Unseen Stars II

Friends, colleagues from another time, I write you again to update you on the progress of our fair city.

My cousin is trained in the ways of war, and he insists that our little city here will not last much longer if we should continue on our ways. The straw! It's flimsy! He cries always that we don't have enough troops. Quite frankly, my response to him was, "When would you like to start?"

It seems Kokabiel has smiled on our fortunes once more, for my cousin has taken up the spear and the chainmail and dragged many of our carefree men off to learn the ways of battle. Ordinarily, I would be quite concerned. After all, the priesthood and the study of the stars is important, but our star has brought us this far. I doubt he's done it only to abandon us now. If we have no wars, then this is mere exercise and learning for our youth. Indeed, they will be better than us. Should something terrible happen, they will be more than adequate to defend our borders from the vicious encroachment of all things vile-- the things that seek to destroy our homes and lives... those things like the ones I saw when I first awoke with my family in the concrete cage.

Of course, we help those who help themselves. I pride our tribe on our insistence on aiding those who would aid us. For that reason, I've asked the others to help us build a few more facilities for the training of these young men. An odd lot has come from the east as well. We welcomed them as our brothers, since they appeared on the surface to be human, but they've taken to building these odd, barred structures along the outskirts of the city. We corrected them once and told them to build things in circles as is our way. We imitate the shape of the sacred stars and the spheres of the sky in our construction. At this they seemed delighted, as the new type of architecture saved them much materials when they proceeded to set up their odd, things.

I haven't really visited them since, having busied myself with the construction of additional facilities for my cousin, but at night I can make out the strangest noises... unearthly howls the likes of which I have never heard from mortal beasts. I plan to investigate on the morrow, but tonight, I sleep again. I know my star will guard our town, even if those others are up to no good.

Hello again! I don't know how to address you. I suppose I could say progeny, since these are my secret notes and I plan to pass them down to my children and my children's children so that they might know the beginnings of our fair village, but for now, I speak only to myself, this pen, and this paper. These thoughts are a secret between ourselves for now.

Last time I left you at a bit of a cliffhanger. Namely, the unearthly howls from the note prior. The personnel with the strange mannerisms from far away. Their beasts are mostly ones of burden: they carry things about, but they had some knowledge of the workings of beasts both mundane and mystical. The dark-skinned strangers took an especially acute interest in our incumbent population of thunder rats and had a short chat with their leader. Apparently, the head rat, a direct servant of the Blessed Demon that presides over our city, wanted our populations to get along better, and for this purpose the timing of the strange people's visit could not have been more perfect. Soon little structures sufficient to house the little rat spirits began popping up all over the place. The people were allotted land to build stables on as well, and they say they will breed fine and fiery steeds for our soldiers to ride into battle. They themselves were fleeing the march of a mysterious and motley collection of demons said to belong to a demonic lord other than the one who resides in the southern forests. This perturbed the rat leader greatly.

Our blessed demon appears to have gone on a pilgrimage, which leaves only us folks to watch over her affairs in her absence. This concerns me a bit. Why would she leave in our hour of greatest need? Does she know something about the looming hellborn hordes that we know not? Perhaps, but I trust both her and Kokabiel to ensure our safety. Blessed be his name. Today we build stables to begin training steeds. Tomorrow we will build more houses with our new friends.