[ IP ] Tower of Oblivion

In the Great Bush, lay the site of Ka'ar E Dor: land of the holies, site of ascension of the Giver and resting place of the great Empress Kazmer. Pilgrims flocked to ask their deities for protection, luck, breakthrough, the Priests camped around to charge men and women for forgiveness, while the landowners taxed the faithful for every commodity bought and every minute in the city. Masses died to navigate the forests in their futile attempts to reach paradise, or to bargain for a place in paradise. The Greater Ahremanid Empire controlled the roads and ensured the Court and military would always have their bellies filled. I for one, refused to ever prostrate myself to silly promises of eternal and divine truth, or whatever the holy men preached. Yet, I was given no choice, for such was the cruelty of life. Such was the sorrows and pains of being a citizen of the Eternal Empire. 
 
 Selling an unsanctioned book was a crime with the penalty of death. Buying an unsanctioned book carried the penalty of a thousand whippings. A punishment as good as death. I was death. To carry the weight of five on my shoulder and to bring it to a standstill. I was to be life. To attain enlightenment and to say cry in hope. I wanted death, death was easier and less tiring. Death was a less cruel mistress and a caring father. But death was not to be. The Court sentenced and gave little mercy to the faint hearted, it saw the wishes of a man and turned it against him in the most twisted of ways. It deprived his family of noble appearances and ensured they too, would starve of guilt by association. So I was sentenced, to make the Ma'ath-kar and do what thousands do: prostrate myself before the deities and the Empress, renew what they called `` honour'' and feed my spirit as well as soul. `` No roads or highways'' they decreed, `` For wealth has polluted your mind and heart.''. `` The people can not repent if repentance was an easy path.'' The clergy was bought. The Court was bought. The silence was bought. The people were sold. I was bartered. Knowledge was burnt. 
 
 Thus began my journey, the Mwolif Guards flanking me from my house, the house I had to stay in during the trials. A place I thought I would have died in with poison in my blood. That was not to be. Instead, the city faded to a slum, which faded to a farm, and lastly, turned into a forest. So began the Ma'ath-kar, with the Mwolif Guardsmen making sure I started my road to forgiveness. Not that it would have mattered, maps were books, books were knowledge and unsanctioned knowledge was not knowledge but sacrilegious.
