The Uncrucified

Entry I - A Cautionary Tale

Foreword.

Let it be known in the chill of Resplendant Air of RY 765, I began this memoir a scant time after settling into the freshly built shack that would become the first guild hall of the Pristine Guild, the guild I built from the shattered hopes and dreams I had left in me. It would rise from stick and mud beginnings just as I have from the dusts of the South to a grand path that lies before me.

Already, those who would tear this place down and reclaim this city and its people have been beaten back. The strings of destiny knot here in this place full of the undeniable passion of the free and the awe-inspiring golden warriors that I somehow find myself numbered among.

May this document be proof that I, Kalara Vadras, daughter of Ahrun the Seeker, lived in this moment in Creation for a cause larger than myself. For any who may discover these words after my death, let them serve as a lens through the myopia of time and memory. This is my story and my cause. Let it be yours, if you have courage and understanding.

Entry I - A Cautionary Tale.

It was told to me by the other slaves when I was old enough to understand that my parents had been lost to a great plague that had passed through the South, taking the rich and poor alike. I knew no more of them but smiling faces and distant lullabies.

And so it was that I grew up a child of random handlers, slaves who took the moments out of their full days to teach me how to avoid a beating or showed me the rare surrogate affection. I was also a child of labor, working long hours running to and from the market retrieving whatever needed retrieving, cleaning, sweeping, and crawling into dangerous spaces only a child could fit for machine repairs and mining operations. My lullabies became the murmured tales of Dream-Eaten, slaves who returned from the Fey lands soulless and hollow. Tales of their misfortune lulled me to required darkness with their moral. Be a good little slave, for that is how one survived.

There were worse duties for slaves, like the dead-eyed 'dolls' I saw sometimes in the pleasure quarters or the wretched soot-covered chain gangs who worked the mines. I kept my head down and continued cleaning, sweeping, and crawling. I did whatever was asked of me in fear of the hazy definition of what 'worse than this' could mean.

It was on an unremarkable run to the marketplace for the usual errands that my love affair with flame pieces began. I was trying to reach the grocer's booth when I found the way blocked by an unusual congestion in the market traffic. I managed to squeeze my way through the cheering crowd lined along the main street to catch my first glimpse of them - The Ashen Guard.

They marched in formation down the street, their grey cloaks flowing in the warm wind, the hot sun glinting on their bayonets and pale, colorless armor. They had just returned from their latest victory against a raider's camp.

For those not of the South, it is said the Ashen Guard defended the city of Gem from a terrible siege undertaken in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. Their elite regimen was tasked to ambush the raiders while the town rallied a defense. Inspired by the tactics of desert outlaws, they buried themselves in the ash, using breathing tubes and periscopes to stay hidden until their enemies were just within arm's reach. Then, they sprang, decimating their surprised enemies!

Oh, how my boundless child's imagination created stories about their adventures! I imagined myself riding full tilt atop a white horse in pale armor, ashen cloak flowing behind me, firing off that single impossible shot through the eye of a needle to fell my enemies. I was a ghost in the sands, a hero of the city!