Vhadya & Velocity (Closed)

Attachment 2582
Vhadya & Velocity

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Counting Coup: the idea of counting coup against the other factions stems from the fact that a runner’s tokens generally self-destruct when they die, making them useless. One still gains honor and a reputation, but physical rewards don’t apply when the tokens are ruined. The idea is to beat your rival in combat and take their token(s) without killing them. These tokens can then be added to your token-count for faction-based rewards. This mission can be a quest or a battle.
Reward: Tokens.

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Set the day after The Heart of the Nomad, and referencing events their-in.

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They call this land The Blight - an area of Fallien where few survive the scorching heat of the sun and its reflection from the fields of glass. Suravani left this for us in case the desert wasn't enough of a reminder of her hatred toward avarice and pride. But we live here.

We are the Mi'sheteri, the Glasswalkers, and this is our home. We live beneath the sands, in caves of glass. It is here that we create intricate works of glass that are nearly priceless throughout Althanas. At night we emerge from our caves to harvest the glass- there are many different kinds after all.

We use the sugar-glass which is found in amazing hues in order to colour our trinkets and bottles. There is the shard glass which when melted down can be moulded into glass so strong that it is very difficult to break. We've even found entire sheets of glass beneath the surface of the desert which when cut properly can be sold for use in cathedrals and palaces as windows.

This land is fatal to those who do not know it. They think it is because of the elements. Perhaps we help those elements to their victims?

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The soft sunlight of the early morning washed away the frigid cold of the night. It swept up the haunting atmosphere of the sand touched alleyway that sheltered Mordelain and Suresh and did away with it to the unseen streets beyond. They looked at one another after remaining in ignorance of one another for almost a mile. The sudden and halcyon awakening to the day cause for them both to break their silent vigil. Her soft footsteps mingled with the merchant’s heavy advances and declared their entrance into the social quarter of Irrakam. They smiled at one another and sighed, as if they had just woken up and climbed out of their hammocks.

“That was an inspired idea Suresh,” she stretched, her lanky arms swaddled with rolls of white muslin and bespeckled with red dots and spirals of henna. She had not yet bathed away the dancing and drunken hedonism of the night before. They were smudged in several places, but were still elegant and striking.

“It is practically a mandatory event amongst the young il’Jhain. To dervish is to celebrate their first acquisition from an Abdos assignment with a night to remember, a night that will mark a thousand more successes.” Suresh had been taught the meaning of a dervish many times before, but her heavy and sluggish movements told the merchant that she was still sore and suffering, and thus prone to groggy amnesia. He chuckled, patted her on the shoulder and pulled her out of the path of a trundling cart as it passed before them.

“It is a reasonable excuse to have a drink, dance, and spend your hard earned coin on worthless material trinkets.”

Mordelain recalled a vague memory of purchasing a glass fruit bowel from one of the market stands. She had found it particularly enchanting because of its inner light, a property unique to the mirror glass, the mukakkannati. To see something splendid amongst the squalor and culinary array found in the spice bazaar almost seemed like destiny at work. Suresh had rolled his eyes at the time, bemused that such a simple marketing trick had garnered her hard earned gold so easily.

“Oh humdrum to you Suresh, appreciate the Nirakkal!” She waved her arms flamboyantly, mocking and appreciating him equally.

She was ecstatic at the time, pushed to higher planes of being on a wave of subtly spiced lamb curry and date wine so thick and sweet it demanded a month of atonement just for smelling it’s vintage. She would never admit she regretted it very much so now.

It was a forgivable indulgence, all things considered. Death demanded shopping from even the most frugal of women. This time the death had not been hers, which was less than could be set for a hundred or so virgin il’Jhain this last year alone. The fruit bowel would serve as an edifice of respect for all those that had perished before her.

“I should hope it’s been a worthy lesson in Fallien culture, because I fear this briefing is going to hurt me more than you.” Suresh’s stony expression silenced any further attempts at humour from his young disciple.

She returned his patriarchal stare with a sheepish glance, before double checking she was not about to get run over again. Slowly but surely she was waking up properly, just the thought of drinking some coffee keeping her going on empty. They crossed the street in perfect unison, footfall matched, arms striding in time, chests puffed out. They moved in tune with the dual lanes of people that went north and south along the main thoroughfare between the Outlander’s Markets and the northern keep. You learnt very quickly to live as one with the pulse of Irrakam, or suffer the consequences.

They crossed the river of early morning shoppers, merchants and guards in short order. The duo slipped into a small and busy thoroughfare. It was nothing more than a dark tunnel opening in the sandstone wall between a coffee shop and a silk haberdasher. If you weren’t told where to look, you would likely have skipped over it without ever noticing it. The momentary heat from the desert sun vanished, replaced instead with the immutable scent of dung and cold coffee and urine. Suresh and Mordelain had been this way to their destination enough times to know exactly where to tread to avoid an incident.

“I thought it was rather fetching really. It will go very nicely on the kiln on the roof, don’t you think?”

“It will be a valuable addition to the Nirakkal statue and the mosaic from the ruins of Al Ghazi, I am sure.” She wrinkled his nose at him in the shadows.

His soft laughter erupted out into the light as they did/ The tunnel opened out into a circular courtyard which nothing more than a sandstone floor with a windowless curved wall. The dark mud enclosed wayward travellers in without any visible path to continue on. Roughly thirty feet in diameter, the courtyard retained the scent of coffee but none of the decadence of the alley behind. Mordelain walked to the centre of the space and looked up at the radiant blue sky.

She spiralled on the tips of her toes like a giddy child. The soft tinkle of her many bells brought a momentary sparkle to the secret hideaway. With her head lolled back and her arms splayed loosely outwards, her head span with the remnants of her intoxication. Feathers and ribbons became tangled with her sway.

“Oh I’ve missed this place,” she said with enthusiasm, the sort that came with cliché, but plenty of heart.

Suresh clapped loudly, his heavy, chubby digits colliding with considerable force and a rattle of a dozen gold rings and heavy bead bangles. Mordelain stopped her dance, but kept her head skyward bound.

“<في السماء>,” the merchant’s thick Fallien accent sounded equally as heavy as his summons.

Mordelain felt the swell of power from the ground and dropped her gaze. She felt drawn, compelled to watch the sand on the stone come to life. Whatever magic Suresh was drawing on was old, as old perhaps as Irrakam, if not older. Beneath the pressure of the merchant’s heavy words and ancient magic the sane visibly began to swirl. It broke apart from its long undisturbed patches and formed a moving whirlpool beneath their feet.

“<عن حب Jya>,” the second line of the incantation gave force and speed to the sea of movement. In little time at all, the flow of the sand started to build up against the edge of Mordelain’s feet. She could feel the sand penetrate her slippers, slowed only by the cotton wraps that kept her skin from burning as the leather soles heated on the sands.

This was the third time they had visited the Freerunner café, and despite Mordelain’s increasingly competent understanding of Fallien’s many dialects, she had yet to decipher any of the teleportation ritual. The incantation that was required to throw visitors to the best coffee house on Althanas was a closely guarded secret, one her rank amongst the Freerunners did not yet afford her. It tossed them through maelstroms and clouds to arrive at their destination a second later. It was a distance of a breath, as opposed to the many hundreds of miles that the journey would otherwise take.

The name of the goddess reborn was about as close as she got to understanding, but she had no other name in any language – she was, is, and always would be Jya.

“<وبالنسبة الى الحرة على التوالي>,” both the merchant and the il’Jhain lifted their feet and shook the build-up of sand from their soft wrappings. It felt as if the floor was going to give way and swallow them whole, like a sudden sink hole forming in the wake of shifting dunes and ant lion grubs.

There was a rush of nausea, almond scent and sulphur into their nostrils. Mordelain gagged. Alongside her spluttering there was a deep, primal rumble in the walls.

“You make it sound so easy,” Mordelain said just as soon as she recovered, with friendly barbs in her words. She set her foot down again, steadying herself with a more balanced stance. Though this trip was not her first time, the sensation of having your stomach pulled up through your throat was still immensely uncomfortable.

Walking between worlds was something she had grown accustomed to over the many years. It was a magic she understood, could comprehend, could quantify. This magic however was different; it was formed from the sands themselves, and made her skin crawl and the hairs on her neck stand on end.

“It is certainly an acquired art,” Suresh chuckled, but before his smile could fully form, merchant and dancer alike vanished.

When the sands beneath their feet settled, there was no trace that they had ever been there, no sign of life in another nook in the warren like Irrakam.

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Translation:

To the heavens,
For the love of Jya,
Let us run free as her children.

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Ever since the Abdos had accepted the Freerunners, and in turn il’Jhain not of Fallien blood, outsiders had grown in prominence within the usually xenophobic hierarchy of Irrakam. On the behest of their patriarch’s diplomacy, the organisation has grown from strength to strength, and gone from proverbial leaps and bounds across the scorched sands to flights of fancy. In just a few short years, people had started to forget that they were youngest faction to stake a hold on the pearl white walls of the Abdos. Though its members are still treated with suspicion, they were one step closer to being at one with the desert.

Once they had been afforded their modest office in the Abdos their leader, Îdhdaer Bireth, had established a desert café far in the north. Mordelain long suspected it was near Suravani’s Oasis, though the disorientation of the teleportation ritual threw her senses wide off. Every business operation needed neutral ground on which to operate a war of attrition and knowledge, or so Îdhdaer said. That neutral ground was north, according to the enchantment on her belt, it was all she had to go on.

At the southern end of the café, Mordelain and Suresh appeared quite literally out of nowhere. A whiff of smoke curled up from their toes and foreheads, and a strong smell of rotten eggs shook the last of the hangover grogginess from their glum faces. They coughed and spluttered before they stood to attention. They were, after all, representing their employers.

“Every time,” he groaned, realising his stomach had been set off by the journey as well as his hookah cough. From Suresh’s expression and sudden ailments, Mordelain suspected he had not quite perfected the incantation, though she knew he would never admit it. He was eternally confident and suave in everything he did. She called it cocksure arrogance whenever he was out of earshot.

The merchant now had full sympathy for the dancer’s tired limbs and aching head. He had chided her for losing control after one too many spiced wines and hedonistic lime grass spirits, but now he felt uncomfortably hypocritical. His own consumption caught up with him like an old relative long unwelcome at your door.

“It’s not a pleasant experience that’s for sure,” Mordelain chirped, smiling over her shoulder at her mentor, her face aglow with suspense and excited.

Though confident in his application of the teleportation ritual, and in mercantile pursuits, he had never grown accustomed to the actual event itself. His stomach grumbled in a weird mix of hunger and nausea as testament.

Hot fried meat and black coffee, the sort that was exceptionally thick and intoxicatingly strong rolled down on the headwind to meet them.

The vastness of the bleak oasis struck them both like the chime of a grand gong. They stood in silence for a moment to admire it. Despite its barren appearance the rolling and golden sands possessed a strange sort of beauty of their own. The oasis was bespeckled with clumps of palm, Nirakkal statues and rocky outcrops, all formed by the strange and chaotic winds that blew down from the northern tip of Fallien where the Bedouin lived like kings. On the shores of one of the larger water holes there was a gathering of ten or so seating areas. They were modest low tables surrounded by piles of cushions of all shapes and sizes, colours and purposes, red and gold trim and white sash flapping in the poles and parasols that offered shade to thirsty il’Jhain.

Suresh broke the silent appreciation first.

“That smells simply divine.”

Mordelain couldn’t help but nod in agreement. Even in the Abdos, where coffee from across Althanas was served to thirsty and sand sodden messengers, she had never smelt something so satisfying than when she came here. She could not decide wherever it was because she was hangover, or because the Freerunners had kept a special blend to themselves. She did not much care.

For almost three years il’Jhain allied to the Freerunners and their business acquaintances drank coffee and discussed their mutual interests here. They came through the many hidden portals scattered across Irrakam. Mordelain remained certain that there were similar portals all across the island. In the Outsider’s Quarter, in the northern outpost, in the peaks of the mountains and the Exile’s ruins she pictured similar circular hollows to the one they had used themselves.

Here beneath the palm trees and their wavering jade green leaves, the hubris of the outsiders gathered. On coconut riddled shores, the liberal minds of Fallien came into communion.

“Where shall we sit Suresh? I’ve no particular preference.” She waved her hand over the tables before she turned her attention to the large red tent at the north end of the outpost.

The merchant rolled his eyes. This early in the day there were only three people at the café besides them. The patron and his wife, who moved back and forth behind the sheltered counter in the haze and a lone cloaked man, sat on the table nearest the beverage tent. The mirth in the girl’s voice brought a little light humour to his aching sides, which he was thankful for.

A vulture circled overhead, its cry tempered by the soft breeze through the folds of the café’s marque.

“We are here for coffee by all means, but we have also come to see that gentlemen.” He prodded a chubby finger at the black figure. “So let us join him and begin our day like true sons of the Abdos.” He prodded her shoulder, egging her forwards.

She skipped ahead down the embankment, careful not to disturb the elaborate sigil beneath them. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the rising sun on the southern horizon before he trudged over the sand with less grace and finesse than her nimble feet.

If Mariachi was here so early, then by his silent estimations, they did not have long.

The pair approached the occupied table from the south, unthreatening in every way except Suresh’s sheer size. He looked like a bodyguard to a dainty dignitary, or a wayward priestess of Jya rather than a friendly coffee connoisseur.

“Greetings Mariachi,” he boomed. His voice was like tanned leather and cigarette smoke in a flower shop – sophisticated, but still very much unwelcomed.

The merchant’s greeting was noticeably in the common tongue, and not the thick, exotic Fallien dialect he usually conducted business in. Mordelain instantly became suspicious, both of the stranger and of Suresh’s motives.

The mass of black robes turned. The movement revealed a crooked, worn face and a smile of yellowed, equally as crooked teeth. Mordelain was instantly reminded of an old grandmother beggar that lived in the Irrakam spice market, whom people affectionately called Giselle. When she realised this strange, buxom breasted individual was in fact a man, she tried very hard to stifle a laugh.

“<السلام عليكم>. You have not once in your life been early Suresh, and thus the sun shines on without you and the day grows old,” the man replied. His lips were dry, a sign that he had been there longer than he had expected one cup of coffee to last.

Mordelain recognised the saying instantly, even though she had not heard it in her own language before. It sounded clumsier in common, but the meaning was there all the same. She stood by Suresh’s side as he bowed and she followed suite. It was a customary greeting amongst the Freerunners and their associates, a way of ensuring the person you were talking to was in fact the person you wanted to talk to. The rivalry in the Abdos was fever pitch of late, a bedlam dance of jealousy and backstabbing and subterfuge.

“Yet still it shines now,” the merchant replied, gesturing at the dancer. “This is the new il’Jhain runner I have spoken so fondly about in recent weeks.” Mordelain blushed under Suresh’s proud smile and Mariachi’s curious inspection. She dug the tip of her right foot into the warm sand with coy shuffles and a wringing of hands.

“Worry not my dear, all of his words were indeed fond – Suresh tells me you are the quickest,” he waved at the cushions opposite, gesturing for them to sit in the traditional manner customary for a business meeting, which was face to face, “the luckiest, and indeed the most prominent member of the Freerunner cadre today.”

“Swift would be my name, if I ever had the chance to take another.” Her reply was prompt and curious, and very sharp. Suresh had instructed her in the ways of diplomacy when meeting with the business men and women of the desert island. It was a whole new world of tact and word play she had yet encountered on any of the other eight worlds.

In Fallien, talking was as much a weapon in a culture driven by a vibrant mercantile economy as the sharpest of kukri.

Mariachi could only laugh, though Mordelain could not be sure if it was at her, or with her in spirit of her vibrancy. Some of the elders of Irrakam treated women only marginally better than outsiders, and Mariachi seemed very old.

“Shall I order coffee?” Suresh enquired, gesturing at the pot and cups turned upside down on the table. He gestured at the cushions at their feet and let Mordelain take her pick of a perch. She flopped onto them and arranged herself with a struggle into a cross legged position to the left edge, to Malachi’s right. Whilst Suresh took to his seat, with considerably less poise than Mordelain, Malachi picked up the golden coffee pot and upturned two ready cups.

“There is no need Suresh, I have had one to sate my appetite for this heavenly blend, but it is still quite warm.”

Suresh nodded in appreciation. If he knew Mariachi well, and he did, then the blend would be Blue Mountain with a hint of cinnamon, date syrup and nutmeg. Few outside the Freerunner café would ever experience such an exotic luxury.

Satisfied that his guests were comfortable as could be, Mariachi poured a stream of brown liquid into Mordelain’s cup first, then into Suresh’s, then to his own. He did not look up as he enquired further about his associate’s new progeny. “Tell me, how did you meet with Suresh, the lug head self-professed king of business in this god forsaken desert?”

Mordelain picked up on the humour in Malachi’s voice, and confirmed her suspicion by checking Suresh’s expression. He was grinning so wide his face looked like it might crack. She waited for the old man to hand her the cup, which was a small silver receptacle with a mosaic band of Nirakkal glass chips around the middle. She took it and nodded with thanks.

“Well…” The warmth on her fingers was instantly gratifying.

“Now, isn’t that an interesting tale to tell after such an eventful week,” she smiled, pausing momentarily to take a deep draft of the coffee’s peaky aroma. It reminded her of the arcade patisseries in Braen, the only other place in the cosmos where you find something remotely as enticing on the pallet.

Suresh chuckled as he took his own cup. He leant to one side on a free hand to sip the coffee whilst his young charge went to work at appeasing his greatest rival. She was already well on her way to making a spectacular impression in front of his most damning business rival – his father.

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Translation:

Peace be with you.

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There was a soft breeze blowing in over the oasis as Mordelain began her account. It, unlike the heat and the coffee, was cooling and soothing on her bruised skin. She half wanted to sing her praise for the merchant, but she settled on a suave, calm and collected approach and tone.

“It was the first day I arrived in Fallien; I remember it as if it were yesterday.”

She flashbacked to the very moment she had been nearly trampled by a stampeding black mare outside the gleaming white bastion of the Abdos. It was Suresh’s chubby yet subtle fingers that pulled her back out of harm’s way, though he had been a little careless and slammed the young girl onto her backside. She had been so grateful to not have had a horse shoe embedded in her skull she apologised a hundred times before he managed to pull her to her feet.

“As with all good meetings of the mind, he saved my life. In my repayment of that debt, I started to run parcels of spice for him. From his stalls in the bazaars about the protection of the Abdos, south to the river shanty towns and soon, I was running for him to the Outsider’s Outpost as well.” It had been, to say the very last, an exhausting few months.

Mariachi appeared enthralled throughout the account, though every few sentences or so he took a sip of coffee and cast Suresh a wry smile.

“I assume he took that as a sign and took you into the Abdos under his patronage?”

Mordelain nodded.

The only way to become one of the il’Jhain was to be presented to the reception of the appropriate house and be backed by an existing patron or il’Jhain. Suresh, as one of the Freerunners main business contacts and allies in the Outsider’s Quarter had practically tripped over the opportunity to gain more favour in the eyes of Îdhdaer Bireth.

“I met with the Sand Master,” which was Îdhdaer Bireth’s colloquial title, “a meeting I still remember well. He has a way about him that makes you feel welcome, even in a place as hostile as Irrakam can sometimes be.”

“So what,” Mariachi set his cup down, quite empty, and nestled back into his cavernous robes, “pray tell, do you make of the patronage and friendship of my <ابني>?” Suresh scoffed, half spitting and spluttering the dregs of his cover down his forearm and chin.

Mordelain blinked.

The vulture circling overhead let out an ominous cry. It echoed many times on its travels to the horizon before it trailed out of earshot. It took her several awkward moments to translate the word at the forefront of her mind. She ran through several possible scenarios, from lover, to partner, to business client. When she arrived at the correct translation, her eyes widened into pearl dinner plates.

“Suresh, is this true? Are you Mariachi’s son?” She turned to the merchant with an accusatory glare, mouth agog, teeth stained brown from the potency of the ground coffee beans and the well-worn percolators that kept the Freerunners’ thirst quenched.

Suresh could only nod slowly, excruciatingly, agonisingly. Mordelain picked up on the shame without much trouble, but looking between the pair, she could see no other obvious tells.

All of a sudden the remnants of Mordelain’s hangover were gone, replaced instead with a childish curiosity that gave a spurious glamour to the setting.

“Indeed, the man we have come to see is my father. Though, he has not been worthy of the title for nearly thirty years.”

Mariachi nodded.

“I am afraid Suresh is my son in name and blood only, he and his mother were a fortunate but impractical occurrence in my long life.”

“So I must ask, kind sir, for you to return the kindness and question you asked of me. How did you meet Suresh’s mother…?”

Before Mariachi could jump into a long and no doubt intriguing debacle, Suresh set his cup down noisily and started to clean himself up. He slurped the dregs noisily from the folds of his red robes and his hairy, tanned skin.

“I do not,” he sucked air one last time, loudly, for dramatic effect, “think that is appropriate…Mariachi.” He glared at the old man, who only chuckled in response, but relented in his attempt.

Mordelain slumped. She made a personal, silent pledge to find out the truth here one day.

“We have come to do business, so let us do away with the small talk and come to the matter at hand.”

“Efficient and cold as ever, tell me my girl, has he told you why you are here yet?”

Mordelain half wanted to burst into lavish accounts of the previous night’s exploits, of spice markets, lamb stew and crimson mosaics. She struggled to remember why Suresh had brought her here besides a wake up drink, but then she remembered mention of a new assignment fresh from the Freerunner desk.

“Oh, we are here to meet a contact.” She said casually, hiding her lack of knowledge well.

The bells in her headdress tinkled as she looked around the café.

“Yes Mordelain, do catch up.” Suresh took on a patriarchal tone, rolled his eyes, and produced from his robes a small sealed envelope. “Your orders,” he held out the paper for the girl to take.

Mordelain took them, rising with her legs still crossed to reach over the edge of the table. Suresh relinquished the envelope without struggle, and refilled his cup from the ornate percolator without needing Mariachi’s consent. In Fallien, to cause another to spill his drink for any reason was warrant to another, free of charge. Suresh, from his size, had always respected this custom.

The wax seal on the reverse of the envelope was still slightly unset, though having been in the folds of Suresh’s robes this did not surprise her. It was clearly the symbol of the Freerunners, embedded over an inked on number and a red circle. Wasting no time with the appreciation of the stationary, she tore it open with a satisfying crack of the seal and unfolded the page.

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Translation:

My Son.

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Mariachi stole from the Sand Master.

Take his tokens in a coup; he will not need them after the sun sets…

May the worlds dance in nine circles.

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Mordelain read the words, and then read them again, several times. She mouthed them, careful not to give too much away to her audience. To clarify to herself, she needed to silently annunciation. It was an age old method to embed meaning into one’s mind. It was immutably the penmanship of Suresh, but how could he suggest such a thing?

To the il’Jhain, a coup was just as painful as a literal death. Though, from the ending of the letter, that would come soon after.

The biggest surprise of all was the recital of a line she had used the first time they had met. It was the greeting of the Troubadours, their hello, their goodbye, their farewell.

Confusion reigned supreme in the girl’s mind.

“Interesting,” she muttered. She folded the letter in half, then half again, before tucking it into the white fur trim of her delicate silk gloves. It vanished, along with her papers into and out of Irrakam proper and other pieces of her history she liked to keep a close eye on.

Mariachi rolled his head, as if he had been waiting an age.

“The letter,” Mordelain started but with a little too much haste, “says I should engage in a coup.”

The old man puckered his lips and stone walled Suresh. The two men stared at one another with such intensity Mordelain did not feel compelled to continue to speak. The heat was clearly getting to her, and the notion of this being a festivity was thrown firmly out of the window. It hit the rocks beneath her balcony with a crash, and scattered to the salty winds of the high dunes and dagger peaks of the Harpy Aerie.

She longed to be anywhere but here right now.

“With yourself, Mariachi. I cannot reveal from where the request comes, but it has the Freerunner seal, so I assure you it is genuine.” She adjusted her position atop her satin and silk throne, her violet and white garb rested in stark contrast to the battered velvets; a clash against red, purple, ivory taper and gold trim.

Mariachi took his time to compose himself, flicking back the folds of the jet black robes to reveal a splash of dark vermillion with a crème sash around his waist. There was a matching sash stretching over his shoulder. Mordelain recognised the colours as belonging to the rival il’Jhain house, the il’Arkmanham.

“I see that Suresh has every reason to not consider you his father, however.” She spoke as a true Freerunner, the bitter rivalry between the factions of the il’Jhain Abdos already strong in her blood. Her words were barbed, driven to power by the sudden well of disgust in the pit of her stomach.

She forgot for just long enough that she was now an accessory to murder. Mariachi could only smile, which perturbed her more than anything. Murder and politics she could understand, but madness was beyond her.

“Then I guess we have some gambling to be done, Swift.” The man's eyes almost seemed to change colour before her.. They shone, swirled, and then settled again. It was as if a vociferous hunger for conflict gave them life.

The counting coup had become part of il’Jhain culture roughly a century ago, when a spate of thefts left many countless il’Jhain dead and their murderers considerably richer. To prevent this, the factions agreed to enchant the tokens with powerful and venerable magic that caused the tokens to lose their potency once the owner, the rightful owner was found to be without them.

In time however adventurous runners, keen to overcome the slow progression most faced to the prized rank of captain found other ways to steal tokens. They discovered that so long as the person they acquired them from relinquished them in a bet, or in combat nobody died. Betting, sparring and more underhand coercion became a part of il’Jhain culture, and free of the judgement of the Common Law, which was often fatalistically inclined in its judgements, the tokens retained their power.

Thus, the term counting coup was coined and counting tokens became a black market way to reach the lofty upper echelons of Abdos society. Mordelain had only heard of it until now. They were relatively rare of late, thankfully.

Many went for the more simplistic approach of clobbering another runner over the head in a duel of blades or pole-arms. Mordelain did not think Suresh could force her to do that his father, no matter how much they hated one another. She began to clench her buttocks and subtly limber up, just in case.

“The rules are simple, so I shall leave the format of the bet to you,” Mordelain’s mantle of charisma was almost cast in stone. From the man’s feeble frame, she guessed it would take an academic form, as opposed to a traditional spar. There were many non-lethal combat styles learned in Fallien suitable for such an occasion.

Mariachi produced two small polished shells from his robes, lion patterned and glimmering. Mandalas were made with them as decorations, and games of shells tossed against chalk symbols kept the urchins of the bazaars occupied all summer.

“I know just how to do this.”

They had another purpose, however.

“We shall play a game of thrones.”

Mordelain slumped again, becoming far too good at looking disappointed.

In every bar in Fallien, in every nook and cranny, people of every background, race and religion played a game called Sacral. It was also referred to as the game of thrones, because it entailed a king and his subjects, metaphors for a quiz master and a player of the grand game of political history. Mordelain could already see herself as the subject, knowing Mariachi’s blatant allegiance with the highly xenophobic ‘True Fallien’ faction.

Mariachi rose slowly and unsheathed a curved steel khanda blade.

“Tell me the history of this blade, its origins and the time of its creation.”

He set the weapon and its jade hilt onto the coffee table. Mordelain pictured a cluttered café of suddenly silent, observant patrons, but they were watched by nothing other than a gluttonous merchant and absent minded scorpions, clicking in the rubble by the calm waters of the oasis.

Mordelain instantly delved into the already burgeoning pool of knowledge she had accrued about Fallien. Suresh had delivered countless lectures, long and arduous during her first months on the island. Her lessons had included long strings of names and properties of herbs, animal calls and language tuition. When she had joined the il’Jhain, she had memorised the names of all the spices in the mile long bazaars and at least one dish to use them in.

The blades of the rival factions, for each of the groups had emblems and trinkets particular to each ideal, were something she had only learnt in passing.

“I know this much, Mariachi, that blade will have a twin.”

One with a rusty blade and a gem on its pommel.

“When was it made?”

“Some say before the Vhadya, the great sundering, but that is pure conjecture. If it was truly so old, then you would not have it. It would be too powerful, too ancient, too precious to let the il’Jhain swing it absent minded across the dunes of our home.”

“It is not your home,” the old man spat.

"No," Mordelain agreed calmly, "it is not however yours, either. The desert once belonged to greedy tyrants, and it was taken from you by the Mother Goddess." She could see Mariachi's façade crack, his anger boil, and his persona shine for all its corrupted tenets to be revealed.

The history of the Vhadya, the Great Fall, was something she and every other Outsider on the island were told about the very second they set foot onto the hot sands.

They bore the mistakes of Fallien with more pride than any native did.

"Now ask your question, and let me prize two circular tokens from your decrepit fingers."

She was done with playing the dutiful pupil - she had been met with such xenophobia before, every time she had stepped onto another world. The cataclysm had sundered all hope of her being accepted on one of the nine worlds with welcome arms again. The Vhadya, though minute in scope in comparison, would not inflict the same fate upon her here.

It was their ancestor’s fault Fallien rotted beneath a blazing orb of unforgiving fire, not hers.

The two opponents sat opposite one another, backs straight, eyes ablaze, hearts pounding. With Suresh’s nod of approval the games began. With a quick flick of his wrist the old man secreted away the shells into the safety of his robes. It was traditional at the start of a coup for the participants to try and gull their opponent into anger, an early mistake. A well-aimed and quick sucker punch of history and rivalry often ended a coup just as quickly as it had begun.

Seeing that his gull was having no effect on the girl, Mariachi went straight and headfirst into the opening move.

“My first question, as it is customary to allow the challenged to begin is this.” He produced the shells again and held them out in the skeletal palm of his right hand. “Which of these shells is closer to the north?” He tossed them a few feet from the table. They landed on the flattened sand with a hollow thud.

Mordelain followed them through their trajectory and stared at them for a few anguished moments, deep in thought. Her instinct was to ask for further clarification about what the old man meant. Did he mean north as in elevation? Did he mean the compass north, or north as in distance, proximity to the northern seas and the start of the Attireyi River? It would forfeit the coup if she asked. She had to answer the question but her first answer would be her only attempt.

She slouched, let the weight fall from her shoulders and the tension tumble away from her spine. A tingling sensation raised up her back as she welcome the warmth of the enchantment on the belt about her waist. When she had completed her first assignment and collected her first tokens from the Freerunner desk, they had also given her a gift. The belt had two purposes; the first was to insert tokens into the steel rings to keep them safe. The second was to always give a sense of direction, so that an il’Jhain was always with a guide through the shifting sands of Fallien.

It always told a runner which was north.

“That one,” she pointed at the leftmost shell, which had upturned after bouncing. The little circles of its ricochet were like tiny craters in the landscape.

Mariachi smiled weakly.

“Correct, though I guess I should not have tried to trick someone who my son holds in such high esteem.” He shuffled on the spot, tucking his hands back into his robes as if he were ashamed of his vestige.

Mordelain had guessed that Mariachi would try and cheat. If she had been as wet behind the ears and naïve as most Fallien il’Jhain considered the Freerunners, she would not yet have earned the belt, and would never have guessed which of the shells was most northerly of the two. She would have lost there and then, and come undone at the first hurdle.

She ran her right finger along the ridge of her pointed ears, and smiled with her Tama charm. She felt empowered, for once, realising that she was feared and underestimated simply for being light skinned and different. Difference, if viewed correctly, could be a powerful ally.

“Then I guess it is now my turn to ask a question.”

The rules of the counting coup meant that the riddles asked during a more academic encounter had to be based around the Abdhos’s rules, and the history of Fallien as recorded in the Brief Guide to Fallien. It was ironically written by an Outsider, but all the same, the weighty and in-depth tome was given freely to newcomers, nay, forced heavily upon them the moment they set foot on the docks of Irrakam.

Mordelain’s copy was by now well read, dog eared and proudly missing several pages through severe over referencing and study. From its pages, she drew on the information depicting the history of the glass spinners, and the deadly glass planes called the Nirakkal. The colours of her fruit bowl jumped into her memory, it’s gold, crimson and orange splendour ironically purposeful and useful all of a sudden. Suresh would be proud of her, even if he refused to see the use in decorate home ware.

“Yesterday I brought a fruit bowl, a mosaic piece made of golden, red and orange glass. It was brittle, but milky in form. We purchased it in the Numara Bazaar, from an old woman named Giselle. Tell me, Mariachi, defender of purity, which of the Nirakkal tribes did the glass come from?” The annunciation of the word purity was as close as Mordelain would ever come to spitting in her opponent’s face.

Mariachi guffawed. His overconfidence swelled in his face so that the folds of his ageing skin rippled as his head rocked back and forth. Spit and gobbets of coffee filled the air in not so pleasant a spectacle. Mordelain raised her eyebrow with quiet satisfaction as the man’s laughter slowed. A realisation dawned on him that the question he had posed was not as easy to answer as he had first thought.

There were many countless tribes of sugar-glass spinners living out in the Blight, the desolated glass lands left in the wake of Suravani’s wrath. The Vhadya may have gifted all of the Fallien with desolation and an arid heart, but in that southern hell, it formed an unintended spectacle.

“Which tribe…Mariachi…which tribe…”

The old man glared at her, quite intent on dealing her a death blow with his hazel pupils.

Collectively they were called the Mi'sheteri. In the long years since the recovery of Fallien had begun, they had become as territorial and tribal as any branch of Fallien culture. The echo of the Vhadya continued to divide and conquer. Though unified against outsiders, bitter infighting often kept the artistry of the glass weavers from finding its way into the bazaars, the mosaics and the trinkets of the city dwellers in as much numbers as they might have liked.

Given the expense of some of the items, Mordelain had always wondered why the tribes of the Blight insisted on wearing such simple robes and brandishing such simple, if not traditional weapons. They could have afforded to build a city of their own, should they so desire.

“The woman named Giselle is of the Mi’sheteri from the north of the Blighted lands. They trade often with the Esseker from this very oasis, exchanging their wares for the coconuts and fish the Esseker harvest in great number as the coastal currents wash the migrating schools almost onto the beaches themselves.” Mariachi rubbed his chin, content with his explanation thus far.

Mordelain nodded along with every correct fact, her excitement building. She had wanted to test the man’s knowledge of the heritage of his land, just as much as he had wanted to test her supposed weak understanding of Fallien tradition.

He knew its people, by all means, but did he know its kaca, its glass just as well?

“The glass you speak of however is red, gold, the shades of the sun…” he set himself a new cup from the small silver tray, and poured a small dose of the date syrup that was resting in a delicate porcelain jug next to the coffee pot. Mordelain watched with interested, tantalised by the golden issue from the lip of the vessel. It trickled, slowly, assuredly, and with a slight corkscrew motion.

“So where did it come from?” She offered, guiding his focus back to the question and cutting short his attempts to buy himself some more time.

Mariachi chuckled.

“The shades of glass in your bowl are found on the western slants of the high dunes overlooking the ruins of Kithdir, a region of the Nirakkal occupied by a tribe of dervish. They are as much a part of the collective known as the Mi’sheteri, but they call themselves the Karachi.”

Mordelain lolled her head back and admired the clouds. She leant back, propped herself up with spindly arms and arced life back into her spine. She counted ten clenches whilst she let Mariachi revel in his victory, before she sat upright once more and folded her arms over her lap.

“Very good, the glass was indeed from the Karachi.”

Suresh pushed himself upright, clapping sarcastically as he did so.

“I see this is going to take a while, do continue. I shall see to some more adequate sustenance.” He bowed to Mordelain, but only glared at Mariachi before he shuffled off towards the steam laden tent.

Mordelain glanced momentarily at the married couple sat in front of the counter. Though she could not hear them, she gathered from their hand gestures and smiles that they sharing some of their coffee and talking about all the secretive things a married couple talked about. She smiled.

The old man waited for Suresh to leave and when he was out of earshot, he raised the syrup to his lips and smacked them together. He downed it, lapping it out of the cup with his hairy tongue. He slammed it back onto the table, sighed with relief, and then leant forwards. This was a clear gesture for Mordelain to listen, and listen closely.

“What did the letter really say?” he snarled.

“<ماذا فعلت أنت للسرقة>?”

The way in which the Fallien tongue slipped so naturally from Mordelain’s lips took Mariachi by surprise. He slumped back onto his perch, his attempts at being menacing and intimidating utterly undone by her cold and calculated riposte.

“Ah,” he mumbled.

Mordelain knew that Suresh would be enraged at having his trust betrayed, but Mordelain was as equally distraught at being used in such a manner. Whatever political games the merchant was playing both with his father, and with the other factions of the Abdos, she would not be part of it whilst being kept in the dark.

Though, the prospect of gaining tokens so easily was trying very hard to corrupt her upstanding sense of morality…

“Suresh has turned you into a weapon,” the old man cracked an all knowing smile. There was a resignation of events in the lines of age on his face. Mordelain traced them and picked out a history of hardship, desert sun and kukri strike like facts from the pages of an enthralling book.

“This is all new to me Mariachi. I cannot say that I am entirely pleased with the order, but it is an order direct from the Freerunners. Whatever you think of me,” she annunciates her passion with floppy, flamboyant hand gestures, “my loyalty to the faction is unwavering. As much as yours I suspect.”

Mariachi could only shake his head from side to side, weighing up the gesture as one worthy of measure.

“So what did you steal? The Sand Monarch is a good man, regardless of his misguided path...what did he do to deserve such treatment?”

Mariachi took a sharp breath, relishing the remnants of taste on the tip of his tongue. The syrup began to stale on the wet skin, and left a honeysuckle scent on the taste buds for hours afterwards.

“I guess the coup is Suresh’s way of gifting to you more providence, a way of benefiting further from my ‘untimely’ death?”

Mordelain nodded. Despite her disdain for the man, he deserved that much at least. He nodded glumly, crooked teeth extruding through his lips as he sucked air, deep in thought.

“I stole the Tower of the Ghubar.”

The name was not familiar to Mordelain, and thus the implications were lost on her youthful mind. She cocked her head, enquiring further without wasting her breath or revealing too much of her insecurity. Ghubar rang a bell, however. She was weary of the ground she was treading on. She kept a watchful eye on Suresh, who by now had reached the counter and roused the elderly couple from their respite. Steam was hissing behind the counter and she caught the faintest whiff of bacon.

“An ancient relic,” Mariachi continued, realising that his gambit was not going to work if he did not give up more information than he had intended, “that guides the storms and sands of the desert as if they were trinkets and baubles.”

“Geomancy?” She offered.

On the nine worlds of the Kalithrism, the ability to control the elements was not uncommon. In Bulganin, for example, where the trees grew so large they could houses cities, many shamans possessed the power to give life to the trees, to bring the wood and bark itself into existence as spirits and monsters of considerable strength and power. On Petra, the sages of old could manipulate bone, and in the flames of the World Forge, fire dancers and lightning throwers forged the storms that kept a thousand seas in line.

Mariachi nodded enthusiastically.

“Surely the Sand Master would not miss such a trinket, given his infamy as a manipulator of the fabric of Fallien herself?”

Mariachi reverted to shaking his head, “the Tower of the Ghubar is his source of power, Mordelain. He is, as you might say in the common tongue, as ‘defenceless as a puppy’ without it.” Mariachi was lying, that much the troubadour could tell. Whilst the sand dancer might not possess the potent ability to form storms from the desert, his talent with other magic and the dual kukri of his father was just as legendary amongst the young il’Jhain of the Freerunner faction.

“So you stole it to diminish the Freerunner’s potency, I take it?” She leant back on her wrists again, gripping the warm sand tightly to comfort her.

“I was instructed to steal it, theft is my talent and I am put to use amongst the ranks of the faction I represent. It was a simple business transaction, which I guess has led to a well-deserved punishment.”

“A punishment for breaking the law is a cause, not an infliction.” Mordelain’s penchant for law and order broke her calm composure. Her lips pursed.

Mariachi smiled a sickening, masochistic smile that was as accepting of fate as it was untrusting of itself. Somehow, Mordelain did not think his impending death was news to Mariachi.

“Tell me one thing before we continue to count or coin…” he arrayed the cups on the table in an ordered pattern to one side, clearing space for the tray he predicted would soon arrive from the kitchen of the café. Mordelain would have offered to help, if she cared one bit for the sexist dogma of Fallien’s natives. “Do you trust my son?” He glanced up at her, just for a moment, a glint of mischief in his eye.

Mordelain needed no time at all to respond.

“Like a father I never had…” this time, she did spit, but to the dirt and the dry arid sands, and not the parched face of the man she was glad to never have to see again.

Quote:

---

Translation:

What did you steal?

---

“Then we are settled, then?”

Mordelain blinked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I am happy that I have been bested by my son at last. We have been waging a silent war amongst the echelons of culture in Fallien for the better part of two decades. It was only a matter of time before he overcame his inadequacies.”

“Inadequacies you inspired, no doubt. You are a despicable man, Mariachi, and I seldom resort to such petty comments after knowing someone for such a short amount of time.”

“Yet,” there was malice in the curl of his lips as he leant back from the table, his duties tending to the hosting done, “you trust my son without ever truly questioning his motives.”

“Mark my words Mariachi, Suresh will answer for his Machiavellian impulses soon enough.”

From his expression, Mariachi evidently missed the reference. Mordelain tried her luck with a more immediately relevant metaphor. She had been to Earth, but the people of Althanas would never know of those wonders witnessed on the continent of ‘Europe’. “You will be glad to know that I will make sure he is put before the Common Law and answers for his politick in due course.”

Mariachi raised an eyebrow. “I have greater chance of dying from a thimble of Niphena than my son has of being punished for his victories, Mordelain.” The old man waited, head cocked for the dancer to make sense of the poisonous comment. It was another attempt to gull her.

Fortunately for Mordelain, she had paid attention during her lectures, especially during those which pertained to the qualities of the countless poisons she might encounter in the course of her duties. Niphena was utterly harmless in small quantities, though immensely addictive. She smiled warmly. The freckles on her cheeks fell into the cavernous dimples that formed.

“I will ensure its three thimbles worth, then.”

This dose would cause his cold, infinitely black heart to stop beating in an instant.

“That’s more like it, a feisty, Fallien spirit,” he chuckled.

Mordelain could not quite work out why she hated the man so much for a simple theft. Had she longed for a new home so much in the absence of Junkyo that she had succumbed utterly to the laws of the desert? Was she bound in obedience with unquestioning fealty to the iconography of the Abdos, of Jya, of the Keep and the Mother Goddess?

“We do not have long left,” she gestured towards the tent, where Suresh was gathering various plates of food onto a large tray. He would have insisted he carry it to the table himself, his desire to respect his elders as stubborn as hers to upend Suresh in public was.

Mariachi looked out to the Oasis wistfully.

“It has been illuminating, to say the least,” her tone softened. “I will forgive Suresh for whatever tricks he has pulled, for whatever sheep skin he has tugged down over my eyes up until now, because whatever you did to him all those years ago has turned him into something you will never be.” She poured herself a dose of by now luke warm and thickening coffee. She swigged, rolled the cup in her shaking fingers, and then dropped the silver vessel to her lap where she ran her index finger over the mould.

“What might that be?”

“Suresh has become an honest man, something rare in this fucking city.”

Mariachi puckered his lips.

“I will admit I did not expect this coup to be so exciting. I will sacrifice myself to bring the Freerunners down; you remember that, Mordelain, swiftest of heretics, when the il’Arkmanham dances on your festering grave.”

The tension began to spark in the air, settling down between their glares only when Suresh returned to earshot. They instantly relaxed, let out a duet of false laughter and turned to their mentor and son respectively.

“I have brought us such a lavish array of the finest goods it will pale in comparison to whatever foul concoction we end up eating in the bazaar this evening,” he stooped to slip the tray onto the plate, and Mariachi and Mordelain both thawed at the sight.

For now they would eat as a family, before tearing one another part as the game of thrones continued.

The tray Suresh produced was full with an array of delicate porcelain bowls. Each was beset with a thin band of glass fragments around its rim, bound with a narrow silver band. To those keenly versed in Fallien culture, they belonged to the artistic school of the Karachi tribes, an irony lost on Mordelain’s still youthful knowledge pool. Mordelain was not sure what to admire more, the crockery or their contents. Though the small bowls and plates on the tray were numerable, they were only sparsely populated, so she settled for naming the colours and types of glass found in each piece as best she could.

“Oh Suresh, this looks fantastic, thank you!” She proclaimed, momentarily forgetting the sincerity and seriousness of their circumstance.

In Fallien it was customary to serve lots of small dishes of various foodstuffs to pick at as guests wished, as opposed to a set menu or large portions. This custom stretched only to drinks, sometimes breakfasts, where the sweets would be replaced with flatbreads, olives and humus dips and when guests retired to the hookah lounges after a banquet.

When you drank your body weight in date syrup, coffee and spiced wine, you often had no need to eat anyway, and as such, the foods were often lavish and expensive to produce for most of the inhabitants of the island. Finger food had become a status symbol of sorts. Mordelain was enticed by the goods, but she was still quite full from her curry; her stomach dropped an uncomfortable reminder of her intoxication the night before.

She picked up a sugared almond laced with coconut flakes all the same, and popped it into her mouth with a childish grin. As she crunched into it, Mariachi took a date slice, and Suresh, as was by now predictable to his fostered daughter, picked up a date slice and wedged several almonds in between the cake and biscuit layers. He devoured it quicker than either of them could, and reached for a second amidst a torrent of crumbs and groans.

“That I will not miss…” Mariachi said slowly, between slightly more delicate and thoughtful mouthfuls.

“Let us not prolong this any further Mariachi. It is your turn to ask a question, so ask. Dates won’t save you from the eventual defeat, and the marzipan circles,” she traced a circle with her finger in the general direction of the concerned sweet to annunciate her point, “won’t prevent me from collecting on that debt.” Suresh chuckled, and despite her veiled threat, Mariachi only laughed, apparently pleased that she had taken the competition in her stride.

From Mariachi’s apparent age, she guessed he had at least a dozen tokens about the belt on his waist. She would only earn two from the coup, but that was a lifetime of work for some of the il’Jhain, especially when one delivery could often lose a rider tokens without any gain in return.

The old man nodded, finished off his desert and wiped his grubby fingers on the edge of the tablecloth.

“We have spoken of direction, tradition and the glass spinners, so let us speak of the deep running history that tells the story of my home.” History bridled on the edges of his words, exciting a sense of duty in Mordelain that she had felt many a time. She had felt it whenever she had recited the tales of the Kalithrism to a new crowd on one of the nine worlds, though she had not had the privilege for decades now. The pursuit of the perfect oratory performance, speech dramatics and storytelling were her calling, as much as making profit was for Suresh.

Mariachi was falling right into a trap Mordelain had not realised she had the gall to set. She was certainly willing to take hold of the moment and use it to her advantage now that it was presented to her. The thrill of a competition was undermining her usually stringent morals.

“Who were the Hatazista, and what is the significance of the group to the Exile Coradan?” Suresh shook his head, assuming the youth would falter beneath the immensity of the question put to her.

Mordelain, on the other hand beamed and smiled.

“The Hatazista were twenty three souls left after the devastation of Suravani's wrath. They were the survivors of the Vhadya, the sundering, the fall of Fallien beneath the wrath of the Mother Goddess.”

Suresh shook his doubt, glancing from daughter to father with a tense, clenched jaw and baited breath. The quickness with which she plucked the answer from her mind unsettled him. It unsettled Mordelain, though she did not give it away. She clenched her fist into a tight, painful ball to keep herself from shaking.

“Coradan,” Mordelain frowned, as if a memory she was drawing on was not something she wished to recall, “was my mentor. I was there, five hundred and eighty six years ago, and the significance of this number to him, is that he takes twenty two souls each year in raids against the Nirakkal tribes.”

What he did with those souls, only he and the Hatazista knew. Mordelain suddenly realised that Suresh’s political machinations and abuse of her power was not so naïve as she had thought. Suresh did not show surprise at the revelation, and then she realised why.

He knew all along that she was of the Tama, a world walker, a dancer of the Void.

This could only mean that he was one of the Ghubar, the sand golem, chroniclers of history.

He was part of Fallien's soul, and she was the cause of his pain.

When the Kalithrism was still young, and Althanas newly brought into the folds of the eight worlds as the ninth, Mordelain had been posted to the island of Fallien. It was her responsibility to guide its then grand civilisation through the transition of allegiance. Its civilisation was a spectacle to behold, and the location leant itself well to bondage to the Kalithrism. Through Fallien, Althanas could be tethered to Hudde, and thus forever joined in the union of worlds.

“You look surprised,” she said. It was an attempt to garner more of a reaction than a dropped jaw.

She was meant to proclaim the joining to its people, and to teach them the rules and tenets of the Kalithrism so that the people of Fallien could visit the other worlds, and the other worlds the people of Fallien. She was only a hundred years of age then, cast adrift as a novitiate, but experienced and wise compare to the young and gluttonous children of Suravani. They rejected her prophecies, ignored her offers, and cast her out of their cities, a common leper to be ignored, kicked whilst she was down and left to fend for herself out in the sand flats. She became a bug to be squashed out where the karuku-tal and the desert drakes prowled like kings.

Her warnings had been ignored…

Suravani’s wrath had come shortly after. Mordelain remembered the forty days she wept for the lost.

“You expect me to believe you? You petulant wretch, this is some trinket of knowledge Suresh told you, a lie, a fabrication!” Mariachi slammed his fists, tightly clenched balls of rage onto the edge of the table.

Several of the date slices fell onto the tray. The date syrup vial clashed onto its side and began to lose its contents, though nobody came to its rescue. The café owners cast them a momentary, nervous glance, before they continued with their conversation. You looked, but did not intervene, lest you became the target for rage and deals gone wrong.

“I am one of the Tama, a people spoken of in the legends of Fallien. Few people have been gifted with an ancestral knowledge of our presence here all those years ago, and few still would still admit it.” Those few were the Ghubar, simulacrums made of sand that Fallien’s soul had created to keep its shattered world alive. They were memories, figments and dreams of the people that had died in the Vhadya.

Puppets of the gods, servants of a kingdom’s immutable desire to survive.

“When you spoke to me of the Tower of the Ghubar,” she did not look at Suresh, lest his shock at her betrayal of trust phase her composure, “it dawned on me that you must also know of the Troubadours. That you must also be one of the Ghubar, though the expression on your face tells me you are a sleeper, in denial, an automaton.”

Few Ghubar were afforded their full memories, a waking understanding of who, or what they were. When Fallien called for them, they listened, and through them She could work towards a new tomorrow.

Mordelain was terribly thankful she had never met Mariachi’s real self.

“The Ghubar are as much a myth as the Tama! Even the Fae and dragons in the sandstorms seem more real, you’ve heard too many stories meant to scare children and let the priesthood get away with their heresies!” The old man’s xenophobia came out of his mouth like a poison, thickening the air with coffee stench and nausea.

“How else could she know the answer, when not even I knew that,” Suresh interjected, his long years of experience haggling and bargaining with the wisest merchants in the world allowing his rage at his progeny to remain tightly sealed in the back of his mind.

Mariachi clearly had no answer in mind, as he went silent instead of resorting to his usually prompt and pithy sarcasm.

“The Troubadours are chroniclers, like the Ghubar. We age much slower than humans, for time on Junkyo is different. A year in your calendar is only a third of an annum for us, I am over three hundred years of age, but that is nearly seven hundred in terms of the youthful history of Althanas.” She was very much a teenager still, but relativity between the different races of Althanas meant that age was less of a burden or restriction than it was on some of the other worlds.

Suresh and Mordelain both reached for one of the upturned slices and devoured them with a slow relish. Only the awkward silence diminished their enjoyment of the fine baked goods, dates so sweet as this deserved to be relished regardless of the troubles of the world.

“I believe that makes it your question,” he finally whispered. His expression was one of a bruised ego. It was an expression Mordelain would relish for a long time to come.

Out of all the times and trials of the people of Fallien, Mariachi seemed quite intent on tripping Mordelain up on one period in particular. The old man’s focus was invested in the finer details of the event called the Vhadya. Its history was a legend, an omen, a fable amongst the survivors of the island. In Irrakam, vast murals depicted the carnage wherever you went, and out in the many ruins she had encountered hints at the former glory of Fallien’s civilisation. History was everywhere, and everywhere you went, you were walking in the footsteps of a legacy that would never fade.

“Choose it wisely…”

In the shattered peaks and battlements of the sand towers, there were mosaics more resplendent than any formed in the Blight. In sand blasted aviaries swarming with harpies, fickle, malefic creatures with breasts of beauty and claws of cruelty, there were juniper bushes and jazberries, thriving on long buried wells. Bright green and eternally living palm trees clinging to life in fractured courtyards of long dead viceroys dropped coconuts on bone dry and crumbling woodwork, preserved through the ages by the salt in the sand that slowly sealed it beneath the earth.

One of the most important lessons she had learnt from Suresh was that a Fallien native never, ever forgot. They wielded the Vhadya like a weapon, using it as an excuse, for the better part of five centuries to turf out foreigners and keep their walls high and their blades readied. Mordelain could not be sure if it was Fallien’s will being enforced through those Ghubar who still lived in Irrakam, or if they were simply just that bitter.

Only the recent Jya had sought to change those ways, and the more traditionalist members of society, the il’Jhain factions included, had not taken too kindly to it. Mordelain realised now that she was becoming just another soldier in a secret war. All her work thus far in the city had been in pursuit of drawing out a Ghubar. She had found Suresh, but the Ghubar it seemed had been expecting her return. This was a dangerous game, and it was gathering velocity with every breath.

She felt inclined to go with her gut, but the realisation dawned on her that her gut was telling to cheat. A ghubar was a potent vessel for Shansi, the Thayne child of Fallien, but they lived on an echo, a dreamy cloud. Even those that had been awakened to their purpose, the named avatars could not truly comprehend the fact that they had died, long ago. Mordelain felt sick at the thought.

“What year were you born, Mariachi?”

Mordelain had to win. She had to make Shansi aware that she was here to help her, and not to bring wrath and ruin upon the people of Fallien once more. She had been blamed for the Vhadya, but she would prove her innocence if it was the last thing she did. After all, was it her fault that the people of Fallien had ignored her prayers, her preaching, and her words of warning? She had screamed to the heavens that the only way to save the island from the gluttony and sin of the hedonism on the banks of the Attireyi was to join with the Kalithrism, with the Void.

Suravani, the name the people of Althanas gave to the Goddess of Althanas had punished the children of the desert for their ignorance. Her will was to bond with the eight other souls that shared the Kalithrism, her will was to become one with the World Mind.

Sin had tarnished that bond.

She had screamed, a scream that Mordelain could still hear in her dreams.

The old man wrinkled his nose. There was a clear struggle on his face, as if a date were forming on the tip of his tongue. A Ghubar was unable to remember the time he had been born, at least, the time he had been born actual. Whenever a sand golem was destroyed, Shansi simply formed a new likeness, channelled the soul of the deceased back into the grains and the shards of glass that made its skeleton and sent a pulse of entanglement and illusion through the population of the desert.

Memories shifted, lives remained the same, the constant status quo kept Irrakam resplendent. The ultimate irony of the xenophobia expressed by the natives, was that only a third of the people of Fallien were people of Fallien. Only a third was human. The ghubar, though indistinguishable, made up much of the fabric of Fallien culture, from the il’Jhain to the guard of Jya’s Keep.

“What…year…were you born?” Mordelain repeated herself through clenched teeth. Her tone was menacing, dark, monstrous. Suresh’s non-chalant expression was swiftly replaced with one of disgust. He had taught Mordelain better than to be so callous with the traditions and rituals of the il’Jhain.

“Mordelain!…enough.”

“When…were…”

“Mordelain!” His deep voice barked, but it's power was dimmed by a power unseen. Something in Suresh's being was working against his natural instinct. Something was changing the machinations in his mind.

Some of the most prominent members of Fallien society were Ghubar. Suresh had been easy to find, his scent and his ability to be in so many circles without anyone ever questioning either his allegiance or his motives had been the first sign. She had cut his cheek whilst he slept through their previous night’s drinking, the trickle of sand had been the second.

The Tama did not ever suffer the effects of alcohol.

Mordelain’s grand deception had become so intoxicating she had seldom given the time to think about the consequences of her actions. All those long centuries of being taught how to act, to inspire, to trick and deceive, they were meant to save people. This, despite its importance in bringing Fallien back to life, did not feel like she was saving anyone but herself.

“I am…” Mariachi came close to overcoming his own creation, but the powers holding the sand together grew in intensity with one last effort. “Seventy eight.”

The cage of memories remained locked tight.

Mordelain felt the swell of power grow beyond necessity, until it seemed, for just a moment, to break through the skin of the old man. He coughed loudly, as if sand were stuck in his throat.

“That is the will of Shansi reforming your memories. She is overpowering your human instinct, key to keeping your emotions and actions real to the living members of Fallien. Soon, you will remember nothing of this day, and your life will continue as if it had never happened.” Mordelain’s sincere tone was accented by a rolling, eccentric collection of sympathetic gestures. She flicked the tufts of her hair sticking out of her headdress, tinkled a bell, and rolled her wrists. Anything to give her a brief respite as she unveiled the truth.

It made her feel good, and that was all that mattered. She was the one that had to remember.

A peal of thunder darkened the sky.

“You, however, will always regret this day.” The voice that came from Suresh’s lips was a deep, lightning bound echo. It reverberated in Mordelain’s ear drums, loud enough to make her head spin and her heart flutter.

“You…” she flinched, “finally heard me…”

Shansi filled Suresh’s body, draining the sand from his corpse and replacing it with a vestige of her being. The sound that accompanied her arrival was horrifying, a sub light symphony that tore at Mordelain’s sanity. His skin began to crack, and a light from within glowed through it, forming runes and farrows on every inch of his face and arms. Even his robes began to glow. The light was yellow, but laced with gold and eggshell and a quality of its own that defied description and metaphor.

“I have been watching you, Mordelain. You have defied me long enough.”

Mordelain could only watch in abject horror as the light in Suresh’s eyes, that familiar and welcoming, fatherly warmth died. His pupils burst into flame as Shansi possessed the Ghubar fully.

“I have been here for a century, plucking up the courage to do what I should have done all those years ago…” the Tama spoke through gritted teeth, back slowly arching under the pressure. “I have come to save you, Shansi.”

“You destroyed my land, my people, and my glory!” The roar was overwhelming, its power froze time itself. The café became a static cell, in which only Mordelain and the soul-Thayne of Fallien could move, speak, breath, feel.

“I tried to save you, Shansi, I shouted the danger Fallien was in from the rooftops of the tallest tower!” Her voice had fallen on deaf ears, too proud to consider that a stranger could be their only road to salvation. “I watched Suravani’s rage destroy the civilisation built on your back, a pain I have felt every day of my life.”

Althanas had known that it was dying, that it would remain forever alone if it did not bond with the Kalithrism. The laws of the Troubadour meant that an anchor had to be formed with the consent and acceptance of the people who would guard and build the portal. The vast gate that would serve as the entrance to Althanas for those who wished to traverse the Void would have stood as a vast and glorious monument to the glory of Fallien. They were too proud, arrogant, sycophantic and hateful to relent.

Too scared to be alone, the Thayne soul of the planet lashed out. Suravani screamed as the Cataclysm tore apart the Kalithrism and sundered the fabric of the multiverse.

What the Troubadours called the Cataclysm, the shockwave that had destroyed entire planets and devastated continents had only narrowly brushed over the surface of Althanas. The people of Fallien, close to the half formed anchor Mordelain had begun to forge had suffered the after effects.

If she had not thought so highly and blindly of the Troubadour's ability to bring light to the dark corners of reality, then perhaps, just perhaps, Fallien would not have suffered it’s Vhadya. The irony there, was that she had played God with those who viewed themselves mortal deities. It was only in recent years, after seeing the world of Althanas in it's natural state, that she had come to realise she had no right to spoil Althanas. The Khalithrism would have lived on without it, because even though the planet was ready, crying out to belong, it's people never would be.

“You brought wrath and ruin to Fallien!”

“In that mistake, I also brought you into being!” Mordelain screamed, a sudden swell of emotion fighting back against the oppressive presence of the Thayne-soul.

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Chapter the First: The Siring

1 In the beginning, there was oblivion: a nexus within the vast emptiness of the cosmos. A being dwelled within the oblivion, and it named itself the Thayne.

2 From its hand, it created all it could touch. This material world was one the Thayne called the Firmament. The Firmament gave birth to a child; its antithesis.

3 The child was elusive, and mocked the Firmament. This became known as the Antifirmament, a realm of grey hollowness, an empty shell that still mirrors its mother realm.

4 The Great After was born of the Thayne's mouth, a place of revelry and jubilation. The Great Nether was born of the Thayne's foot, a plane of ultimate torment and suffering. The entrances and exits are such that they can only be opened by the Thayne.

5 Then, nearly as soon as it was created, the Thayne's creation began to die. The dead built up, and there was nowhere for them. They raped the Antifirmament, which was mirrored in the mother Firmament.

6 And so the Thayne blew a great breath, and created the Lands of Judgement. A great Pyre stood in its center, the measure that would determine a soul's next path.

7 But still the Thayne's child struggled. Its breathing was labored, and its heart weak.

8 This world was known as Bakh'Thayne: the first child after the Thayne.

9 It was then that the Thayne understood that one being could not control everything that it had made, and that its creation exceeded its own power in greatness. This angered the Thayne greatly.

10 In order to better control its new child, the Thayne ripped itself apart in its frustration. Thus, the holy word of Thayne no longer has a singular connotation.

11 It divided itself into seven entities, known as the Elder or Core Deities.

13 Draconus was the first. Ancient and armored, entropy would never take him.

14 Khal'jaren was second. A sage and scholar, ignorance would never repel him.

15 Jomil was third. Wise and mysterious, not even Khal'jaren could ever understand her.

16 Hromagh was fourth. Strong and fearless, another's prowess would never subdue him.

17 V'dralla was fifth. Charming and fair, age would never mar her.

18 Y'edda was sixth. Mercurial and cunning, the greatest snares could not slow her.

19 At last, there was N'jal. She was the slag, the cosmic leftovers after all the Core Deities had taken their form. She was the Nemesis. The divine anger that still burned against the first child.

20 N'jal coerced the others to believe that the child had to be punished, and brought on a great reshaping that lasted nearly a cosmic year. Such an Age has been termed the Days of the Torrent, or cosmic rebirth.

21 Realizing what evil had been done in their name, Khal'jaren spoke. "For good to flourish, that which is evil must be contained."

22 Hromagh, the strongest of them, unable to contain his own anger in N'jal's presence, raised her above his head and hurled the Great Woe, the Wicked One into a prison: a globe of rock, lit then with a fire struck by the heavenly forge.

23 N'jal scarred Hromagh then, and upon the scars were written the words "I shall return. Rejoice, O Al'Thayne, as time to rejoice shall be fleeting."

24 The Nemesis swore to bring anew the Days of the Torrent, and destroy the Thaynes' second child.

25 This second child is known as Al'Thayne, our world.

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From the Codex of Thayne Lore, concerning the birth of Althanas and the formation of the Althanas Thayne in the Void of the Khalithrism.

“For good to flourish, that which is evil must be contained.”

A weight of history swung behind the words, with a clarity of meaning that was not lost on the planes walker.

Althanas, amongst all the worlds of the multiverse, was unique in that it possessed a soul so powerful and aware of it that it could create new gods from its own life-force. Whilst the souls of the other worlds in the Kalithrism remain dormant, with the exception of Junkyo, Althanas teeters between living, breathing and screaming its presence to the silence of the eternal void and personally guiding the creatures that walk on its surface.

Chief amongst its many traits, virtues and mistakes, is the will to care too much for its children. Whilst the Elder Thayne seldom interfere with the needs of mortals, working instead through champions and paladins to spread their teaching, the Al ’Thayne, what the children of the Hatazista call Suravani holds no such reservations.

All the floods and earthquakes, maelstroms and typhoons were the will of Althanas, guiding the course of history in some grand scheme none but her could understand.

“Those words have been spoken before, Shansi…by one of the Eldar Thayne…”

Khaljaren’s disgust at the formation of N’Jal was well chronicled, and formed a chapter all by itself in the vast tomes of Thayne history Mordelain had read in her long exile. In the libraries of Petra, the Whalebone Archives, she had learnt the deities of Bulganin and the fire spirits of Hudde…she had delved into the legends that depicted the Eldar Thayne’s trials and tribulations, and the long shadow games they played with their first child.

“Then they should be even more pertinent to you, despoiler of worlds." The intensity of her voice grew, but Mordelain could not be sure if it was her power overwhelming her very soul, or emotion bringing out a rage in an already troubled being.

When the Cataclysm had struck, the devastation caused to Althanas splintered her soul.

That soul, saturated with the souls of many thousands of newly grieving dead manifested in the Void as a soul-Thayne, a Thayne conjured from the culture and history of a geographical place. Althanas was unique amongst the Kalithrism worlds for being the first and only place in which such a thing could exist.

It had happened before, five centuries ago, when the island of Scara Brae had begun to manifest its own destiny and the Thayne Tantalus had been born.

“I cannot harm you, Mordelain, to interfere with the lives of mortals is against the Lore of the Void.” Shansi caused Suresh to rise, as if lifted on strings and not the merit of his muscles. Glowing brighter still, he drew the long khanda blade from beneath the bellowing red robes and dangled it between finger and fore thumb. He was being held aloft like a raggedy puppet, ready to strike under the automaton’s edict that gave the Ghubar life.

“So you would send your children after me instead?” Mordelain pounced, launching herself upright from her pedestal of cushions.

There was no way to avoid the confrontation she had been spiralling towards for the better part of a year.

“I will see you cast out from these lands, Mordelain. I will see you punished for your crimes. Nowhere in the Void shall be safe for you. Nowhere!”

The skies, blackened by the thunder and the temporary stasis in the moment erupted into a peal of sundering. Rain, so rare in Fallien’s deserts that it was often jokingly referred to as a myth fell in a great sweeping torrent, south to north, east to west, up and down.

Everything moved so suddenly, the Troubadour barely had time to recognise what was happening. It was as, in the wake of being frozen; time in the oasis was trying to catch up with the rest of the world.

“Will you not let me help you Shansi? Will you not let me appease your grief?” She brought her kukri from its sheath and crossed it feebly against Suresh’s curved sword as the command to defend Fallien was whispered into his mind. He continued to float, approaching her over the table as the rain knocked the coffee pot, bowls and cups eschew.

Beneath the weight of the water, Mariachi began to quite literally melt. Whatever soul Shansi had used to power the Ghubar was plucked up from the sand shell and drawn back into the swell of energy that made up the soul-Thayne in the Firmament. A decrepit, bitter man would awaken in his bed in a few hours, unaware of everything that had happened here, and not missing a second as false memories replaced the blackness and doubt in his mind.

“My grief makes me strong, my anger, hatred, loathing of you and your kind keeps Fallien alive!”

Like a mother scorned, bereft of her child, Shansi lashed out with Suresh as her puppet once more. The flurry of blade strikes cleaved the air, and pounded against the limited skill the troubadour had developed in her short tenure as an il’Jhain. It had been Suresh that had taught how to wield the silver curved blade, and he had been a fitting man to test that knowledge.

Mordelain felt her strength waver, just as the khanda rose and fell in a dual-handed cleaving arc. She closed her eyes, and felt the sway of the desert vanish.

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To be continued in The Daughter of the Desert.

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Epilogue

Today was the day that many things ended, and many more began.

Time may hold sway over the here and now, but in the future and in the past it is easily malleable.

Mordelain had seen the worlds end, and all the worlds begin. She had stood at the centre of the Cataclysm as her home had been torn apart piece by piece. When the crystal spires rose from the core of Junkyo, she had been there chronicle the last days.

“I think I understand now,” she whispered.

Standing once more at the heart of the worlds, where silence was deafening and all the realms of the Nine convened in a primordial tapestry, she looked down at a fragment of Althanas and picked out the city that stood at the centre of a vast river’s tribute.

Irrakam looked like a mosaic, the bastion of the Mother Goddess splendorous with the glow of the cosmos.

“You had to fall to let the other worlds rise,” the metaphor played three histories in every syllable, which would take a chronicle centuries to unravel. Mordelain had only one moment, but somehow, the threads came undone and settled like three beacons, stretching as far as the eye can see.

One strand wound down to the island of Fallien. There, Mordelain could bring the Outlanders out of their shadowy pit, lead them to equality and bring about a zenith of progress on the golden sands. She would be happy there, a new found purpose giving her drive and hope.

One strand vanished into the shadows that loomed behind her. In those dark vortexes of nothing, she would find the abyss of uncertainty. On one of the ruined worlds of the Kalithrism, she could perhaps find a way to unravel all that her people had done. Perhaps, on Petra, or Bulganin, or in the dead markets of the Highway Quarter, she could find something to save the cosmos.

A lifetime spent searching for something that may never come to pass…

The final strand wound from her waist to her headdress, a spiral of colour glimmering with starlight. In Mordelain, Mordelain would find a journey to self-discovery. She did not know what would blossom from the arid dirt that had become the ground beneath her feet, but it would be a more instinctive route to follow.

“So many have died already, I can’t let this world perish too…” She had to live for herself now; she had spent far too many years in the servitude of others.

Each of the three routes lead to the same end game; destroying the spirit of Fallien. If Shansi continued, then it would not be long before her rage infected all the Thayne, and then Suravani too.

Althanas' could not survive another Cataclysm.

She had to bring a Vhadya to the soul of her new found home, and do it with such velocity that Suravani could not stop her.

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Spoils:

Two il'Jhain tokens.

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Plot ~ 26/30

Storytelling ~ 8/10 - This was a very compellingly-written story; I found myself lost in it numerous times. The plot itself and the gradual revealing of it were beautifully done; I would never have expected Mariachi to be Suresh's father, nor the eventual revelation of all three of their places in a much larger world. There were a few slips in the unfolding of this tale, however; some questionable enough I lost track of what was happening. It wasn't that you should not have included the information you did; perhaps instead if it were more clearely presented and succinctly explained, it would have been easier for someone who had not read much about Fallien to enjoy the story just as much. The biggest example of this is reviewing the history of Mordelain and of Fallien intertwined; you attempted to reveal the past in increments. While this approach worked for the present action of the story, it did not have the same effect in the revealing of what had already happened. There was no gratifying 'ah-ha!' moment where it all clicked together.

Setting ~ 9/10 - This was almost perfect. As a reader, I could see the places you described, and that tells me, as a judge, you saw the places as you wrote them. Your awareness of the world in which your characters lived this tale was superlative. There were few instances I had to go back to read things again - one of those was when Mordelain and Suresh slipped into the secret entrance where they would soon teleport to the coffee house.

Taking the setting even further, you truly brought the culture of Fallien to life; it was interwoven within the story, driving it. You used native words, and even the native language to draw the reader into a totally different world, yet did so in a way that was an invitation - not a barrier. I have no criticism for this part. It was masterfully done.

Pacing ~ 9/10 - Brilliant. You moved the story along in such a way I was kept on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next. You were able to draw in elements that weren't necessary to the plot, and do so in a way that kept your delivery suspenseful without dragging it down. With that said, the ending, Mordelain's confrontation with Sanshi seemed to move a tad bit too quickly, only to be broken into by the Codex of Thayne Lore, then it was flying again to an abrupt end. PM me if you have any questions and want my ideas on how to address that.

Character ~ 22/30

Communication ~ 8/10 - Your shining moments here were in the 'Game of Thrones' exchanges between Mariachi and Mordelain, and their dialog in general. I could sense, from what they said alone, the tension and eventual hostility. Extremely well done. I wish the exchanges between Mordelain and Suresh held that much truth and significance, but they were mostly unmemorable - not bad, not exceptional. However, since a great part of this story was involving the exchange between Mariachi and Mordelain, it boosted that considerably.

Action ~ 7/10 - On the whole, most of this made sense to me; the characters' actions reflected who they were. Now then - for Mordelain, you had a slip and contradicted yourself. It was the introduction of your story that presented her as suffering the effects of the previous nights' dervish. Had your narrator and the other characters made outside observations on how she seemed, it would be different, and the eventual revelation the Mordelain does not suffer the effects of alcohol would have been perfect. However, at some times, she was directly presented as feeling the effects of it.

To go deeper with Mordelain, I see her actions as logical: she had everything to do with the Vhadya, even though her intent was good, and she wants to, in what way she can, make up for it through helping the soul of Fallien.

Suresh was solid. Mariachi I only had one issue with: he dissapeared during the confrontation with Sanshi. I'm not saying he needed to stand on the table and do a dance, but a simple explaination of why he didn't react in any way to her manifestation would have sufficed. That's a rather big hole in a major scene of your story.

Persona ~ 7/10 - I was a little confused by Mordelain at times. As I look back over her specifically, I see that I'm asked to take leaps to accept her development where some of her memories or helpful narration would have provided a bridge. While she is a light hearted girl, it's curious she was at once so serious as the game began. It was as if she were a different person, instead of the same person with a different mood or purpose.

Suresh was solid; he held his own and you were able to work in thoughtful details without dragging the story along. He was exactly what he needed to be for this story.

Mariachi remains a somewhat mysterious character, with a great secret revealed. He was well written and played his part nicely.

Prose ~ 24/30

Mechanics ~ 7/10 - I notice a lot of 'it's' in the place of 'its.' It was rather common throughout the story. Beyond that, straight mechanics, the mistakes were varied and need only thorough proofreading to catch what you already know. For example... bowel was used twice for bowl. Biiiiig difference in meaning. :)

Clarity ~ 8/10 - On the whole, very good. However, the parts where you go into Mordelain's history and the history of the Vhadya and Fallien in general required several readings for me to grasp it. I think the whold ending would have benefitted from a little more explaination given more clearly.

Technique ~ 9/10 - You silver-tongued devil, you. I don't need to tell you about similies and metaphors, nor do I need to lecture on allusions and personification; my only caution is to use such things with a deft hand so that they don't overtake the story and make it about the exact grade of silver with which your tongue is gilded. I think that Mordelain's actual identity could have used a bit more foreshadowing, but not necessarily Suresh's or Mariachi's. By virtue of what she is, their own revelations follow easily.

Wildcard: 9/10 - Highly, highly enjoyable. This was a great read and an amazing look at the culture and landscape of Fallien. Well done!

Judge's Choice Nomination.

Total ~ 81/100

Spoils awarded: Two il'Jhain tokens

Mordelain earns 1337 EXP and 250 gold.

EXP/GP added. Movement to the archives pending the decision on the JC.