Under The Twilight Chapter Headers - Reference Only

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Preface

Master the Spell not with force. Master it with respect and awe. Respect the power - be in awe of the pattern. To truly master magic, one must be ready to walk away at the first indication of trouble. Know your limits. The worst spell is one that seeks its own pattern. One of the prime indicators of life is a desire to feed. A spell that is seeking its own pattern, a pattern not of your choosing, is known as a Living Spell. Such a spell is alive and its first task is to Feed.
- Emperor Zalkonea in his annual address to new students at the Academy of Science and Magic

Chapter 1 – Infiltration

The time for religion has passed. Its need in the evolution of society is obsolete. While it gave birth to science as man first quested to understand why the thunder roared, rivers flooded, and the earth rumbled, and while at its height, it taught a moral sense of decency toward the majority long before the average man understood the true importance of such concepts, the time for religion has passed. Religion is now a hindrance made up of litanies for punishment and promises of a sublime afterlife in exchange for blind obedience. While religion has created a true sense of unity and brotherly love within individual societies, it creates untold levels of strife and conflict when one religion clashes with another. The ideals of a religion are further tainted by the those within its structure seeking corrupted goals under the guise of religious propriety - for who dares question their leaders when simply doing so means questioning one’s heart and one’s beliefs. Man is at the crossroad in history, he holds in his hand the wisdom to question his belief without quavering, to ask why the picture of afterlife coincides so serendipitously with man’s vision of perfection, to wonder why it is the nameless masses who are doomed to torment and not the known neighbor. It is this wisdom which qualifies us for the next step in our societal evolution, to understand that not only should we care for each other but that we should work together under a common rule of law to strengthen ourselves. This wisdom teaches us the why of these things. Religion is no longer needed to teach our youth the ‘why’. And the ‘why’ is the question we still fight when those who embrace their false gods come against us for fear of what our truth represents. They come against us out of an ignorance of the true purpose of religion. Religion was an accidental quirk of group mechanics that proved highly beneficial to our development of society as the dominant species, but its need has passed to be replaced by a truer understanding of its benefits. We know the true God of man, and the name of that God is man, has always been man, for only we pave our destiny.
- Credo of the Elite - Preamble to the New Constitution of Antarctic Republic of the Elite.

Chapter 2 - Arrival

Healing is the way we pray
- any priest of Valshin

Chapter 3 - A Bad Day Begins

Thirteen moons exist over Camoray. Though having that many moons may seem unusual, what is truly unusual, as all the scholars will say, is that four of those thirteen moons don't exist. Those four dark moons are just the superstitions of the uneducated peasants who would do good to know the names of their neighboring villages.
Of the nine that do exist, five appear just as extremely large stars in the sky moving around the heavens on monthly schedules. Their names are as follows. Kog, the blue star which rarely rises much over the horizon. Burasco, the chaser of suns always to be found in their midst. Milila, moon of hope, the moon to wish upon for one's true love. Rikorskey, vengeance star, the star which makes wrongs right. And Throki, the ruler of the moons who sits at a distant observing all his conspiring subjects.
The Half Moon is the largest of the moons, a green moon so named as it never gets bigger than half a sphere. Salar is a small pearly white moon which almost appears to have no set course. It is as random in its treks across the sky that shamans and witch doctors call it the Moon of All Magics Small and Great. The moon which alights the heavens with its golden glow is Darkello. Darkello is by far the largest of the moons, appearing with size of a small fruit as it peeks up over the horizons. The final moon is the dark grey moon known as Shraum. So dark and foreboding is its full-form specter that few speak of it or even give it any attributes of powers over the cosmos. Shraum simply exists.
The names of the other four which do not exist are Thrakku, Wegsetze, Elarxinebos, and Shaze. The common people believe these moons to exist; the moons are of such darkness and evil that they can only be seen by those who serve such forces. But again, as the educated community will tell any who will listen, mostly only themselves, the Black Moons exist only in stories. Any commoner would disagree.
Few know how the moons tie into the history of Kraylin or the true meaning of the names belonging to the moons. But knowing the history explains how such a vile and sinful city came to be the only population center on Arisilon more or less devoid of religion.
The moons owe their names to the predecessors of the thirteen deities known today. The first gods were known as the Gods of War and also numbered thirteen. They instigated their subjects to constant bloodshed and acts of historic violence and horror. They were flawed gods which almost destroyed the charges they were sent to protect. It was after almost destroying the old world of Pyrideon that a new thirteen gods were sent to replace them, the Gods of Peace. However, though old ones were vanquished, they still kept a small following.
Legend has it that thirteen pilgrims, one follower of each god, set out on a holy quest to bring them back. They believed that their savior would come from a city they would create, so they set out to explore the lands for many years until they found the proper place to start their holy city. One night, while arguing and bickering among themselves as was their wont, one of them noticed that from where he sat, he could see all thirteen moons, each one hanging over its own distant hilltop . The others, seeing this, all fell into a great religious fervor and upon that spot the next morning declared the new city was to be built. And as legend says, Kraylin was born. Since the city was dedicated to gods who no longer exist, in time it took it upon itself to serve no god.
- from “The Broken Land” by the philosopher Torim Rae, Traveler of Worlds

Chapter 4 - A Bad Day Gets Worse

Anyone ever wonder why there is no god of money in any culture? I know why. Why, yes I do. It’s because no sane person would ever entrust something as important as money to deification.
- Corvain Okavae in his latter years

Chapter 5 - Cheerful News

Much study has been made of the goblinoid races. They seem to mutate in a similar manner to the ivy plant, each hilltop and valley having its own variety. We see from the tallest ogre, to the leanest artoc, to the fiercest orc, to the lowest gobleze what can only be deemed the same species, for like dogs, they can all interbreed and produce vile offspring. Certain traits seem to dominate their breeding - a propensity to violence and cruelty, a need to establish a social system based on tribal dominance, a difficulty in thinking abstractly of the finer things while a sheer genius for warfare and carnage. They seem to be highly immune to almost all known poisons and can derive sustenance from the most fetid matter, they are seemingly immune to most disease, they have a high tolerance for pain and the elements, and most fearful they have disparaging rate of reproduction. It is not uncommon to find in them regenerative powers which border on magical. If it wasn’t for the fact that their tribes kill each other on sight when not in one of their mating cycles, we would have been overrun and extinct centuries ago.
Certain subspecies definitely have a stronger presence in their breeding, such as the orcs, where the orc features, size, and mentality are the dominant traits. And increasing this strength, these subspecies are inclined only to breed within their own subspecies.
One particular offshoot that has oft been overlooked is the moralik. They are goblinoid, confirmed by rare instances of interbreeding with the other sub-species, but they possess none of the undesirable traits.
They are recognizable as generally goblinoid in appearance of about five feet in height and covered in a short fur which has a dull yellowish color. They inhabit small tribes and villages outside of Kraylin in the verdant hills, rarely found inside its borders unless on business.
The true moralik is highly focused, unwarlike, and a shrewd business manager. It is fitting they are only found in the valleys around Kraylin, for they are traders of unsurpassed skill, able to perform astonishing feats of mathematics, capable of remembering entire ledgers and inventories, and to the dismay of all whom they deal with, the shrewdest of hagglers. They also excel in the market with their ability to appraise goods and sense market trends.
Their one great downside is that they seem to reproduce at an alarmingly slow rate. As far as being warlike, they definitely hold their own against the few aggressors who have come against them, but if not threatened they are very peaceful. Their only true weakness in trade is their pack rat like nature, loving to collect baubles and objects for mere appearance, even though they know the full non-worth to any other.
As far as their interaction with Kraylin, they are considered merchants to be feared at the haggling table. However, they are always fair and completely honest. This reputation has earned them a special role in the citizenry of Kraylin. They are above the law in many ways, immune to the influence of the Judges, and protected by harsh penalties when someone does them wrong. From a time unremembered this has been so, and the Guild Lords, lacking honor in most their deeds, uphold the laws concerning moraliks steadfastly.
The true question when concerning moraliks and Kraylin is who influenced who the most during their mutual developments, would Kraylin have become the chief trading port of Arisilon without the Moraliks and would the Moraliks ever have ascended beyond simple goblins without being exposed the nature of Kraylin.
– Found in the ledger notes of Guild Lord Del Rocio

Chapter 6 - A Bad Day Wraps Up

Always determine who the policies are built for and become that person. If the society is geared toward the aristocrat then be pompous and rich, if the society is based on the good of all, be a simple man - friend to all. If a religious society? - why be a priest. Should you ever find yourself in a place where only those wearing green neckwear are rulers, then buy a scarf, a green scarf.
– Sharlashtri Elder Voxtone on social infiltrations

Chapter 7 - The Pained One

The world of Camoray has a definite beginning. Most worlds we have discovered have their origins lost in shrouds of mystery and explained in far-fetched myths of creation. Camoray began 2280 years ago. Don’t be deceived by this, we ourselves go back before this and in such a manner we are more so at a loss for an origin than the others, but Camoray itself has a beginning. We call that year the Year of Coalescence. We use AC to represent After Coalescence but scholars are hard found to explain the term. You ask where we came from before and this is the best I can offer.
I personally believe that the All-Father was somehow involved in the creation of everything, and as such, the creation of man. When I say man - I mean humans and humans alone. Humans really do predate elves, goblins, dwarves, and possibly even dragons, if the stories of my childhood are to be believed.
Before Camoray, our ancestors lived on the world known as Pyrideon. Pyrideon was supposedly created, yes created, by the magics of man. Man was fleeing a scourge of his own creation, called the Thrage, and created a world to hide upon far, far away from man’s birth home. Some say the Thrage were men who had bred with demons, others say they were demons who had conquered the men trying to bind them. Whatever the reason, the Thrage sought to enslave all mankind and destroy any who they could not conquer.
According to legend, the Thrage had entire worlds where factories existed for the purpose of producing powerful weapons of magic. It was the enslaved magicians of one of these premier worlds who took it upon themselves to flee. They took the entire populace of that world and escaped to a distant place in the sky where not even the stars can be seen and built an entire world to live upon, complete with oceans, forests, mountains, moons and even a sun. Everything you would expect of a world.
Now, these great magicians, the Founders as they chose to be called, knew that one day the Thrage would find them. To this end, they prepared greatly. They called upon the All-Father and pleaded that guardians be sent to protect them from the Thrage. He sent the Gods of War. Under the Gods of War, man learned to be violent and warlike. It was the hope of the Gods that man would learn the skills necessary to fight the Thrage. The Gods created adversaries and allies for man. They created goblins and dragons to challenge the skills of man and created elves and dwarves to aid man.
Something went wrong with the Gods of War. They went insane and instead of pursuing their mandate, they became only interested in making their subjects battle each other with the thinking that the survivors would be stronger. Weapons were made, like the mighty Cyrkransis, capable of destroying whole mountain ranges so that man might better fight. Soon the goblins and dragons were no longer a threat, so the Gods had man turn upon himself, nation warring nation. Mighty warrior mages roamed the land, destroying city after city in a quest for glory.
I could go on about these stories, for many great tales indeed exist from this time, but suffice it to say, man was on the brink of destroying himself before the Thrage even arrived. The Founders, still quite alive in their hidden city of Arynthia sought again of the All-Father for help. Much displeased with the first warders he had sent, the All-Father sent the Gods of Peace to supplant the Gods of War. I spoke of great stories, well the greatest stories came from this time when the Gods of Peace, with the help of a few great men, destroyed forever the Gods of War and their servants. I speak of men like Galshideon and his god-forged armor. I see by the nodding of your heads that you have heard of him - that is good for he deserves to be always remembered.
The Gods of Peace settled in and went about rebuilding the lands. Unfortunately, they found out that part of the hubris of the Gods of War had led them to call the Thrage out. The Thrage were on their way and would arrive in mere centuries. Now a century is a long, long time, most of you won’t even live that long. But trust me, when you are told you have just a couple of centuries till your entire world is destroyed, it is a short and worrying time indeed.
The Gods of Peace could come up with no answer to the threat of the Thrages. Instead they determined that fleeing was once again the best choice. They set upon creating the greatest magic ever done, piercing the veil of worlds and moving Pyrideon from their demon-haunted plane of existence to a new one, one that the Thrage could never reach. It took over two centuries for the Gods to cast the spell, sacrificing a good portion of their existence in the process. They cast their spell and Pyrideon changed planes of existence forever leaving the Thrage behind.
But all did not go as plan. A world known as Nakir already existed here. The worlds collided and combined into one new world, the world we know today as Camoray. The civilizations of both worlds were largely destroyed. Less than one in ten inhabitants of either world survived the Coalescence of these two worlds.
That is where we come from. And yes, if your wondering, the stories are true. I am from the other side, I survived Coalescence. I was born toward the end of the reign of the Gods of War, so I know of what I speak, and this tale is true.
- from an audience with Lord Falcron

Chapter 8 - A Tour

When in hostile territory, your greatest asset will likely be your knowledge of your surroundings, its layout, and its structure.
- COVEC Survival Manual pg. 34

Chapter 9 - Radok in Masha

I personally think the All-Father has a great sense of humor. Take for instance the Day of Silence, that day centuries ago when the gods went quiet and all the priests to a man lost their ability. Rumor has it that it was because the thirteen gods were stunned by the discovery of a simple ledger of accounts. Only the All-Father could arrange such a joke on the warders he placed over us. What was on that ledger, one might ask? Only the final tally of the yearly taxes due the overlord of a lost empire found somewhere on the land mass known as Mashapaloopa. If true, the empire was larger than the entire domain the thirteen gods oversaw. Arisilon they knew, for it was their land. Zylonica they more or less knew - having been at war with its deities for millennia. But Mashapaloopa - the land without gods they did not know. It lay on the far side of the planet. And with one little ledger with a dried leather cover, they were shown that not only was it bigger than any other land they knew of, but it was an empire forged by mortal hands larger than any land they knew of and one forged without divine guidance. Truly - they must have been shocked and the first credible doubts that maybe they weren’t necessary crept into their conscious thought. But as history shows, whatever the cause of the Day of Silence, it only lasted a single day. My thoughts, well, I think they recovered their shock by saying and consoling to themselves in their godly halls that if this empire had truly been great, then where did it go? And that thought consumes my thinking when I am seeking a contemplative thought to make me feel undull. Where did that empire go? And can divine guidance spare us the same fate?
- excerpt from the private journal of High Tanier Lord Aloric

Chapter 10 - Bok Goes Down

Posturing is more art than skill. Posturing disarms the situation, it doesn’t escalate it. Done correctly, the effects are long term instead of the short term you achieve from intimidation, a totally different talent. True posturing lets others know what you will do, not what you are capable of. There is a big difference between a foe knowing you will kill him instead of knowing that you are capable of doing so. It should invoke a certain level of fear and respect, but not the blind terror which leads to rash decision and foolish responses. I have seen times when a master of posturing so disarmed the situation that the potential adversaries didn’t even bother to take a stance themselves, they just accepted the danger should they act in a hostile manner and chose the path of peace. Sometimes all that’s needed is to quiet the loudest voice.
I recall a story as a little girl when I was touring the President’s mansion with my class. (President being the title of our leader.) On this tour one of the older kids, attempting to impress his friends, brazenly went up to one of the guards and impertinently asked, “What would you do if I grabbed for your weapon.” Without even pausing, the guard blandly replied, “I would kill you with it.” The response was so full of certainty that the kid just nodded quietly and went back to stand with his friends without so much as a single smart remark in return. The kid was backed down in a calm manner, ego’s were not hurt, and the kid was not fearful of the guard, only what would happen if he crossed the guard.
Properly posturing creates a respect and fear of the consequence, never the individual.
- The Rat Queen

Chapter 11 - Corvain’s Day Ends

Gladiatorial combat is the foremost spectator sport in Kraylin. Over the years, it has developed into an entity possessing a complicated set of rules of how it is to be arranged and conducted. As standard practice, the fights can only occur on the eight day of each week, begin at dawn, and are finished by three hours after high noon at which time jousting lists begin if on the docket.
The rules of pit fighting have evolved to the point where fourteen forms of combat now exist. The first and most common is the Fight of Equals. This is when equal numbers face off against each other and are evenly matched with weapons. Most fights are one on one and rarely more than four on four.
The second is the Fight of History. This is any reenactment of some historical event involving massive amounts of bloodshed if it can be arranged. It relates strongly to the third type, the Fight of the Massacre. Same idea, except the historical event is one heavily weighted to one side winning.
Other forms of combat include Fight of the Beast, Flight of Prey, Gauntlet for Freedom, and the ever popular Race of the Damned. The final form is the Carnage Match. The Carnage Match’s sole purpose is to take a group of able-bodied warriors, equip them with sub-par weapons, and through a series of three unfair events, slowly and spectacularly kill them all. The cost for a Carnage Match is the greatest, as the standard number making up the losing side is thirty, and no matter how a Pit Lord works it, thirty able-bodied warriors costs a considerable sum of money. Despite the popularity of a Carnage Match among the masses, a Pit Lord will seldom hold more than one such match a year.
- Lilith explaining the history of combat in Kraylin to Nash

Chapter 12 - Night

You have been taught the basic ideology of the Shar’ Dan. The Shar’ Dan in its nine paths make up what we are and what we use as the source of our influence. Now many of you have probably heard of the slang terms for the Shar’ Dan – psi powers, psychic powers, etc, and while these terms are not wrong, neither are they correct in that they lack proper definition. You may even have other teachers who offhandedly refer to your gifts as being powers of the psyche. Shar’ Dan is the proper term for the powers we utilize and the ones you should use when test time comes. Now as you all realize, Shar’ Dan is not magic, it is not the practice of casting spells or arcane runes, nor is it the practice used by priests which is properly called channeling, that being the invoking of powers from other realms or from other sources.
But - and this is important, do not be deluded in thinking that Shar’ Dan is all that dissimilar either. Magic, Channeling, and Shar’ Dan all share similar principles and interact with each other in similar ways many times. It is learning these differences that may save your lives one day. What is Shar’ Dan? The best way to answer this is to have you think of what you have learned up till now. The first lesson learned is how to Invoke the Vision. This allows you to see, or sense rather the patterns that makes up reality. Once well practiced, the Vision allows you to sense the presence of energy, solids, movement, and time - it allows you to sense the very essence your surroundings are made of. After you learned to Invoke the Vision, what did you learn? You learned to Focus the Will - and in blunt terms, that is simply using your will to modify or push around the patterns of reality. Most of you can do this to some degree, at least to the level needed modify an object’s movement or possibly it’s weight for a time. After Focusing the Will and after this milestone class you will receive lessens on Stabilizing the Will, that skill necessary to make the actions from the Focusing the Will semi-permanent to permanent without continuous exertion on your part. And if you are truly talented, you may eventually learn the craft of Imposing the Will.
It is Imposing the Will that has the most similarities to the arcane rites of mages and the prayers of priests. When the Will is Imposed, the Shar’ Dan user in question uses the Vision to observe the reality around him, then in his mind he mentally perceives the reality he wishes for - he then projects this reality over the one he sees and Imposes it upon it. As this takes considerable effort for even the smallest change - Imposing the Will is the hardest task for any Shar’ Dan user. It is not necessarily a mental wellspring of power you tap into, it almost literally resides in your ability to envision a new reality and the clarity to which you can picture it. The larger the change you seek, the more complex the new reality. With practice this becomes easier - but talent lies at the heart of how far you can progress your studies. The most powerful of us do not exude power, they just have an exceptional ability to form complex thought patterns and project them. This co-insides with the ability to perceive patterns in the finest of detail.
Arcane magic is a very similar process. As the spell or rite is cast, patterns are being created to be overlaid onto the surrounding existence. However, these patterns are created in advance with slight variables plugged in at the time of casting to allow for the given situation. These patterns take years of study and experimentation just to create a new spell. Whereas the Shar’ Dan is Imposed by sheer will, the spell needs a power source to do the work. Many times the power source required is an external source or is part of the caster’s life force. Those are the two key differences in implementation. Spells are rigid pattern changes with little flexibility and they require a power source.
Channeling works by guiding the spell as it arrives. As it is a higher power doing the work and doing the calculations necessary, all the priest has to do is focus on a target and have a general idea of what is to be achieved. That is why priests excel so much more than mages at healing. The priest doesn’t need to understand how a bone is formed, how it is nourished by tiny blood vessels, how the muscles and ligaments work with it, they just have to have the desire to see the bone healed.
To summarize the intro to today’s lecture, there are a few more differences I will quickly point out. Spells generally have the capacity to create much larger effects and may produce significantly more spectacular results to the casual viewer. Because their overall structure is already laid out, they don’t have to be envisioned all at once by a single mind, and this is the spell’s true strength. Magic also has the benefit of being able to perform some tasks not readily available to you as Shar’ Dan users - those primarily being the arts of Summoning and the arts of Necromancy.
– Sharlashtri Misler introducing the syllabus for his class on Jobana Studies.

Chapter 13 -The Goddess Intrudes

I don’t need to tempt death to appreciate life.
- The Hunter

Chapter 14 - Training For Greatness

Skill takes up where talent leaves off. So train. Train always. - Gladiatorial Proverb

Chapter 15 - Warehouse

We know the thirteen gods
And we ask, who is sovereign?
Cause only one shall be feared.
Stengard with eyes of justice is not he
Simple lies and deceit to escape his sight
Only one to dread
Borollo - lord of magic and death is not he
If your not dead then what does he care
Only one cherishes our depravity
Radok on the lips of common man is not he
Be ye common?
Only one will set you free of moral chains
Valshin who heals the woes of the world is not she
She neglects the wisdom that pain makes us strong
Only one can show you the way
Josca, beautiful as deadly, is never she
She hunts and harries our every effort
Only one can deliver you
Yahalla with studious ways of lore and mechanics is not he
History concerns us not, only the present
Only one can teach you clarity
Torya - mistress of the beasts and trees is not she
She teaches to love those who should be slave
Only one can truly lead us to glory
Sanderal - friend of scoundrel and rogue is not he
Not an ally for lacking the courage to destroy
Only one deserves our loyalty
Kristor keeps all in her own time and is not she
Never a nuisance, never a bother
Only one rewards our patience
Ramian Fax lords the night and is not he
He claims he is the true master of evil
Only one knows the truth
Letheria teaches pain to pleasure but is not she
Pain and pleasure without purpose is wasted
Only one infuses direction
Slinjetto is the fiery wild one who can’t be she
Why must chaos be associated with delusion
Only one allows us true grandeur
Grethello, the Madness Lord, understands the cause
Lord of a Thousand Titles wants our deeds, not our worship
Only he purifies our sanity
- Prayer Chant to Grethello

Chapter 16- Wake Up, Time To Die

More types of magic exist than will ever be acknowledged by academicians seeking to sidestep all divinity through use of their precious knowledge.
- Sacred writings of Borollo, God of Death and Mysteries

Chapter 17 - A Horror Is Loosed

“Hey, It’s a lifestyle.”
- Gormash, Eye of Grethello. His only statement at his trial for his responsibility in having had an entire village killed by a herd of stampeding cattle.

Chapter 18 - Arena

Over five centuries ago, the ruling Guild Lords made the decision that since the public execution of criminals was gaining in popularity, it might be of interest if the criminals were allowed a chance to fight for freedom. This was the start of gladiatorial combat. It all started with a single event at the request of Guild Lord Gerata on his personal estates, a pitched battle against a criminal whose name is now lost. It wasn’t all that popular, but enough interest occurred from word of mouth by those that had attended that when he held a similar event a year later, its popularity soared, and with that, his profits and prestige.
For the first time ever it seemed that Kraylin was uniting under the leadership of a single leader. Gerata passed several laws to consolidate his power and had the majority of the Judges under his direct control. His vie to seal his power as the sole leader of Kraylin ended abruptly with his sudden death. Never explained but often speculated on.
Gerata himself remains a footnote in the history of Kraylin, but his single contribution carries on. Other Guild Lords started holding state events almost on a monthly basis, allowing some of the worst criminals to go free if they could survive against the stacked odds of the Pits.
Within a century six arenas existed, each holding events once a month at various intervals. It has been determined that by this time over a thousand criminals a year were killed in these fights, the gruesome nature of these events shocked the senses of the more ‘civilized’ cities of land. They argued and campaigned to put a stop to the fights, but seemed to fall back on the logic that Kraylin would eventually run out of people to kill without turning on its own citizens. When that happened, they guessed that the fights would come to an end as the people revolted. This of course never happened.
Over the last several centuries the games have expanded to be the pride of Kraylin. Though still ostracized by the rest of the land, many notable people sneak into Kraylin each week to satisfy their lust for bloodshed. The fights now occur on a regular basis with forty-two different arenas holding fights each week on Sunday, known as Fight Day within the walls of Kraylin. Participating in these fights are close to five hundred stables. Each Fight Day over a thousand people are killed, meaning a staggering half a million people are killed each year for sheer entertainment within Kraylin.
The most impressive thing this author finds about this number is that the flow of combatants is constant. Now criminals and slaves make up only a small percentage of those deaths these days, most of the fighters now coming from the ranks of the voluntary gladiators, anyone seeking to better their life and take a chance at fame and fortune by risking their life. Fights are no longer rigged like they used to be, the non-criminals almost always get a fair shot at winning. These voluntary gladiators come from all over Arisilon, some from the SardÆ, some even from the savage Zylonica. They come to Kraylin, sign the contracts giving up all privileges and freedoms, basically agreeing to become specialized slaves and become gladiators.
Many come from the ranks of the soldier, figuring if they are to risk their lives they want more than a rigorous life of discipline with little chance for personal gain. Many come from the streets of the cities, hungry and having little hope of seeing their thirtieth year of life. And most impressively, many come from the upper echelons of society, the bored youth swho romanticizes the life of a gladiator. Nobility willing to throw everything away for a chance of hearing a crowd yell their name.
What do they gain? For the noble born, it’s fame, for the soldier its fame, but also riches. For the majority, those who are simply seeking a better life, it’s three good meals a day, some of the best medical treatment around, a ready supply of sexual companions, and a chance for later freedom with a hope of establishing themselves, starting a family, and actually having something worth living for, a life worth cherishing.
- from “The Broken Land” by the philosopher Torim Rae, Traveler of Worlds

Chapter 19 - Confrontation

Consider the Shar’ Dan a tightrope walker. The narrower the rope, the more it sways, and the steeper the angle is all conquered by skill of the walker. It takes true skill to go uphill on a rope in a strong wind, it takes very little skill to shake that same rope and disrupt the walker. This is Flickering the Vision.
- Basics of Shar’ Dan

Chapter 20 - Carnage Match

We are performers of the blade in the dance of bloody death.
- Gladiator motto.

Chapter 21 - Interview

Only fear grants true dominion
- Ramian Fax Credo

Chapter 22 - Starting Over

Every story has a beginning. But, isn’t that beginning a story in and of itself. So, shouldn’t that story have a beginning. But wait, isn’t the beginning of that story also a story, so what is that story’s beginning, and so on. I think everyone can see where I am going. If you think about it, this is like Zeno’s Paradox with the race that Achilles can never win - but just the flip side of it. Just as he can never win because of the halving distances, we can never find the beginning of a story because of the continued beginnings. Can we search for a single universal beginning. Let’s look to religion. Take a deity, any deity, and its perspective religion. That deity created the universe and that’s the beginning. But wait, doesn’t that deity have a story before he or she chose to create everything, or did he suddenly exist with creation. Now if he has a story, does that not imply that he himself has a beginning, which again is also a story?
Before you get to far on this logic, saying this is proof that there can be no original creator, think back to Zeno’s Paradox. A runner can never win a race - but yet we know he can. We don’t need to understand the how in order to believe that the race is won, and logic may actually allow us to argue that winning is not possible, but the race is still won. To the religious person, much is the same. Despite logic, creation can and will be believed just as the race can be won. This is the lesson I am trying to teach, a religious person can be very practical and logical, but still hold to ideas which don’t stand up to rigorous thought. Not because the person unintelligent but because they believe that there are variables beyond their cognitive powers. So when dealing with a religious person, I don’t ask this of them, they know where they stand, I ask this of you - just what is the beginning of the story? When you seek to over logic someone ask this of yourself. Just what is the beginning of the story.
- from Nash’s memory files on religion 101

Chapter 23 - Negotiations

Man blames his surroundings and from there his spiritual belief of greater powers for the good and bad of life, rarely taking responsibility himself. Yet consider, nine out of ten of all venomous snake bites occur to the hand and arm areas. What does that truly tell you about belief verses self-truth, in this case the belief that snakes are evil and ill-tempered creatures.
- from the teachings of the Rat Queen

Chapter 24 - The Ascended

Revelation of truth comes from the child, experience only blinds
- Hyabari proverb

Chapter 25 - Into Borez

If the rumors about you are none, then tiny are the deeds you have done.
When the backbiting about you is none, then insignificant are the deeds you have done.
If no one dislikes you, then worthless are the deeds you have done.
Should enemies you have none, then empty are the deeds you have done.
- From the “The Birthright Verses”

Chapter 26 - Dreams and Gods

Which is worse, the person given the truth which he never questions, or the person who seriously questions only to arrive at the wrong conclusion? Even an idiot can stumble on the truth - especially if it can be done by simple inactivity. A slug doesn’t believe in God either, so don’t simply rely on someone just because the end result is the same.
Don’t discount the intellect or value of a religious person simply because they have a belief. True disbelief of divinity is a belief in and of itself - never forget this. Beliefs are not bad in and of themselves.
- Dr. Jack Roget of the Elite in his paper “The errors in disbelief”

Chapter 27 - The Cursed Town of Tarella

As I aged, the idea of death bothered me less and less. I can barely remember the events of my youth, and only recently I realized that when I forgot, I had already started to perish, but it was death in ways I didn’t notice, things forgotten that I didn’t even know to miss. My youth is already dead, long and forgotten. I know the character of a favorite play better than I know that strange youth. As I age, each memory lost is a bit of me dying.
- Emperor Thargax Zalkonea, roughly five hundred years ago

Chapter 28 - The Proposal

Sometimes the easiest way to escape a prison is to simply have patience.

Chapter 29 - Expansion

I require a maker - who else can I blame for my ineptitudes.
- Unknown

Chapter 30 - The Life Of A Bodyguard

Yinkida: A vigilante group of female assassins operating in and out of the Web in Brynthia. Little is known of their starting history - almost everything is known from their deeds over the last few centuries.
Their training is harsh and few survive. But with the title of full Yinkida comes a personage of immense danger.
To start, all Yinkida are female - no male has ever survived the training though many have tried. Any may enter the Web, and if they are canny enough to survive long enough to reach the Yinkida safe home, they may petition to begin training.
Training requires years. Along they way they are taught to be expert warriors with just their hands, they are taught secrets of stealth and disguise, they are taught poisons and antidotes, and they are taught many abilities which most would consider mystical.
Before even being fully recognized as a Yinkida Sister, they roam the Web and the rest of Brynthia as vigilante’s - helping only those too weak to help themselves. They don’t bother with saving the able bodied or the person lacking enough common sense to stay to well-lighted roadways, but they will rush to the aid of a child or the ill. The law of Brynthia permits them very little latitude, many times hunting these vigilante teams down as if they were criminals, many times because they take it upon themselves to enact vengeance for a wrongdoing, committing crimes and ignoring due process to finish the job. After most their training is done, the Sisterhood will then hire them out as assassins. The Yinkida will not take a contract on anyone who doesn’t deal in death or corruption themselves but are rather liberal in how this is interpreted. This has also further earned them the status of criminals in Brynthia.
After the title Yinkida is granted everything changes for the new sister. They become exclusively trainers for the next generation or they become bodyguards. It is this last step which receives recognition from the elite of the Brynthia, for their ability to protect is said to be without peer. A fully trained Yinkida can paralyzed (maybe even kill) with a simple nerve touch, cannot be lied to or deceived intentionally, can sense danger seconds before it happens, have an unexplained ability to detect and disrupt magical traps, and can survive wounds that would kill the toughest warrior.
Once the Yinkida takes on the role of bodyguard, even if the hiring organization is considered criminal, no one will pursue or harass the individual. Their services are simply to valuable to the elite. Through unspoken agreement, it is just understood that from that point on the individual Yinkida will never serve in any other role other than as bodyguard.
These abilities make them the ultimate bodyguard and this is how the Yinkida funds all of its activities. The Matriarchy in charge controls all contracts and makes all decisions regarding who the Yinkida will and will not help.
Being an information gatherer is of vital importance in protecting a client. Spying is such an important part of the Yinkida organization that at all levels of training and beyond any sister may be involved in such activities, and not necessarily for the benefit of protected clients.
This has served to make the Yinkida a formidable group within the government of Brynthia. They refuse to take sides, but at the same time, it keeps all but the most powerful criminals well in line.
The Yinkida contribute to the almost complete lack of organized crime inside of Brynthia just as much as the Dragon Guard does, outside of the Web that is. Petty crimes and violent crimes of passion still happen outside the web, but rarely do repeat offenders survive free for long.
Inside the Web, where the dredge of Brynthia reside, crime is so great and fearsome that not even the law extends into that part of the city. It is commonly thought that is why the Yinkida safe home is located there - a form of supreme training ground.
As stated earlier, the full history of the Yinkida is as unknown as the methods and secrets of their training. No one leaves the Sisterhood, ever. No one teaches any of their knowledge outside of the safe home, ever. Once a Sister, always a Sister. Even if they start a family, they are still expected to act as full Yinkida at all times. And this is one point that has never been flexible, a Sister who strays is executed. No Sister has ever succeeded in leaving the Sisterhood. At least not for long.
- A passage from one of Mr. Moon’s books. Nash’s first knowledge of who the Yinkida are.

Chapter 31 - Borez Mobilizes

There is a reason you fear the dark - I am that reason.
- Deathmaster Zern

Chapter 32 - Graduation

I see no distinction between a personal deity and personal justification.
Millions of people acting in unison with a similar belief gives much proof to God, not a single person saying I pray and worship in my own way.
- From Nash’s memory files of a conversation with a Living Catholic World Saint

Chapter 33 - Mouse Trap

There was the incident of the “New Revolution.” In truth it all began when man began using tools, for that was the day that the evolution of man changed from natural to self induced. It started slowly to be sure, but lightning fast when compared to the other species around him.
And it increased in speed, the more man modified environment to suit him, the more he modified himself and his society for even faster change. Several thousand years to the wheel, and from there a thousands of years to the written word, and from there a few thousand years to the use of electricity. From there, a few hundred years, if even that, to the harnessing of basics of the atom and of DNA.
I suppose I was part of the beginning of the end of the human species, possibly not entirely human myself. In the decades before me when man and machine were combined, those combinations eventually came to what I am, a true cyborg. As enhancements were added to the newborns, it became normal for them to seek more and more enhancements as they aged, both from parents and from themselves.
What man could build was better than what nature had created in all forms except the mind. When I left, the mind was augmented as much as the physical body had been hundreds of years before, not yet replaced like whole body parts were at the time of my departure.
From what I have learned from the few times I conversed with Slinjetto, this New Evolution only increased in speed after I left, by mere decades in fact. Once the mind could be replaced, all thought and identity transferred to an almost totally artificial brain, all that was originally human was done away with. Man had evolved into its next incarnation, that being a new species created by itself, one totally fabricated, bringing itself closer to a perceived notion of perfection.
The search for eternal youth was done away with by transferring oneself from faulty biology to replaceable circuitry. Those electing to retain their humanity became obsolete and inferior, much as Homo Sapiens left behind the Neanderthal.
Now that I have the benefit of looking back, was it a good thing or not. I don’t know. Man had to evolve into something I suppose, and since man had harnessed the power of nature, it ought to be a something of his own ambition. I do recall one of my professor’s warning of this New Revolution. He said, “When machine can take the place of man in the natural order of evolution, I will offer my congratulations now since I don’t expect to be around. Make no mistake, I resent that day because it will be my survival, my very species’ survival will be lost that day. But when machine replaces me, it will have earned it. Once it does, surely it will be the better newer species. So I offer my full congratulations now.”
- a recorded dialogue with Nash, Warrior from the Past

Chapter 34 - A New Path

“Growing up, I remember a saying - Survival is never evil said the spider to the fly.” “So you would spare them then, after all they have done?” Selena asked. “No - but I wouldn’t punish them either. Simply eliminating them will suffice. I don’t recognize their right to live in light of what they have done, but I will respect their need to live enough where I won’t punish them,” Nash responded. “Over a century ago, the debate of abortion was raging, it hadn’t even begun to enter into the realm of euthanasia of a hopeless child which was strongly debated in our youth, it was merely whether a pregnancy could be aborted in its early stages. I remember reading a story from that time, one that stuck with me for a long time and actually made me question some of my beliefs on the rights to live versus the needs of society and the cost of that single life.”
“The story was very graphic - its goal was to raise up emotions and I think it lost some of it’s social impact due to the atrocities described within. A young woman was going into a clinic where abortions were performed to receive the procedure herself, as she was pregnant. Shortly after she arrives a crazed man enters the clinic with a shotgun and kills everyone there except her. He is very violent and seems to be killing out of vengeance, but kills everyone quickly, not lingering for cruelty or torture. However, to the young woman he is very unkind, pummeling her into unconscious amidst a stream of hateful language for it is made clear that she is the reason he is doing this. He drags her by the hair, pulling much of it out, to his vehicle outside and flees the scene - avoiding the authorities as if he knows just the route to take to not get caught.” “Once they are clear, he takes her to a basement prison he has in a remote house. Over the next several months, he is indescribably cruel to her - only making sure she stays healthy enough to deliver a healthy baby. It is never revealed why at this point, but the man has some severe anger issues with the woman, and he knows things about her that she finds impossible for him to know. The story continually leads us to believe he is the angered father of the child. He keeps her in a constant state of terror. Once the infant is born, he takes the baby and leaves, not bothering to tell anyone where she was imprisoned or anything. The story never tells what happens to the girl, we assume she starves eventually. Anyway, as the story plays out, we are led to believe the man is the ultimate form of evil - insane and depraved. “
“By this time, new readers are probably caught up in the rights of the mother issue and totally siding with her.” “However, what he does with the child changes that. He cares intensely for the child, course we still think the child is his, then delivers the child to a loving family to raise before disappearing from the story himself. All he leaves the child is an enveloped not to be opened till his thirtieth birthday.”
“Years later when the child turned man opens the letter, he sees a picture of a young woman along with a note. “This is your mother and she is going to murder you if you don’t stop her.” He is a lead researcher on the governments main time travel experiment, and from that point on becomes obsessed with insuring his own birth so that he might continue to exist, a hatred growing within him for his mother each day as he thinks of how she plans on killing him.”
- An early conversation between Nash and Selena concerning the fate of some captured freedom fighters

Chapter 35 - A Bigger Mousetrap

The saying goes, “The best battle plans never survives the first arrow shot.” This of course was said by a total idiot without a shred of tactical understanding. I would wager he lost a major conflict and to this day has no idea why.
A true tactician, now there is a rare breed, could look at that same battle and explain exactly why he lost. Troop maneuverability, numbers, fatigue, armament, morale, and training are all just as important as supply lines, reconnaissance, terrain, and climate.
If a battle plan doesn’t give you clear advantage in several of these areas, then please understand, IT IS NOT A GREAT BATTLE PLAN. A good general makes these things happen before the first arrow is shot.
- The Rat Queen

Chapter 36 - Final Maneuvers

It has often been speculated on why the gods ignored the Dark Plague in Borez. The first argument is that Borez is a godless nation owing allegiance only to the Dark One Ramian and his Sister, Letheria. Being the gods associated with evil by most civilized peoples, it would be argued they simply didn’t care about a threat to the more distant and rural parts of the nation. The counter to this argument is that Borez is far from a godless nation. True the nobility serves the Evil Siblings and the service to these two is the only state-sanctioned religion. True the various armies of Borez refuse to make use of any priests, but the commoners serve another.
Borez, governed by the strictest feudal codes, is a nation primarily of farmers and it is those farmers who make up the vast majority of the populace. As farmers they naturally give prayer to Radok, god of earth and storms. Radok has been called the common man’s god with good reason. And just as it is almost undeniable that Ramian and Letheria represent evil, it is just as undeniable that Radok represents the noble aspects of the human spirit of honor and virtue. Once one reaches the levels of servitude experienced by most of the Borez Commoners, little more than slaves by another title it is hard to find evil lurking in the heart. So if we conclude that at least Radok could express interest in the thousands of his people being destroyed by the Dark Plague, we must ask ourselves why he didn’t. Now it has been argued that if the nation itself had declared itself a nation to one of the good gods then the gods would have responded at once with an army of priests, but since Ramian and Letheria claimed the nation, Radok’s hand was held to keep the peace among the gods. It is also argued that he might have been looking to the outcome of inaction.
At first the Dark Plague was heading toward the heart of Borez’s political structure, the Guardian Seat, and if the Radok did nothing the government of Borez would topple, surely for the better. But is there nobility in that approach? Radok teaches that the end never justifies the means and if any of the gods is beyond hypocrisy, surely it must be Radok.
The faithful claim that the gods were always helping, just working behind the scenes for goals untenable by human minds. But try as I might, I have found no evidence to this. When the gods were acting at other times in almost all areas of life in Arisilon, the evidence was always plain to see. The gods did not hide behind hidden actions or anonymous good deeds, they were a competitive lot, always seeking to gain the most followers to the “True Path.”
Sad truth is, the gods did nothing. It was as if they were oblivious to the threat. Or maybe they were scared of it. The implications of something which scares a god away is staggering. Whatever the cause, we can only speculate.
- from “The Broken Land” by the philosopher Torim Rae, Traveler of Worlds

Chapter 37 - A Mite Bit Of Trouble

The true proof of a grand design is that fate so unerringly conspires to make our lives difficult.
- Nash Montgomery

Chapter 38 - Dark Decisions

Everyone needs to choose their own path, even if it is not the path they were on the day before.
- Berfert Spamihiro

Chapter 39 - Bitter End

The Non-Believer’s Prayer:
Are you there?
Is anyone there?
No answer? Then I must ask, who is out there?
I seek an answer to my prayer,
for now I despair, I am truly alone,
and when it is done, it is done
No matter what I do or what I am, it will disappear and be forgotten
like a drop of rain in a raging river
I despair because there is no answer to why

Chapter 40 - Loyalties Revealed

A person truly honest with themselves would have no honor and would be completely driven by their desires and instincts alone. Maintaining the illusion of nobility and righteousness requires considerable levels of self delusion, bias, and casting blame. The best liars are the ones who never lie
- Judge Corvain to Mr. Moon when asked, “Who do you trust?”

Chapter 41 - Consequence And Reward

A bear can out climb and out swim and even outrun any man except when going downhill. A bear cannot outrun a man going downhill. The wise man knows you can’t go downhill forever.
- Yedican proverb

Chapter 42 - The SardÆ

THIS DOES NOT FIT ESTABLISHED HISTORY AND NEEDS TO BE REWORKED It was during the second invasion of the Zyloans that Duke SardÆ raised the greatest navy Arisilon had ever seen to defend the Empire of the Thorn. The Duke’s Navy comprised of ships from every corner of the continent, the great sea galley’s of Crynthia, the swift coast and river runners of Brynthia, even the war skiffs of elves, and with these came many of the best seamen of the time. Fighting back the great hordes of the blue men which had ravaged the entire coast from Kraylin all the way to the northern reaches of the Empire, Duke SardÆ became a hero of the land. Even with three quarters of his navy in ruin after an extremely costly victory and another half of that heading back to their home ports, he was left with the largest standing Navy in Arisilon.
As the second son of Emperor Jecofer the Ninth and second in line for the throne, he decided not to wait for his older brother to have an accident and made a play for the throne. The Emperor, thought by many to be old and senile, still possessed the wiles and canniness in the political arenas equal to SardÆ’s skill at sea tactics. With several surprise feints and a secret collaboration with the Guild Lords of Kraylin, the Emperor succeeded in capturing his second son in less than a year after his public announcement to take the throne.
Though histories disagree as to why the Emperor was so adamant that the Duke should not have the throne, for the man was smart, well-liked and beloved of the people and probably could have ascended to the Rose Throne without bloodshed, the Emperor showed considerable mercy after the Duke’s capture. With the Duke being forced to promise before Stengard that he would never return to the Empire of the Thorn again, he was banished but allowed to live. In exchange for this promise, all of his men were allowed to also live, even to take their ships as long as all of them abided by the terms of the banishment.
The navy he had assembled was still largely loyal to him and instead of disbanding, they chose to stay together. No land would take them, so they took their families and with the blessings of Slinjetto, decided to take the ice cursed island of Teseriac as their home. Found in tropical waters, the isle was cursed long before Coalescence with the Death Curse of the God Raxemores when he fell in battle on the isle cursing it to eternally suffer a frozen wind and forever be devoid of life. Though a frozen wasteland, now many types of vines, berries, and fruits thrive there (thought to be a gift of Slinjetto to the SardÆ) along with a small population of various mammals like hares and seals.
Not only did some of the greatest sailors leave with the Duke, but so did some of the best shipbuilders including what many deem to be the best shipbuilder who ever lived, Eckon Dureli. The next generation of ships produced from the new shipyards at Gotterdammerung, the Duke’s new capital for his nation on the main isle of Teseriac, was made from timbers purchased through Kraylin and became the terrors of the sea. They were ironically used to attack Kraylin many times in the coming decades. Later, they would all be built from the iron hard wood of the Kothi trees, the only tree capable of surviving in that frozen land.
True to their word, no SardÆ or descendant of the original refugees ever set foot inside the Empire again, but from that day forward they became the greatest scourge of the open seas, raiding ships and cargo vessels all up and down the Crynthian coast, even making occasional raids into Kraylin herself until the city raised a large standing navy of its own for protection.
Over the years, the SardÆ have largely limited their piracy as the cost of raiding still carried great risks and now largely stop cargo ships for the now standard “Sea Tax” which most merchants have come to expect. Every SardÆ child is brought up believing it is their birthright to someday conquer and retake the mainland as their home, but in truth, none would ever consider being the generation to leave their strict life on the isles. The fierce pride and love the SardÆ have for their lands and lifestyle would be the envy of almost any government if they but suspected.

Chapter 43 - Options Explored

Giving a man a belief is easy, changing a man’s belief is impossible. He must either lose it on his own, or die so that his heirs can lose it. Peace will always reside with the descendants, never the combatants.
- Queen Cataulia the First. Said at every execution of every state criminal tried for insurgency, a rather frequent event in Borez.

Chapter 44 - Afterlife And Humanity

[B]The belief of what happens in the afterlife forms the cornerstone of most religions and beliefs and directly affects most how many societies are structured. However, where the dead can be returned to life this whole dialogue takes on a new aspect. Of great interest is the legal battles formed when the dead are resurrected. How long dead does one have to be before they lose the rights to their belongings. Heirs have been surprised to find a relative return years later demanding their estates back. The traditional law has been once dead a year and a day, only portions of one’s property can be regained, after ten years nothing is required to be return.
Of course different societies have different values. In Borez, it is common to cremate the dead and then the relatives drink the ashes to honor them, but in truth it is to assure themselves that the dearly departed remain departed. In Amaravati once dead, your dead. If you come back you are considered for all legal purposes a new person, still a citizen but you have no claim on your possessions once another has taken possession. Back to Borez, coming back as the undead is the same as returning to life. There are vampires in Borez who mingle in society, freely interacting at all levels. This has led in the past several years a high number of nobles to seek the very risky transition from life into undeath.
Now the question of those who come back is what happens when they are away. Disappointingly there is no conformity of answers that I have found. Very few speak of having witnessed something on the lines of a post death intelligence, it is almost always a memory of an emotion usually peaceful and calm, like being asleep or that of being in darkness and feeling a great hollowness.
As Sharlashtri, we are largely nihilistic in our approach to the afterlife. We call dying going into the void, we, as a whole, don’t believe in an afterlife, we don’t believe in a soul or believe this realm to be just another journey. We have a very strict view of the mind, best spoken of as a rotating wave of energy which flows around the mind over and over, back and forth, absorbing information from the senses and the environment, changing slightly each time it makes it way around the mind and this is what constitutes thought. In our view, death is when this energy is disrupted and dissipated. This energy is a wave front which continually updates with new knowledge, so by out viewpoint if the energy is resuscitated in the same mind, then that individual is alive again.
And this is where things get really complicated. The Sharlashtri use several abilities which play on their understanding on just what the mind is. They can isolate the thoughts from one another, imitate the thought patterns of another, even copy those thoughts onto another Sharlashtri in a procedure designed to understand what another is thinking and infiltrate their thoughts, sometimes without the subject even knowing their thoughts have been cloned. Because the energy is so dependant on the physical architecture of the mind, this cloning is only temporary, but a well practiced Sharlashtri can learn much while he lets the foreign energy occupy his mind as his true energy wave absorbs it and often the Sharlashtri is able to anticipate the next several decisions of the subject.
In essence, as long as this energy is alive and identifiable as an individual, that person is alive. And it is because of this physical architecture of the mind and the need for physical stimuli to update the mind that the Sharlashtri don’t consider the Sacolears alive. They are nothing more than active imprints of the departed. Many Sharlashtri have argued that they be considered alive over the centuries. Without any means for the Sacolears to affect their reality outside of telepathic communication, they have never been able to argue their own case. The Sharlashtri consider the crystals just shadows of the former individuals. Oddly enough, the Sacolears have never once fought for their rights to be considered the individuals they once were, they seem completely content with their role as guides and instructors to what has gone on before. When asked, the Sacolears have always responded that they are indeed only representations and that the person from whom their name and imprint came from is truly dead.
Yet they are intelligent and they can think, they can learn, and I believe that they can learn to care for those they didn’t know in life. Certainly, they must have dreams and hopes, some form of desire. And if they do, what could it possibly be that they so willingly accept their roles as nothing more than useful research tools. [/B]
- from the written musings of Arthyon

Chapter 45- Departure

What can defy logic, destroy sensibility, annihilate respect, demolish honor, breed hatred, extinguish trust, ruin friendship, impoverish the wealthy, crush morality, vanquish self-reliance, obscure truth, justify terrible deeds, wreck virtue, send nations to war, inspire long lists of useless examples like this, and relentlessly contaminate innocents by the millions. The most powerful and feared force known to man. The truest and most deceptive form of evil ever created. Love.
- Delrio

Chapter 46 - Destiny’s Inception

And I was asked the holy man’s ultimate question by the holy man himself. “What if your wrong, and then, what if I’m wrong? If I am wrong, then all I have said is for naught, but what if your wrong - seriously - what then, what if you are wrong?”
And so I walked a journey with this holy man until I met another holy man with another belief. He asked me the same thing. And this is where I coined the expression, “Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t.” Yes I did it, that was me, all me, I coined this particular expression.
- Anonymous

Epilogue

Somtimes you can’t see the rose for the thorns
- Corvus Corax, the Hunter

Book 2

Prologue

One birth, one death, many paths.
- Hyabari Proverb

Chapter 1 - Unraveling

Love must be blind, for if we saw our potential mates as others do then the human race would surely have perished long before now.
. - Arthyon to Regand’s wife upon first meeting her.

Chapter 2 - Journeys Begin

Life isn’t easy - compared to what?
- Guild Lord Delrio

Chapter 3 - Transition

Rules of Existence.
1. Being a spectator of an actual event negates all probability of it not having happened because it has happened.
2. If you are involved in any event, then you are a spectator of that event.
An explanation of these rules.
The odds that you are here reading this now, right now, are so ludicrous as to be considered impossible. Not only did events have to unravel in such a way as to put this essay in your hands at this moment; events also had to work out so both you and this essay even existed in the first place. Let’s first consider just the you.
What were the chances of you being born? Ideally, we can say it would be the chances that your parents met and conceived you. The odds of them even meeting are well documented in plenty of stories to date about missed chances and opportunities, stories about love at first sight, etc. ‘What if they never met?’ is a common theme, so rather than repeat what you already know, let us go deeper. Assuming the odds that your parents did meet and got together, let’s look at you. To be you, half of you, the sperm which originated you had to be the sole survivor of half a billion sperm. All almost identical, but each with slight differences in one way or another. Not only that, the other half had to be the one egg a month released by your mother out of several hundred. That is if your parents were together once. If your parents were a mated, you were singled out of billions of sperm cells. This was just to be born.
You reading this also assumes no major accidents which killed you or robbed you of your sight before now. You had to learn to read. Now on top of all this, you had to somehow at some point come in contact with this writing. Then the time to read this had to dodge all series of events so you are free right at this moment, rather than say an hour from now or maybe reading this yesterday.
Then, of course, this essay required being written. Which means that I as the writer had to go through all the similar processes you did of being that one in several billions of kids my parents could have possibly had. Then I would be required to have such a life that would lead me to write such a passage like this in the first place.
So now I ask you to backtrack your own existence further. Hopefully you are now saying to yourself, wow, I guess maybe I am lucky I was even born instead of George, Susan, or Tommy. But backtrack further, pass your parents meeting. Look at the odds of each of them being born and coming to age where they could meet. Then the odds that their parents met, and so on. Go back fourteen generations, less than 500 hundred years, and 10,000 couples had to make all the right connections to get together to make just the right combination of kids which would eventually lead to you.
One small change in that means you were never born. Total time span we are talking is under 500 years and over 40,000 people involved to make you. One event, just one of those people happening to maybe turn left instead of right going down a path, missing a boat, tripping and breaking a nose, meeting some else first, getting that job, not getting a job, anything and you don’t exist. If you discount the idea that you yourself were fated to exist even if that means you were born 50 years earlier or later, then truly the odds of you existing are ludicrous. Yet here you are reading this.
In other words, if the odds of you even existing is so infinitesimal to be ridiculous, what is it to add another 10 or 20 zero's the chance you are part of an event. Nearly the same that you are not part of that event. The only change is your perspective brings you closer. And once your perspective matches the event in question, the chances are 100 percent. There is a popular saying which I like to take a twist on. I say, “Wherever you are, there you are at.” Simple until you really think about it. The odds of you existing are so small, why do you even have to then ask “how could such a bizarre series of events happen to me, good or bad?” You exist as you are despite all the probabilities saying you shouldn’t be here. The first rule is this, Being a spectator of an actual event negates all probability of it not happening because it has happened. Common sense, but people will make up all sorts of ideas, beliefs, and philosophies to explain where we come from because they can’t except this one little truth, thinking the odds are so small that they must have overlooked to something like an actual plan and scheme dictating they why of things, in that way negating the probability instead of it simply being nothing more than luck of the draw.
The second rule is this. If you are involved in any event, then you are a spectator of that event. Again common sense, but you don’t know how many people I talk to daily that insist we can’t possibly be alone in the universe. Why, they say the probability of us being alone is so infinitesimal that it more or less can’t be. Now arguments aside of how prevalent the conditions for life are or aren’t in the universe and whether the chances of life could emerge to thinking creatures are high or low given the size and age of the universe, I direct you from the second rule to the first. If we are the only intelligent beings in the universe, then we are a spectator of that event, and from there we can say all probability is negated of us not being the only intelligent beings in the universe. This is not the proof that we are alone, it is the proof that if we are alone then the odds don’t matter because here we are.
- An Essay called “Why Me?” by the Rat Queen in her first life explaining Herbert’s Rules of Existence

Chapter 4 - Diverging Ethics

Good men don’t win wars. Desperate, hardened, and callous men win wars so that good men can maintain the illusion of virtue. This is the first revision to history made by the victors and the first refuge under which ‘Might makes Right’ hides.
- Emperor Zalkonea

Chapter 5 - Mountainscape Meeting

The great cosmic joke is this, there's no one laughing
- The Rat Queen