Kunark

This is a short story based on the online roleplaying game Everquest II
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Peace has alluded me since I first landed on Kunark's rough shores. Even the ship ride from Antonica's docks to the continent was enough to jolt me awake every few minutes. The water is thicker, angrier around Kunark. Redder. Perhaps the land was spared the worst of the Cataclysms all those years ago, but it has been rent in other ways.

I had barely set foot on shore when I was petitioned by agents of Teren's Grasp – the remnant of what was once the illustrious High Elf colony of Firiona Vie. The populace, though resilient, quivers in fear; trapped between two powerful and ruthless empires. Soft-skin is endangered in Kunark, so the outpost has eagerly welcomed and employed the northerners who have been frequenting its docks as of late. Most certainly they have been too welcoming. There is more to allegiance than skin. I would know...

It did not take me long to learn the law of the land. It did not take me long to learn that in Kunark ideals have a way of being discreetly swept away for convenience's sake. In the moist, eerie jungle of Kunzar; in the rugged, spider-ridden plains of Kylong, innocence is not given haven. One does not leave Kunark without enemies. One does not leave without killing.

Still, Kunark has its appeals – especially for one such as I, tossed between so many worlds as I am. In the land of the lizards, old world fidelities are trivial. The Iksar, the Sarnak, even the Teren care little for the politics of the Shattered Lands. In the ruins of those ancient empires there is no Qeynosian; there is no Freeportian. Not even I, a Tier`Dal, am given a second glance. Not even in the City of Qeynos, to which I have sworn absolute loyalty, am I allotted such indifference.

But politics there are in Kunark, and I learned to the play their intricacies with the cunning for which my race is known. My Dark Elf heritage is not entirely lost to Marr. I found that the Sathirian Empire, though vast and commanding, is not without its dissenters. Indeed, many of its commoners speak of the capitol of Sebilis with disdain. Much like any peasant who is exploited by his protectors, these villagers' loyalty is circumstantial at best. And there is something else: Among the dizzying array of factions in Kunark, I found a people who call on Marr. They call themselves the Reet, and many are held captive by the soulless slave merchants of the empire. They are a clan of primitive frogloks of which I have not seen in all of Norrath. Indeed, I had only read about such a species in the tomes of the Concordium.

Oppression. Slavery of Mithaniel Marr's children. In the murky mist and gray lines of Kunark, there, against those injustices, perhaps I could take my stand and find my purpose in this wanton land. Maybe, with all the innocence lost in my unscrupulous dealings in Kunark, I can find redemption fighting for the cause of the frogloks and for the oppressed peoples on the fringes of the Sathirian Empire.

Maybe ideals can be found in Kunark. But perhaps they must take a back door.