ROLEPLAY

Son,

By the time you read this letter, I'll have left via the Oflovak Road for the Old Lands. I'll be going to the desert of yesteryear, in the footsteps of a vanished Empire.
But first, I wanted to tell you a few things. I don't think you'll want to talk to me, so I'll put it in writing. Maybe it's better that way after all. So, if you don't want to listen to me, just throw this letter away immediately.

Are you staying? I'm fine. First of all, I'd like to talk to you about your mother. I know you didn't hold her close to your heart. But there are three things I learned from her.
Firstly, she taught me how to fight without saving myself. She really was the most gifted fighter, a real fury. I think Lyren inherited something from her. That animal instinct, that rage to win at all costs. When the stakes are high, sometimes you have to take all the risks.
Then she made me realize that there's a difference between lying and withholding the truth. All truths are good to tell to those you love. But sometimes, there are truths that need to be kept secret for a while. Even if it eats you up inside. For the sake of our loved ones.
Finally, your mother taught me that the road to truth is paved with horrible things. Your mother did a lot of bad things, but always with a good purpose. I'm not going to tell you about her experiences with the frippos she described to me, it's not the kind of thing you put down in writing. But I do know that she always had the quest for knowledge in mind.

I think you know what I mean when I tell you about your mother's qualities. Of course, I'm talking about her sacrifice. I didn't try to explain what I'd done at my trial. No one was really willing to hear the truth. Only Pephoan Kridix listened to me in my cell. I should have trusted him from the start. So in this letter, I'm going to tell this truth to you, my son. The cult of fyrak is the antithesis of fyros culture. They do not seek to fight the dragon, but to awaken it. To do so, they sacrifice homins. And they infiltrate all aspects of Fyros society. Don't think they're content to live in the depths and come out from time to time to kill someone. No, most adepts live in homin societies. Some even have a few responsibilities. You should know that this Pimokos freak, for example, was already high up. He was chief of the Dyron guards. A general! What do you think would have happened if I'd been convicted? He would have become a hero, the one who saved the Emperor. When sharükos died, we might have had a fyrak cultist at the head of the sharük! So, this infiltration probably saved the Empire. But this is the kind of reality we'd rather not see. The sharük is far too sure of its omnipotence to imagine collapsing. And yet, it has never been so weak.

If it takes away my guilt? Of course not. The fact that the cause is just has nothing to do with guilt. For one thing, am I really responsible for your mother's death? Part of me wonders if they captured her on purpose because of me or if she was already their captive. I don't know, and I'll always have this doubt. But you see, someone could certify that she was already their captive before I decided to infiltrate the adepts, and it wouldn't take away this feeling of guilt. For I feel this guilt in the actual killing, in the actual application. You, Lyren, sharükos, no one here, or so few, know what it is to really kill. To kill definitively. So you can imagine that killing one of our dearest loved ones, even if it's for a just cause, is a scar on the soul that stays with us forever. And I take no pride in this scar.

You see, son, I've long thought that we children of the Empire's underbelly were just as honorable as those up above. That we too deserved, by dint of hard work, to experience at first hand the advantages of a life among the elite. But we didn't. Fyros society is such that those who pull their heads out of the sawdust are no different from those who continue to crawl in. You're made to understand this when you dare to get too close to their privileges. You yourself will never be accepted on your own merit. And even if you start from a better starting line than I did at your age, you'll have to fight ten times harder to earn your place. But your place will always be precarious. You'll be an impostor in the eyes of the elite. And in the end, you'll end up doing what society expects you to do. The dirty work. The one without honor, without glory. The thankless job, the one that gives no gratitude. They'll point the finger at you like a murderer, because you dared to do what they wouldn't have dared to do. You'll get nothing. Worse, they'll take away what you've worked so hard to get.

And you see, it doesn't matter. I don't give a damn about their gratitude. I hate them, all of them, these traine-palais, these born goods. The only recognition I can hope to get is from the hard hearts of the sawdust fyros, like us, like your mother. But they won't say anything. This recognition is silent. Eeri and I were always ready to explode our anger. But when it came to showing gratitude, we were rather quiet. And yet, all it took was one look to understand that we loved and respected each other. That's the look I saw in her eyes before I killed her. It's that look, and only that look, that you can expect from sawdust fyros. But it's worth more than all the honors, all the titles, even more than the sacred fire.
Born of sawdust, we'll return to sawdust. That is our destiny. For a fyros must always fight the smoke that lifts him up to return to the depths to fight the dragon. And in this, we, crawling on the ground, already have a head start.

If you've reached the end of this letter, it's because you've improved your ability to concentrate. I want you to know that I'm proud of you, my son. I may have been a terrible father, but I did it for a good cause. And here again, I don't expect any gratitude from you. Being a father means crawling in the sawdust for the good of your offspring, without expecting anything in return. I love you, never doubt that.

On that note, take good care of your half-sister. Tell her that I forgive her for turning the Fyros legions from the yoke of the Kamis to the yoke of the Karavan. I hope that one day she'll understand that the Powers can be dispensed with, as her father and mother understood so well. And that if she wants revenge for my crime, she shouldn't hesitate to cross the road to Oflovak. I'll be happy to welcome her.

Go, follow your destiny, Uzykos, no matter how rough the path. And remember, son, your courage at every step.

Dad