Ah, well I remember the misty skies above the ancient city of temples, Urakaeme. Though I left its crumbling streets many years ago, the smells and sounds come easily to the forefront of my mind. The chanting monks of Lurial, the smell of roasting meats on feast days, the tinkling bells on the palanquins of the priestesses of Noeme, the strangely spicy scent of the tame Rakmets that flitted through the air above the ramparts and domes, even the muddy stink of the healing springs; all these are bound up with my youth as an acolyte of Dajao, Most Glorious Lord of Sunlight and Shadows.
Harsh and beautiful Urakaeme, which meant “topaz” in the old tongue that few now remember. It was built over and around 53 hot springs, the waters of which soothed and healed many infirmities of mind and body. The rising steam from the springs filled the air with an eternal, mineral laden fog, slightly yellow in color. It coated windows, trees, everything. One of my first jobs at the Temple of Sun & Shadow was to scour the courtyard mosaic, over and over again, to keep the colors true. But my mind wanders. Forgive an old man.
We thought Urakaeme would last forever. After all, had it not been built over 1200 years ago, after the great Conclave of the Just, when the high priests of all 12 deities of the good and true decided to pool their resources in the fight against the encroaching darkness of He-who-we-do-not-name? Alas, because we thought it would last forever, we did not take heed to the signs of doom approaching, as we might have done. We did not act in time. And so all was lost, all! Lost to the depredations of the evil one and his undead army of thousands.
I was young, and so my temple ordered me, and 26 others, to flee, and attempt to reestablish ourselves in a new land, across a trackless ocean. And so I was not there at the end. But I often wonder, do the Rakmets still flit around the abandoned towers and domes of my beloved Urakaeme?
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