The Volrishtad's Re-Emergence in Cairne

Expedition

After several decades spent in the darkened edge of the Blight, the Volrishtad finally broke through the curtain of black fog, emerging from their isolation into a world that had forgotten them. What they discovered tempered their excitement and filled them with anger and dismay upon learning what happened during the events of the Black Night.

Thirty years had passed since the Volrishtad first made the decision to discover this changed world the Blight had left for them. Their expeditions were slow, carefully exploring the areas beyond the borders of their camps on foot and gradually expanding outwards. Eventually, after about forty years since the Black Night, expeditions found their way out of the direct path of the Blight.   Parting the curtain of thick black fog, the land around them was barren and the sky overcast, but the day was much lighter than what they had been used to within the outer edges of the Void. Absent the fog, they could see clearly for miles out in front of them. The difference was striking. What’s more, from seeing airships in the skies above them, they realized that they weren’t alone in the world.   The Volrishtad expeditions made their way back to their encampment to report this news to their community elders. Excited murmurs followed; those who knew the world before the Blight were eager to return to their former way of life, and the young born within the Void were excited at the prospect of seeing a strange new world that existed outside of the miasma. However, they were unsure of the true state of the world outside. Before any of that could happen, the elders collectively decided that it was in their people’s best interest to first find out what happened on the Black Night.   Thus began the second expedition out into the world beyond the miasma. A team of Volrishtad gathered enough supplies and followed the established path out of the Blight to begin their journey on foot. They had explored the Blighted Lands a week before they came upon the ruins of the Mechanicum of Arktis that a group of Bechtlarites were surveying. On this fateful day, a historian, Vincent Osiander, and an archaeologist, Oriana Caecilius, had wandered to the outer edge of the Mechanicum to ponder over a curiosity they had discovered that lay just outside of one of its shattered glass walls, away from the military presence that had accompanied them there and directly in the path of the Volrishtad expedition. After Merikano Badi, one of the Volrishtad elders who had remembered enough of the Becht language from before the Blight, stepped to the front of the group, they made their approach.   Vincent and Oriana were terrified. Before them stood several hooded figures, with cloaks obscuring all but the bottom halves of their faces, which betrayed stark white skin beset with purple-tinged lips. Wisps of shadow pooled at the base of their forms and curled upwards. They didn’t know what Blight-born horrors now stood before them, but they didn’t expect to live another day.   Yet, they did not attack. Merikano spoke up, asking the two what happened on the Black Night. Confused and trembling, the Becht researchers didn’t know what he was talking about. After a few more exchanges, they realized he wanted to know what happened the night the Blight fell. Vincent relayed a brief summation of everything he knew: about Sovereign Daimus III; his envious desire to bring the Seanachaisian Empire to heel; the great ritual; the involvement of the co-conspirators, Xendal Vedakrhi, Fontelle Graz, and Sasha Vrend; and power lent to it by the gods with Volri’s convincing. He finished his retelling, unsure of what they wanted and waiting for the other shoe to drop.   A grave silence fell over the group, and what little of their faces could be seen bore a solemn countenance. After a pause that felt like an eternity, Merikano uttered a word of thanks, and the Volrishtad disappeared into the shadows, leaving Vincent and Oriana in quite the state for some time before a sense of relief washed over them.   The Volrishtad expedition made the return trip to Sasha’s Folly bearing the world-shattering knowledge of Volri’s and Sasha Vrend’s role in the Black Night. The Volrishtad were horrified. Balance was a universal constant, a law to which everything must abide - even the gods themselves. The actions of everyone involved in the events of the Black Night caused the entire world to be so off-balance, so spiritually contaminated that a maelstrom of bad luck swept across the entire world, and by Volri’s and Sasha Vrend’s heavy involvement in it, their own impurity condemned the Volrishtad to grave misfortune by association. These were people they had trusted to guide them down the path of purity and balance. They were confused why Volri and Sasha Vrend would voluntarily walk the path of spiritual contamination and angry that they would drag them along, sentencing them to this horrible fate.   No longer would the Volrishtad allow Volri or Sasha Vrend to continue impacting their fortunes. At the decision of their elders, they abandoned their memory, casting the names Vrend and Volri from their lips because of the impure taint associated with them. They moved forward that day more determined than ever, recommitting themselves to their ways of life with fresh vigor - those where they knew they were living lives that upheld the balance. They hung the name Sasha's Folly on their encampment in the Blight, maintaining it as a monument to their resiliency and a constant reminder of what can happen when one allows themselves to become spiritually contaminated. After weeks of preparation, the Volrishtad hitched their horses to their bowtop wagons and emerged into the wider world once more, returning to their ancestral travel circuits in the Blighted Lands and Eastern Wastes and resuming their nomadic ways of life.