The End is Nyye.

My head rises from the rushes and I survey the rolling hills as far as the eye can see in every direction. The tall grass stocks move with the wind creating patterns that from the distance look like a giant creature moving unseen through the uniformity of the local flora. Long and golden the stocks are, reflecting light in the most unique way I have ever seen, hiding many a deadly creature within its embrace. I let myself drop back onto the ground and again find myself standing amongst the tall stocks.

I walk amongst the blades of grass carefully parting them lest they cut through my clothing, using as little of my abilities as I can get away with using lest I call attention unto myself. I’m lucky to be alive, there is no other way of thinking of it.

I travelled from the little conclave compound to visit the boy and found everything behind me turned to dust after entering the Alderman boarders. I let my hands shake and my heart flutter as I again experience the novelty of fright like I haven’t in almost 200 years. The shaking eventually stops and I assess myself physically and mentally just to check that everything is as it should be before continuing my exploring.

The Foothills are quite beautiful when one experiences them without having to worry about the deceptively dangerous fauna. The grass sparkles as far as the eye can see like a sea of gold that shifts and crests in waves caused by the wind. The ground is comfortable to walk on or lie down on but not once have I seen a tree amongst all these reeds. The deer are glorious, big and healthy, able to run fast and spring high into the air as they play amongst their herds.

The lions are majestic. Tall, proud powerful creatures that mostly laze about but there is no mistaking the many advantages nature has given them, particularly in this environment. The foothills actually belong to the lion prides as far as I can tell and not the actual Alderman. There is a nuance to the claim of these lands that tastes like a beast’s claim instead of a human, and maybe that is why these lands still stand unaffected while the rest of Gaia goes through turmoil.

I walk carefully forward as there is nothing for me back whence I came, nothing I understand at least. I don’t know what is happening in the world or why but I know fate brought me here and because of that my life was saved. Still, I will need to visit Tiba and Morondo to check first on those I have grown to appreciate and then those I have obligations to.

Its days of this careful walking with whole alertness whilst subconsciously analysing what I’ve just survived and how absolutely close I was to death and how excited that somehow makes me feel. The time passes productively as I come to many conclusions about my environment and the local ‘politics’. The prides own a vast amount of land which then human villagers come to live under.

The relationship is symbiotic with the humans not getting eaten by the beasts and in return they take care of them, bath them, help teach their unAwakened cubs to hunt. The humans use the pride divides to group themselves as tribes with each family taking large portions of lands to hunt. Largely the humans benefit more than the felines as they get stable borders, are left to do with themselves and other humans as they please and get help hunting from the cubs they are caretakers of.

As far as I can tell there are 4 Ancients in the Foothills each with its own pride and territory. They seem to have amicable relations with each other all looking at their respective outside facing borders though they have no qualms about killing each other. I cannot feel them but I assume there is an Ancestors or 2 as well here, when that ‘storm’ came this lands boundary barely wavered. The claim of a few Ancients even working together could not be old enough to keep all of that away.

Having walked around for days covering vast distances mostly unseen familiarising myself with the place I focus on the humans and the person I came seeking to begin with.

I have only ever come across 18 people in all my time that could someday end up as far in pursuit of the sword as I have. 900 years I’ve worked this planet, countless blades have I tested against mine own and only 18 have been raw enough with potential to be great.

The people here are divided into tribes then villages in which they congregate for security then families ‘own’ vast stretches of lands that they hunt in with almost impunity. The Sotho are the tribe I pay particular attention to and it isn’t long before I find the resident I seek. The place isn’t right, the aura still echoes with outrage and blood, the land is in turmoil but healing.

I walk down from the hill with all the concealed eyes watching the area already catalogued. The grass is low here so I would normally easily be perceived by those on the property if I let myself be seen. I walk around the property taking everything in, it seems the boy and his family were ousted, and not gently. What did he expect though, coming out here from the far south with only a handful of people to establish himself.

Bringing new concepts and material wealth to a people that have never valued the concept before. Of course they’d sold themselves cheaply and would eventually see that as they are exposed to the rest of the world, of course they’d learn to resent him and his people and end up slaughtering or segregating them. The land around the property is not at ease though which means Sachi isn’t actually dead or his claim fully revoked.

Silently, unseen by any I move through the land. Passing hunters living their lives as normal, men women and children going about their lives like the world isn't burning beyond their borders. I pass a several collections of huts that represents families and households before I eventually reach the town the leaders of the conclave chose to have built here. Though the buildings are mostly in the roundhouse form that most of the local architecture is in its still a town of stone and iron in a nation of grass and mud builders.

No wonder no one from the conclave is now freely walking about in the streets. Every single person I see walking the streets that isn’t dark skinned is either a woman or a child and has a slave collar bound around their neck. The aura of the place is also tumultuous, the bloodshed fairly recent and the new slaves not fully adjusted to their new roles. The occasional scream of a slave being disciplined another tell tale sign of a people that have not fully accepted their fate, the things we sapients do to each other.

Eventually I find my quarry, the boy’s family at least, all the women kept in separate cells with no one claiming them as slaves. I notice the Sotho Alderman’s quandary immediately.

The redheaded girl screams as she fights against the hold of the collar around her neck, in the publicly displayed cages she trashes against her chains. She throws herself on the ground, on the sides of the metal bars hurting herself as she tries to resist a command given to her by one of the laughing bystanders. The young make a game of it, giving her lewd commands so they can watch her try to resist the compulsion of the collar.

Haaarrhhhh!

Heartbreakingly the girl cries out futilely against her commands, her stubbornness admirable but stupid. Her eyes bleed, her joints dislocate. Intentionally she bends her fingers back to break them but its inevitable. There locals have gotten a taste of making sports of their slaves and have found that they like it, the women especially. Not unexpectedly as I’ve seen before how in wholly patriarchal societies it is the women that can be most cruel.

The redhead eventually succumbs to her commands when the impotent rage eventually burns itself out. With twisted knobs for fingers she grabs the knife handed to her and stabs it into the naked albino woman adding more puncture wounds to the ones already covering her shivering torso.

I watch for a while, leave to make sure I fully grasp the hierarchy in this society then I again come back to check on the condition of the slaves. Some lie dead in the cages with no one moving the bodies, others sit in their own filth and thus no one approaches. Others are used by the local men to ease their lust while the redhead and the albino are made sports of with one commanded to stab the other.

I make my way to the equivalent of the local chief, serendipitously he is in the company of a few other elders drinking from a drinking pot being passed amongst them. Without preamble I reveal myself to the startled old men that gawk at me before scrambling for their weapons.

‘’’Greetings venerated elders,’’ I send slightly bowing my head in respect.

Two of them pause in their tracks while the 3rd runs off calling for warriors, I disregard him.

‘’As a traveller passing through these parts I thought it would be remiss of me not to pay the proper respect to the leaders of the Sotho people,’’ I send bowing slightly lower before standing straight and facing these prematurely aged men.

The leader seems to come back to himself, assessing me with whatever abilities he has a grasp off before again resting his knobbed stick back on his stool. ‘’Welcome stranger to our humble lands. I am Madodandile son of Madoda son of Ndoda, who might you be stranger?’’

‘’I am The End Is Nyye son of my father of the Brotherhood in Tiba, though I am simply passing through I hope we may no longer be ‘strangers’ to each other.’’ His companion still with a weapon in hand tenses at my words but the other doesn’t move, then he too introduces himself rebefore taking a seat.

16 men armed with shields and spears rush into the kraal encircling me quickly, Madodandile gauges my reaction to the situation, seeing me still at ease he gestures whilst giving commands in his tongue. The confusion is clear on these young men ready to skewer me but they stop pointing sharp objects at me none the less.

A three legged stool is brought for me from somewhere though the is space besides the elders on the long bench they sit on. With a thankful nod to the tool barer I take a sit and a young woman comes with a pail of soapy water, she sits at my feet and begins to unlace my boots, I let her. My feet are washed, my hands are washed, I am given water to drink and while all this happens more and more of the older men on the community make their way into the circular mud kraal casually talking amongst themselves.

Food is brought, meats of various kinds, sweets and fruit. I have some of the fruit and make small talk with the people around where I was seated. The leader stands and makes a little speech I can’t fully follow in his own language then he takes his seat, another stands responding to the chief but directing his statement to the whole assembly. He sits, another stands talks pointedly directing his speech at me before sitting down.

I stand, not sure about the whole jist. ‘’I am unfamiliar with your tongue but my hope in making a lasting friendship with your people is sincere.’’ There is a an undertone of malice to their word for stranger, ‘’I hope not to be considered a stranger to the Sotho Alderman at the very least.’’

Some get a laugh at this then a younger man is spoken to and indicated to translate into Common.

‘’To not be a stranger would take a ceremony I doubt you would be willing to subject yourself to. But a stranger passing by is more welcomed than a stranger staying and trying to change our ways.’’ He says in a cheery voice but the warning is there.

‘’Surely with the state of the world as it is we would all do good to make more friends than we would enemies,’’ I stand and send looking at every men here in the eye with a hint of killing intent. No one dies but it’s a whole minute before another word is spoken.

‘’Tell us stranger, how is it that you’ve made your way here?’’ One of the elders asks me directly in heavily accented Common.

‘’I walked,’’ I say then bite into a juicy hand sized fruit. They talk amongst themselves leaving me be for a few minutes, they are scared of me. I am an elf, worse a wood elf which they probably have never seen before with my short stature and greenish skin. I’m unarmed as far as they can tell but they are wise enough not to take that at face value.

I stand and walk up to the leader, 2 young men close by tense but otherwise don’t move. ‘’A gift to the Aldermen for their gracious hospitality,’’ I say in Common extracting rejuvenation elixir from my storage ring.

The vial is small, but the substance potent. I open my palm floating it to the leader without an explanation before floating myself casually back to my stool. I continue to eat nonchalantly though I am stuffed full of food. One of the elders stands thanking me for the gift though none are willing to drink it or ask what it does.

‘’Tell us of this Tiba you hail from,’’ One of them eventually says directly and I do.

Tiba is a place of quiet advancement and refuge not directly involved in any outside politics. There is structure and leadership but there is enough autonomy for some to act as mercenaries, spies, sponsors, conquerors and builders of empires though also part of the Brotherhood. There are no natural resources and the land produces no coveted product nor is the mountain a strategic location making Tiba one of the only safe and neutral places this side of the Pangalanta. In fact it’s a hassle to get there so you must really want to find it to go looking.

I tell them of the learning that can be received there, the discipline and direction. I extol its virtues as there are never enough people that graduate to join the Brotherhood, maybe these men will send their best up there. As I talk I watch the old men debate until eventually one of the elders loses the strange social debate. He ends up having to sample my gift to the tribe.

Half the vial is poured out for him and with a scowl and a sidelong look at me he downs it, nothing immediate happens then conversation continues until there is no food to be had an an hour has been exhausted. I stand dusting myself as I say my farewells to the silly men sent to keep me talking.

‘’I have travelled far and have far yet to go. Might I trouble you for a place to lay my head to rest before I have to go on my way on the morrow?’’ I send to one of the young warriors sent to guard the chief. He scowls at me disgustedly, shakes himself from his hate and quickly to whisper in the ear of one of the old men. I make my way to the elders by the door, excusing myself from the having to leave so abruptly. He the leader makes platitudes, trying to quickly be rid of me as politely as he can.

These aren’t novices at diplomacy, in fact I think these people might be some of the sneakiest diplomats south east of the Pangalanta. They have never come across someone like me before and they understood that appearing before their lead elder was a threat so they act cautiously. They are currently at the high of their empire with foes sneakily rid off after learning all they could from them to advance themselves. Yet they don’t take they chance of offending an unknown. I’m sure they are usually more accommodative to guests than they have been to me.

I walk openly through the area, bare breasted men women and children stopping to look at me pass as though I’m a spectacle but none trying to approach me. They’ve probably all been given orders, strange people these even for humans, I wonder why Sachihiro thought to build amongst them. They follow me for a while and I let them, walking unerringly east for some hours before ditching my followers and watching how they try to find me.

It won’t be much longer now.

Sure enough a group of young men come running in an hour later demanding to know which way I went. They argue for a while, one of my watchers gets stabbed to death by one of the new ones. One of the two that were send on ahead east comes back to report no trace of me as far as 100km due east, he also dies. Several runners sent ahead to get me. I think I’ve waited enough.

I go ahead to intercept the other sent out for me and let him catch-up so he can keep following me. Eventually the runner sent for me finds him and together they approach me with scrapes and bows.

‘’I am to be a guest of the tribe?’’ I ask.

‘’Yes honoured lord. The fool that did not convey your request of lodging has been dealt with, you shall be housed at the home of the elder Mbulawa. Who assured all the elders his daughters would personally see to your needs for as is proper as a host.’’ The messenger says seriously in Common then bowing at the waist to punctuate his point.

I shake my head looking longingly east then back at the bowed messenger and confused watcher. ‘’Well... there are no other people for many days travel ahead. But to turn but after 27 hours of travel I would have to stay longer than a day and would be interested in trading for some necessary supplies.’’ I say rubbing my chin consideringly.

The messenger radiates joy for a moment before wrapping in his aura and assuring me that a longer stay would be more than welcomed by the elders. I nod and turn back around to enjoy the true false hospitality of the Alderman. It seems that rejuvenation elixir did the trick.