Missions From il'Jhain Abdos

[Inkfinger]

il'Jhain Abdos

Fallien, for long years, was a place of isolation. News from one portion of the continent took ages to reach the other areas, and even longer to reach the outside world. The founding of the Outlander’s Post changed that, a bit. Irah Yvesson, founder of the post, recently approached the Jya about beginning a messenger service from one side of the continent to the other, as a means to –if not entirely unite- bring her people a tiny bit closer to one another.

The Jya granted her permission, but had one demand: that the service should be run mostly by the Fallien people themselves. Irah, reluctantly, agreed.

This fledgling messenger system (called il'Jhain Abdos, or simply il'Jhain) by all and sundry because "messenger system" sounds better in Fallien than it does in tradespeak) is a feudal, danger-ridden form of a Pony Express, headquartered in Irrakam. It consists of three factions, to ensure that (unlike a typical messenger service where all one had to worry about was one's horse, one's health, the weather, natives and highwaymen) one needs to worry about those, the rival factions and those in one's same faction if one got a better assignment than one’s fellows.

The Jya outsourced the system to two trusted servants and one trusted outsider, believing that some form of conflict would make the system work better than a monopoly. The three factions are il'S’liaka (the Dustriders, headed by a young woman from the spice-fields of R’uuya), il’Arkmanham (the Windborne, headed by an older man from the Oasis) and the Freerunners (headed by a middle-aged Elven immigrant.)

All involved in this venture are locked in bitter rivalry, competing for the same commissions – both between the factions and within each faction itself. Each faction has their own routes through the treacherous landscape, and each faction claims that their route is the fastest (guarding said routes nigh-fanatically) while trying to discover the other faction's routes just in case, as well may be, the other's is really faster. Truth is, of course, all are about equal in danger and speed. There is an uneasy truce between the factions on Irrakam itself, but there is open warfare between them anywhere else on Fallien.

If you need money, rewards, respect, or just a way to forget battles and quests gone wrong, the messenger system might be for you. If, provided, you can believe and uphold the creed.