“People as a whole are interesting creatures. We are most blessed with the ability to think and understand things, far beyond the mere beasts that merely do things on instinct. With that blessing, we have done many acts of great benevolence, yet at the same time, we have soiled the world with just as many acts of great depravity.

Truly, the possession of the gift of reason is far from the only criteria to determine the worthiness of a living being. I daresay that my dear pet dog here is a better living being than quite a few people who have existed in this world up to this day.” - Illaves Nothraleil, elven philosopher from Alfheim, circa 329 FP.

“Sire, please, I beg of you! We would have nothing to eat if you took even this from us!” begged an old, skinny man who desperately clutched at the fraying seams of a sack with his gnarled, calloused fingers. The bag was the sort people would usually store unmilled grain in, and looked to be in as poor a shape as the old man’s own clothing, which were mostly composed of rags.

Holding the other end of the sack was a soldier dressed in the livery of the local power with a hatchet hanging from their belt. The Shisfa Khanate was a small, poor nation just to the south-east of Caracan, and the disparity between the two states was appalling to say the least. In fact, many of the Khanate’s citizens had fled to Caracan and started new lives there over the past decades, even when the Khanate’s government threatened such “desertion” with death.

A threat that was demonstrated gruesomely in the form of the gallows erected near the entrance of every town or village in the Khanate, none of which were left vacant. Some only had skeletons that had long been bleached by exposure hanging off them, but others had bodies that were all too fresh dangling from the ropes.

The soldier just shouted a litany of profanity at the old man before he kicked the old man away, probably hard enough to break some of the poor old man’s ribs from the way he curled up on the ground and groaned in pain. It was clearly not something the soldier cared about, however, as he instead just lifted the sack over his shoulder and walked away, though not before kicking the old man once more as he passed by.

Aideen’s trio witnessed the scene with frowns on their faces just a short distance outside the gates of Abuda, the capital city of the Khanate. They were traveling by caravan this time due to the less than pleasant circumstances of the Khanate, one that belonged to their local contact in the Khanate, who, as was rather typical, established themselves as a merchant there.

The situation in the Khanate itself was one that was typical of a nation at the tail end of its decline. Those in power only sought to enrich themselves while their people bore the costs. The rich got richer while the poor only got poorer as time went by, and with the armed forces solely the domain of the rich and powerful, the people was left desperate and destitute.

It was something easily noticeable with the way how most of the capital’s population lived outside the city’s walls, in the squalor of the slums built outside the city walls proper. Only the well to do were allowed domicile within the inner city behind the walls, which pretty much limited itself to the Khan, his nobles, as well as some rich merchants and other businessmen.

And the army they used to keep their peasantry in line.

There were naturally also some establishments meant to serve the wealthy and their visitors. Inns, eateries, taverns, and brothels were plentiful within Abuda itself. Expensive imported delicacies were a regular sight on such establishments, which created a massive contrast between those who live inside the walls and those who lived outside.

The Lichdom’s local contact in the Khanate had nowhere near the influence or power to affect things much, but they still remembered their origins and did what they could for the poor. They discreetly ran several kitchens that fed the poor without asking for payment, passing it off as gifts from an anonymous benefactor. Even so, their reach was limited, and they knew that the Khanate was likely not going to last for much longer.

As it stood, the situation within the Khanate had continuously grown worse with each passing year. The place was ripe for a rebellion to happen, yet such a thing never did because the downtrodden peasantry was too weak to even rise up in arms. Possession of arms was strictly regulated in the Khanate, with even possessions of things like kitchen knives grounds for punishment.

Because of that, despite their numbers, the peasantry didn’t really stand a chance even if they were to revolt. Makeshift weapons could have evened the odds but when most of the materials to even make such things were prohibited things became harder. Sticks and stones could only go so far against well armed and armored soldiers, after all.

Normally the local agents seeded by the Lichdom would play the role of a passive observer from the background, or at worst, pick the side they felt was more likely to triumph while leaving contingencies in case they chose wrong. The local agent in Shisfa, however, had strong feelings for the nation they were born and raised in and wished to do more, if at all possible.

Just with their own resources, they didn’t have enough to change things. They were but a reasonably successful mercantile house that knew to pay their dues in bribes to the local authorities and were thus left alone and allowed to “bask” as part of the upper class of the nation. The wandering agents they had encountered in the past years would have been unable to alter the situation drastically either.

But with the arrival of Aideen’s group, three highly skilled mages of great power, they had the hope of changing things once and for all. It was why the day after their arrival in Abuda, the local agent requested to meet with them to speak of the situation in greater depth.