Shullat: The Modern World

I have been asleep for ten thousand years.

I am still trying to comprehend that. Ten thousand years. So long that Al'tyr's name is no longer whispered in fear by the wicked. So long that the barbarians of the Five Rivers have created some manner of civilization, and not a bad one, at that.

But not long enough for the Aboleth to have disappeared. The one that I fought, the one who imprisoned me in my own camp, has had children. And they have remembered.

As before, there are those who fight them. It seems to be a different battle this time, fought by individuals in the shadows, rather than by armies of followers on the battlefield.

At least it is, again, a god of the sun who calls his warriors to fight for him. It was him who called me, it seems, this Pelor. I wonder at some of his faith in forgiveness, but the band that fights the Aboleth are his warriors, and they seem fierce enough, if not as organized as I might like.

Their leader, such as they have one, is a Paladin by the name of Arcadius. I write this from his homeland, where we have gone in search of a sympathetic cleric to assist us in the coming fights. It's a fine land, an orderly place.

And their technology is amazing. Between dull trips to libraries that Arcadius seems to think will impress me, I have managed to watch their army practicing maneuvers. The poorest soldier who fight for them has armor made out of something called steel, a metal as strong as my dragon scale armor. Their weapons are made of the same stuff, strong and light enough to carry through the dessert for days.

The tactics have changed, too, with the changed in armor, though the basics are the same. Get close to the enemy, stick the sharp in end of a weapon in him until he dies. Men still need to be commanded, or they fail. An army without discipline is still an army barely worth mentioning.

I hope to convince Arcadius to allow me to participate in his land's maneuvers. It seems as though it may be the one place that will still feel familiar, the one place where I still belong.

I was made to lead men into battle. No matter how long the world has aged, I do not think it has lost its need for men such as that.

So long as wickedness and chaos exist in the world, I do not believe it ever will.