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Journal Entry 141

13th of Snowbird, 1798 S.C.

Tlulanxu


It has been three weeks since I crossed the snow-dusted border back into Dunarra, and about two since arriving back in Tlulanxu. And once here, I learned the deep truth of the axiom often used by the Keepers of the Ar: “You never put your foot in the same river twice. That is because the river is always changing. As are you.”

As best as I can tell, nothing has changed in this city or the nation around it. Everything looks and sounds the same. In part, I have always appreciated Tlulanxu because of how safe it felt. Even the S’Dyxan raid didn’t change that. But now it feels too safe.

I have looked at that last sentence for a full minute, trying to determine why it feels incorrect. It isn’t untrue. It isn’t even inaccurate. But it is lacking. It is not the degree of safety here that feels excessive; it is the sense that while many Dunarrans are well trained for many emergencies, they rarely experience any of them. And so, I am no longer like them in that regard.

It is even true of the Legions. It has been centuries since a true Dunarran army has marched into battle against a foe which has any hope of defeating it. So our foes no longer try. As a result, not even half of all Legiors see combat, even in small border incidents.

So now, when I pass Legiors in the street—their faces serious, competent, alert—I cannot help wondering, but have you ever been so far beyond the boundaries of human society that you have no idea how best to stay alive just one more day? Or if it is even possible? Because I have. And in ways I do not yet fully realize, that has changed me.

What has not changed are the habits I picked up during my years at the Archive. Such as: when confronted by a problem, seek the wisdom recorded by others who confronted it before you. And so I have come full circle, back to the Archive and Shaananca.

She was glad (although unusually unsurprised) to see me, and without so much as a frown or a tsk, she escorted me down to the very place I had spent a decade trying to enter: the Reserved Collection. Now, she simply smiles, waves a hand at the many strange shelves and glass-protected cases, and leaves me to my researches. Unattended.

As I said, it is the same Tlulanxu, and yet, it is entirely different.

The sources on urzhen were greatly varied in both style and substance. However, what the collection lacked in cohesiveness it amply made up for in diversity, ranging from dry, learned (and often unintentionally amusing) tracts by scholars to utterly accessible (but likely exaggerated) firsthand accounts. A small number of the writers combined both insight and readability in tolerable measure. The best was a campaigner whose career included both service beneath national banners and in the company of free-spirited bountiers. He was also a keen observer of the urzhen traits that seem to predispose them to become the scourges they have been to what he calls “the civilized lands”:


Unfortunately, the patience required for farming is neither native nor congenial to the Bent. Most of them are not even particularly good hunters, just as few of them are good archers. Their impulses lead them into lives of scavenging and marauding, no matter the community in which they are raised. Rather than track difficult prey or snare small game, they invariably prefer the larcenous titillations of stealing kills and raiding other sapient creatures for what they possess.

However, if they are not careful—and as a rule, they are not—many, if not most, of these raids become deadly debacles. Lacking the organization and discipline to pillage with anything like speed or efficiency, the Bent are frequently overtaken by human riders, who harry and delay them until overwhelming force can be brought to bear. It is not uncommon for every last one of the Bent to be slain.

However, every decade or so, one or more great orc leaders can bring together the fragmented tribes by appealing to the one thing they all have in common: seething hatred (and envy!) of the prosperous humans who have dealt them so many defeats. Using this sentiment as a rallying cry, those leaders can whip the ranks of the Bent into a frenzied wave of slavering marauders who are also very hungry. This is due to the periodic surge in numbers that also seems to quicken an instinctual drive to go a-hordeing. Or as countryfolk whisper (while making warding signs), it causes them to burst forth in a massive “Pekt-tide.”

This wave of urzhen is the bane of frontier existence. They emerge from their mountain warrens like a raging flood that swallows up everything in its path. Until, that is, that tumultuous flume of bestial humanoids runs into a truly fortified position. The patience required to mount an effective siege, along with the ever-mounting threat of retaliation by organized human troops (whose cavalry strikes terror into them) typically undermines whatever modest coherence the host possessed.

And so the Horde is eventually reduced to ever-smaller bands that eventually drift back up into the hills from whence they came. Indeed, their cowardice is so complete that the fast-moving warriors often abandon the dependents who traveled with them (since any who remain behind in their warrens may starve before the raiders return). Consequently, the females and young who were the Horde’s scouts, throat slitters, porters, etc., are found by the pursuing humans, who are obliged to stop long enough to dispatch these troublesome vermin and burn them en masse. A most annoying interruption of their avenging pursuit of the remains of the Horde!!!


As were many of his contemporaries, this chronicler saw the Bent as little more than animals and evinced excessive excitability in both his diction and punctuation (!!!).

However, out of all the treatises and accounts I have read, only a handful have ever mentioned the perplexing speed with which the Bent reproduce. Considerations of how that phenomenon occurs are rarely touched upon. Most dismiss the quandary the same way the bountiers did: they presume it is effected by whatever deities the Bent might worship. A few do admit it is a puzzlement, but only one went so far as to attempt to discover its cause. Indeed, his last entry declared his determination to solve the mystery or die trying. As that was the very last page in the very last of his journals, it seems that—sadly—he was as good as his word.

Which means that after more than a millennium of accumulated accounts, two critical questions remain unanswered: By what miracle of reproduction do the Bent recover from near decimation every ten years to flood forth in yet another Horde? And, if it is not the work of the gods, then from whence comes all the food that fuels and sustains such growth?

I had hoped that the Reserved Collection would hold some useful clues or insights. Of clues there were none, and of insights, only one that was useful: that we do not know enough about the lives of the Bent to even hazard a reasonable guess. Leaving me with but one option: to seek the answer myself.

I once again hear Darauf’s voice wondering if I am brave, mad, or desperate. I know I am not brave, for I am no stranger to terror. And my desperation to join the ranks of the Legions, while no less powerful, has become less urgent; if it takes longer than I hoped, so be it. Lastly, insofar as madness is concerned, more than a few have wondered that, and I sometimes wonder if they are right. But when all those explanations for my commitment to this investigation are put aside, the real reason I want to answer the mystery of the Bent becomes clear:

Insatiable curiosity. If the sudden surge that leads to a hordeing is the act of gods, I wish to know, because then we are indeed little more than their playthings. And if it is not, then what strange and undiscovered truth has shaped their existence for these many centuries, hidden in their dark and distant warrens?

It seems as if fate is trying to smooth my start upon that journey of discovery. I have now accumulated a full year of leave from my duties. Also, upon my return, I was specially commended for my attempts to recover all of Garasan’s effects and reports and, as a reward, have been given permission to travel as I wish during my leave. Lastly, while I am hardly wealthy, my accrued stipend will allow me to fulfill any needs that my Legion-assigned equipage does not address.

Now, if only I can locate the fellow who both Darauf and Fronbec mentioned. His last known whereabouts are in the free city of Menara, not far over the border from Aedmurun. I do not know if I possess enough coin to pique his interest, but no other course of action presents itself.

However, finding him may prove easier said than done. He is just one more itinerant sell-sword of questionable reputation in a free city notorious for its black market, double-dealing underworld, and constant churn of persons from the furthest corners of Arrdanc. And my only lead is a name, which I must hope is uncommon enough to be distinctive on those unpredictable streets:

Ahearn.


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