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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edward Kann@StoryART" data-source="post: 1773159" data-attributes="member: 23128">There's an old statue, one of the old cast ones in bronze gone green like it's been turned to Jade stone.  It seems to loiter alone like it just happens to enjoy being off by itself with it's thoughts; far off down at the old end of the grand stone pier here at home.  My home, The City of Doors, capital of the Dominion and home of the Empress.I think it must be an old image of Artovan.  Artovan the Terrible, Artovan the Wicked.  Artovan the God Emperor of the Known Universe.  It makes a certain amount of sense that a right nasty old bugger like Artovan would find an out of the way spot to be alone with his thoughts.  I spend most of my time alone.  That's alright though because people just...  Well they just seem to make a damn lot of noise just to hear themselves talking without really saying....anything.That's my spot.  Out there, right on the edge of the world.  I didn't much like sitting with my feet dangling off the edge of the crumbled old stone pier like that when I was younger and with my Father.  Not even when he promised to hold my hand.  He was such a big man.  Huge.  Like a giant he towered over me and over everything in my world.  Strong.  Godlike.  I'd hold my head up to look proud like him walking alongside holding onto his hand.  Him dressed in his polished golden armor.  Lions snarling on his shoulders.  Zebra skin scabbard and rose wood handled thrusting sword.  A Gladius, is what he called it though he never let me touch it or showed it to me like he showed me every other scar and medal and weapon he'd carried with him to war."Now steady son."He'd say."Must be brave.  Must learn to have the heart of a tiger."His words helped and before long I was able to sit next to him and dangle my feet off the side.  Looking out from the pier.  Into nothing.Into the yawning mouth of vast empty that was the Empyrean.  It was an awesome thing to behold.  Nothing but open sky all the way from the edge of the floating moonlet upon which sat the Imperial capital to the horizon where a massive field of floating debris called Artovan's curtain cast the daylight all around into a dusky amber hue.  Filtering all through dust into a half light even at mid-day. The Umbral Empyrean is our ocean of sky.  No other moonlet below like in some places and certainly no solid ground below the clouds like in story books about the land where the Sorcerors dwelled before they journeyed here.  Before they built the first teleportation portals that eventually gave the City of Doors it's name.    I come here to think and to make my plans for the future.Father left the last time and he promised me that he'd bring me back my own Dak to train and to ride and fly like the boys of other Fathers in the Legion.But...Father never did come back.  He promised that he would but I expect that he didn't count on things changing so quickly out there in the provinces.  Dark times.  Dark times for the Empire.Dark times for Timus son of the Legionnaire.None of Father's friends made it back either.  Hundreds of sons and daughters too were left without Father to come home.  That was almost fifteen years ago now.I expect most of the other children of dead Legionnaires have found their own quiet spots to sit and wait and plan for the future.Plan for the day when accounts will be settled with those living in the provinces or what they now call the Free Provinces as though attaching the title of Free to their name will somehow make it stick.Today.Today...Today.Today is my last day as Timus.  Tomorrow I climb the steps of the Order of Sorcery and take my oath to the Sixteenth Dread Legion and become a sworn brother like my Father before me.</blockquote>

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