Secrets of Bone and Flesh
Fourteenth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
Brief are the tales that bones can tell, yet still worth listening to. The Serpentfolk of old were wiser than most in keeping the bones of friend and foe alike to work their magic upon. Chang Hui had been a merchant venturer in life, though he had begun his life as a court official to Har Da, last of the Grey Emperors, before they were overtaken by the Yellow Sorcerer Lords of Carcosa, who took on the name name 'Chai' on their ascension. Their rule roughly matches the Freehold's first burst of colonial ambition and the founding of Volantis some thirty-eight-hundred years ago. If nothing else, the chance to mark a date for the final ruin of the city is welcome, though doubtless astrological observation and delving into other records will allow for a more exact accounting.
More interesting by far, however, is how the expedition had come first to converse with the Serpentfolk, and then to spill their blood. Har Da, newly come to power, had sought to curb the power of the Carcosan sorcerers and spirit binders who had infested his late grandfather's court, yet he could find no other sorcerers in all of Yi Ti strong enough for the task. To ask outlanders like the Valyrians would have been a loss of face so crippling as to topple his shaky throne regardless, so he had sent an expedition to Sothoryos seeking mages of great power and clearly inhuman descent for which there would be no protocol save 'the most ancient'. Alas for Chang Hui, his task force had been infiltrated from the moment they set sail from Yin, by the very general the emperor had placed his faith in. Once the court in Yin had been overthrown and most of the eunuchs slaughtered, the expedition to form a tentative alliance turned into one demanding supplication... with the results you had already witnessed.
With a sigh, you collect the skull and head onward, onward to Gogossos-that-was-Gorgai, the legacy of other empires that have touched these shores.
***
From above, the city what had once made a claim to being 'The Tenth Free City' is almost lost to the jungle. Great broadleaf trees shade its broken arches, and the paths that cross it now are not the work of human hands but great painted lizards that dare to enter it and drink from the mouth of the ironically named Teblsi River, 'abundance' in the tongue of Old Ghis. The only thing the city has in abundance these days are monsters... at least on the surface.
Saan, and Wyla before him, had managed to recover enough tablets to piece together the final fate of the city, how the flesh-smiths had been trying to replace the failing arcane mechanisms with simpler ways to birth their twisted servitors. In the end they had bred only their doom, a sickness that had swept though the city like wildfire, if accounts of the age are to be believed. A Lyseni ship that only three weeks before had found nothing amiss had returned to find a haunted ruin. The captain had chosen to turn tail and run at once rather than try to loot the ruins, likely why you have his account at all.
What a cheering thought... Varys snorts inwardly.
"This is not a place made for cheer," you send back.
"Of course it is. Think about all the looting we are going to do," she replies at once.
"Fair point," you grant, amused, turning your thoughts once more to how to best do so.
What do you do?
[] Wait for night and try to spy the lights sailors have reported
[] Try to capture one of the more intelligent flesh-warped and interrogate it
[] Continue exploring from where Saan has left off
[] Write in
OOC: Really short but a better cut off than the previous update.
Bio-constructs? Promise, 
Faith
