I send these last messages in the name of the Athasian Survey Project. All will be explained soon…

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The image I am sending you is just outside the entrance of the City of a Thousand Dead. Apparently there was no direct way of entering the city on the surface. Instead, I was led down into a subterranean entrance some distance from the outside walls. We passed through winding tunnels underneath the city, each featuring several kill-zones and checkpoints. It was very clear the city was designed to withstand sieges and assaults the scope of which I could not even comprehend, and I couldn’t help but wonder what could possibly wage regular war on a city of tens of thousands of the most powerful dead on Athas.

As I was escorted through the city, I was struck by how ordinary the lives of these tens of thousands of inhabitants seemed. I had assumed all the undead here were ravenous monsters, but what I saw was a veritable civilization of the dead. They seemed to go about their days in routines not unlike those of any living creature in the city-states of the Tablelands. They worked, conversed, and argued like I would have expected the living to do. That’s not to say there weren’t obvious differences – almost no one seemed to eat or drink anything.

We made our way to the northern side of the city. As we worked our way further north, the area looked more and more neglected, with ruined and abandoned-looking buildings throughout. On a few of the buildings there seemed to be scratch marks and pincer marks from some sort of large beasts. What kind of creatures could strike so deeply into such a well-fortified city?

We went inside a large round building. Inside, I could see something that resembled the plinth I had seen in my previous vision, only there was another empty space upon it next to the Heart. Surrounding the altar were a series of figures in ancient tattered robes standing as still as statues. The last of these was a tall, bony being that looked to be made of black porcelain. Niraan… or as I now know from seeing his visions… Negchar, the prodigal wizard of the Navel, the research group that Rajaat had established on the smoking ruins of Nagarvos’ psionic temple after razing the city.

My body was compelled to place the Crystals on one of the carved obsidian sconces. When I set them down, I noticed something was wrong. It seemed the overcharged magic within the Crystals had been sustaining my detached soul. My awareness of my surroundings was slowly fading, and I was beginning to feel the loss of my tether to the material world. It felt like the Gray was calling to me, like there was nothing left to anchor me to the world. Without focusing my will and training on keeping my essence where I was, it seemed like I would simply drift off into death.

“What are you going to do?” I asked Negchar in my mind.

I could feel a sound like laughter. “There is nothing you can do to stop me, so…there is no harm in telling you…

“Rather than using all this power we have amassed for our gain at the world’s further expense, let us reverse the course. By channelling the Heart through the Crystals, I can use the latent power of the Dead Lands and the Gate itself to shift the planet’s entire weather system and climate back to that of the early Green Age.”

I could feel myself losing grip on the body I was inhabiting. “Negchar, this has already been tried. Rajaat himself tried a climate changing spell at Ur Draxa only a few years ago. He failed. This was why we now have the Cerulean Storm.”

“Pah! What do you know of sorcery? You are only a psionics teacher who has yet to live a single lifetime!”

My sight was failing. “Please, Negchar. If even Rajaat himself could not restore the planet with one ultimate psionic enchantment, perhaps a single spell will never be enough on its own to effectively heal the world.”

I could not hear his response. All I saw was the endless nothingness of the Gray. Then I heard a familiar voice calling out to me.

At first I didn’t quite catch it, but as it repeated, I started to see a small opening of light off to one side. I made my way towards it.

As I reached it, I saw the familiar old face of Boanhma as she grabbed me with both hands and pulled me through.

(to be concluded…)

Sources:

• Secrets of the Dead Lands
• Faces of the Dead Lands
• The Crimson Legion and The Cerulean Storm