10 Wikkri, 143CZ

Compared to the journey through the mountains and glacial passes of my last journey, the trek to Medana went much smoother. Not only were the caravaneers smarter about their supply acquisitions, but they were also mektarans that know the area better. Not to mention the route between Mektara and their northern neighbor is quite literally smoother.

The Glassdunes are altogether exactly and not at all what I expected. The dunes have indeed been turned to glass, a phenomenon caused by the breath of the Kali dragon god of light if Kali legends are to be believed. Considering their capital cities are built around colossal draconic skeletons, I'm inclined to believe at least some of the myths about their gods - at least, physical evidence exists of their deities, even if their powers may be exaggerated a bit. But I'm not here to pass judgment on Kali beliefs, I really do find them fascinating and mean no disrespect.

I had hoped to find some tales in Medana from earlier in history than those in Mektara. This hope stems from the fact that many of the original warforged revolutionaries and soldiers, consequently some of the oldest warforged in existence, have split off from their Mektaran brethren due to difficulties accepting their former enemies as allies. While Medana is an exclusively mejkali, or Kali warforged, settlement, it is not a uniquely mejkali trait by any stretch. Further to the east is another city called Yancua founded exclusively by mektli. I just happen to be visiting Medana first. In case anyone is wondering what I think of Medana, let me just say that I was sorely mistaken if I thought Medana was going to be any more welcoming to those of a fleshy persuasion than Mektara. At least Mektara had a couple of taverns that served food, even if they were exorbitantly expensive dishes made from imported goods, but these outer settlements see far less tourism than Mektara and it shows. I swear they don't even know what a glass of water is out here.

In any case, my hopes of finding older stories seemed to be dashed upon arriving and spending some time chatting with the locals. I was honestly considering leaving for Yancua for lack of good research material when I was approached by another rare flesh and blood visitor to Medana. I remember being oddly struck by his boldness, for this was a golden dragonborn striding through a city populated by warforged who might resent him simply for being a descendant of their creators. I mean, I've done my research, I know the mejkal were treated better than their mektli counterparts, but there's still no small amount of animosity between them and their progenitors.

Despite this, he was allowed to speak to me in peace. He wishes to remain unnamed, but through our conversation, I learned that he was a descendant of some of the first Kali priests to utilize kalashrum enchantments for the purposes of constructing mejkal. He had come to Medana to search for a mejkal that his family had created, to apologize to them on behalf of his family, but had no luck in finding them. However, during his explorations, he had heard of my inquiries and offered me the opportunity to study a letter he had in his possession that might be relevant to my work.

I know. I thought it was too good to be true, too.

But as sure as gears turn when they're wound, he produced a letter from his pack. He's left me with it for the night, and when I asked him whether he thought I might run off with it, he just shrugged and said he had no sentimental attachment to it. I don't have any intention of running off with it, of course, I just thought it was odd. Anyway, I'm going to copy this down, so I can give it back to him in the morning.

Tale of Meneshkiss, transcribed by Yunha Cheng-yo, 10 Wikkri, 143CZ:

To the most blessed of the Radiant, Rylkalash'ash'ma'rok Rylisskalo'loshkan Lashkan,

I leave this letter for you so that you may understand why I leave you - why my people leave our blessed nation where the True Kind rest. I owe this much to you, for your role in bringing me into the world, though as I reflect upon my experiences in this life I question whether I would have asked for my creation were I given a choice.

You may think that we feel overworked and underappreciated. While I cannot speak for all of my kind and know that for some this is true, it is not the case for myself. I have always known that you love me like the daughter I was created to replace. When the most blessed kalash of the Radiancy first discovered the kalashrum art of creating mejkal, I know they set out to use it with good intentions. I know that when you lost a daughter in the fourth war, you hoped that this new magic given to you by the True Kind would allow you to bring her back in a new form - a stronger one that would not so easily be taken from you again.

But instead of your daughter, an honored warrior fallen in the line of duty, you created me. You still gave me her name, but you would quickly realize that even should I share a few of her personality traits, I was a very different being. I was a child. You fathered me in all ways but the traditional despite this difference, and I thank you for that. However, I believe I should have asked you a question on the day of my ascension to the ranks of the Radiancy, and I will ponder it now, despite the impossibility of receiving an answer.

I struggle to understand why a father who lost a daughter once to a conflict would go to such lengths to bring her back, only to send the resulting simulacrum back to continue the fight after several painstaking years of love and training. Despite your kindness in my early years, I will always remember seeing nothing but horror in the fourth war. You and your cohorts knew we were not indestructible, and you knew that the Empire would find a way to destroy us, yet you sent me and my kin to the front lines anyway. It brings to mind the belief that our lives were used to spare the lives of those of the flesh, and I have not been able to bring any argument to bear that could truly convince me otherwise.

Ultimately, I think the Radiancy has forgotten what true compassion looks like. In all the horror, I bore witness to an event of true kindness that gave my life meaning in a way war or service never could. In a way you never could. I tell you of this now, not because I wish to blame you, but because I believe that you and all Kali were once capable of such purity and may be again with time.

It was during the height of the fourth war when the light of my hope had nearly gone out. I had been sent forward to the front nearest the Gouge in the center of the scar, the most dangerous area in the war at the time. We could see the camps of mektli and their coztlitl officers across the gap, and I remember the entire platoon being convinced that we would be wiped out in the night by some new imperial weapon any moment. It was bleakness I had never truly experienced before, but I was still unprepared for the battle that would break out soon enough.

We were attacked in the night, our lookouts quietly dispatched while the rest of us were taking our rest. It is lucky that we do not sleep, or the entire camp would have been wiped out before the alarm could be sounded. Even so, the chaos was complete - soldiers clashed with alchemical fire and spells raining down on them or flying overhead. All the tents had caught fire, and I barely rescued several of my comrades from the rapidly spreading flames that we all knew could engulf and destroy even our stony frames. Several of our officers, majkal and dajkal of flesh and blood, had already been slain by carefully placed arrows or spells, and we could smell the tang of corrosive chemicals on the wind as death loomed closer. We all knew the imperials would douse the camp, killing us and their own mektli, without hesitation.

The contraption that carried the vat toward us was looming over the camp walls when it happened. I was trying to run but was cut off by several mektli, our blades tangling as I saw the slow realization in their eyes. It's a strange thing, seeing someone else contemplate their own mortality when they have never needed to before. Perhaps the empire had led them to believe they were invincible, and it was finally sinking in that they were far from it. I cannot be sure. It was while I was looking into those shining eyes that I saw the reflection of what was coming, a speck of golden light that grew larger as it descended on us.

At first, I believed it to be a fireball descending on us like a burning sun, but I soon realized it lit up the night brighter than Rylos in a cloudless sky. I felt the prayers to the Radiant thrumming within me, and realized I was speaking them aloud as I became convinced our god had descended from his rest in the heavens to strike down the snakes that threatened us. Whatever it was, the light streaked down and stopped to hover above the camp, floating there for a few moments that felt like an eternity. All the fighting seemed to slow, then stop as every eye turned upwards to the being that now looked down on us all. In the silhouette of light, I saw two arms, two legs, and a form I instantly equated with one of our enemies.

Despite this realization, I had no time to panic over it. The being raised what looked like a hand holding a sword, and great shafts of light pierced down from the sky, reaching up so high they seemed to originate from nowhere I could see. The beams pierced through each and every being of flesh in my sight, destroying them so utterly they left nothing but a blackened mark on the ground where they had stood. The vat stood unmoving at the wall with none left to tip it, and all mejkal and mektli who had once been battling stood transfixed by this being that had seemingly spared them a similar fate, though we all understood it could have killed us just as swiftly. None spoke as the flames around us died, leaving nothing but the whistling wind behind until the being spoke.

It spoke not in Kali or Coztlai, nor in Draconic or anything of the sort, but in a language I did not recognize and should not have understood. Even so, the creature's words reached my mind clearly, speaking in a male voice that I understood without recognizing the words. From the reactions of everyone else present, I can only assume they heard it too. He spoke clearly in an even tone and told us that we had been wronged. He explained to us that we had been sent to this fight to spare the lives of the cowardly and the wicked, to spare the lives of those who would pervert nature by creating that which was not theirs to create.

His tone grew intense at this last, and we quaked in fear, but he quickly continued in a gentler voice, telling us that this was not our fault. We had not asked for what was done to us, and he was not here to punish the victims for the sins of their creators. He simply came to save us from a cruel fate, and he came to encourage us to make our lives our own. He swept his arm around the scene before us, still hovering above our heads with warmth and light radiating from him, demonstrating that there were none of our officers left to stop us from simply leaving. My honorable heart beat hard at the thought, and I imagine if shame could touch my face, it would have. But what he said was true.

This was not our fight.

If you asked me what the entity did next, I would tell you I did not know. He disappeared when all looked away from him and at one another. But the words he gave to us lingered in our minds, and it did not take me long to accept what I had to do. I did not leave then, as you readily know from my return to the nation before the conflict's conclusion, for desertion was still anathema to my sensibilities. I must confess that I told you a lie regarding my return, but that is of no consequence.

I had resigned to encourage my people to leave. Many of us were convinced that their families, the ones who had brought them back to resurrect their loved ones, could not possibly be so wicked as to use us, but the evidence became stark as we learned of the mistreatment of the mektli in the empire, and their eventual rebellion. We were afraid of such an eventuality - a violent end to our relationship with our former friends and loved ones. So we deigned to leave of our own accord, peacefully and without harm to either, our only demand that no other mejkal be created - a bargain we dearly hope is honored. The Council did not argue with us, and for that, I am grateful.

I hope this brings you closure. I want you to know that I still love you like a father, but I cannot remain in a family that consigned me to the fate I was given. I will make my own fate, like the divine that saved my life bade me. I believe it was an aspect of Rylissan that came to us that day, and while I have sworn not to revere any god, I will always respect him for what he has given me, as I respect you for not casting me out the moment you realized I was not your daughter returned to you. Please do not come after me, you will not find me.

Your humble child,

Sha'me'rok Rylisskalo'lashkan Meneshkiss

As of this writing, I have returned the letter to my new friend and cleared up a few issues of terminology with him. Apparently, kalash is the word for priest in their tongue, while rylkalash specifically refers to those priests following the dragon god of light, Rylissan. When I asked him about the long and complicated names, he told me his full name. I was not only astounded by its length, but fully incapable of reproducing it in any coherent way. Apparently, all dragonborn and kobolds have names like this, but ryladri names - that is, those who have gold scales who follow the god of light - are especially so. They encompass information such as title, age, sex, species, birthplace, and the father's name before their given name is stated at the end. Hence, the final name for both the author and recipient of the letter are their given names, which are just fine for my purposes.

These questions aside, I instead wanted to explore why mejkal were created. The author states that the early progenitors of kalashrum enchantment, the specific brand of enchantment that utilizes the bones of the dead in Kali culture, discovered the means to create mejkal in an effort to bring back their deceased great minds and warriors in new forms. From what my friend was able to tell me, this is accurate, and it was devastating to early priests that the process did not in fact do such a thing, instead creating a being that might have perhaps shared skills or personality traits with the target individual, but was an entirely new consciousness all its own. This unfortunately led to the practice of training them for use in the Fourth Serpent War, where they were essentially sacrificed to the cruelty of the Coztlitl Empire's forces in lieu of dragonborn and kobold soldiers. This obviously did not sit well with them, and we see the result in Mektara and Medana today.

As for the figure described in the account, it is interesting to note that this one is once again associated with light and warmth, even more so than the first account since the author clearly witnessed searing rays of light. Unfortunately, I cannot check the physical description against my first account because there are few details beyond a silhouetted humanoid figure. Notably, the creature is humanoid in a manner that reminded Meneshkiss of one of their enemies. Many coztlitl yuan-ti share humanoid forms with creatures like humans, since they were originally elves, so it is odd that a creature that might be an extension of a dragon god of light would take a form unlike that of his worshippers or a dragon at all. When I asked my friend about whether he thought this was really an avatar of Rylissan's power, he quite vehemently denied that the god would appear in any such fashion, for he was known for being a bit vain in his image as a godly dragon and seldom took any form other than his true form. There wasn't even mention of wings or a tail, though it is entirely possible that the author simply neglected to include those details if they were present.

Finally, most interesting to me is the similar wording between the being in this account and the one from Chapoli's. In both tales, the figure was encouraging these warforged to take their lives into their own hands, even if this tale's figure is less a mentor and guide than a vengeful protector. Perhaps, if these figures are one and the same, he adjusted his methods to fit the particular situation. Chapoli's danger had mostly passed when the stranger he met eliminated the threat, and then it was just a matter of guiding him to his new home. However, these soldiers were under direct threat of destruction and might not have heeded the warnings of a seemingly coztlitl sorcerer who had just killed their officers, so it was framed as a divine act. If these scenarios can be attributed to the same being, it does bring to mind the question of what kind of creature could possibly have the power to do what this one did and what their motives might be. To that, I don't have an answer yet, but I will. If I'm not wrong about all of this, of course. For the sake of my reputation, let's hope I'm not.

I'm headed to Yancua next to see if there are any older stories from mektli on the other side of the conflict, and from there I'll be heading into the heart of the Coztlitl Empire itself. Here's hoping my half-elven blood doesn't get me in huge trouble in either place. It might be a good idea to hide my ears either way and hope no one notices. I guess if you're reading this and there aren't any entries after, then my head's probably on a stake in Coztlac or Yancua.