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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rhialto" data-source="post: 872454" data-attributes="member: 630">THE AZERAI INVASIONThey'd been here for forty years already, before we'd ever known they were here. At least, that's what they told me, and I knew them as well as any non-Azerai could know them, with their arrogance, and their distance, and their cold disdain.Forty years, of plotting, and planning, and most of all--waiting.  The patience in that action--it'd be superhuman for an elf, or even a Nibelung--and for them it was almost most nothing.  There were rumors--things seen in the Dragonspine Islands.  A story of a strange looking "man" found in Seilen, who ranted for hours in a fluting, indecipherable tongue, before vanishing.  And the Syran Navy (which in those days still went abroad virtually everywhere, as hard as that might be to imagine) reported the loss of ships, and was beginning to have its own suspicions what was going on.  But none of it was preperation for them.I still remember their arrival in Talossa--aboard those great beasts of theirs, swords held high, their masks glinting in the sun.  The Rose Guard surrendered immediately--which is often about the only thing they're good for.  Still in this case, it was probably the wisest.  The Crimson Guard of Seilen and the Imperial Guard of Syra both defied them, and all that came of that was corpses.  It was an amazing time, that first week.  It seemed in next to no time, they had conquered everything that the Syrans had won over nearly a hundred years of war.  And more.  They had put both the Fiskerne and Slave Isles under their rule, as well as made good inroads into conquering the Elder Kingdoms.  It was hard to imagine that anyone could stand up to them.Which should partially explain why I accepted their offer.  I know that this causes many to view my family as traitors to not just our supposed city-state (though I had not been born there--hadn't even seen it--couldn't even see it), but to our world as well.  But when I ascended as head of the Midacci, I saw that my house was facing grim problems.  The supposedly vast fortune our enemies claim we created by illegal taxes during the rule of the Empire had never been as great as they imagined, being created in fact by legal means, and had through the gougings of the Illius family, been reduced to a paltry sum.  My family members were in despair--many had commited suicide, or died of illness, and others had perished at the hired knives of the Five Families.The Azerai offered me the means to restore my house, to refresh our fortunes, to once again rule as the First Family of Seilen.  In all truth, how could I refuse?I never understood them fully--or perhaps at all.  And over the sixty years I knew them, even as I came to respect them, I never came to love them.  I am told the Braelites wish me dead for following their instructions regarding sorcerers--and yet I alone of their governers ruled with an easy hand, giving clemency when I could.  Such is justice.I am an old man now, and surrounded by enemies.  If asked if I regret my actions, I must say yes. But at the time they seemed the best path open to me.Perhaps the only path open to me...Deiren Midacci, 1258</blockquote>

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