It seemed that nothing was ever easy for Gadir.

Born the son of low-born burghers in Kul Nabal, Gadir was a merchant by trade. He made a respectable living by purchasing foreign goods from the wharves and bazaars of Kul Nabal and ferrying them up the river to the towns and villages situated on the Nabal, where he earned a meager profit for his labors. Though this line of work was more lucrative and respectable than spending his life stooped in some muddy ricefield as the peasants did, it was fraught with risk. With such small profits and such large investments, a single bad trade was enough to lead Gadir to ruin. His last purchase consisted of casks of fine walnut oil from the groves of Ter Kundzil. The casks, however, went rancid somewhere between the isle of Kundzil and Nyssos and so Gadir found himself in serious debt. The usurer's goons threatened to do terrible things to his wife and daughter should Gadir not come up with the 500 elish he owed in short order.

Gadir desperately sought a way to repay his debt, and he reached out to his partners for any means of earning a quick fortune as soon as possible. An associate in Nyssos directed Gadir to an elderly nobleman with a silver gray braided beard. He offered to pay the usurer 200 elish immediately in order to buy some time for Gadir's wife and child, and the remainder was to paid upon the completion of a mission the ruined merchant had little choice but to undertake. The geriatric braid-beard instructed Gadir to return to Kul Nabal where he would find passage on a ship bound for the Bay of Teeth. Nine days after accepting his mission, Gadir stepped off the gangplank in one of the harbors of Zar Dratha.

He had little time to take in this sprawling, alien city. With his wife and child depending upon his success here, Gadir had no time for even the slightest distraction. He went over the instructions that shadowy nobleman had written down for him one last time before burning the sheet of papyrus. Dressing himself in an embroidered robe of fine burgundy-colored silk and donning a matching headwrap, Gadir certainly looked like the dissident lord from Hamalsarak he was instructed to act as. With what little time he had left, Gadir tried to mentally prepare himself for the next part of his mission: to attend the Congress of Masters.

But nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to witness.

Gadir knew extremely little about the masters - the wizard lords of the Bay of Teeth and the Ashlands. Irssun had insisted that in-depth knowledge of Drathan society was not important for his success here. But what Gadir knew - or rather, heard - was terrifying. They were the ruling caste of the Dratha, the one race of mortals capable of wielding magic. Sailors and porters in Kul Nabal had told Gadir tales of the dark arts practiced by the wizard lords; a master building a creature from the bones and flesh of a score of butchered cadavers bound and animated with magical energy, another master who transmuted an ingot of mundane tin into pure azt'jalum, and of course the duel in which Khalul the Magnificent destroyed Archmagister Velym in such a manner the Salished language is insufficient to describe. The thought of having all of these sorcerers together in one place was a horrifying concept.

But Gadir's family needed him. And so without hesitation, Gadir went to attend the Congress of Masters.

Zar Voda, the meeting place for the Congress, was a city unto itself within Zar Dratha. Unlike the city proper, Zar Voda actually had walls and gates. Within the gates, the open spaces between the walls, the out-buildings, and the palace itself were filled with gardens. Unlike the gardens of Nyssos - planted richly with lush flowering trees and bushes - the gardens Zar Voda were made to resemble the desolate ashlands from whence the Drathan race originated. Raised 'plantings' were filled with gray ashland soil, with boulders of pitted volcanic pumice, snaggleroot, withered grass, and some variety of giant mushroom that reminded Gadir of sea coral.

The palace that dominated the walled complex was probably regarded as majestic and beautiful by the Dratha. But to Gadir, it was a monstrous edifice. Its first tier was a colossal rotunda of red marble surrounded by dozens of massive pillars which held a sprawling roof high above the ground that curled in on itself at the corners. The scalloped, decagonal roof ran outward like a skirt from a second tier, which was covered by a second roof only slightly smaller than the one below it. That second roof radiated out from an elliptical dome of, surrounded on ten sides by serrated minarets like a crown of teeth. Walking up the stairs to the entry, Gadir felt as if he were being swallowed alive by some gargantuan monster.

Even the guards standing vigil along the stairs and the gateway to the palace seemed like monsters. They were each clad head to toe in thick suits of seemingly-identical armor. The star and moon sigil of the Drathan Union was embossed upon their cuirasses and left epaulets in some sort of black metal. Their helmets - pressed into the shape of the skull of some snarling sea serpent - completely covered their heads and faces, leaving only black pits over the eyes for the soldiers within to see from. They stood utterly motionless while holding pole-mounted glaives firmly in their gauntlets. As Gadir reached the door, the two sentries posted on either side gave a single nod, acknowledging Gadir's existence and supposedly triggering the door to open as well. There were no hinges, no handles - just a solid block of stone or metal carved into the shape of a thousand serpents coiled and twisted upon each other. With the tacit nod of the guards, the tangle of coiled snakeflesh started contracting and squirming, causing Gadir to recoil in disgust and surprise. The sinuous mat of twisting stone pulled in on itself, creating an opening through the door. Gadir quickly walked in through the opening, trying not to think about the snakeflesh coiling back into place.

If the exterior of Zar Voda was unusual, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji2CGx12pks&t=3m26s]then its interior was truly incredible[/url]. Inside the door of coiling stone, Gadir found himself standing in an atrium that let out into a mammoth rotunda. Ten mighty pillars of glossy red marble held the ceiling aloft - except there was no ceiling. The columns instead rose into a nocturnal sky far above him where a thousand stars twinkled brightly - a spectacle made all the more impressive by the fact that it was late morning outside. A golden aurora pulsed through the cosmos, illuminating the great rotunda with a dim, warm light. What sorcery could allow such a spectacle to exist? Gadir could have gazed upon the fabricated starscape for hours, and likely would have if he didn't realize he might attract suspicion for being so easily impressed. Gadir tore his gaze from the stars and focused on his surroundings, trying his best to pretend that Zar Voda was not the most fantastic thing he had ever seen.

When Gadir heard the word 'congress', he envisioned a formal assembly of some sort; a council of delegates dedicated to discussing or resolving a specific subject. The Drathan word for 'congress' must have meant something different entirely, because the Congress of Masters was unlike any congress he could have imagined. What Gadir was seeing was more like a royal court, or perhaps even a social gathering, than any sort of governing council. Toward the outer walls of the rotunda, the attendees seemed to be doing anything but deliberating. The Dratha congregated in huddled clusters, taking cups from the trays of slaves that circulated through the crowds. Their black, empty eyes unsettled Gadir, for he could never be sure if the Dratha were watching him or paying him no mind. He passed by a particularly large cluster, with onlookers tightly packed in a dense circle around some object of interest. The smell of copulation hung thick in the air and unstifled moans and gasps ringing out from the center of this cluster gave proof that this was an orgy. Some distance away from the collection of disrobing Dratha, a pair of older masters looked on with grave, disapproving gazes.

"The Archmagister intends to turn the Congress into a brothel," Gadir overheard one of the Dratha complain.

"Doubtlessly," his colleague agreed. "He aims to distract the delegates with slave whores as he tightens the noose around our collective necks."

As Gadir pressed on, he could see plenty of evidence of Khalul's distractions. Nyr'kiin with chains shackled around their ankles shuffled listlessly through the chamber, carrying plates of refreshments and drinks. In addition to the hivespawn, slave women with chains around their ankles and manacles around their hands staggered through the crowds - clearly intoxicated with some manner of sedative - until someone whisked them aside to do with them as they pleased. Not all of the slaves were alive either: Gadir briefly witnessed a glimpse of one disrobed girl with thick bruises ringing her neck and lifeless white eyes rolled back into her head. A warlock had happened upon the corpse and hungrily set about unbinding the belt on his robe. Gadir cringed and hurriedly pressed on.

Inside the ten pillars, the floor sunk down into something of an amphitheater of concentric benches of lyestone. Every single one of the Dratha mingling outside the pillars could be seated comfortably on the benches with room to spare, but only a few dozen warlocks were seated here. Those in attendance looked more like true Drathan sorcerers than the younger masters outside. Even so, none looked like they could be the terrifying Archmagister Khalul. Gadir was starting to suspect that many of the truly powerful wizards did not actually attend the Congress, and instead sent orderlies in their stead. In any case, Gadir appreciated their apathy and found a seat on a vacant bench and set about watching the proceedings on the amphitheater floor below.

"I shall remind those in attendance that it has been more than sixty years since the hivespawn of the Singing Hive laid waste to Zar Onctes and murdered my grandfather and his subjects," a young wizard continued, standing up from a bench on the deliberation floor. "Tell me, what has been done in the intervening years to stymie that threat? In lieu of a decisive response - mobilization of a host to lay waste to the Nyr'kiin forever, we have seen sixty years of inaction. Sixty years of allowing the hivespawn to consolidate their strength and curry favor with the Sashul."

"The Sashul is dead, Hystuz, and his empire will join him in the grave soon enough," a warlock heckled from across the auditorium. "There is no alliance between the Salished and the Singing Hive; the Rainlanders have no more love of the Nyr'kiin than we."

"All the more reason to strike now!" Master Hystuz declared, pacing now upon the glyph-carved floor. "Or would you lot rather wait until your own holding falls victim to hivespawn butchery?"

"Be silent already, you ignorant wretch!" One particularly animated master cried out in frustration. "The Union did nothing for the heirs of Zar Vorgul when the Salished conquered that city. What makes you think the Union will come to avenge Zar Onctes? Don't delude yourself, Hystuz, our Union is in name only!"

"Why then is there no shortage of support for the Archmagister's adventures in the Rainlands? As you said, the Salished Empire is doomed. The boy Sashul will run his Empire to ruin. The Salished pose less of a threat now than ever, and yet no one questions the Archmagister when he demands 30,000 slaves for his second attempt to conquer Arshadar."

The Dratha did intend to invade the Dominion after all. Gadir was no tactician, but even he knew that the Salished Empire's fractuous state would make it impossible to repel such a massive host, even if it was comprised of untrained slave conscripts. He feared for his family's safety yet again - not for the ire of a vengeful usurer, but the tide of war that seemed certain to fall upon his homeland.

"That is but a symptom of the political situation today. He who denies the Archmagister's wishes is a brave fool. But none of us are going to support you on this fool's errand, and certainly not when we must already send our subjects to fight on the Archmagister's behalf."

"Begone already!" And with that, Master Hystuz stormed off of the deliberation floor.

What followed him onto the center of the amphitheater was perhaps the most horrible and monstrous thing that Gadir had ever witnessed. Standing upon the deliberation floor was a gnarled monster dressed in a flowing, black robe. Its hands were bony and slender with pustulant growths rising from its knuckles and slender, clawlike fingers. A smaller third arm, twisted and curled in on itself, seemed to sprout from its chest and protruded from a small flap in the robe's breast. Its head reminded Gadir of a rag that had been twisted tightly to wring water out. The monster's head was horrifically deformed, pulled and wrung by some horrible force. Its mouth had been reduced to an oozing cavity on the side of its head with a handful of rotten teeth protruding from the blackened remains of gums at odd angles. A sagging bulb of flesh protruded from the other half of the 'face', where seven eyes of various sizes had developed. The eyes were black and featureless save for thick red veins that throbbed underneath their glistening surface - a feature that suggested that this abomination had once been Dratha.

The monster standing upon the stage was accompanied by a chain-bound slave, whose head was firmly grasped by one of the monster's claw-like hands. The slave's white eyes were rolled deep into the back of his head, but yet the man knew to walk in perfect harmony with the hobbling gait of this robed monstrosity. In its small, curved hand, it held a bowl of black, viscous liquid, into which the fingers of his one free hand. With his twisted fingers coated in the shimmering black fluid, the monster drew the finger to his mouth and hungrily slurped it up. Ichor, Gadir recognized - it was ichor that made this being into such a monster.

"I am Qux the Many-Eyed," the slave - not the monster - said to the crowd, "Archaeos' envoy to the Dratha Union. Following the plea of Master Hystuz, I am rather pleased to inform the Congress that Archaeos may be capable of redressing the heirs of Zar Onctes."

"My master cherishes the friendship he shares with your Archmagister." The slave began again as Qux set about a hobbling pace about the floor. "The studies that have been carried out with the thralls your Archmagister so graciously provided have exceeded my master's expectations. Our efforts at Archaeos have been remarkably fruitful of late, and we are not far from perfecting a means of artificing warriors from your slaves. Know that there is much work to be done, and our methods have yet to be perfected, but we now have a great many warriors at our disposal."

"Archaeos' neighbors have long been [i]pacified[/i], my master has no need for such an army. But the Archmagister yet has many foes. As a demonstration of our latest progress, and as a show of friendship between my master and the Dratha Union, I wish to grant this Congress the warriors we have successfully artificed, that you may pacify this Singing Hive as my master has pacified his enemies."