The Well of Mimir

…After the Wars of Extinction, the Cleansing Wars, the Champions of Rajaat became the all-powerful sorcerer-monarchs of Athas, overthrowing their master when it was found that they, too, would become victims of his desire to return Athas to the near-mythical Blue Age…

“So, do you think we did the right thing?”

“Destroying the world?”

They looked out upon the barren dust, the heaped corpses their armies were piling onto a massive, smoking funeral pyre downwind. Carelessly tossing bodies of comrades and enemies alike onto the blazing, stinking pile. The billowing black column of greasy smoke could be seen for miles. Centuries ago, such a scene might have disturbed either of them.

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His fingers had withered to gray, brittle sticks, worn down by years of rape and defilement, of rampant excess and the sickness that comes with too much power left unchecked and unopposed. This punishment extended to the rest of his body as well, which was withered and decrepit. He wore skin the pale color of the diseased, skeletally emaciated except for the bloated paunch of his naked belly, his back bent and cratered with ridges of bone and thin flesh.

“Why do you hate me so?” the decrepit man queried, his voice a strained whisper of age, the whole done without gesture and immersed in a slack wantonness.

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In the second Year of Dragons during the reign of the illustrious Emperor Flying Cloud of Silk, of the tenth century of the Noble Dynasty of Sleeping Water, a great festival was held in the province of Exalted Daughter of the Moon in the capital city of that province, and citizens came from all corners of the province to celebrate. Among them were many who had never been to a great city before.

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