Iravi's Travelogue

This submission is the first of what will hopefully be a long series set in an original universe/cosmology/magic system. It will be told in the form of a rambling diary/travelogue written by the POV MC as he recalls the many journeys he's taken so far in his life.

The cultures and societies he visits range from nomadic, Paleolithic hunter/gatherers, to recently settled Neolithic farmers, to a handful of areas where written records, civilization, and metallurgy are just beginning to take root. It lines up, roughly, with 5000-4500 BCE in the real world. In this case, however, the people throughout the lands of Lussoria are trying to reconcile the march of budding civilization with the widespread magic powers some of them wield. I was tired of the stereotypical high Middle Ages fantasy settings, so I started at the beginning of written history instead.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

***

I write this document in the Ymdroki clans' script, as it can convey the most words in the best ways. Of course, I first learned the pictographic writing of my homeland in the valley of the Nekoar, but the complex and painted symbols would be tedious for a record such as this. I can only hope that this travelogue will aid my countrymen and any other soul that might find these dusty pages. Great and Terrible things have afflicted this world and its people, and the only way we mere mortals have to face down the monsters that threaten us is to learn as much as we can about them, as fast as we can.

This journey began in the valley of my birth, just outside the Empire's capital at Anghu. My bias should be obvious to my readers, but I genuinely believe that the great valleys of Anghoret are amongst the most beautiful places on Lussoria. The priests tell us — and the oracles before them — that a great battle between the gods took place all across Anghoret and the Choked Sea and that the aftermath of that battle is writ in the stones of our land. From the modest watchtower of my father's estate, I remember as a boy just barely being able to make out the sheer walls of the Nekoar valley to the far east and west. The mighty, silt-darkened river filled a quarter of the valley, wending between great blocks of cracked light gray and red stone.

"May the Ettuku guide your mission, and the Pashudia calm the hearts of all you meet. May the Yakshina withhold the storms' fury, and the Kwarzi make the roads pass easily beneath your feet," my mother intoned her prayers to the many gods, blessing me before I left the palace. Father stood behind her, his lined and tanned face stony and impassive as usual.

My oldest brother, of course, would inherit the estate, the palace, and the modest cotton farms surrounding it. He would ride the chariot in the service of the Emperor, glittering in gold and bronze. My sister and next brother served Anghoret as a priestess and scribe, respectively, and tradition dictated that I would attend the great Eldritch Academies to bring honor to my family as a trained Wizard. My youthful exuberance and propensity for distraction by Anghu's noble ladies had together compromised to disrupt my studies enough to relegate me to the ranks of a wandering Magus. In my dishonor, I was to be an itinerant scholar, leaving home and hearth to seek out greater knowledge — eldritch and mundane — to eventually bring home. Of course, most magi never returned, slain by beast or storm or jealous outsider, but those that did brought great renown to their families. Either way, I would no longer be a burden.

"May the Shedia and Akagi turn their eyes from your home and hearth," I responded, dipping my head to my mother. We shared a weak smile, knowing we would likely never see one another again. The meager guard force my father had managed to muster all nodded at me from beneath polished leather helmets, acknowledging the young nobleman before then. "Farewell, mother. Farewell, my father," I intoned, knowing that my father barely even saw me as his son. He was relatively short, like my mother, with silken black hair, a broad nose, and bronze skin darkened further by the relentless sun. I, Kiravi al-Kiral, was a head and a half taller than both of my parents, with skin more golden than dark bronze covering youthful and rippling muscle that had appeared at a young age and only grown over time. My similarly black hair was pulled back tight away from my face — made jagged by too many brawls in Anghu's beer-houses — and twisted in a braid and bun to keep it out of the way.

That was that, and I turned smartly and walked between the thick and sun-bleached mud-brick walls and out into the only semi-tamed wilderness. I had already decided to make the headwaters of the Nekoar, amongst the Kazmar Mountains, my first destination, and I turned north along the dusty track. The path cut its way through my Fathers scattered fields, which were themselves spread out wherever the ground was flat enough to support the wiry cotton bushes. The war amongst the gods the priests spoke of had shattered the entire world, it seemed, and jagged and sharp-edged cracks and gullies still crisscrossed even the relatively flat floors of the great valleys. Blocks of sandstone had been uplifted into random ridges and spurs, whereas others had tumbled and slumped into the ground. Tenacious scrub and short trees pried their roots into the uneven rock and clung to the sides and tops of the monolithic blocks; splashing green across the otherwise reddish-brown landscape

I spent half the day just making my way out of the cotton and sunflower fields surrounding Kiral, soaked in sweat beneath the blazing desert sun. I'd brought dried biltong and plenty of water in hollowed antelope bellies, but I still had to take a brief respite in the narrow band of shade on the northern edge of one of the vast blocks. The weight of my decisions and failures suddenly crashed down over me. I had barely even left what had once been the holdings of Anghu, and already I felt more alone and isolated than I ever had before. A rare wave of shame flooded over me and into my limbs already weighted by fatigue.

I leaned more and more on my partially bronze-shod staff as the afternoon only grew hotter and the land drier and more arid. Storms rolling off the distant Choked Sea rarely made it this far up the valley, and the small towns scattered throughout and between the larger cities relied on irrigated water. Despite the crude map I'd gotten from some of the family laborers, I was still surprised that I hadn't reached the nearby hamlet of Wakh. The blistering sun slipped below the jagged hills to the west, and I lit a fire with a few simple words of power and a twist of the wrist. The creosote limbs and juniper wood sprouted flames and crackled hungrily, driving off the beginnings of the cold desert night.

Nights in my homeland were always cold, and this one was no different. I shrugged off the burdensome thoughts that had been chasing me all day and curled up with my back to the fire and my soft camel hair blanket surrounding me. I'd make it to Wakh tomorrow, I thought to myself, and get a map to the next town, and the next, and then the next. How little I knew then, even though I surely thought I was the smartest of all my siblings.

***

I woke to the snuffling of a curious and juvenile coyote as it investigated my pack and me.

"Off with you, cretin," I grumbled at it, blinking away the last tendrils of sleep and sitting up just in time to see another young beast pulling a hunk of dried camel meat from my pack, "Akagi take you! Damned mongrels!" I growled, reaching for my staff and readying a spell with my free hand. I relented as the two beasts trotted away around the side of the great stone block I'd camped next to, letting the energy building through my body and around my hand dissipate into the dry air. It wasn't worth wasting my physical and Eldritch energy on the beasts, no matter how annoying.

"Here's to my new life," I grumbled, toasting myself with the alkali-tasting water in my rapidly emptying containers. Aggressively misplaced self-confidence and bullheadedness had landed me here, along with my habit of thinking with my cock first and my head second. I shook off the sudden shower of shame once more with practiced ease. After all, I'd had the misfortune to be born the third son of an already destitute family, and I'd managed to turn that into four years of wild excitement and debauchery in Anghu. I'd fled the consequences of my birth to have as much fun as I could, and now that a different set of consequences had caught up to me, I decided just to outrun them again and start another, even more hedonistic chapter of life

"Truly, I am the Shuhur's favored son," I chuckled to myself before muttering a prayer to the pantheon of gods that existed simply for their own self-gratification and nothing else.

For the rest of the morning, I kept following the so-called map until I finally spotted a few plumes of smoke next to a winding arroyo. Assuming it was Wakh, I made across the cracked flatlands with the aid of my staff, though I did slip more than once. I only hoped that none of the commoners saw my momentary unsteadiness.

Wakh was little more than two rows of bleached mud-brick buildings surrounded by an admittedly ingenious fence of cacti and thorny creosote bushes that must've been planted there before Jerra had even founded the Empire. Rows of sunflowers angled their broad heads to the afternoon sun, and cotton shrubs filled a field between the town and the arroyo.

"Who are you?!" Someone shouted from beyond the fence, their location betrayed by a speartip bobbing above the cacti.

"Kiravi al-Kiral, from the manor to your south! I am a traveler and ask for your hospitality!" I shouted back at what might pass as a guard.

"We know your name, Kiravi al-Kiral. You will be welcome, of course," a cleverly hidden door in the thorny fence swung open, and I eagerly trotted towards it. That damned coyote took more food than I thought he had, and I'd been overzealous drinking my water.

The guard was a teenage boy — human — barely old enough to sprout a few hairs on his upper lip, but I nodded at him in a friendly enough manner. It was quickly apparent, though, that it hadn't been him speaking. An older man wearing a minor village priest's trappings shuffled forward, an obsidian pendant around his thin neck.

As I would find, dear readers, throughout this long and arduous journey, nearly every people and every nation held hospitality sacred. A stranger seeking shelter or a meal would be granted it as a matter of course. The said traveler could be an emissary of peace or trade or even a god of the Annunaki in disguise. The people of Wakh, however, knew who I was.

"The Kwarzi have not made the road as easy as I would've hoped," I smiled at the cleric.

"The Kwarzi are possessing of a malicious sense of humor as of late," the priest said, his sun-beaten features wrinkling even further as he spoke. "Please, break bread with us. We were about to begin preparing the evening meal. It is fortunate that you have arrived when you have, young lord." The young guard resumed his patrol, and the priest led me into a slightly larger building with a curious smile on his face. What was the old man grinning at, I wondered? The only fortune I could think of was the fact I'd soon have a cold swig of water and a warm meal to stick to my ribs.

My traveling gear and vestments were taken from me and stored carefully in the largest building's entryway. A young human girl provided a clay basin of refreshingly chilled water to splash against my face and scrub the grit from my eyes and calloused hands, and another pried the worn camel leather sandals from my feet and wiped them with a damp cotton rag.

Other adults filtered into the longhouse soon after the priest led me inside, leaving the trappings of a day's hard work beside my belongings and greeting me warmly as if I were another denizen of the dusty hamlet. They knew my family there, not least of which because, if war and a levy came to the valley, their Headman would raise his banner beside my father's when reporting to the Emperor. Just over half were humans, their features and stature nearly the same as my parents, though more stooped and lined by hard living. The rest had some amount of Bhakhuri blood in their veins.

Before King Jerra had United the valleys into the Empire, Bhakhuri were outcasts and outsiders, urchins that lived in the great valleys' worst wastelands and marshes. But they'd flocked to their King's banner and fought just as brutally in the unification, and now the Bhakhuri were equal before the laws of the land. They were the hybrid offspring of mortals and the evil, otherworldly Huri that occasionally slipped through the Barrier separating our world and theirs. Like the rest of their brethren across the Empire, these looked like Men at first glance, but closer inspection always betrayed random strange and alien features. A male grinned at me, nodded, his eyes too broad and too large in a narrow face. A female intoned a greeting and bowed her head slightly, skin tinged a bluish-gray shade, and her ears elongated and pointed slightly beneath her black hair.

I returned all the greetings and well wishes, thanked the girls who bathed the road's stain from me, and sat at one end of the long table. The Headman finally swept into the longhouse, sitting across from me with the venerable priest at his side. He was old enough to have ridden alongside Jerra himself, but the leather jerkin he wore was still well kept, and the rows of precious stones were still polished and glimmering. They treated me soon after to a filling if bland meal of fried dough and roasted sunflower seeds, and more than a few thick and unfiltered beers.

The evening wore on, and the beer kept replenishing itself in front of me. As my vision faded and blurred with each thick mug, my perception of the boisterous people of Wakh, who had taken me in and fed me lavishly, grew sharper. They weren't ill-fed or sickly looking, but they certainly looked like people that had spent their whole lives scraping through meager and sun-beaten fields or chasing unruly vicunas through the rocks. They wore their finery to honor their guest, not knowing that I was a failure cast out of his manor and cut loose from wealth and any privileges other than the use of my noble name. The men wore armor they'd been given during their service to the Emperor, the leather or hide freshly brushed and oiled. Spears, their precious bronze heads polished and gleaming in the lamplight, leaned against the mud-brick walls behind every male. The women wore spun cotton dresses, decorated with red patterns dyed from the local soil and intricate beadwork that caught the firelight. The children crammed themselves against the walls and tried their best not to interrupt the adults with their laughter, but there were the occasional surprised or delighted squeals. Somewhere between the two groups in the shadowed corner of the longhouse, I saw a figure keeping their head down and masked further by a loosely wrapped headscarf. A few strands of jet black hair spilled out from underneath the scarf, but that was all I could see of them.

I stifled a yawn, exhausted by the sun and a day of hard travel, but felt a sudden pang of guilt. They knew I was their noble's son and a sacred guest, and they would go on lavishing me with attention until the moment I declined it. I cleared my throat and rose unsteadily to my feet while raising the simple mug of beer. Summoning the best version of propriety and nobility I remembered from such moments watching my father, I started my rambling speech. My words were stilted and unfamiliar in my mouth but lubricated by drink, "I arrived here unannounced, my Headman, and asked for your hospitality. It was given, and I feel truly welcomed and well-rested. May the Kwarzi tend the fields alongside you, and the Pashudia and Ettuku make your homes and hearths strong." I smiled at the bejeweled man at the other end of the long table.

He stood and raised his cup, "Thank you for your kind words, Kiravi al-Kiral. It is our duty, that we gladly perform, to care for travelers and our lords. You gladden us with your presence. Come, my lord, your day has been long. You will share my hearth. Your pack will be replenished, and your waterskins filled to bursting."

I sensed the opportunity to lighten the serious mood and took it, as I always did in my youth, "And, I hope my Headman, a map to Atala?" The room erupted in a chorus of laughter, and the aging warrior graced me with a smirk that split his deeply lined face.

"Of course, my lord," the Headman laughed before walking to the low door of the longhouse and waiting for me. I hustled after him, only a little unsteady from the beer. Arm in arm, we walked from the great communal room to the town's next largest house.

Now, remember dear reader, back then, many would consider me a witless and failed noble, a drunken lout and lech with overabundant muscles and absent common sense. But I had my talents. I'd spent plenty of nights in the wrong parts of Anghu with only scraps of my sobriety and made it out alive, and I heard and glimpsed the hooded figure slip out of the longhouse and follow us into the chill night.

"I would not dare to think to impose a request on you, Kiravi al-Kiral," the Headman said after holding in a long breath.

"But you have a favor to ask of me? Or my father, perhaps?" I responded smoothly.

The Headman, so stoic all evening, seemed wrong-footed for only a moment. "I believe, earnestly, that it will not be much of an imposition for you, my lord. I have a daughter, and she is overdue to be married. Just last week, though there was a sign from the gods, a happening," his voice hitched for a moment. "My daughter was struck by an affliction. The priest could not cure her and has no idea what the affliction could mean. He is old but still wields the gods' power well, and I fear she needs more help than we can provide. She must be seen by the priests at the Pashudia temple in Atala. I pray, my lord, that you might be able to escort her to the city?"

Then, we were standing in front of the Headman's house, and I turned slightly to wave at the deeper shadows where the hooded figure had stopped a few paces behind us. "I take it that this is her?"

There was a faint gasp from beneath the hood, and the Headman beckoned his daughter forward, "Yes, my lord. Show him the mark, my child."

She shuffled forward, small hands fussing around the edge of the scarf before she finally pulled it away. She tried to keep her eyes cast downwards, but her father cupped his lined hand under her chin. All the peoples of Anghoret had eyes ranging from dark brown to hazel, but this girl's eyes were a blazing golden-yellow and completely without iris or pupils. Her plaintive face turned up towards me, and those two faintly glowing orbs stared right into me. So then she wasn't blind, I thought to myself. If I'm honest with you, my dear readers, I was almost instantly taken aback by her beauty. The gods could be so cruel and unknowable, I thought then, and I would only come to believe so much more over time.

Her father introduced her, as was tradition, as Serina, and she smiled weakly at me. She had a small, slightly upturned nose and a cute little mouth that nonetheless had full and plump lips. Her cheekbones were high — like nearly all Anghoreti humans — and her skin was tanned brown with the slightest coppery tones. I couldn't see her body beneath the heavy cotton cloak she wore to hide her shame, but I supposed that I would see it soon enough if I agreed to her father's request. She was at least three, maybe four hands shorter than me, though that was only slightly shorter than average.