ROLEPLAY

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. 

Lendemain de mon arrivée J+1

J’ai enfin pu récupérer mes affaires. Ils ont épluché tous mes textes et ceux d’Eeri. D’après le fyros, dont je n’ai toujours pas le nom, je semble honnête dans mes intentions. Ce qui n’est pas le cas de celle qui m’accompagne. Il n’a pas voulu m’en dire plus et je m’en moque. Ils peuvent bien la pendre, ce n’est plus mon problème. 
Les maraudeurs consentent donc à m’héberger pour une semaine en échange d’un travail en cuisine. L’armure maraudeur m’a été confisquée et mes armes me seront rendues quand je partirai. J'ai donc renfilé mon armure fyros. C'est pas plus mal finalement, même si j'aurais aimé ramener une armure maraud dans les NT. Le fyros attend les ordres de ses supérieurs pour savoir s’il doit me faire rebrousser chemin ou s’ils acceptent de me laisser continuer ma route vers les AT. 

J+2
J’ai pu discuter avec un maraud qui travaille en cuisine avec moi. Il m’a expliqué que la Citadelle n’est pas vraiment une cité telle qu’on l’imagine. C’est en fait plus une zone fracturée de la grande dorsale racinaire qui entoure le désert des Anciennes Terres et qui forme une sorte de labyrinthe. Il y a des crevasses un peu partout dans lesquelles les marauds se déplacent régulièrement. Il faut plutôt imaginer un agglomérat de petits campements temporaires se construisant et se démontant au fil des déplacements des kitins. Ceux-ci gorgent littéralement les Anciennes Terres. La stratégie pour les retenir est de les faire entrer en partie dans le labyrinthe et de les faire tourner en rond pour ensuite les tuer ou les faire ressortir. Il faut oublier toute idée de grand mur devant lequel se fracasseraient les kitins. Le combat permanent des marauds face aux kitins est avant tout fait de parties de cache-cache. Le maraud qui m’a raconté cela ne peut pas trop m’en dire plus hélas. Le culte du secret est assez prégnant ici, et on se méfie de moi. Je les comprends. On se méfie aussi beaucoup d’eux dans nos terres. Ce n’est qu’un juste retour de flamme. 

J+5
Les maraudeurs acceptent de m’accompagner jusqu’à un premier campement de la Citadelle dans trois jours. De là, je recevrai d’autres instructions pour me mouvoir à l’intérieur de la Citadelle jusqu’à la sortie. Ils n'ont pas voulu m'en dire plus pour le moment. On m’a demandé avec un sourire si j’aimais l’escalade. Je sens que ça ne va pas me plaire...

J+6
Un des marauds qui m’avait accompagné en cellule le premier jour est venu me voir aujourd’hui et m’a lancé un paquet de feuille sur ma couchette. Il m’a dit que ça devrait m’intéresser. Il s’agit des écrits d’Eeri, que je pouvais les garder, ils en avaient déjà fait une copie. Je lui ai demandé ce qu’il en était de son sort, il n’a pas pu me répondre. Mais a priori, elle n’est pas prête de sortir. Tant pis pour elle. Elle n’avait qu’à m’écouter et jouer franc jeu.
J’ai commencé à lire, mais je dois l’avouer, au moins par écrit, c’est assez difficile. Je me sens un peu coupable d’avoir été si tyrannique, je dois l’avouer. La toub est cachottière et a un sérieux problème de confiance, mais ses intentions étaient bonnes. Je devrais finir la lecture ce soir.

J+8 

J'ai rejoint un petit convoi en direction de la Citadelle et nous sommes partis tôt ce matin. Plus nous avançons, plus la dorsale parait gigantesque. À côté d'elle, les falaises du Couloir Brulé semblent ridicules. Vais-je réellement devoir escalader tout ça... ? Sinon... J'ai vu Eeri. De loin. Enchainée à un toub et bien gardée. Elle fait partie de notre convoi, à l'arrière. Évidemment, interdiction de l'approcher. D'après un maraud, elle va rencontrer une personne importante de la Citadelle et je n'ai pas à savoir où. Akilia j'ai demandé, il a poussé un grognement. Donc pas Akilia. Et visiblement, elle n'est pas en odeur de sainteté ici non plus. On nous bassine dans les Nouvelles Terres qu'Akilia est la cheffe des Maraudeurs, mais après ce qu'a dit O'Tello, et ça, je commence à croire qu'ici aussi se joue les luttes de pouvoir, avec des pros Akilia et les autres...


J+9
Ça y est, on est arrivé. Durant les dernières heures de marche, je n'ai pas osé regarder le sommet de la dorsale, de peur d'en avoir la nausée. Ici, les vents étaient particulièrement violents, mais on a finalement réussit à se faufiler dans une petite entailles pour finalement se poser dans un premier campement sommaire à l'intérieur de la falaise. Les maraudeurs semblent avoir l'habitude de ce voyage. D'après l'un d'entre eux, la plupart des camps sont troglodytes et temporaires. Il existe ça et là quelques campement permanent extrêmement bien cachés et défendus, mais la quasi totalité sont mouvants, en fonction des déplacements de kitins et des tactiques adoptées pour les neutraliser. À nouveau, ces falaises me font penser à celles du couloir brûlé. Un vrai dédale de grottes, de canyons et de crevasses. Mais en tellement plus grand... On repart dans une heure. Le temps d'écrire ceci. 

Du coup, je sais comment je vais passer dans les Anciennes Terres. Par le haut. On m'avait parlé d'escalade, ça sera le cas. Depuis un endroit de la Citadelle, je pourrai emprunter un ensemble de cordes, échelles et autres passerelles pour grimper sur la dorsale. Une fois tout en haut, on m'a conseillé, si je voulais aller à Coriolis, de suivre le bord de la falaise, plus ou moins suivant la présence des kitins. Ils sont moins nombreux en hauteur, mais toujours présents. Il faudra probablement faire des détours. Mais je ne devrai en aucun cas descendre. Ils m'ont dit que de toute façon, une fois en haut, je comprendrai pourquoi.