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Scribe - Wade Durant
As you know, we Mandalans have withstood the test of time and storm,
oppressor and enslaver. We yield to the tyrants as the water yields to the
rock, yet eventually the rock will be worn to dust by the slow trickle of
the stream. I am here to tell you that there are times the stream must
divert its flow because the erosion of the stone will bring down the dam
and flood the valley.
I will tell you of such a time, where our secret interference in the
business of the Kang brought more harm to the land and the life that
surrounds us than we could have hoped to inflict on our oppressors.
I was acting as one of many servants to General Khran and a mixed squad of
trackers and warriors on an expedition to the desert kingdoms, specifically
to Naddan in Carantheum. General Khran supposedly undertook the journey as
a diplomatic effort to assure the Dracartans that there was no ill will
between the Empire and its neighbors. To any with unclouded eyes, this was
a ruse, even though the expedition did bring along an Ispasian bearing many
gifts and contracts for the Yassan workforce to secure artisans to develop
the new Warlord's slowly growing airforce.
The expedition was shown what little luxuries that Naddan possessed,
and the General and his staff were given a tour of the duneship
construction yards. As waterbearer to the General, I accompanied them
through all parts of the city. The heat did not agree with the General,
thus I was never more than four steps away from his lordship.
As we are trained, my ears and eyes were as the morning flowers, cast
open to catch all that might pass before them. It soon became evident that
Irradi, the Ispasian, was engaged in activities that the Dracartans would
frown upon, secret dealings with some less than reputable characters
working at the duneship yard. I searched for a chance to expose these
dealings to our hosts, but my limited efforts bore no fruit. The General's
thirst allowed no chance for covertness during the entire journey. Oh, but
for the ability to reverse time and be able to see a scene from another
angle, to try other options. Had I only known the scourge that would be
wrought on the land as a result of this expedition.
Within seven fiery desert sunsets, we were loading the wagons and
bidding the Dracartans and the Yassan a fond farewell, gifts given and
accepted by all, contracts negotiated and signed, and all appeared as if
the expedition had been a success. The troupe marched out of Nassad with
new wagons in tow, full of trade goods from the desert lands and supplies,
or so I thought at the time.
At the border of the Carantheum, we were met by a contingent of high
ranking trackers upon the swiftest striders possessed in the empire. The
General ordered the troops to a halt, and Irradi disappeared under one of
the wagons, reappearing with a form wrapped in white cloth, a human form. I
could now feel the pain and thirst from this body, which was barely
conscious after the harsh ride through the desert. His coverings were
stripped off, along with the Djaffiran fetish mask he wore. I was
instructed to provide care to the Djaffiran, enough to keep him alive for
the journey to the Empire. Luckily he was acclimated to this desert much
more than we were, otherwise he would have been beyond help. They had
kidnapped this man, who was obviously quite important to someone in the
Empire, yet had brought him to the brink of exhaustion and death in their
escape. As is usual of many high-ranking Kang officers, the General was not
possessing of a great deal of forethought. I'd have expected more from the
Ispasian.
Within the hour, the General rode off toward Hadran with the swift
trackers and the Djaffiran in tow. That was the last I was to see of the
prisoner for months.
I returned to my normal duties in Tian, where General Khran was now
stationed as an advisor to the Warlord himself. The rumors regarding the
fate of the Djaffiran hostage were plenteous throughout the Mandalan
community. Servants to the Warlord told of a secret room in the fortress
where none but the most influential Kang and Ispasians were allowed to
tread. They told of numerous expeditions returning from the west with
strange herbs, plants, alchemicals, and captured creatures. All were taken
into this secret room, which by this point, most knew was a laboratory of
sorts.
Our ancestor's spirits foresaw great turmoil brewing within this secret
workshop. The result of the hidden experiments would mean grand power to
the Kang Empire, and thus deeper oppression for our people and the many
others who would fall before them. So great was this threat, a Mystic
Warrior appeared in Tian to act as a savior to our people, to stop whatever
perverted experiments were being wrought by the Kang and their prisoner.
The Warrior found his way into the fortress and into the secret
workshop. How will never be known by the likes of us, as the Path of the
Mystic Warrior is guarded by the prophets and spirits of those who have
gone before us. The horrors contained within this ghastly chamber were
beyond explanation I have been told by the few who speak with the Warrior
spirits. Mutated creatures, half-living monsters, tortured remnants of life
– these were the outcome of experiments being performed by the
Djaffiran prisoner. He was kept under constant guard, and appeared to be
more than a little insane, the toll on his conscience for creating such
atrocities. Large vats filled the room, most containing vile liquids or
gelatinous goo in which indescribable shapes floated or swam.
The goal of these experiments was not difficult to determine, as notes
and texts were left strewn around the room, the Djaffiran obviously past
the point of caring about the tidiness of his work. The Kang wanted a
superior mount upon which to ride into victory against their enemies, a
mount to overshadow the Sauran's land dragons, the Harakin's dractyls, the
Araq's duadirs. They wanted a mount that would make the Rajan's few
remaining crested dragons turn and fly back to their aeries in fear and
shame. It was evident from the notes that the Djaffiran had created such
creatures before, though breeding and limited knowledge of biomancy, an
atrocious magical discipline thought to be lost ages ago. The writings
referred to results of past works, work that had produced a winged ontra,
which he called a nagus, highly coveted by the Caliph of Djaffa. This
biomancer was using his success in the crossing of a dractyl with an ontra
to develop a much more malevolent creature for the Kang.
The Warrior's Path was clear to him. The experiments appeared to be
nearing a close, each subsequent attempt yielding results closer to the
desired creation. He was compelled to end this horrific experiment. The
mysteries of the Warrior's Road will never be known us, nor how the warrior
actually sabotaged the workshop, but within days of its discovery, it was
left in a burning heap of stone and mortar for the Vajran to rebuild.
It is not our place to question the Road on which a warrior walks, but
if ever that path should have been averted, this instance is a good
example. From the smoke and dust that choked the air for days after the
explosion, numerous creatures were seen flying into the night sky to the
west, grand creatures strong of wing and claw, agile and swift in flight.
Only a few talk of actually seeing the creatures take flight, most Kang
dismiss the sightings as rumor and overactive imagination. Their stubborn
consciences will not admit to being responsible for the horrors that had
been released from that laboratory as a blight on the land and skies of
Talislanta.
Within two full cycles, a new creature had come to dominate all other
creatures of the air, and had hunted many species to extinction. The
terradractyl bred faster than any other large creature known until it had
spread its territory across most of the continent, or so I've been told by
those more widely traveled than myself. The azoryl has disappeared from the
skies, as has the great crested dragon, long ago the undisputed rulers of
the Talislantan skies.
The Kang were prevented from having their unstoppable mount, but at
what cost? Under the Kang's control, breeding would have been controlled
and regulated, and perhaps other ways of defeating a winged Crimson Horde
could have been found. We are taught that violence only breeds violence,
that through passivity we shall survive and surpass our oppressors. We do
what we can to make our oppressor's lives difficult, to erode their
foundations until they can do nothing but collapse under their own weight.
I fear that this time as we wore away the rock than confines us, we brought
a great flood upon the land, a flood that drowned innocents and ruined the
crops of other's lives.
This tale was told by Xin Sun, a man greatly respected amongst his
fellow Mandalans. Xin Sun was found dead not long after the telling of this
tale. His body was found alone in the Mazdak Mountains, with no apparent
wounds or injuries. Near his body lay his pack, which contained black
silkcloth clothing and hood, like that worn by the mysterious Mandalan
Mystic Warriors. It is said that Xin Sun died of a guilty conscience.
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