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DeadKnight1

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    Hidden beneath the outwardly united surface of the Jiejinese mountain-provinces, there is conflict. Despite their claims of greater civility, they are constantly at war. An insult to their laws, banditry is a poison that runs in the golden veins of any empire, and Jiejin is no different. Peeled past the great philosophers and alchemists of this land are the roots of the country, forever planted in warfare. Every man, woman, and child is taught how to use weapons, for the mountains are difficult to comb through for any bandits or armies belonging to other provinces, or even from the surrounding countries, such as the brown-skinned Kalish to the southwest, the shifty Pavitochis to the east, the maritime and vengeful Arasenshis in the isle east, the nomadic Tengrili to the west, the warlike Chernoboga across the northern waters, or the ash-covered tattooed Tuhinga savages of the southern wastes.
    The provincial warlords of Jiejin are constantly vying power from one another, and favour in the eyes of their emperor. The wealthiest provinces are robbed by their neighbours, and blood feuds are payed with the peppering of arrows, the slashing of blades, the flailing of maces, and the ignition of alchemical fire salts. Armour is a common commodity, and it is a crime not to own a weapon like a spear, staff, mace, or sword. The alchemists of the country and the big cities--all the way up to the imperial palace at one point--have been making constant advancements in the mixtures of fire salts--only for certain alchemists mysteriously dying in lab fires, despite them being safe environments for flames.
    In one of the provinces, after three weeks at siege, it was the final day. Master of the Jianhuoju province, Zhang Kai, and his army had made it through the defending wall of the castle in Shanzhidao. Knowing he could not handle the larger province’s whole army, he had Tengrili mercenaries joined up with his own armies, facing them in the fields, starting that fight before he besieged the castle. He had his soldiers retrieving the alchemical substance known as fire salt, which burns hot enough to fully liquefy gold, to burn away the gates, with spearmen and archers in the same rank several meters away from the gate.
    When the fire had broken the gate down, leaving a blazing doorway in its wake, there bellowed forth tongues of flame, licking the archers and spearmen, alighting the cloth in their armour’s gaps, and into their leather lamellar. “They have a Kalish Dragon’s Breath!” pointed out one of Kai’s lieutenants, familiar with the weapon. “We need to douse the flames!” he told his leader, with Zhang Kai turning to his war mage, “Do you have an answer here?” The war mage, a wizard well educated in alchemy, but has some skill in the Artes Magicae, asked for a javelin from a soldier, and threw it into the doorway, sensing it had embedded itself in the lightly armoured chest of a soldier on the other side.
    Then, producing a small raptor’s skull, he chanted an incantation in a language from a bygone era. Behind the flaming doorway, amongst the men wielding the Dragon’s Breath, the soldier who was killed with the javelin sat up with the javelin still in his breast through the warcaster’s thanaturgy. After removing it, he stood up and impaled one of the operators with it, and picking up the operator’s water canteen, he doused the open flame of the Dragon’s Breath. The Dragon’s Breath is a weapon first produced by an Eulimite arms inventor a thousand years ago, but is most widely employed by the armies of Kali against the horrors of Vilkadil, hence its association with the Kalish. It is a weapon that consists of a large stationary container of pressurized flammable oils, which are sprayed from a nozzle through an open flame. However, when that open flame is gone, it uselessly spurts oils, which makes it difficult to use in damp or rainy conditions.
    After that happened, the unburnt oils would leave a trail that would catch fire with the flames already in the doorway, causing the soldiers guarding the doorway to be lit on fire. After that, Kai’s archers were able to shoot arrows through the doorway, killing many more soldiers. Once the doorway was free of enemy soldiers, they used water pails to douse the flames from the fire salts, like they at first planned to, and invaded the insides of the castle.
    As they fought their way up the castle, Kai finally came to the top floor, where he would be met with Lu Jianhao, the lord of the Shanzhidao province.
    Zhang Kai faced him, removing the armoured face mask of his open helmet exposing a youthful face with a pair of brown eyes. His armour was as splendid in appearance as one would expect that of a Jiejinese lord’s armour to be, and of course, its titanium mountain-pattern scales treated in alchemical oils made it as good as an enchanted harness. At the waist, it was banded by a sash of red silk below a round brass decorative plate in the appearance of a phoenix. The helmet was decorated by a plume of horse hair dyed red. Hanging from the belt holding his armoured hip-guards into position was a Jiejinese pinewood scabbard richly decorated with leather covering, paints, and metals. The scabbard carried a matching sword, a double-edged straight-bladed one-handed sword, with a round convex shield attached to his left forearm and held in his left hand, that had a wood core and a thin bronze plating on the front.
    He approached Jianhao, and said “Lord Lu, I once again offer mercy to you. Simply provide us with this mysterious alchemical mixture, and we will spare you.”, which Jianhao answered “Is fame in the emperor’s eyes truly that unimportant to you? Because I won’t give you that formula no matter what you offer.” Lord Zhang glanced back at his peers, and with a shrug, drew his sword and said “Then let’s get this over with-” Lord Lu then, at that moment, made a proposition, “But, if you defeat me in a duel to the death, then you may have it. Meanwhile if I win, your warriors return to Jianhuoju empty-handed.” “So now you bargain in the face of death?” “Are you too afraid that I might send you to the afterlife?” His insult to his courage was something that could not be ignored for the sake of his status. So he accepted, though cautiously.
    Lord Lu Jianhao was far older, larger, and stronger than Zhang Kai. He was old enough to be Kai’s father, having waged war against the Arasenshis back during when Kai was still an infant. Kai was at a height of 182 centimeters with a fit athletic build, meanwhile Jianhao was 195 centimeters tall with a bulky, muscular build. And of course, their height and build difference would accurately imply the difference in strength. Even so, Jianhao was somewhat worried his old age might affect his combat performance greatly, especially since it had been years since he last fought, and the last time he fought, he was dealt an injury that would have killed him had it not been for a skilled alchemical physician. Still, although his skin and bones sewed themselves shut, they are far weaker now than they were before the injury, and he feared that if he loses the duel, then that is how it would end.
    Lu Jianhao was clad in armour with a five-plated chest, the largest central plate being disk-shaped, with leather limb protection. The plates of his armour, however, were made of steel, which although is the same strength as titanium, is a heavier material, which has resulted in Jianhao growing a more developed physique and superior stamina. Out of his open-faced helmet poured over his long, black beard with streaks of grey, his steel grey eyes staring out of the helm. His hands were missing a few finger segments, from past combat experiences. He held in his right hand a mace, its round head close to the ground, and on his left arm was a similar shield to that which Kai wields.
    They came to the center of the room as they commenced the duel.
    As tradition dictated, the eldest would deliver the first swing, as Jianhao shifted the mace around in his hand, and made a right-hand swing at Kai’s head, which Kai dodged out of the trajectory of. After-which he chose not to retaliate, and instead remained just within reach of the mace. Jianhao would swing the mace in figure-eight motions, maintaining momentum for when he finally hits. But it wouldn’t hit, instead it would always be dodged or deflected with his sword or shield interchangeably, as he constantly adjusted the measure and angle of distance between him and his larger opponent. Eventually Jianhao would identify this as a tactic to tire him out, so that he could deliver a single decisive blow. So he feigned a strike to the head, and traded it for a strike to the gut; although Kai’s armour was technically superior, bludgeoning weapons are a danger to him no matter what armour he wears. After the strike to the gut landed, Jianhao scooped him away with his shield to his smaller opponent’s back, and pushed him down to the ground. He approached his downed opponent to deliver a killing blow.


    Out in the field of battle, overlooked by the top room of the castle, combat was waged between the the Shanzhidao army and the Jianhuoju army composited with Tengrili mercenaries, infamous for their cavalry archers. They exchanged many a blow, with theTengrili archers having been issued the unique technology of fire arrows--arrows with attached packets of fire salt that are ignited and keep their flame in the flight speeds of an arrow--and ready to meet death on their fields.
    There was a specific Tengrili on the field, Sarnai, who would deal a majour blow to the Shanzhidao that day.
    He rode with his brethren, loosing arrows into Shanzhidao soldiers left and right, and those he doesn’t shoot would be trampled under the hooves of his war horse. Clad in the brigandine and lamellar of many Tengrili warriors, and wearing a Tengrili sabre on his hip, tucked under a wool sash without a scabbard. His helmet had a round skull of six small steel plates in a frame, with the top of that frame having a trailing plume of red-dyed horse hair waving in the air, and attached to the bottom of the frame at the back and sides were leather lamellae, which afforded him free motion of his neck when riding.
    He rode through the field swiftly with his kind amidst the bloodshed--something Tengrili are quite accustomed to. Their paths, their arrow-loosing, their trampling, their sword-swinging, it all came together as a dance of violence and death. In fact, despite the Jiejinese being more accustomed to the climate and the landscape, it was the Tengrili who dominated the field here through their innate understanding--and even friendship--of the balance of life and death.
    It wasn’t until the Shanzhidao general, Xun Yong, came to the field with a secret weapon that this would be changed. He came to the field with fire arrows filled with an unusual mixture of fire salt, and even a weapon--a box--with many arrows in it. When he activated the box, then these arrows flew from the box at incredible speeds, landing amidst the Jianhuoju and mercenary forces at rates that would require many human archers otherwise. This killed a greater number of men than a battery of regular archers would. Clearly, history was being made today, as a new weapon that could change the face of warfare has just been introduced.
    What’s more, Sarnai’s team had a direct line towards the machine, with the general next to it. That’s when the general picked up one of the unique fire arrows, lit a fuse on it, and loosed it at them. Although it missed them all, it was the explosion that killed five of the nine, Sarnai being counted amongst those four survivors. But those four just barely survived, as they had been launched off their horses, which were in kind thrown away from the center of the blast, dying upon landing and from the shockwave and the debris. Those four surviving warriors were on fire as well, and it took a moment of rolling in the dirt for Sarnai to kill the flames. Even so, the cloth under his armour had melted into the burn scars, and now, as the explosion and fire were on his right side, it hurt intensely to move his right arm, and he had lost hearing in his right ear, his left ear filled with a head-splitting ringing.
    But he had a visual and direct arrow shot for Xun Yong, and he had his bow and arrows. So, to ensure a victory, he carried through his pain. As his burnt clothing snagged and pulled at his charred flesh, he lifted his bow with his bruised left arm, and with his smoking right arm, he painfully nocked an arrow. Although drawing a bow doesn’t use arm muscles, it still hurt unfathomably to bring the string to even a half-draw, as the muscles on his shoulder and back were also singed. Once hearing had returned to his left ear, he could faintly hear a Shanzhidao soldier coming up behind him to finish him off. He instinctively drew his sabre, his arm screaming in agony, as his waist swiveled back to dig his sabre into the soldier’s unprotected leg, severing it entirely, as he leapt on top of the soldier, stabbing him savagely through his padded armour with his sabre with a battlecry that drained much of his already waning strength.
    Once the soldier was dead, he turned back to Xun Yong, as he stood himself up on his knees, drawing the bow painstakingly. When Xun Yong noticed he was still alive, he drew his bow at him. But it would be Sarnai, who managed to bring the bow to full draw in spite of the feeling of his arm being ripped out of its socket, who loosed the arrow at him first. The arrow soared faster than a sword tip can travel when swung, and against the odds, found its way in the exposed face of Xun Yong, as the arrow pierced bone and cut brain matter. Xun Yong died instantly, losing a grip of the arrow when he had recoiled back, sending the explosive arrow directly up, and landing on the arrow-box. When it detonated, it ignited all the explosive fire salt which created a detonation that shook the forests and made the mountains shiver, echoing through distant valleys, the shockwave throwing Sarnai backwards, incapacitated, as he seemed likely to die, losing consciousness.


    When Jianhao had his mace above his head for a downwards swing, there was an awful, thunderous clap, which shook the room, startling Jianhao enough to look out at the field; the origin of this noise, seeing a massive awe-inspiring fireball, as he lost a grip of his mace. He knew what that incredible explosion meant.
    That’s when Kai reached for his sword, grabbing it by the blade, and brought it up quickly at Jianhao’s chest, which had enough force to undo the alchemical stitchings of his sternum. This caused Jianhao’s ribs to cave-in, making him cough up blood, as his lungs were filled rapidly with blood, and his heart was pierced by bone. He backed a few steps, trying to regain a footing. As he stumbled, Kai got up, and grabbing the sword’s grip, he swung it at his neck which was protected only by leather, decapitating Jianhao.
    The head of the old lord, Lu Jianhao, fell to the ground at the same time as his body, as lord Zhang Kai caught his breath. Taking in his victory, having won through his own youth and dumb luck, he decided not to linger over this. “Bring me the salts.” he demanded, as part of the conditions of his victory in the duel. Silently, the Shanzhidaos went back to bring him the fire salt mixture that he had come for, as he returned to his own men, receiving a cup of water.
    But then a scream was heard. They rushed to the source of the screaming, catching the growing scent of a fire. When they arrived, they saw that the alchemist’s laboratory was ablaze, papers holding their mixtures were burned to black crisp, as they saw a figure in the back of the room. The suit he was wearing was non-human in silhouette, but Kai knew from the golden reflective surfaces and the glowing pale-teal crystals on it that the man beneath the armour was a full-blooded human, for he recognized him as a native of the far off kingdom of Mystikicis; a Mystik.
    The Mystik slinked himself out the window, carrying on his back a suspicious sack. That’s when they found the Shanzhidao noble alchemist dead on the floor; murdered by the Mystik intruder. The servants were evacuated from the laboratory, and the fires were doused as quickly as possible, but they failed to save any of the research. Whatever happened, the Mystiks certainly seemed to have gone out of their way to dispose of any evidence. As they always do.
    The Mystiks are a mysterious people, far more advanced than any other human kingdom in terms of science and magic, that lives on a continent between Skatallo and Meristolem east of it, and Aztlan west of it. But despite being the most advanced kingdom in all of Hraedmur, they seldom deal with other powers of the world, largely concerned with private matters. Their current king, Muirgen, is also a rather secretive individual; a trait he seems to have inherited from his predecessors. He is entirely willing to deal with other nations, with a particular interest in the Pale King of Dampirov, but he never really does.
    Whatever happened here, the Mystiks probably have a reason for doing this Kai tried to reassure himself. Whatever they really did.
    After the siege, when they searched for Xun Yong’s weapon and explosive arrows, they had all mysteriously disappeared, as though they never existed, and that it was something else that caused so much damage. Not one grain of the explosive salts was left behind.
    Those soldiers who were injured by the explosives were offered the highly advanced medical aid of the Mystiks--another odd thing--, with even Sarnai being healed, his hearing being restored as he had gone deaf from the explosion, though his burns would remain as surface-level scars, forever disfiguring him. Unbeknownst to everyone, though, those warriors were secretly all threatened to remain silent about the events of the battle, or were killed, with the excuse that their wounds were too great even for them to heal.
    And Zhang Kai; master of the Jianhuoju province of Jiejin, returned home empty-handed, with nothing to call the emperor’s attention. He returned home, not receiving what he had gone for. Shanzhidao would be under the de facto reign of its advisors, and all who involved themselves in the war would be weakened by it, and for no returns. With that, the warriors who lost limbs had lost limbs in vain, and those who died had died in vain.

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Skatallen Pride

2 min read

Avalonian pride, politick of gold and magick and steel.

In green wood we build our castles of stone,

For this is the only way we can feel

Our mountain brothers, leaving us alone.


Bannock pride, heights and blood.

Highlands of mankind and siren,

Our heads decay under our mail hood,

Leaving only our bones of iron.


Teutonic pride, the dishonour of god.

In stone tower and ancient ruin we live in armouries of steel,

Or we reveal ourselves as fraud,

Our titanium plates hiding our lack of heal.


Imperish pride, our gold and our salt-water.

We commit to death our legions,

For whence attempt trade, but we cannot sunder,

We bare our steel and treat they as contagion.


Vaniri pride, boats and snowy metal.

The elements our holy, with smithery our druids,

But whilst we wrought blades from baetyls,

Our humanity is secretly with the God who hid.


Dampirovic pride, our ice and mountains.

We with our god-kings,

Spill our blood to fall into their fountains,

So they might never die and fly their bat-wings.


Skatallen pride, our knights and our cultures and technology.

We together fight one another ‘til the end of forever,

For we understand that our progeny

Will require our skills in their every endeavor.


Hraedmurian Pride: Skatallo. Written by Artair Glyn Bowman; Avalonian poet.

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Whenever someone looks at Greek mythology--more specifically, their pantheon--rarely does anyone look at Hephaestus. They tend to be more enthralled with Zeus; God of Thunder--two kinds of thunder, if you know what I mean--, Poseidon; God of the Seas, Hades; God of the Underworld, Ares; God of War, Aphrodite; Goddess of Beauty, Athena; Goddess of a million different things, and to a lesser extent, Dionysus; God of Wine and Theater. But this is quite unfair, since Hephaestus is actually one of the most--if not the--most useful gods in the Pantheon. Hell, he's even more useful than his lecherous father; Zeus, is much more level-headedthan his petty uncle; Poseidon, and... Actually, I don't have anything to say against Athena.

First, let's talk about the genealogy--which is a hell-hole when dealing with Greek myth, considering how everyone seems to be married and fucking their sisters and mothers, and cheating on their spouses constantly (which should make one rightly question the Greeks and how many different kinds of fetishes they seemed to collectively have. Seriously, it's exactly like Game of Thrones). Starting from the top--and this depends heavily on the source you're using--we have Kaos and Nyx; the first entities in existence. Kaos and Nyx would have Erebus. Then Erebus and Nyx--already with the incest--we have Aether and Hemera. Then Aether and Hemera--two layers of incest right off the bat--we have Gaia, Tartaros, Eros, and Pontus. Gaia would give birth to Uranus. Then Gaia and Uranus would have Oceanos, Mnemosyne, Kronos, Rhea, Themis, Choeus, Phoebe, Hyperion, Theia, Iapetos, and Clymene. Kronos and Rhea would have Hestia, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, Hera, and Demeter. From Zeus and Hera, we have Ares and Hephaestus. Why did I go through a whole list riddled with a disturbingly obsessive level of incest? Because we also have to consider that Zeus is a prolific cheater on his wife. He fucks every woman he see's, very very often at the ire of Hera--his sister and wife. He only ever fucked his actual wife twice ever. From those sole, two times, we have Ares and Hephaestus. Hephaestus is one of the only legitimate children of Zeus and Hera... And she tries throwing him in the trash bin... Ungrateful bitch. He finally fucks you for once, and you try to get rid of the kid?

But that's not all. One story involves him being married to Aphrodite. Now, this seems like a good time for him. I mean, he's married to a literal sex goddess. Well, even then he can't get any joy out of anything, because she was always fucking every man within a stone's throw, and was way more attracted to Ares, and they would enter an adulterous affair. Now, eventually, Hephaestus got his revenge by humiliating Ares and getting a divorce, but we have to remember that Ares is his brother. His own brother fucked his wife behind his back. Hell, Ares and Aphrodite get married after the story, so the humiliation didn't last for very long at all.

Let's also just consider the fact that he's one of the only gods to have a cool head in the pantheon. How about a comparison? Poseidon sent the king Minos a white bull after he prayed to him for rule in-place of his brothers. Afterwards, he was to sacrifice the bull, but chose not to because of its beauty. He instead, in an effort to appease Poseidon, sacrificed one of his own bulls. You know how Poseidon reacted? He decided to make Minos' wife, Pasiphae, fall madly in love with the bull. She then cheated on her husband with the bull, resulting in the minotaur. Now, it was a dick-move that Minos would go back on his promise there--and Minos was in no short supply of dick-moves in his lifetime--, but he still sacrificed a bull. And then he went to that drastic a plan? People died unlawfully all because Poseidon was a little grumpy. Then we have Hephaestus, who was--as previously stated--thrown down from Olympos by his mother, Hera (you know, as it turns out, pretty much all the gods were assholes in their own right. And people still saw them as good beings?). Then he would have his revenge upon her by sending a gift to her in the form of a throne that would instantly lock her into it permanently. Only Hephaestus was able to undo the curse, but he would not because, as he puts it, "I have no mother." He would only be convinced by Dionysus, who would bring a drunk Hephaestus up to Olympos to fix it. Quite the punishment for throwing your own baby off the highest mountain in the world because you didn't like him.

This is all made extremely and ridiculously odd when we consider that he is the God of Fire, Smithing, Stone Masonry, Crafts, and so on. He makes the swords and spears that the Gods use. He makes their armour. He builds their chariots. He ensured that the humans could build statues of the Gods in stone temples. He's the blacksmith, the repairman, the engineer, the carpenter, all very important things that brought the Gods to power, and he takes pride in his work, in that he... Actually does it. Seriously, the most glamourous of the Gods tend not to actually do anything other than shenanigans with mortals, rather than doing something better to do. You know, like their jobs. He's making the weapons for your wars. He could totally quit on you and you'd fall to pieces. This makes even less sense when we consider that he was quite possibly one of the most revered of the pantheon, alongside the likes of Athena.

Now, Hephy does get some love in the modern day. He's my mom's favourite of the Greek Gods, and he's, in all honesty, just trying to get by. And yet Ancient Greek writers love to take a dump on him.
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Oh shit, my ni🅱🅱as!

My analysis of this; High Rock, definitely. Now, I know that we already had Daggerfall, which takes place in High Rock, but it also takes place in Hammerfell, and even then, it features only a portion of either province. But a dedicated High Rock game would be awesome.

So, why do I think this is High Rock? Well, let's look at the landscape. Very mountainous, in a green land with roughly European-style castles, right next to the coast, and seems to have a diverse environment. High Rock in spades.

But let's go through a system of elimination here. First, we don't see much forest here, so knock Valenwood and Black Marsh right off the list. It also seems to exude a cool atmosphere, in a sunny location, with green lands, so Elseweyr and Hammerfell are gone. It has a European styling on the castle, and is rather earth-like, so Morrowind with its alien atmosphere and more Indian influences is out. Cyrodiil has only two connections to the coast, those being to the Topal Sea to the south, and the Abecean Sea to the west, neither of which are anywhere near Skyrim, which it would need to be to have that mountainous terrain when on the mainland, so Cyrodiil is off the list. We were just in Skyrim last game, so a second game taking place in Skyrim would be repetitive, so let's knock that off too.

That leaves us with High Rock and Summerset Isles. That bit will be difficult to say, as they both share quite a few similarities, and would open up more or less the same opportunities for mechanical expansion. From there, it really could be either one, as we haven't seen Summerset Isles--sans ESO--and we haven't seen much of High Rock. Either way, it would be enriching to know more about either one.

But my money is on High Rock, simply because of eight reasons: It's the perfect environment for adventurers, with a culture that encourages adventure, it has a mutually viable list of opportunities for magical, combat, diplomatic, and stealthy play-styles, it has many kingdoms and is a politically fractured province, allowing for even more quest potential, it has a very diverse list of monsters and factions, as well as creatures many of the uninitiated of the series might not be familiar with being present in Elder Scrolls like Centaurs and Dryads. It also has both Dwemeri and Ayleid ruins, which gives us the potential for even more diverse dungeons, it has the Direnni tower, which ought to have limitless questing and story opportunities, and it is just a very diverse place with reasons for members of each race to be present, and is the home of not one, but two of the playable races (Bretons and Orsimer).

I'm also hoping for High Rock, because I like Bretons; I actually identify a lot with the Bretons, in terms of their cultural attitude, and I certainly look a bit like a Breton in real life, plus they have a lot of knights, and in case you can't tell from my username, I like knights. In addition, I also love Orcs, because Orcs are often villains, and I like villains, not to mention that they have a bit of Mongolian influence, and I've been getting into Mongolian warfare recently.

Though I will admit that I was hoping for Hammerfell before this was released.
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Zubin of Nishat

18 min read

    In the bazaars of Nishat is where I was born. There I would be raised by the cruelty of corrupt foreign nobles and the treachery of thieves, against my parent’s wills. We didn’t have the wealth of our northerly cousins, the Eulimites. Instead of having foreign soldiers die to keep us safe from the sands, we have to venture out into those dark and evil badlands. I was a thief in the destitute country until I was caught by a very perceptive man who caught my hand, reaching for his coin purse.
    However, he was impressed with my deftness up until that last moment, and wanted to perfect my ways as a sneak, and as a killer.
    He was the captain of a mercenary band--and quite an international one at that--consisting of people from all kingdoms and all strips of life, indeed, even non-humans; there was where I first met the snake like Nagas, their bipedal cousins the Talvakenshi, the four-armed, tattoo-encrusted Zharkhans, the impish Vulboga, the big and ape-like Sekirboga, and the most human of the boga the Chernoboga. There I met the half-men; the Minotaurs and the Centaurs.
    There, among their ranks, I beefened up, and I was taught how to aim a Bow and Arrow just so that it can brave the eye of the needle--or the eye of the helmet--to swing any kind of sword, axe, club, or staff, to thrust spears faster and harder than many, to load crossbows like the Skatallens, and to stab and slash my enemies with a knife. What’s more, I learned how to do more than just pick pockets; I learned how to even cut throats and simply walk away.
    The life of a mercenary is a life that’s never stationary; just as a family moves from one home to another, we traveled from land to land in search of wars, and those within those wars who might hire us. In my time among them, I’d fought for the Nefertaris against the Arasenshi, and likewise. I served under the Imperish banner one day, and under the Avalonian standard the next. I’d sailed with the Vaniri to slay both the armed and unarmed, and I’ve braved the Savage Jungles to rescue those in danger of the terrible beasts and demons that lurk within. I’d learned the languages of every human nation, and every non-human nation on Hraedmur. I’ve seen many lands, many terrains, many tactics, many animals, many plants, many foods, many beers, many coins, many women, and it seemed as though it would never end.
    Until we were betrayed by our captain, who sold us out to some sorceress from Kumbukani in the southern portions of Meristolem.
    After escaping her armies of animated bones, I’d escaped north, cutting through the dusty canyons of the eastern Blistering Sands, depending upon the native Vulboga tribes for aid in that hostile land. I went north, back home to Nishat, where I would find work as a freelancing part-time mercenary and part-time bounty hunter. There I would either waste my hard-earned coin on beer, gambling, or women, combing through the bazaars and caravans for knowledge regarding the treacherous captain--whose name was still gladly Habad.
    For three years I searched, until I finally got a lead on a lead; one of the scoundrels Habad is working with now had a contract on him set by a nobleman for fucking his wife. So I was ordered by the noble that gave me the job to drag both the criminal and the lecherous wife out into the desert and “finish it there”. So I found them, and was bringing them out into the desert to “finish it there”, when the following happened.


    I had a lead rope binding the wrists of both the thief and the treacherous wife, well after they realized their struggling and shouting wouldn’t do them any good. The bandit; a short man of brown skin--which is a common trait in my homeland--and dark hair with a slightly rotund form, robed with dirty clothing befitting his thieving kind, with a scabbard that I had emptied of its associated long knife, spoke up.
    “You’re an assassin; a mercenary!” to which I responded sarcastically “However did you notice?” “You aren’t one for honour or principal; you’re as hungry for gold as I am.” “Yes, and what might a thief who can hardly keep quiet in a palace full of guards ‘on duty’ offer me, when I could always rob a man blind without a millimeter of notice?” “I am a pirate. I serve in the crew of Habad the Terrible-” I immediately stopped the camel ride, out in the baking sun, and thrust forward with my questioning.
    I tied the lead rope to the camel’s neck, and dismounting, I approached the pirate, quickening my pace as he realized my frustration and tried to run, forgetting his bondage. I tackled him to the ground, sand and grit covering our clothes and skin, and as he cried out in terror, I barked into his face “You know Habad?!” with a timid answer “Yes! Yes! Don’t kill me, please!” as he started begging for mercy, soiling himself, and moaning in fear loudly. “You know where I can find his ship?” which failed to rouse any sort of coherent sounds, “Answer me!” which untied his tongue “Yes! Just don’t kill me!” I then answered, getting up, “I won’t kill you as long as you tell me where that traitour is! Quickly! What routes does he patrol?”
    I then heard the camel cry at me, warning me that the cheating wife was reaching for one of my swords. With one tug of the lead rope she flung backwards onto the ground limply. I ran to my camel, and removed my blade from its scabbard, the curved, lively bar of steel practically springing into my hands, expectant of bloodshed. I pointed the tip of the blade at her, and after a stern threat, resulting in her lying comfortably on her back, her hands raised, I looked back upon the pirate, and was expecting him to answer.
    He then told me where the ship was, and what trade routes it patrols. After decapitating the wench and cutting the lead rope, freeing the pirate for a time, he ran in the opposite direction. I returned to my camel, and stashing my sword, I drew my bow and an arrow, and bringing it to full draw, I would watch the whistling shaft embed itself into the pirate’s back, causing him to collapse in the sand, the arrow waving in the air above him, moving as his body writhes and pulsates, as he gasped in pain.
    I mounted the camel, stashing my bow, and trampling the pirate. Killing him under the hooves, with evidence of the deed, to show to the noble who hired me, as I rode back to the city.


    I later learned that he had been reduced from a soldier of fortune to a lowly pirate, ransacking coastal towns and serving as the captain of a ship, but still that Nubidwalan wench’s toy. Clearly an existence that I would be most honourably obliged to strip him of.
    So I set for Nefertari--Habad’s homeland ironically enough--and after hiring myself onto a state-sponsored privateer’s ship, I searched the green waves for that pirate.
    Eight months were spent at sea, searching for this “Habad the Terrible” as he was being referred to nowadays. Then, on the horizon, there was a ship without a flag of association with anyone. We came near, and then the pirates noticed us, ensuing a combat. We made a ram upon them, which broke a fifth of the way through their hull. But unfortunately they had boarded us in the ramming, and we were fighting them onboard as well. As they tried to steer their vessel away, we shot the rowers, and let the enemy ship sink.
    But my personal victory was short lived when I learned that Habad had retired back to land within the time I had been searching on the waves. That he had retreated to the swamps of Kumbukani with that sorceress; who was now his sweetheart with whom he had fallen in lust with.
    Enraged, I threw him overboard, leaving him for whatever horrors lurked beneath the waves that day.
    I resigned the further work on the ship, taking whatever money I had earned, and was dropped off on the west-Nubidwalan coast, in Kumbukani. Once there I would go searching for Habad and his sorceress lover, asking the locals where they lived. After a few weeks, I had learned where they lived, and so I went, treading the treacherous foliage and the murky waters of the swamp, until I was on the outskirts of their home, having not stirred the carved and painted bones in the water, for doing so might wake them to intruders like I.


    Just outside the waters, I had the lights of their remote bungalow in my sight. There, I also recalled what had happened to the band when we trudged into the deeper waters. So to avoid being ripped to shreds by the dead, I climbed up one of the trees, and would leap from bough to bough, getting closer to the bungalow, aiming to have my sights upon Habad. I was close enough to hear them speaking, but I didn’t have the right angle. Every bough I tried couldn’t get a good angle on them, so it was clear I had to drop down to dry ground.
    I found the right spot, and dropped down, but my right foot had splashed a small amount into the water, and before I knew it, I was surrounded by animated skeletons. They were awakened by me. That’s when Habad and the Kumbukani sorceress had come out to investigate the happenings.
    “Zubin!” shouted the startled Habad, “You’re alive?” careful not to make any sudden moves, lest I be slain immediately by the skeletons, I responded “No thanks to you, traitour! I’ve been searching for four years. Four years of my life put into tracking you down and killing you.”
    Habad had shivered at the thought that the best killer he had ever trained had been tracking him down to kill him.
    I continued, “I killed your pirate crew just to get to you!” which caught the sorceress’ attention, and she crossed her ebony arms with white tattooing like the bones in her arms. “I made a living hunting and killing thieves and murderers for three years, just to find you! Every rolling head, every bandit group that had bled in their own lairs because of me will not be wasted. Not if I breathe!” “And so you will not be breathing for very long.” he then turned to his lover, “Buhle, my love, have your skeletons kill this freak, and let us be done with this now.” I had my hand on the hilt of my sword, ready for combat.
    But Buhle clearly had other thoughts, and said to the disgusting villain “He has been looking for four years…” I and Habad were both somewhat confused, and Habad answered “No. There is no room for questioning me about this psycho.” “The psycho you created!” I said.
    “But,” Buhle said “we wouldn’t want him being dissatisfied with his visit here, now would we?” Habad must have felt wounded already, realizing what she was implying. “Surely, you’re not saying you’re going to let him kill me?” “No. I’ll let you too handle this yourselves.” He went crazy then, “Have you gone insane? I won’t fight him!” which was instantly retorted by her “You’re afraid of him?” which made Habad trip over himself, “We-well. No, bu-” “So this should be of no concern for you to handle, then?” she said, winning herself the argument.
    She then sent one of her skeletons into the Bungalow and it returned with a sword--Habad’s sword.
    Reluctantly, he accepted his sword, and Habad, a 190 centimeter man of the dark brown yet rusty-hued skin of any Nefertari, a bald head, as was customary for Nefertari men as well, and his aged features made his irritatedly frowning face seem as though it were his natural state. His once blue right eye was whitened from the scar in his right brow and right cheek, with both cheekbones being quite sharp. The mineral kohl that he would normally wear, a tradition of his proud Nefertari heritage, was not present on the outside of his eyes. Perhaps at one point in time he would have been considered handsome by women, but whenst I looked upon him, whatever visual splendour he may have had had left him years before. Now the most impressive thing about his appearance were his idealized body and his beautiful silk clothing; silk made in his homeland. And from the looks of him, he was a couple of hours ago ‘lovemaking’ with the black-skinned witch.
    He approached me, with the intent look of a killer; one I would have been disappointed not to see on him.
    I drew my blade, my armour was removed by the skeletons, and in the middle of the ring of skeleton warriors, we would come to trade blows. He opened with a wide and powerful diagonal swing of the blade, which was far slower than I’d expected to see him swing a sword, which means I dodged his attack. It could be that he was relying upon the edge of the blade to do most of the work far too much.
    But this was an advantage I was certain not to lose. I slashed for his leg, which made him retreat his leg from my curved blade. Whilst he dodged, I stepped forward with a flurry of swings. He did manage to parry most of the cuts, all except one, which had cut a finger segment’s length into the muscle of his shoulder. But in my crazed flurry, he had thrust at me between my blades. I am thankful I was not bare of torso as he was, for that thrust would have likely killed me. It cut the clothing just above where one of the gaps of the ribs would have been, and an incision in the lung would have been less than desirable. But I gripped the blade of his sword ‘neath my armpit, and broke his nose with a front-on punch, throwing him to the ground, and disarming him of his steel. In disarming him, I could smell that offensive odour of alcohol, and it was just then that I’d noticed his face was flushed with inebriation.
    I threw the blade into the waters, and pressed my advantage, with him on the ground, thrusting my curved blade upon him savagely.
    But he had shifted his weight to the side slightly, causing my blade to sink into the gunky soil. He then wrestled me to the ground, and it had devolved from an armed conflict into us barbarically beating each other’s brains out with our fists.
    I got him under me, and with him face-down, I started steeping his head into the swamp water, trying to drown him, but when he lifted his face out of the water too high, he reached back and grabbed me by my turbaned head, and with the cloth unraveling as he pulled my head down, my black hair was exposed, with him pulling on it to bring me to the ground.
    He had me pinned, and as it seemed that me drowning him had sobered him up, he rained his fists upon me, his superior brawn overpowering my agility.
    But while his brawn had my agility pinned to the ground, my guile remained soaring high. As my face was further battered and bloodied, I reached for a rock to the side, and brought it crashing into the side of his skull, throwing him off of my body.
    Us both disoriented from concussion, we staggered for a moment, and upon regaining my bearings, I drew my blade back from the dirt, and slashed at him. Although I cut open his back, he picked me up and threw me out into the waters, as I lost the sword that had been at my side for most my life.
    But what divine intelligence, the powers of fate, would have resulted in me landing where Habad’s sword had dropped into? As he waded through the water after me, I reached for the blade. As he lifted me, I thrust upward, and like the hunter’s arrow, I had pierced the venison’s lungs, causing the veteran to shout in pain, under my battlecry.
    His strength was sapped by the rapid loss of blood, and the air in his lungs being replaced with blood and swamp muck. I twisted the khopesh blade, and he winced terribly, baring his teeth with his eyes tightly shut. With his blood coating my hands, I raised my other hand and punched him hard. Then the athletic body of my once-captain floated in the water, as I pulled it to the land, with me spitting my bloody saliva into his face with a curse. When I brought him to some solid ground, I parted the flesh of his throat with my knife. It was also then that I noticed I had lost two of my teeth.
    Then, as I savoured my vengeance right there, with his corpse in front of me, the beautiful Buhle, in her tall grace, her ebony skin, her white tattoos in the shape of her skeleton, covering her entire body, her seductive, immodest frame and her irresistible features approached me, with a light chuckle. She looked upon me and said “Come, Zubin of Nishat. I will treat your injuries.” as her skeletal guards settled.
    I got up, and distrusting her, I mentioned the details I had noticed about him. “He was drunk, and he had the look of sex about him. What had happened before I reappeared towards the end of his days?” which was answered rather casually, “You see, we had made our union of blood, his seed and my egg as one.” For those who don’t quite understand; first of all, you shouldn’t be reading this. Second of all, he had impregnated her, and they were expectant.
    Knowing that his blood yet remained, I had only a single will. “After a meal,” she said, “we can determine your future from here, and perhaps even take our seedling relationship to the next sta-” she then gasped loudly as I had impaled her with the sword that was once Habad’s.
    As she fell to her knees, and her skeletons shakily came to her aid, I removed the stolen, murky khopesh from her spine, and walking calmly in front of her, looking into her terrified, pretty eyes, I parted her head from her shoulders, as her graceful body had not-so-gracefully fallen to the ground, and at the same time, the skeletons had all simultaneously collapsed into piles of bones, dead once again, and forever more. Something I had learned in any missions I ran with the Kumbukanis way back when was that a sorcerer or sorceress’ skeletons were only able to be animated as long as the sorcerer, their descendent, still lived. For those bones were the bones of her ancestors, ritually scrimshawed and painted during their funerals since generations past, the practice dating all the way back into the time of their ancient King Kumbu. But now that they had no surviving descendants, thanks to me, their souls had been lost in the nothing, and what force once animated their bones was now gone.
    Alone in the Bungalow I was ushered into, I poured some beer into a clay cup, and drank from it, sleeping in the Bungalow, and awaiting the day when I’d awaken to the afterglow of my sweet, sweet vengeance, having not only killed him, but so too his unborn child.


    I returned to civilization the next morning, returning to the nearest town, having a few drinks spending Buhle’s tooth money--money made from the teeth of beasts--and buying a canoe, I sailed back to the northern parts of Meristolem, satisfied by my visit.
    With my mind now at ease, I would return to the living I made before I encountered that thief and his unfaithful lover. Oddly, things didn’t really change, aside from me feeling better that Habad had been taken care of. But now, as I am writing this, I have realized that emptiness in me. When I sought his head, I had a sense of purpose. But now, I am just an assassin and a mercenary. A bounty hunter and a bandit. Is this what they meant about vengeance not being worth it? Either way, I believe philosophy and an academic mind are far more than inaccessible to me now. All I know now is that I live because my enemies have all died. I live with coin for killing them, and use that coin for sinful realization. That is what I am, and all I ever will be. I chose this path, and will see it to the end.

[I am quite proud of this one.]

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