ROLEPLAY

Je me suis résolu à envoyer vers les nouvelles terres tous mes rapports depuis Fort-le-Phare jusqu’à notre départ de l’Avant-Poste Diplomatique. Sur les conseils d’O’Teelo, je les ai remis à un ranger de confiance qui devait aller à la Halte. Espérons que tout se passe bien. La route dans la Mer de Bois est bien plus risquée. Au pire tant pis si le paquet se perd. Toutes les informations qu’on a récupérées sont dans ma tête et je jure de revenir vivant pour les raconter un jour.

Bref, comme déjà expliqué dans mon précédent rapport, nous avons trois artefacts à livrer aux maraudeurs installés près de la Grande Flaque au sud. Ils sont censés servir à la construction d'un zinuaken dans la région. Les marauds sont en contrebas d'une falaise. Mais a priori, il n'y aura pas de monte charge ou d'escalier. Donc ce sera escalade, sueur et huile de coude. S'ils se sont installés en bas, sans moyen pratique pour descendre, ça ne veut dire qu'une chose: que la région est très dangereuse et que c'est pour eux un moyen de se défendre.

Je vais tenter de décrire au mieux ces artefacts qui me rendent vraiment mal à l’aise. Déjà, on voit tout de suite que ce ne sont pas des créations homins. On dirait des sortes d’écailles de dragon vertes et oranges, sur lesquelles sont peintes ou peut être gravées des lignes qui se croisent et s’entrecroisent. Incrustés sur les écailles il y a des trucs noirs carrés, ronds ou rectangulaires et des sorte de coulées brillantes, durs et froides qui les relient à l’écaille. Eeri parle de bijoux. Pour moi, on dirait des pustules noires d’une créature innommable suintant un liquide gris et brillant qui se serait solidifié. Il y a aussi quelques symboles dessus. Des lettres, des chiffres, mais sans aucun sens. Des symboles qui insufflent la vie comme pour les foreuses kamis ? Mais ça n’a rien de kami. Rien que de toucher ce machin ça me dégoûte. Au moins, je n’ai pas vu de traces de goo dessus. Je note tous les symboles sur une page à part et je tente un dessin du plus gros artefact, pour vous donner une idée. Mais vous savez mes talents pour le dessin…

Extrait du dessin d'un des artefacts.


On nous a pas dit le nom de ces trucs, O’Teelo se contentant d’appeler ça une babiole. En tout cas, c’est pour moi clairement karavan. Je ne vois pas les maraudeurs créer ce genre d’artefacts. Il va falloir que j’en sache plus sur le lien entre marauds et kara. Sur les NT, il y a parfois des alliances de circonstances pour les batailles d’Avant-Postes. On peut imaginer qu’ici ce soit là même chose. La karavan fournissant la technologie pour fabriquer les zinuaken en échange de ressources récoltées par les marauds. Une rumeur que j’avais entendue autrefois parlait de dissidents de la karavan. Eeri en sait peut-être plus sur le sujet. Bref, tout ça renforce l'hypothèse d'un fyrak mécanique de la karavan dont les écailles seraient ce genre d'artefact, même si ici il ne s'agit pas de dragon mais d'un zinuaken.


Pour changer de sujet, laissez-moi vous décrire brièvement le désert que nous parcourons. A première vue, il n’y a pas de différences avec le désert impérial. Même dunes, même sciures, même plantes, peut être un peu plus chaud. Des olash, des olansis, des savaniels, des botogas qui nous aident à ne pas trop puiser dans notre stock d'eau. On n'a pas encore vu de Bothaya. Je présume que la présence de la grande flaque pas trop loin permet une hydratation des sous-sols qui empêchent son apparition. Mais je sais plus, je dois confondre avec une autre plante. J'aurai dû mieux suivre les cours de botanique à l'Académie. Il n'y a pas de papalexi non plus sur la route pour l'instant. Et pas croisé de loojine également. Il parait qu'ils sont de la même famille. Ceci explique peut être cela... Concernant la faune, pour l'instant on a seulement croisé au loin des varinx. D'après les maraudeurs, nous ne devrions pas croiser de Fraiders, ne passant pas sur leur territoire. Cela semble déplaire à Eeri, mais qu'elle se rassure, ce sera pour le chemin du retour, dans quelques années.
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.
Ah oui, un point intéressant à noter: l'astre du jour est bien plus haut que dans les Nouvelles Terres. C'est un fait. J'ai pu le mesurer avec le sextant. Je note toutes mes mesures sur une page à part. En estimant le nombre de kilomètres parcourus vers l'Est, je pense qu'on peut donner une estimation de la courbure d'Atys. Mais n'étant pas doué pour les calculs, je laisserai ça au soin des maitres de l'Académie à mon retour. Est-ce que le fait qu'il fasse un peu plus chaud viendrait de là, les rayons arrivant moins obliques que dans les Nouvelles Terres? Plus nous avonçons sur la route, plus je découvre de choses, mais plus je me pose de nouvelles questions. La quête de la Vérité est un chemin infini.

Nous devrions arriver au point de rencontre d'ici quelques jours. En espérant ne pas se faire bouffer par un varinx d'ici là...

Ce qui devait arriver arriva. Ce matin, nous avons croisé un groupe de quatre homins accompagnés d'un varinx. Ramèch! Un varinx de compagnie! Une bête magnifique, aussi haute qu'un homin. Un peu comme Aen chez nous. Sauf que ce n'était visiblement pas des maraudeurs. Ils ne se sont même pas présentés. Ce ne sont pas des Atakorum en tout cas, mais sûrement une énième tribus de nomades du désert. Ils ont exigé qu'on leur laisse tout notre bardage et le mektoub en échange de la vie sauve. On a essayé de négocier un peu de viande pour eux et leur varinx, mais rien à faire, c'était la totalité de nos affaires si on voulait pas, je cite: "finir dans le ventre de Razor". J'ai présumé que c'était le nom du varinx. Toujours est-il qu'on pouvait pas se permettre de leur filer l'objet de notre quête. Il y allait de notre honneur. Alors pour la première fois depuis notre départ de Silan, on a du se battre contre des homins pour sauver nos vies.
Résultat: on en a tué deux et le varinx, les deux autres se sont enfuis. Enfin... Eeri a tué le varinx, un homin et en a blessé un autre grièvement. Moi je me suis contenté de l'achever, récoltant au passage une belle entaille à la cuisse droite quand la pique d'un homin a réussi à perforer l'armure maraudeur au niveau d'une jointure. Sans Eeri, c'était mon thorax qu'il transperçait. C'est une vrai furie quand elle se bat celle-là. Je l'avais déjà vu faire dans les Nouvelles Terres. Mais jamais avec autant de rage et de détermination. On aurait dit une déesse de la guerre. Lopyrèch m'avait prévenu, cette homine est dangereuse. Heureusement que je suis son ami. Enfin, je crois.

Bref, aujourd'hui, j'ai tué un homin. Je veux dire, définitivement. Ce n'est pas du tout la même chose. Je ne l'avais pas encore remarqué jusque là, mais quand on tue quelqu'un d'habitude, on sait toujours au fond de nous que ce n'est pas, ou rarement, une véritable mise à mort. Là, quand j'ai planté ma hache dans le crâne de mon ennemi, j'ai su qu'il ne s'en relèverait pas. C'est comme si j'avais aspiré son âme. Je me suis senti sale. Cela m'a rappelé la mort d'une crise cardiaque du celiakos Lyan Cexius après qu'il se soit énervé contre moi. Sur le coup, j'ai ressenti une certaine culpabilité. Sauf que cette fois, je ne peux pas me rassurer en me disant que l'homin était très âgé et que son heure était venue. Je suis responsable du coup de hache qui l'a terrassé. J'ai pensé alors à nos ancêtres qui, au combat, devait vivre ça de nombreuses fois.

Tout s'embrouille dans ma tête, j'ai plein de pensées contradictoires. C'est vraiment un autre rapport à la vie.
Comme nous sommes devenus faibles à cause de la protection des puissances! Comme nous avons perdu tout cet aspect, je dirais, philosophique! Tous les guerriers, et moi le premier, nous nous trompons depuis le début. Tuer n'est pas une chose anodine. C'est un véritable pouvoir qui peut rendre fou. Celui-ci nous a été ôté par la résurrection des puissances. C'est désormais elles qui ont ce pouvoir. Et je ne suis pas sûr que ce soit forcément un bien.

Décidément, c'est la loi des séries. Aujourd'hui, alors qu'on avançait tranquillement vers le sud, je suis tombé dans une crevasse. Une belle chute d'une dizaine de mètres. C'était pourtant pas marqué qu'il y a des crevasses dans le coin. C'est censé être plus loin, vers l'est. Bref, on a bien passé une heure pour qu'Eeri parvienne à me remonter à l'aide d'une corde et du mektoub. Soit disant j'étais trop lourd. Ce doit être le sac, il est chargé de cuir de varinx, ça pèse son poids. On va devoir redoubler de prudence. Autant on a aucun mal à se soigner ici, contrairement à la Mer de Bois, mais on n'est pas immunisé à la blessure mortelle. S'il y a des crevasses de dix mètres de profondeurs, on peut imaginer qu'il y en a de bien plus profondes. J'ai beau être résistant, je ne suis pas incassable.

                                   
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.