Extinct Kin of Paedelos

"*Where have our homes gone, burnt away in flames? Where else could we go, but to our kin in the west.. yet some say we should stay. Die in our homes, in the arms of our family. I say 'no' to all of this. I say we look far to the East, to the lands of once-fertile Rzia. They say there is still land there, in the land of our birth. We march at sunrise, to find a new home. Ator preserve us, protect us..*"
— Kayon-Lymir im Aamdola, Eternal-Prince of Raldunare
"*I damn you, you monster! You have turned hundreds of years of heart and soul to dust! I have watched children dying in the streets, choking on their own blood! Their mothers and fathers - powerless, unable to help! I curse you, I curse you for all this evil you have wrought. I damn you! I abjure you! I pray you are taken by the Void, and your soul is rent apart by the hands of those you harmed!*"
— Ahrad avin Yivakprovos, Immortal Master of Emistyereon to Aenfirdas shortly before being incinerated by a pillar of fire.
"*To your name, Blessed Maker, I beseech you. Strike these heathens from our walls, cease the ash clouding our skies. The men on the walls grow tired. Our fields have fallen fallow, my people grow ill and starving. And now, in great numbers, men like beasts gather at my walls, hungering and shouting for blood. Men of dark skin, hellfire in their eyes, seeking to take my crown and my people. I know they follow the foul Afenouyan, that wicked deciever, the bitch-queen. She had sought me out - she gave me the offer of life over death, of servitude for betrayal. I spat in her eye, Blessed Maker, and have reaffirmed my loyalty to you. Please, in our darkest time, deliver us. I beg of you, save my people.*"
— Last Prayer of the Zuzhuang-Rzini, the Master of the Rzians, Foyenng-Rao Ayaangche to Ator, begging for salvation from Aenfirdas, prior to being smothered in ash and burnt alive.
   Many look to the East, and some remember a time when history books decried a place of bounty, of treasure and food aplenty - abundant and ever-flowing. A place where spires towered high into the sky, thronged with nobility that glittered in fine silks and silver fineries. Where the streets were well-plumbed, where every home had gas lamps and running water. A place where even the peasant was given the treatment of a noble, yet where such impoverishment of the West was seen as a prison sentence there. This place once existed, but many a legend and story crawled out of the imagination and onto the pages of history books for the West after the fall of the East. Refugees, the few that made it through the ash clouds that blotted out the sky and over the boiling oceans, regaled the Crownlings with these stories. They spoke of their immortal Emperors, their undying nobility, their boundless legions of swords and spears. They spoke of how they clashed with the Esani, and only lost because of the power of their Magi, and the aims of one errant deity who sought to tear down all that their ancestors had built painstakingly over generations upon generations of life. The East was never seen again, but it's story lived on in history. Some Aeans tried to sail there, only to never return. Some went by foot, only to be cut down by the arrows and spears of the Dokaali or enslaved by the Esani.

Stories of Ovispron still regularly circulate within Aean circles, as biremes and triremes of foreign and unknown make find their way into some Kadoran and Esani ports, there to do trade and gather supplies. Some say they are mapping the rest of the world. While most people had turned to ships that relied mostly on the sail over the oar, in an age where ships had cannons, these ships still relied on men with spears, slings and arrows. As if they had found themselves transposed from the days of the Godswar into the days of the modern era. And as quickly as they would come, as quickly as they would pass into the smog that blocked passage to the East. They bore Ovispron symbols on their sails and banners, on their tabards and documents. Through this, learned scholars believe that the East yet still lives in some capacity, or at least Ovispron still thrives.

The true fate of the East, however, was enslavement under misery and death. Rzia was burnt away in volcanic ash much like Arotir, and Dokaal was smothered in smog and ash from the farmlands of Rzia, leaving the Horselords to range and fight among one another as they always had - this time no longer under the eternal gaze of Ator's sun. Ovispron ships will still sometimes dock, and they always leave - some have been impounded, but the sailors wasted no time in either fighting their way out, or scuttling their ships and committing ritualistic suicide. This leaves much information on the modern details of the East strange, frantic, and disjointed. The most anyone knows is hearsay from these sailors claiming to be Ovispronic, who sailed from thousands of miles away. Some explorers still set sail East, and many still do not return - however, something has changed. Some return and spin tales of a land still in the shadow of the Godswar, one that is in rebirth.

*The Sun will once more set on fields of plenty. Niyo sun-si kunumin, daiyonmui Afenouyan.*

## Musings of the Scholars

1. ↑ Soon comes the era of resurrection, damned be Aenfirdas.