CHRONICLE 5

An emperor is always a crowned fool in this land. This is no different in the case of Norum Veltermeist.

 Veltermeist alone has seen the glory of his vintage empire melted down to red pools of bubbling humiliation. If an emperor is meant to serve his people then why are his offerings so vile? His lady has done more good, and she is practically a mute.

 I wander the aching streets of Omolah and feel the revolution. The cracks are overflowing with the stuff, and he doesn't even realise. He is too busy making deals with deities and other sky-borne fiends. Veltermeist's sheer vanity shields his eyes with its rosy tints and abrasive peripherals.
 
I feel great pity for this city. As I beg on the street, homeless, I realise the people are just as powerless and uncertain as I am. What will become of this land that even the beggar pities?

CHRONICLE 4

I have left my past behind for good, the footprints have faded in the sands of change.
Fortunately a Dusk Wagon strayed into Keille and its driver agreed to take me as an extra passenger. The driver is an unsettling man with white hair and a fiercely serious face, but I am desperate.

He tells me of truly wicked days ahead, the crash of The Worldly Chronicle and the mania that lies in waiting. I listen intently and wonder if the old man realises how true his predictions are. If he knew what I intended to do, he'd shrivel up and call on whichever god he believed to be watching.

 Currently I sit by dying candlelight at the back of his rickety wagon. The shade-cloth he has pilfered feels oddly cold to the touch, and empty like an echo. I wonder where he found them.

 I will leave him at the White Divide and make my own way. The winged ones will be waiting.

CHRONICLE 3

Keille is a wasteland. It wasn't before.

It was my proud home, my heritage. I do not recognise this empty relic of great desolation. This isn't my home anymore.

Seeing it's broken housing fractures my ailing heart, but I must reside here for a while longer. They will not think to look here, not with their knowledge.

They know of my humiliation and how it started here. They know about Daiming and her golden tears and the mistake I made. I fled, I fled to never return. But circumstances have changed and I have returned. I'm ahead of them at their own game.

My hands are hurried by oncoming sandstorms. They are much fiercer now, wrathful. I must shield my eyes. I must weep the sand and rubble from them. I must weep.

CHRONICLE 2

I recall far simpler days. For many years I was a Whisper-Smith, fashioning and creating delicate sounds. I was unmarried but not alone, surrounded by my beautiful pets. I was so happy and so complete.

Then the worlds collided, a quake erupted and my spirit was torn asunder.

Now the vultures, among other creatures of foul fortune and survival, pursue me. The nomads of Below and Beneath have ousted me from the Undercity and driven me to the unforgiving surface. The winged ones can't be far behind.

I will run to the land of my fathers and seek out the last remnant of my once mighty brethren. There, only good thoughts and wisdom wait in the brimming corners. I will run to Keille. I will run all the way home.

CHRONICLE 1

The winged ones are after me again. They know I hold a secret and they want it. They want to take it and upload into their precious system. They call it "The Worldly Chronicle"; it asserts and qualifies their voracious appetite for supreme knowledge. I call it perpetual eavesdropping.

 I wish to break their Chronicle of accumulated data with the force my own. I will keep my secret safe whilst exposing their's.

 They must already know. They assail me with their Furyfeather swarms far more than the average peasant. But I run. I ran from the blackened hills to the forgotten catacombs of the Undercity. Soon I will run again.

 But here I am, writing by the thin few beams of daylight that sliver through the cracks; clutching my secret with weathered hands. The winged ones shall not find me so long as I remain lost.