Things you have
learned in four years:
The Aeon
Priesthood is headquartered in Qi, a vast city of mind-boggling size,
it’s population perhaps dwarfing the entirety of Thaemor. But the
larger countries that make up the Steadfast are far richer affairs,
and with that wealth comes politics and posturing and a war far too
the north with an enemy some darkly suspect doesn’t even exist. The
Amber Pope is powerful, perhaps even a just man, and there is no
denying that the papacy learned many terrible secrets and lore from
the amber monolith – Jisell alone was proof of that. But knowledge
is a far different thing to wisdom, and the aeon priests found
further from the capital, scattered about the beyond and seeking to
understand the numenera for its own sake, tend to be true seekers and
teachers both.
It is not as if
the Steadfast is a terrible place. Far from it, but it is a place of
merchants and armies, not one for wanderers who call none of their
kingdoms home. The vastness of what the inhabitants of the Steadfast
call the Beyond is many things – it is far more dangerous, but
there are few kingdoms, many villages that seldom even see brave
merchants, let alone seekers such as yourselves. There are caravans
to guard, merchants to protect and wars to be had, but they are small
things with small goals, the spectacle of the ninth world playing out
like children with toys they barely dip into a sandbox.
Zia is, perhaps,
mad. But she turned Milvane into far more than town. And the world is
awash in information, in secrets, even in power if one has the will
and wherewithal to claim it. Few people do. Most towns are small
affairs, the inhabitants hungry to choose safety over freedom, but
there are always other options, always new routes. And the further
you go from the Steadfast, the less worry you have about local rulers
claiming prizes or the local clave of aeon priests declaring that all
numenera must be brought before them.
Even the
Wandering Walk that some claim circles the world is crowded with
hungry pilgrims and envying eyes. But further, east of the ocean, are
lasts no one in the Steadfast as mapped. Towns, villages, entire
kingdoms who may not even know the rest of the world exists. And you
are strange, but not too strange for most places. The world is full
of knowledge; the question is, what do you desire to use it for?