If you felt nothing but pity, Seneschal, you would not have devoted a barrel of ink and a stack of parchment and that most precious commodity, time, to dressing down someone forty years and several ranks your junior -- more time, indeed, than you spent addressing the City* with whom you are at war. I think it's obvious just what your priorities are in addressing the public at large.

This would naturally lead me to question what the decision-making process is for a city such as Hashan, but being a city so obviously motivated by a palpable sense of its own staggering inferiority, I can assume that between the attention of the tsol'teth and the rest of the world's dressings-down, the leadership in Hashan is so overwhelmed by any additional public acknowledgment that it can't keep itself focused for more than two heartbeats.

Which, after the tsol'teth have abandoned you to the ire of those you've aggrieved by treading this path of foolishness, is the precise length of time you can expect that city of yours to remain floating in the air, I would imagine.

Hashani, there are those of you who gather secretly within the shadows, who quietly hold these same uncomfortable reservations among yourselves, who question whether the heights of idiocy to which your city ascends will ever know an upper limit, who wonder when the home you grew to love and the home you face upon waking diverged so dramatically. Understand that if your leaders will not listen to the lived-in wisdom of the the weary masses, it is time for new leaders. If you cannot elect them, overthrow them. If you cannot revolt, retreat. There is no shame in leaving a hopeless situation having exhausted all other possible outcomes, especially when that hopeless situation has proven so resilient to good sense and gentle guidance.

Gilliam, I applaud the courage you've shown in stating what so many of your kin believe but are loathe to admit. It's the same spirit of bravery that Travian Shea and old Zarathustra and countless heroes of antiquity demonstrated in sacrificing the familiar comfort of what they loved personally for the greater principles that guide their lives. To you and any seeking a respite from the appeasement of our would-be conquerers, know that thrice the fury of the tsol'teth have rained upon Ashtan's walls, and thrice Ashtan has rebuffed these ancient interlopers. Know, too, that if you seek to know the true meaning of progress, of resilience, and of what it means to explore this world within and without, the Standards of Ambition await you.

Penned by my hand on the 25th of Sarapin, in the year 802 AF.