27th Day of Ojo Didi in the Fourth Month of Snow's Fall
4380 A.G.G. (253 Years Ago)
Highland Towers, The City of Sky, Sovereign Malani State of The Three Cities
The Continent of Kazakoto
The following chapter was written based on compiled information from official records, inscribed statements, historical documents, personal journals and audio recordings.
It should also be understood that some of the following passages may not be entirely accurate as they weren't transcribed as they were spoken. They've been translated here for ease of reading. Because of this, unfortunately, some things may be lost in the translation from the original handspeak to common.
Translated passages will be indicated by the use of bold print.
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Adesh
Ascendant Adesh Shrivastava sat solemnly at his mahogany desk. His onyx coloured eyes glaring down across the multitude of papers that covered its surface. The loose texture of his black hair making it look like silk under the open fire lamps about his office; his dark skin gleaming in the light like polished redwood.
Running a business can be challenging. Directing a large-scale company can be a headache. But spearheading a multi-national organization the likes of the Conglomerate, with clandestine arms in at least one major city in every civilized continent in the world, was a completely different entity. Dockets, contracts, reports, requests and every other manner of correspondence seemed to compete for his attention on a daily basis.
But the business of dealing in slaves seemed to be first and foremost on his mind today.
It was shaping up to be a bad quarter for the organization in regard to the skin trade. More and more balani were escaping slavery by running to the north from Assami through the unnamed woods and to the land-bridge to the Link every year looking for safety. And given his disposition over the last few weeks, it had long since become exasperating.
The Magi there were steadfastly anti-slavery. Both politically and socially. This was not just lip service to placate the masses while collecting blood money through a shadow trade. They unfalteringly rejected any proposal by any pro-slavery nation to allow head hunters safe passage on the Closed Sea Bridge. Worst still, they near unquestionably offered asylum to almost any escaped slave who asked for it if they could prove their status. It was a problematic thing at best.
And with the ever-increasing sociopolitical tensions between the chain of islands and the rest of the world at large, it was becoming more and more common for any inadvertently tense situation at the border to quickly become aggravated to the point of violence.
In point-of-fact, it was such that at current, suspected slavers were being summarily executed for moving along the bridge without so much as a by-your-leave by Magi enforcers. And the waters about the Link's landmasses were becoming precarious at best for any slaving vessel that dared to navigate between them. The Magi were not above using their gifts against these ships; freeing their captives and burning their crews before using their heka to turn the very sea against the massive vessels. Swallowing them whole.
It was no wonder that all of the major slave trade routes ran the long way around the continents as opposed to braving the direct path between the Closed and Open Seas by traversing the waters between The Link's islands; underneath its world-renowned way-overs.
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On the Subject of the Way-Overs
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