"Moldath II", Part 1, Turn 63
The Tale of Kajeth of Distinctclashed
Kajeth Fatecrypyts was a simple man, of simple means. He was born of the Mong Uthros, the Nations of Honoring and had lived in Distinctclashed all his short life. The lands of Mong Uthros bled into the forests of the Ribiromini and washed against the coasts of the northern ocean. His clothes were stitched from the hides of sharks and the beasts that were hunted on the coast.
He had few possessions, but what he did have was the pitted bronze sword of his late uncle, and an unshakeable belief in Ala, the God of Balance, the God of Blight, the God of Death.
Kajeth knew little of other faiths but he knew that within the Mong Uthros things were a little different. In other cultures, the guardians of the God-given truths threw up great towers and tombs and sequestered away from the people, like shepherd and their sheep. Ala was not like this – Death and Balance come to all kin alike, and when Frothbone was granted to the venerated Lady Kasat Boltscuffles nearly eight centuries ago, it was in the town of Drillshrine, to the west, where the government still sits.
While Kasat also founded a tower of her own, Mysterydressed, it was small and meek and the holy slab was not hidden away in some tower, but among the people. Kasat herself was killed in scuffles with the elves, and the slab was kept by the people as a symbol of Ala.
This all changed of course with the rise of the damned Scholarly Manors. Oddom Girdergrove and her lackeys sent spies and thieves across the land, hoarding artefacts such as our sacred Frothbone and for a while it was lost. The necromancers and their creed stored the slab in Tunneledaction and it was sought from afar by Kajeth’s sect, the Coven of Frothing.
Many years before Kajeth was born, a stranger passed through these parts and changed the path of the Coven of Frothing forever. Frothbone was stolen from Tunneledaction, not by some religious crusade or act of war, but by a lion tamarin man, by the name of Raki Umberclan. Thereafter it was seemingly lost and the Nations of Honoring were subject to a new threat... each moon that rose was met with the howling and gibbering of monstrous mammoth-beasts.
To some these were far-fetched tales, but to Kajeth they were a daily reminder of what had been lost. Ala had forsaken them and left them with this curse. His grandparents, Jathbe and Lide, had fallen victim to the monkey’s bite, and on the eve of each full moon it was Kajeth’s grim task to bind them with chains of silver, iron and copper, and barricade them in their stout hut.
But his faith, like a shield, had remained undented. He knew one day a hero would reclaim Frothbone and restore it to the Coven of Frothing, and through the will of Ala, cure the weremammoth curse and drive it from Mong Uthros. And, quietly, Kajeth hoped that hero would be him.
He was of slight build with long lank hair. He was not a strong warrior but he was equipped with a bulwark of faith that would surely see him through any obstacle. He wrote letters weekly to the Holy Raunch of the Coven of Frothing, Lubbe Cleardrank, in Releaseteachers where the Coven had their temple, beseeching them for help to launch a crusade to reclaim Frothbone. He told Lubbe that he knew where to begin. The place the locals called Monkeycurse, said to be the camp where Raki Umberclan sacrificed himself in an unholy ritual, fifty years ago.
And one day, he was sure, Lubbe had answered his letters and his prayers. The day he met Rirdest Blackvaults the Scholar of Froth – the prophet of Ala!
Kajeth had never seen a dwarf before. It was short, like the elves who had sometimes settled in Mong Uthros, but far stockier. This one in particular was wrapped in ragged cloths, and leant on a copper bow like a strange walking stick. But what Kajeth found most strange was that this particular dwarf was enveloped by a cloud of miasma, which seeped from many open wounds in its pale, scarred body. The dwarf’s eye-sockets were empty and black and yet it stood before him, seeing him somehow. How, Kajeth thought, could this dwarf be anything other than the avatar of blight, the prophet of Ala?
Rirdest filled Kajeth’s mind with great truths, secrets and prophecies, and told him he too was touched by Ala, and bestowed upon him the name Kajeth Fatecrypts the Unholy Balance of Froth. He would, Rirdest proclaimed, be a prophet of Ala too; the avatar of balance. But first, Rirdest had a mission for him. Something important, and something that would prove his worthiness of Ala. Drunk with religious fervour, Kajeth prostated himself before the dwarf and agreed to follow him, to the ends of Orid Xem if need be.
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Topic: Museum III, adventure succession game (DF 0.47.05) (Read 409612 times)