To the whipped dogs of the Eastern Ithmia,


As I sifted through my mail this morning, countless parchments hewn from unsuspecting trees shuffling through my fingers, I continue to receive correspondence of your primitive attempts to emulate Hashani ingenuity. It is admirable that you seek to follow in the footsteps of Progress, indeed someday all the world will do so and rise to heights unrivalled. Yet you remain capable of only aping the basics, of scrabbling for the scraps. Where we learn, you discard. Where we prosper, you feed insects. To speak in a vernacular which you will find familiar, the roots of our lesson have settled within your village but so far have yet to bloom into full realization.


Now your citizens come again to Hashani and beg them to lay down and die that you might throw their corpses in a field to feed beetles. Failing that, you resort to paying novices to let you use their corpses instead. Between the Earthmother's vagabonds and the War God's semi-pacifist 'army', I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that attempting to buy easy victory over novices is all you can achieve. Many of you told me boldly at the top of your voices that when the Aegean army joined Eleusis, a new era had risen. You were right. As they did with Ashtan, as they did with Cyrene, they have made what few thought could be lesser, less. Now as Uilien can undoubtedly attest, they beg Hashani to LET themselves be killed and cower away from the sharp lesson they have been dealt upon the blades of the Legion of Shadows. Such a fragile thing, resolve.


Continue grubbing in the dirt for the barest scraps of modern glory, Eleusis. We have much to teach. Unfortunately for you, the Legion of Shadows does not roll over for gold credits or pleas. The most necessary lessons are often the hardest, and we have never had a problem imparting harsh rebuke to the latest Aegean puppet to toddle along.


I provide the following fumblings as an example. Take heed, Sapience. The newly improved form of Eleusian warfare.


Naoma: "Would you let me kill you for a corpse - for about 30 credits?"


Naoma: "It's' for a nature ritual. It's to prevent a raid. trying to be helpful here."


Naoma: "I have an artifact that prevents experience loss. I will take that so you don't have to."


Naoma: "Will you agree?"


Naoma: "Because I do not want to kill a novice and you are probably the only damn hashani that has a clue on Nature."


Naoma: "I am unsure, Perhaps because of whaat Hashan did to Toby...I am trying to prevent this whole shit storm brewing."


Naoma: "I have no clue...I suppose I can make the offer to a youth type...I'm trying to protect novices is all. You can say I jumped you this way there is no connection to willingness. I don't care."


Naoma: "You will have the experience protected as I promised."


Naoma: "It is to make some beetles aid in decomposition beetles in the garden. I can show you if you like. I did ask. And it's a little payback for whaat happened to Toby in truth apparently."


Naoma: "Know where the Earthen fields are in eleusis? There is a compost pile there."


Ever,



Mezghar Al'Jafri


Seneschal

Penned by my hand on the 16th of Aeguary, in the year 858 AF.