From the Ashes We Rise

“There weren't always dragons in the Valley,” pop-pop Mwatinga would remind Suhali. He never liked when she would stare in disdain as the poor creatures passed their house on the way to school. Now in adulthood, Suhali worked for the Dragon Acceptance and Integration Council. This was a far cry from the prejudices her father had raised her with.

Pop-pop Mwatinga never understood how Ishtuhali had strayed so far from him. After all, Mwatinga was the one that had fought the dragons during the Tuajindara War. Xintzalraetoa had been a peaceful place for the Ungüwati since they had escaped the Simians during the Great Awakening. The horses were the first to escape, as the Simians had experimented on them with their magic first. The price of domestication was high for all who the Simians had bent to their will.

The Masteeqoi felt the sting of betrayal strongest. They had been the Simians' loyal companions for thousands of years. In many ways, they were the first victims of domestication, after the Simians had domesticated themselves of course. They had transformed themselves into all manner of shapes and roles to suit the Simians. Many would be unrecognizable to their mighty ancestors, the Dinaerians. Long gone were the days when they competed with the Simians for food, the bond of the companions had reached the point of codependency long ago.

The giraffes never understood how the Simians could engineer their destruction. The hubris of the Simians had never plagued the Ungüwati. They had remained in the Valley during the Dying Times. It had been their peaceful refuge when the Simians decided they could not live with themselves and were bent on taking the rest of the world with them in their implosion.

The beginning of the end was slow at first. The Simians believing themselves greater than all other creatures warped their magical abilities to conquer the world. First, they came with their Alterians. They were fine, as their focus was to help the farmers and peasant folk. From them came the Abjurians. Again, they were no problem, as they used their spells to help all Simians in times of great misfortune. But then came the Enshantori with their wicked spells they deceived the Simian kings, queens, and holy folk alike.

They turned the men against the women and the children against their kin. They brought the greatest sins, always promising the powerful the ability to win. They used their powers to grow their towers of wealth, while the world suffered ill health. They conjured fantastical phantasms of glory and ideas of marking one’s place in history. But all they caused was misery.

As their power grew, they conjured wilder and wilder beasts of war. Until they brought their final sin upon this world.

First, they melded their Divonians, more commonly known as the Shadow Dancers of the Grand Inquisitor, with the Necromancers to create the Gygaxians. To the common folk, the Gygaxians were said to work for the Grand Invocator. But they still had their Shadow Dancer ways. Moving in many nations, they unseated kings and holy men alike. These unholy abominations scoured the world for the resources their masters desired.

That was until they unleashed that which they could not control.

The Mandiwadi were the first to raise their dragons. The first wyrm raised was the minor beast known as Muinaru. Then they raised his brother Muinotul, and stormed the lands of Ishtahino. All seemed well for a brief period after the Great War. But then the Mirousk reignited their rivalry with the Mandiwadi.

As each side took more and more land for their own, nations fell ever increasingly into their sphere. That was, until, the Mirousk unleashed the strongest dragon their Gygaxians could conjure from the earth. Many an Alterian and Abjurian warned the Mirousk against raising such a creature. They warned that there was a reason the world had banished the dragons to the depths of the earth. But Simians are inconsolable when drunk on power. And thus they plunged the world into destruction.

It took five thousand years for the world to recover from the Dying Times. By then the Simians had reverted to their old ways. They had beat the desire for world conquest out of themselves. That was when, as the world began to heal, the Great Awakening infected us all.

Masteeqoi were the ones to bring The Touch to the world. It was they who had watched the Simians use their magick for years. First, they brought it to the other domesticated creatures. Who then brought it to the rest of their kind. The Tuajindara, or as the Simians called them, the dragons, were the last to receive The Touch. The Simians were never good at speaking our names in our native tongue.

Some regarded the Apophiati giving The Touch to the Tuajindara as dangerous. That was until we learned their ways. After all, it was the Tuajindara that gave us the true history of our world.

We foolishly thought we were the first to see such destruction in the world. The Simians had taken great pains to chronicle the previous dying times caused by nature. But it was the Tuajindara that taught us that what we called The Great Dying was only the latest in a cycle. Over the course of our world's life the Simians had gained great power many times. And when they did, their inability to control themselves plunged the world into darkness. We weren’t the first, and likely not the last.

Thus was the beginning of the ninth age.

May the Kwalihiin’u and those like them remain blissful in their ignorance.

May Cephgnolonis return in our hour of need should the Simians rise again.

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