Captain Aurelius: Part 1

"Dear readers, I am a historian and a scholar. The past is my business, and as such I have spent my life, since my commission as a scholar of the state, in the study of forgotten civilizations. This manuscript proved uniquely interesting to me and my colleagues for that reason.

The background on this topic is extensive, and filled with complicated historical figures and events. This is believed to have been written within the five years that preceded the Fracture War, and is no doubt a product of it’s time. Growing unrest throughout the Empire, and war-weariness amongst the weathered and tiring soldiers, was crippling the actions of the expeditionary divisions on the southern continent. It is commonly held that the Emperor at the time, Kentol Bo, drove the Northern kings to revolt, through his continued directing of resources and manpower to the seemingly hopeless campaigns in the desert, and the sinking and disappearing settlements of the cold western marshes.

There is no way to truly verify this document, and as to its authenticity, we cannot be sure. It is the commonly held belief of my colleagues that, despite some personal bent, this document is accurate. It was found, amongst various other debris, on the southern coast of the desert continent. A fact most peculiar.

No further will I digress. This document must explain itself, and does a fair job at doing so. So, with no more delay, at this time, nearly two years after its initial discovery, I present this newly acquired and printed manuscript. This may be the only written word documenting the civilizations of the desert continent to our south, and the single expository writing on the nature of it’s people.

I take immense pride to present to my readers, the manuscript of Captain Chal Meira Aurelius"

To Whom it may concern,

It is now, only after all seems lost and eternity hangs before my eyes on a thirsty thread, that I attempt to write my story. I only hope that my ink does not run dry, nor my breath halt in this insufferable and salty heat, before the entirety of our experiences over the past weeks may be recounted in whole. I have little hope that I will be found before I pass, as all the others have before. I am becoming delirious, and I only hope that what I have seen be recounted on the page, so that others may one day know what we were truly doing in this evil path.

My name is Chal Meira Aurelius, captain of the sixty-third expeditionary brigade of Bo. My men have all died, knowing more about the truths in this world than any emperor or priest has known. Their lives have been lost in vain, and it is only now that I accept my fate as the same. Welcome sweet abyss, and swallow; I hope no more.

This is my Record of the desert campaign of the Sixty-Third:

I stood with my men amongst the sands. We were trained and equipped for missions, and felt we were ready to best this desert. Our ship had landed in the port of Tarcius only hours before, but we were anxious to move. Supplies were limited, and we had an endless desert to traverse.

My orders were the same as those of every captain sent south before me. To find the remains of a powerful and rich civilization, described only in legend and ancient, untrustworthy, texts. When the campaigns had begun, the Empire had not expected the native resistance. The desert seemed to swallow division after division of trained men before the commanders realized that there was an enemy in the sands. Only crazed and dride-up survivors ever returned, telling stories about ghosts in the sand that ripped through their armor like paper and tore men completely asunder. Ravings of mad men.

Standing beneath the hot sun, I understood how one could suffer such severe heat stroke as to believe in ghosts, although the word ‘asunder’ kept jumping back to me. Everyone kept saying it, with a strange fearful reverence. I knew there was something to it from the beginning. The desert was treacherous, but I was certain that we could traverse the sands, but we were not there to wander the desert, as the countless others before us had. We were there to pierce it. We were going across. We were the elected elite.

My division knew the plans, and we had all prepared ourselves to do what was necessary in order to cross the hostile dunes. We were packed and ready to march. There had to be an end to the desert, and we were going to find it. Sand ghosts or not.

Sand ghosts. . . It sounds so naive now. . .