[center][u][b]The Notes of Marcus, the Pseudo-Paladin I[/b][/u][/center]

[i]What I was told to be ready beforehand, and what most educated people would know anyway, was to expect two things in the dusklands. One, the most obvious, a lack of sunlight, second is that it was a damp place, with constant rains and swampy ground. What caught me by surprise were thunderstorms. While traversing the highlands there was not a day in which the horizon was not lit by constant flashing lights and an equally constant worry to finish your day of travel before said storm was upon you, despite the lack of rain in the highlands, lightning still flows freely from the always overcast skies.

My local guide quickly became an unpleasant company as, due to their own lack of planning, we found ourselves not doing the path on the expected times and ending up stranded in way stations for days at time. He, in a terribly brutish way, had the lack of shame in blaming me, even implying that he expected one of the legendary paladins of the Calla Lily would move faster and be thinner. I tried to explain to him that I was not like the other paladins but as a servant to Lady Benea's will I was still equal to them but alas, words were lost on his simple mind.

Getting to the rivers and bidding adieu to the brute the journey became a bit better, despite the mosquitoes, we could not take a boat down the river because the rain and snow melt of the season made the rivers too rough to traverse at times, no matter, because well maintained roads had been made in most of the path by now. The dusklands were not as dark as I expected, with the lightning and all, but the infrastructure sure was as good as the word of travellers said.

Small villages spread from riverbank to riverbank, all of them providing the same boring encounter where the locals would pile up to meet the paladin and try to waste my time with so many incredibly rude questions. I was almost dreading if the capital would be the same.

It was not.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/qLBkj0A.jpg[/img]

Tsorovah. Or, as the locals say, Tso Ro Vah, meant to mean something like The End and Beginning in the local tongue, I think. Nevertheless, Tsorovah was to my surprise a little cosmopolitan gem within this muddy valley. Of all towns in the world I would perhaps put it in fourth, maybe fifth, in refinement. And although it is no Eunomia, it has many peculiar charms not to be seen elsewhere.

Stone dominates the local architecture, most homes being stone-brick spires, round, while public buildings tend to be square-ish. Details are plenty in carved stone, metalwork and ceramics are common, but wood is rare. Overlapping roads and canals made for great mobility, giving me adequate privacy I was taken to the building of the embassy, one of the largest spires at the core of the city.

Dampness and thunder was left behind as I stepped in. The floor was polished to a mirror-like state while the walls were made of smooth green marble. Brass lanterns were so widespread one would suspect Dzallitsunya aimed to steal fire from Xavier and lamps from the cursed Anak'Thas, and they all illuminated the almost sinful luxury of the building. Some other foreigners were around, in a lounge area near the central indoor garden, drinking tea or smoking cigars. I noticed a peculiar find in said room, a map of the dusklander understanding of the north of the world, including some settlements or bases in the lands of the sick god.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/FXq4mVf.png[/img]

I had no chance to ask for context, as soon I was guided further in, to where I would stay when living in the dusklands.

My room was warm and dry, with a good view of the city through the stained glass windows of flowery patterns and colours of ruby and topaz.

The staff very polite, but composed of the weird, extremely pale, Magistrates. They were everywhere in the journey, but one does not became aware of how uncanny they are until you find yourself surrounded by them from all sides. One has to wonder why Dzallitsunya made them look so distinct, the answer of many is that it is to make the land's officials recognisable and hard to imitate, some yokels will tell tales of magical rituals where they bath away their visage and become invisible. Me? I believe she made them this way to be oppressive, to always remind you that you are in her lands, in her government.

This came to me the first time when observing the vast, complex irrigation system. Sure, their craft is unmatched, you would struggle to find a people in the Crucible that spend as much time in agriculture as the dusklanders do. They alternate crops with flowers and trees, they build terraces and mounds, they use gravel to filter the sulphuric waters of the hot springs and feed the purified result to the system, they dig new ditches everyday, and cover others. And through all this hard work they manage to make life bloom in the dark swamps, huzzah.

But who made the dark swamps? The very same goddess who taught her people how to survive it.

It is not like it was an accident or the only way, to make the dusklands took a massive effort, I am sure, the proof of that is how most of the land of other gods, including our lady Benea, are not dank, dark sunless lands. And they all grow crops perfectly fine, with no gravel and topsoil mounds, no hot water system, you just till the land and plant as much as you wish without a single worry. This is the default of the world.

And that to me takes away all merit from these lands. A few people in our lands have the gall to complain about Benea's rule, that perhaps, she should be a bit more like Dzallitsunya and her legendary Shadow Government, an spreading system that provides respite to all and is always working towards efficiency and making use of lands. This delusion ignores what the shadow government really is, an artificial obstacle, casting a shadow upon the soil and selling itself as the solution to overcome that shadow. The people are disciplined, sure, like a pet trained to cross the hoops and hurdles set by their owners in those animal shows.

Now, I do not mean to be rude, I am sure my host is not evil, she is an ally after all. Perhaps she does not know better, perhaps she has a weird taste for land development like our lady Monica. But tolerance should not lead to simply accepting baseless, senseless, implications to Benea's rule, which remains the fairest and most balanced, the most friendly to mortals, the sanest and most sensible. It is almost ironic that now I am focused on going against the exact opposite of what was being said not too long ago, when people started to question why the northern queendom did not seem to be developing a city as big as Eunomia, and if perhaps a more libertine, commercial way was not better.

I think this comes to show how these 'critics' are looking for nothing but an excuse to complain and have no real ideology except to glorify whatever foreign lands do in hopes of criticising what is truly perfect.[/i]

[hider=summary]
A fluff post in the words of a grumpy dude named Marcus, who despite being a fanatic for Benea never managed to make it as a Paladin thanks to their... unfit habits, now tasked with simply going to the Dusklands he is writing down his experiences.

No gods involved so no might[/hider]