growl, I begin to believe that here exist power struggles too, between the pro-Akilia and the others...


D+9
That's it, we arrived. During the last hours of walking, I did not dare to look at the top of the ridge, for fear of being nauseous. There, the winds were particularly violent, but we finally managed to sneak in a small notch to finally reach a first rough camp inside the cliff. The Marauders seemed to be used to this trip. According to one of them, most of the camps are troglodyte and temporary. There are a few permanent camps here and there that are extremely well hidden and defended, but almost all of them are shifting, depending on the movement of kitins and the tactics adopted to neutralize them. Again, these cliffs remind me of those of Scorched Corridor. A real maze of caves, canyons and crevasses. But so much bigger... We leave in one hour. The time to write this. 

As a result I know how I'm going to get to the Old Lands. By the top. I was told about climbing, this will be the case. From a place in the Citadel, I will be able to use a set of ropes, ladders and other footbridges to climb up the ridge. Once at the top, I was advised, if I want to join Coriolis, to follow more or less the edge of the cliff, depending on the presence of kitins. They are less numerous at the top, but still present. So, it will probably be necessary to make some detours. But I will have not to go down under any circumstances. They told me that anyway, once I'm up there, I'll understand why.