Greetings citizens of Ashtan (and those of you who are reading this despite it clearly not being addressed to you).

I figured that I ought to bring it to your attention a few strange little discrepancies I've noticed within your city and I invite you to a friendly discussion on such matters so that perhaps I can gain a better understanding of your fine city.

Firstly, I am led to believe that the goals of the city align with the goals of the mighty Chaos Court who reside in the Chaos plane under the control of Imperator Glaaki and that the city works to establish Dominion upon our realm in the hopes that one day, through the power of Chaos as a force of change everyone will be free to ascend to this wonderful higher state of being that the Chaos Lords themselves possess.

Now this by itself makes sense. It's a very admirable goal in fact to strive to become something far greater than yourself but here is the bit I do not understand: within your ranks are those who seek Oblivion and my understanding of Oblivion is that involves the end of creation, an end to you, to me, to Sapience, even to the Chaos Plane. I would go so far to say that this idea of an end to everything would be perhaps the perfect expression of Chaos as a force of change with the slight flaw that once everything is gone there will be nothing left to change. There will be no Chaos. There won't be anything.

Firstly, I am intrigued as to why the Chaos Court would align themselves with something that strikes me as very much not in their greater interests and secondly I am intrigued as to why you dear reader, would be interested in this rather dubious truce with a group that seek to not only prevent your city's ultimate goal but also to completely destroy everything you know and love (including but not limited to yourself).

In fact, I'm not so sure that this idea of regressing back to the state before Creation is even an original idea. A little digging led me to a book named Darkness in the Modern Era (likely available within your local library) and an interesting quote from it. It is
taught that in the beginning, before Ayar willed all the worlds into existence, Darkness reigned as the natural order. Is it not a little curious how similar what appears to be the end goal for both these religions are? Are you content for everything to become either void or darkness?

This intrigued me so much that I had to do a little more rummaging throughout the records of history and to my surprise I found a wealth of information on our dear friend the Prophet of Babel! That's right, Flair Ze'Dekiah. Only he wasn't always know as Ze'Dekiah, in fact, I have no idea where this name came from at all. Round about the time he was going about his business and trying to discover the mysteries of the lost God, it appears that his name was in fact Flair Trismegistus.

A name? What's important about his surname? I hear you cry. Or perhaps you may well be aware of the name. Either way, it is a very interesting name. Notably shared by such individuals as Teneb (of Planar Physics fame), Dusk (who I am led to believe is an associate of Twilight's) a fellow named Vayne and most notably Twilight himself at one point or another, at least according to a number of books. I really would love to know why the great Prophet shared a surname with a deity and perhaps one of you could kindly explain this? Having met Flair, I couldn't see much of a biological resemblance and as such I am completely baffled.

So I ask of you Ashtani folks, do you really know who your compatriots are? Is your goal Dominion or is it Oblivion? Are you content to let those who wish an end to you and all that you are govern you? Do you think that they have your best interests at heart? Do you pledge allegiance to the Court or to Oblivion? Do you think it is a mere coincidence that the Prophet of this religion of some of those that govern you happened to share a surname with the so called Father of Lies? Do you believe that when the Nihilists moved against the Erisians it was a one time thing and that they'll let the Chaos Court slide? Do you consider it possible that there may have been someone behind the scenes seeking to divide your city? Would it even be worth persecuting followers of Darkness if the Prophet himself may well have been one? If he was, did the Prophet ever stop being one?

I shall eagerly await your answers and look forward to hearing all of your thoughts and of course if any of you would like to see some of the books that have led me to such difficult questions I would be more than happy to show them to you!

Ever yours

E


(P.S. I wanted to use the phrase enlighten me but I figured that a lot of you may well misinterpret that so really, do not enlighten me. Thank you.)

Penned by my hand on the 4th of Glacian, in the year 915 AF.