A week had passed since the refugees had arrived. Though their presence strained our resources, we ensured they were not abandoned. The caves, already tight and crowded, now bustled with the sounds of nearly fifty more tari moving, working, and adjusting to their new lives.

Some had proven themselves skilled gatherers, venturing into the wastes with hunting parties in search of edible roots and insects. Others had taken to the mushroom farms, carefully tending to the delicate fungi. But there was another benefit to their arrival, that brought me excitement: news from Raam.

Few among the tari of Okarath had left the mountains since the civil war began. Now, with these refugees, I had first-hand accounts of the horrors that had befallen Raam. It was during one of these quiet evenings, as Kino and I sat listening to a group of refugees swapping stories, that I began to understand just how deeply the city had unraveled.

The Death of Kindar

It started with Kindar, a leader of the Veiled Alliance. Some among the tari knew his name, though none had ever seen him in person. A former preserver, he had tried to forge a future in the chaos after Abalach-Re’s fall.

“Stupid piece of kank dung thought he could sit on a throne,” spat an older tari named Kue’er, his fur speckled with gray. “But he forgot that Raam eats people like him everyday.”

According to the refugees, Kindar had brokered an ambitious agreement: a coalition between the Veiled Alliance, several merchant houses, and a group of nawab families. Together, they sought to impose order on the city. They even promised wages for the slaves, a proposal that had enraged many among the noble class.

“Tossing scraps of silver to the slaves who built their damn marble towers,” Kue’er sneered. “The other nawabs, the ones left out in the cold, called it robbery.”

The result was predictable. Less than three weeks after the agreement was made, Kindar was ambushed by a band of mansabdars. His body, headless and mutilated, was hung from the Circle Market, a warning to anyone who thought the city was up for grabs.

“They left him there for weeks,” added another tari, a younger female named Krikhi. “The flies feasted better than the people.”

The Rise and Fall of King Radrick

But the chaos did not end there. It never did.

A former templar, his name Radrick, declared himself King of Raam, claiming to be the rightful ruler. His first decree was to revive Kindar’s failed agreement, though with a few crucial changes: he attempted to expel House M’ke from the city and gave immunity to several former templars.

At this, Kino barked out a laugh.

“The man must have been sun-mad,” Kino said, shaking his head. “Trying to push M’ke out of Raam? That’s like telling the wind to stop blowing.”

Radrick had seized the Temple District as his power base, but his reign was short-lived. Within six months, his supporters had dwindled, his mansabdars were bribed away, and the few remaining troops under his banner were routed. In the end, King Radrick himself attempted to escape into the sewers beneath Raam, still wearing his golden crown.

“That’s the best part,” Krikhi cackled, her tail flicking excitedly. “They found him waist-deep in filth, his royal robes soaked in sewer muck.”

The tari burst into laughter at the image of the so-called King crawling through Raam’s waste. But what followed next intrigued me.

“And the crown?” I asked.

Kue’er’s grin widened.

“Gone,” he said simply. “Rumor is, one of our own got it. A pack leader, still in the city.”

I glanced at Kino, who raised a brow in curiosity. If true, it meant that somewhere in Raam, a tari now held the symbol of the city’s broken monarchy. A small thing, perhaps, but it made me wonder what stories the tari in Raam were now telling themselves.

The Empty Thrones

Radrick’s humiliating downfall should have put an end to the farce of rulership in Raam. But power is like a rotting carcass in the desert - it will always draw scavengers.

“After King Radrick came the Emperor,” Kue’er continued, “or maybe two of them. No one’s sure, not that it mattered much.”

The details were murky. Some of the refugees claimed a templar turned psion had declared himself Emperor of Raam, while others said two different warlords had taken the title simultaneously. Regardless, none of them lasted long.

“Empty titles for empty men,” Krikhi said bitterly. “They had nothing but hot air and bodies piling up.”

In a desperate attempt to restore order, certain factions had turned back to the Badna temples, hoping that a return to faith might calm the madness. But if there had been any lingering belief in an old false idol; the civil war had burned it away.

“The temples were reopened, but no one came, except a few tari,” Krikhi murmured. “this was our biggest mistake, the people of Raam began to point at us.”

The tari sat in silence for a moment, contemplating the collapse of a city that, even at its worst, had once been theirs to suffer. Now, Raam seemed less like a kingdom without a ruler and more like a graveyard with too many ghosts.

The final blow was famine.

With war came food shortages. What little trade still reached the city was seized by the strongest warlords. Grain stores were burned in raids. People began starving in the streets, and soon after, the disease came. They called it ‘the wind sickness’.

“No one knows where it started,” Krikhi whispered. “Maybe it was the water. Maybe the bodies piled in the alleys. But it spread fast like wind.”

Fever, weakness, sores appearing across the body. Those afflicted were dead within days. Fear turned to madness. The city sought someone to blame, and once the Air clerics had been quickly slaughtered, the mobs turned on the tari.

“They said our fur carried the disease,” Krikhi said. “That it clung to us, and was spread by us.” Her voice held no bitterness, only exhaustion.

“We ran,” she said. “Even Ghost City closed its gates. There was no safety anywhere.”

And so they fled to Okarath.