Breakfast is a much lighter meal than the one you had the night before. Rice sweetened with cream and cinnamon, tangy-sweet orange juice, boiled eggs, and very spicy fried sweet potatoes. The talk is light and breezy, though Aya seems hard pressed to keep up at times.
To Father Grimwald:
One thing keeps nagging at the back of your mind. In the Ransoori history books you were given, no name or location is ever given for their homeland. Any passages that might allude to such have been carefully hidden with ink or even cut out entirely. What you have learned is this; The Ransoori fled another home after being conquered by an inhuman invader who had managed to completely shroud the realm in total darkness. Bringing their own slaves, the Edanji and the Buil, they set about rebuilding their civilization in the unnamed homeland "not" mentioned in the books.
After only a hundred years, a massive campaign of expansion and conquest began. Emperor Sanmuk I led hordes of Buil infantry into what is now the Amber Kingdoms. Bolstered by the hideous necromantic magic of his wizards and the deadly blades of his psychic warriors, the armies of Sanmuk were unstoppable. After a series of wars that lasted less than twenty years, the Ransoori Empire was founded with its seat in Unkhoor, today regarded as the greatest and oldest human city in the world.
After a reign of nearly a thousand years, the Ransoori were overthrown by a peasant uprising led by a former gladiator slave named Daor'Meti. In short order, the decadent and corrupt empire, not having to fight a war in centuries, was caught offguard and the subjugated peoples overthrew their overlords. The surviving Ransoori fled westward, where they encountered the elvish peoples (whom they had never been able to conquer) and suffered even greater losses as they fought their way through their lands to disappear somewhere in the west beyond the Elfinwild. For 800 years now, the very word "Ransoori" has often been enough to get the mentioner lynched.
During this entire time, the Ransoori who remained in their homeland gradually gave up their warlike ways and began to seek more spiritual and enlightened paths. While the followers and descendents of Sanmuk built an empire on the bones of conquered peoples, they decided to cut off all ties with them. Gradually, they passed from the memory of their own people, though they kept up with world affairs through spies and scrying. Deciding to not risk an invasion by the vengeful former subjects of their brethren, their kings mandated that they have no contact with the outside world.
And so it remained until about fifteen years ago, when a new king (Sudoon II) took the throne. Deciding his people had become stagnant and complacent, he and his ministers organized very small trading and diplomatic missions to the Amber Kingdoms, where information indicated the hatred and fear toward the ancient Ransoori was not quite so prevalent as in the northern lands like Kelvesiin and Kusoonoor. It is the hope of the modern Ransoori that eventually they one day they can completely open up to the "world outside". But until that time comes, caution is the order of the day.