On the Hills of Eden

Soleiman stopped just before the library’s entrance. Or, at least, the entrance of what was supposed to be a library. This was the first time he’d ever visited a library outside of Minerva, and to say that it took him a while to pick it out from amongst the sea of other similarly structured foreign buildings would be an understatement.

He approached its entrance, grabbing a hold of the sliding doors that walled it off from the outside world and pushing them to the side.

Careful, so as to not disturb the two other patrons quietly perusing their books within the cafe-sized room, he slipped his way in and closed the doors behind him.

He looked around, meeting the fleeting glances of the two Kitsunites, nodding his head slightly each time their gazes locked– even though neither acknowledged him. He began moving inwards, following the small central aisle that split the two large rectangular tables positioned on the left and right sides of the room. Further in, he saw as a third Kitsunite– likely the librarian– sat behind a counter, the diffuse light of the outside filtering in through paper curtains positioned behind him.

The bookcases had been positioned against the walls where there weren’t any paper doors or windows, giving the room a very distinct lighting– where light only managed to enter via the front and back walls. Furthermore, little sections protruded out just beyond the rectangular tables, partially cordoning the librarian’s little desk and area off from the main reading chamber.

He shuffled along, keeping the soles of his feet close to the ground to avoid aggravating the cranky wooden planks beneath him too much as he made his way to the librarian.

As he stepped past the threshold of the protruding bookshelves, he stopped just before the counter, waiting patiently as the weathered old librarian slowly set his book down.

“Can you… speak Plataic?” He asked sheepishly, eyes squinting slightly as he struggled to put together the words in Japonic.

The old man shook his head, tired eyes hiding behind his wrinkled skin.

Soleiman sighed. Well, his Mother hadn’t taught him her language for nothing.

In all honesty, he wasn’t that bad at understanding Japonic. Albeit, his level was closer to what’s called ‘Soft’ Japonic, which is essentially a much simpler and creolic version of ‘True’ Japonic. A similar division of ‘Soft’ and ‘True’ went for other languages too, given the high amounts of intermingling between different language groups. Which was rather convenient, given that speakers of ‘Soft’ languages could often cross language boundaries with a relatively high level of ease.

“Do you have…” he struggled, writing the sentence out in his mind. Having essentially no real conversational practice certainly didn’t help his predicament. “Any…”

What was the word for ‘guide’, again?

“Any books on spirit-teachers?”

He winced slightly. That was definitely not it.

“Spiritguides?” The old man patiently responded, clicking the lost words in Soleiman’s brain.

“Yes!” He said, shooting a worried glance over his shoulder after surprising himself with his volume. “Yes, Sir. Spiritguides.”

“Bookcase Five, third from the top.”

He headed back, quietly shuffling past the chairs as he went to inspect this so-called ‘Bookcase Five, third from the top’, watching as the two Kitsunite patrons took their leave.

Suddenly overwhelmed by the mass of Sino-Japonic characters scribbled onto the possibly hundreds of books that had been jammed into the cramped shelves, his eyes shot up to the very top of the shelves; There, he counted as the numbers listed above slowly ticked down, eventually landing him on the one with the character for ‘five’ painted onto it.

Then, his neck still craned all the way up, he counted down, his eyes eventually landing on the row third from the top. Upon which was a book, entitled ‘Brief History of the Spiritguides’, stuffed amongst the others.

Yeah. He was going to need a ladder to reach that.

He grabbed one resting against a nearby bookshelf, snapping it open before quietly plopping it onto the floor.

Stepping up its rickety steps, careful so as to not aggravate its hinges to the point of failure, he reached his arms out above him, fingers poking their way into the gaps between the books.

Just barely managing to get enough leverage by ever-so-gently digging his short nails into the book’s cover, he tried pulling the book out.

To no avail, for it wouldn’t budge.

Okay, maybe he just wasn’t being firm enough.

Adjusting his fingers, he pulled again.

Nope.

He yanked the book.

Nothing.

Frustrated, he forced his fingers as deep as they could do into the gaps surrounding the book, thumbs now clasped against its cover as he heaved it from its tomb.

The bookcase shook and the book came flying out, Soleiman just barely able to steady himself to avoid falling back-first onto the chair behind him.

Eyes widening, he saw the supposedly ‘solid’ piece of wood shake before him. He planted his palms against its form, lips sealed and eyes peeled in panic as he slowly turned to look at the librarian.

Who… hadn’t seemed to have realised what had happened.

He patted the bookcase, apologising to it for nearly bringing it down. Then, he inconspicuously descended back down the steps of the ladder, his feet soon making contact with the creaky wooden floor once more.

When a flutter passed by his ears.

His eyes flickered about, catching the sight of a greyish yellow piece of parchment that floated its way down onto the table.

He caught it mid-air, turning around to look at the bookcase to make sure nothing else had fallen off.

Was it a loose page?

He turned it over, the text inscribed onto it now appearing before him.

Except, it wasn’t text. No, it was writing. Plataic writing.

Dear Lady Saezaki, Head Maiden of the Hibara Shrine, the letter began, the flowing scribbles of pencil lead still just barely present enough for him to see.

We are writing this letter to you to request an extension in the payment deadline of this month’s debt instalment. There has been a delay in the shipment of coffee beans from our suppliers in Burkannar, and we have not been able to meet our profit margins for the month.

This is a one time delay. We will not make another such request in the future.

We hope Your Serenity graces us with your mercy.

From the Trumpeter's Cafe

Soleiman’s eyes lifted off of the piece of parchment, staring blankly ahead at the wall of books on the other side of the room. He shot a glance at the librarian, quickly turning his back to him even as he confirmed his obliviousness to Soleiman looking at things he really shouldn’t be.

The coffee shop that Mrs Ebeid had told them to go to had closed down because of a missed debt payment.

He rolled the piece of paper up and stuffed it into his pocket, hopping back up the ladder and onto his tiptoes to try and get a better look at the top of the bookshelves.

What if there were more? He wondered, eyes just barely managing to peek out above the-

“Boy!”

Soleiman jolted, his hands sticking themselves to the bookshelf as he just barely managed to stop himself from falling off the ladder.

“Do you need any help?”

“No, no Sir,” he was quick to reply, already halfway down the ladder. “I just thought I saw a title I recognised.”

“Mm,” the librarian hummed in acknowledgement, before returning to his book.

Well, whatever. This letter alone would be enough evidence to bring forward to the Head Maiden. Whoever’s negligence this was, Soleiman would have it righted.

Soleiman pilfered through the thin pages of the book, shuffling one after the other until he got to where he wanted to be.

Page 7. The Names of the Spiritguides. Confirming whether or not the 2nd Spiritguide, who he assumed was who Pallas saw in her dream, was called ‘Rei’, would lend a good bit of credence to the idea that her dreams really were more than mere dreams.

Uniquely, all Spiritguides share the same name.

This precedent was set by the 1st Spiritguide, known simply as ‘Rei’, following her shedding of her family name to serve the Great Houzen Administration as a frontier scout.

This was where she obtained the Artefact of Guidance, using it to guide the first of the spirits to the Land Above the Clouds.

Her later victory over Old Lord Thalassius won her favour not only with the members of the Tea Party, including the Grand Maiden, Siraj al-Nahr and Clementia, but also with other demesnes in strife with Thalassius, including Ahsuifat, Mollitia and Caldaria.

This, in combination with her settlement of the Ahsuifati Succession Crisis, directly caused by Thalassius’ slaying of Incolumnitus of the Ahsuifat Dynasty, established her as a bulwark of stability and reliance.

Thus, then, even after her death in the Silent Valley as a result of the Deathblight, did other Spiritguides resort to using her name to better curry trust from the spirits.

Huh. Interesting. Surely there would’ve been some other distinction between the Spiritguides though, right? A remnant family name or something?

This precedent has been broken following the 5th Spiritguide, Saezaki Shima’s, inheritance of the title. The trust of the spirits and the reputability of the name, ‘Rei’, have been forever tainted by…

The text became illegible, the otherwise delicate and calculated strokes of the previous characters suddenly packed in and overlaid with one another. Soleiman squinted his eyes, moving his face closer to the page, though to no avail.

Alas, he skipped the illegible bit, which continued until the end of the paragraph, moving onto the next bit of readable text– crammed at the very bottom of the page and competing with the title and page number for the last remaining bits of white space.

…their growing distance from the Grand Maiden. The 4th Spiritguide’s repeated refusals to partake in the 1st (1050-57) and 2nd (1062-69) Imperial Solean wars tarnished her reputation as a bulwark of stability. Furthermore, her cataclysmic defeat at the hands of Lord Gravitas and his City Upon the Waves sealed the death of the once revered name, leaving it to be replaced and rebuilt by the eldest daughter of the Saezaki Clan in Hibara– her only disciple and de facto successor.

Though, Houzen’s Liturgical Assembly remains split on the issue of whether Lady Saezaki Shima should be a legitimate bearer of the title.

Well, that confirms it then.

While there was little confirmation on the ages of the Spiritguides, the youngest one that went by the name ‘Rei’ had to have been at least seventy years old by now; if she was to be of an age suitable and mature enough to have been deemed capable of combat in the 1st Solean War by the Head Maiden– which had taken place five whole decades ago.

And there was no way that his Mother was seventy. She was thirty or fourty at the very most, her glorious navy hair and impeccably soft skin evidence enough that she was nowhere near the very minimum age a former Spiritguide could have been at.

Soleiman continued on, swapping the book on Spiritguides out for one on Al-Muqayad, the Fellbeast. After all, if they were going to try and take it down at some point, it wouldn’t hurt to know even the littlest bit of background information on it.

Specifically, the book was titled, ‘The Beasts of Siraj’s Demesne’, its contents wrapped in a thick, leathery, navy blue casing that felt soft to the touch.

He flipped the book open, light from the outside glinted softly off of its silver embellishments as he sorted through to the pages that were of interest to him.

Immediately following their victory over Incolumnitus just prior to the beginning of Ruination (1000), the Twin Monarchs of Siraj and Shula partitioned their formerly united tribal federation into two distinct entities. This federation, once known as Al-Maftuh, included the tribes of the Tariq, the Ahd, the Janub and the Sahlbarid.

The settlement of the terms of their joint victory led to Shula’s willing confinement to her followers in the Banu Ahd and their homeland around Mount Ahd and the city of Burkannar.

This therefore allowed Siraj to lead her followers from the Silent Valley and in the Banu Tariq in a concerted, undisturbed conquest to re-establish her control over the Banu Janub and Banu Sahlbarid– setting into stone the borders that remained largely unchallenged up until 1082.

So far, everything tracked. Now, though, was what he had come here for– to fill in the gaps in his knowledge caused by the partitioning of Minerva in 1091 and the subsequent drought of information it caused in the vast majority of Minervan libraries.

The lands of Siraj al-Nahr were largely barren even prior to the onset of Ruination. The only forms of human habitation that were even close to being permanent huddled around the Silent River both West and South of the fertile hills of Mount Ahd; and the vast majority of the land under her rule was only able to support primarily nomadic, sparse populations.

Thus, following the end of Ruination and the onset of magic, Siraj created a great number of Elevated Beasts to serve as protectors of both her territory and her people. These Beasts were blessed with her Technique, Qataratunnada, and a heightened constitution and cognition. As such, they were masters of the cold, being able to both outcompete and outsmart the lesser wild beasts; acting as her boots on the ground to maintain civility and stability in the single largest demesne on the continent.

Such a system served her well. Though…

Soleiman’s eyebrows raised slightly.

…it would not last. Over time, Siraj’s continued reliance on the Elevated Beasts to control her territory led to a shifting of the scales of power. The Beasts began to grow more autonomous, their cognisance and strength building on each other instead of relying solely on Siraj’s support. As such, conflict inevitably broke out– not between Siraj and the Beasts, but between smaller factions within the Beasts themselves.

These internalised conflicts grew increasingly dire from the years 1082-86, completely arresting Siraj’s ability to administer her demesne and leading to the de facto succession of the northernmost reaches of the Shafraturriyahn Mountains and the Silent Valley to the Xiafan Council and the Ahd.

It was only in 1087, when the conflicts began to spill over into the neighbouring territories of Houzen and Rosenlund-Oldenburg, did Siraj begin being able to wrestle control back. She allied herself with a select group of the Beasts and sought cooperation with the Grand Maiden of Houzen, allowing her to form a coordinated effort against the revolting Beasts; supported by Houzen’s manpower and the Instruments and Arms industries of Rosenlund-Oldenburg.

Over the course of the war, lasting from 1087-94, the Rosenlunders saw massive leaps forward in their industries; primarily involving the use of complex steam engines in factories and the creation of more advanced gunpowder weaponry.

The Rosenlunders even employed Reflections, water-based sprites built from puppets that were invented in the Mazj Academy in Burkannar, to some extent; though their use has entirely vanished following the war’s end.

In the end, the war concluded with Siraj’s sealing of the final Elevated Beast. Such a Beast was unable to be properly killed in part due to an act of treachery committed by one of Rosenlund’s most esteemed engineers.

The traitorous owl, in a fit of childish rebellion, stole away the Artefact of Avarice in an attempt to win Siraj’s favour. While the owl was soon caught and banished from Rosenlund-Oldenburg, the damage she had done allowed the last Beast to continue persisting with the aid of the Artefact.

In the end, victory was only accomplished with the activation of The Great Wheel, who the Rosenlunders used to forcibly seize control of the Artefact away from the Fellbeast. This, in conjunction with Siraj’s last major outburst of magic, finally managed to forever imprison the Fellbeast.

Thus earning it the title, Al-Muqayad.

The Chained.

Well, there it was.

The years following the end of the Bestial War have been largely peaceful, barring the expansion of the Ahd under Shula into territory no longer under the de facto control of Siraj. Now, several lesser wild beasts have returned to the wastes of the North, particularly concentrating about Al-Muqayad, possibly entranced by the deluge of mana that it bathes within that it has used to swell to a truly gargantuan scale.

It is currently believed that the mechanical prison that holds Al-Muqayad will not be able to forever contain the Fellbeast. While it is unknown what may happen if it ever breaks free from its constraints and regains full control over one of the most powerful Artefacts on the continent, it is believed by many to have the potential to be the bringer of the end times.

As such, several attempts have been made to terminate it.

Unfortunately, given the harsh nature of the wastes of the North and the large presence of the lesser wild beasts, all attempts made have failed. The scale of the operations have either been too large to supply logistically through the wastes or too small to be able to survive the lesser wild beasts and still be able to defeat Al-Muqayad in its imprisoned state.

It remains a topic of hot debate in both the Liturgical and General Assemblies of the Administration on what should be done about the Fellbeast.

Soleiman closed the book, sitting back into his chair as his eyes traced their way up to the ceiling in thought.

His eyes glanced to the outside momentarily, the now warm, orangish hue of the skylight that radiated softly through the paper door indicating to him it was about time he left.

Though, it wouldn’t hurt to stay just a little bit longer. Perhaps he could figure something out about the Serpent King, kill two birds with one stone.

He rose from his seat, shuffling away from the table as he traced his fingers against the bookshelves on his way to the librarian.

“Sir-”

His hand burned.

Pupils shrinking and eyes split open, the fingers of his left hand seized up as he raised his right to eye level. His heart began pounding with a ferocity he’d never known, forcing him to lean against the bookshelf as his chest rose and fell in a feverish frenzy.

Now, looking at his right arm, he could see nothing on it. He could only feel that beneath its blackened, lifeless, senseless form, writhed an unspeakable pain. A sensation whose intensity went unmatched by anything since his arm was first burnt during the fight with the second ataphoi.

Except… no, it wasn’t he who was sensing that pain.

It was the divine blood itself, coursing under the skin of his arm, that was suffering.

It was Pallas that was suffering.

He heard a few shouts in the distance, hasty Japonic commands being barked amidst a sea of panic. When he scrambled out of the library to get a better look at the street outside, he could see in the distance by the main gate- not two hundred metres away from where he was, as smoke rose.

And as men came surging in.