The Fate of Aman

This poem is a lyric elegy written in the old Urzen language about the last Edrolim warrior who returns empty-handed after a doomed mission to recover the Sword of Seven Stars. He realizes all of his companions have failed as well and that they are all dead. His life now drawing to an end, he desires to return to the Forbidden City, a place wiped from his memory before his mission even began. When he dies, he is buried in the foothills of Sumuru among other citizens of the fading Urzen Empire.

The choking black smoke engines cease.
The blast of the cannon is hushed.
There is now peace but no plenty.
For the wealth of the Old World is gone.
The priests of science have perished,
Mechanics fallen in battle.
With them, the age of machines ends.
The earth will claim them and us all.
Before my time, I would fain see
The fire bird’s golden citadel,
The Phoenix nest, city of dreams,
But the place is faded from mind,
And the land of gold must fade too.

The poem’s anonymous scribe explains that he was not the original poet, but rather copied the words from a set of four inscribed pillars located near Aman’s mausoleum, a burial chamber located in an Urzen settlement called Vanadia.
The scribe also describes the use of teardrop-shaped aktis stones to produce variant elemental effects (kineticists use these stones with rainbow tear disks to gain secondary elemental abilities).