The Loss of Acalanti

[SteppeNomad 1552]

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An accomplished wrestler, poet, and musician tells dialogues amongst those gathered in the forums, returning from yet again another great voyage of taking. It is moments like this, when one has the time to be amongst fellows and cultivate the skills of oration and speaking may one's stories flow.

 

Once there was an ancestor of mine. A great Wizard-king, who; in this antique time, traveled deep into the heart of the great Krugmenistani deserts to find for himself knowledge on the perfect society, This desert, where great bloodsoaked pyramids were erected by the powers of the ancient Uruk priestkings. Pharaohs raise them from sunblasted desert at the power of spirits and slaves. It was at this time he spoke and engaged with the shamans who were revered in this land. They told him that their records, ritual, and oral history preserved much lore the Mali had forgotten. What? Us, forgetting?

 

-The modern Krugmeni still worship and follow the same ancient spirits, but many have been supplanted

 

Twelve thousand years before, in these antediluvian times; the shamans said. Haelun'or had been a great city. The ancient Haelun'orians had performed many noble deeds, but their most famous exploit was the defeat of the ancient empire of Acalantis. The Acalanti, the shamans said, came from an island in the west and had conquered much lands of the valah and bortu continents of the north AND the south. However, the Haelun'orians repeatedly defeated them, by the hands of great individual champions. Not long after, they lead a war to separate the empire from its resources, and as a consequence, liberated the continents. Not long after this victory, the shamans say, both ancient Acalantis and ancient Haelun'or were destroyed by terrible floods and earthquakes. However, Haelun'orians survived by fleeing into the mountains where they founded some of their greatest cities, but Acalantis was destroyed utterly.

 

How is it that us beautiful 'thill could have forgotten such histories? Such beautiful stories of those lost lands? The ancestor asked.

 

The shamans only spoke what they knew. Yet he understood... Our histories are sometimes picked up after great calamitous monument.

 

 

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A golden temple

 

Acalantis, one said, was founded by Ahe'Nautes, the Lord of The Sea. He had eight sons who each had eight kingdoms. To the eldest son he gave the greatest kingdom. One where water and fountains of blessed golds flowed freely from the stones and around the metropolis, and the fertive vast grasslands spread all around, flooded for their uses. It was quickly adopted as their heart, their greatest city, and thusly capped with a grand temple. In times of war, Acalanti chief kingdom could muster a navy of 1200 ships, and an army of over a million beautiful elves. Each of the eight kingdoms were near equally populous and powerful. The eight kings of Acalantis always kept a truce amongst each other and knew power. Gathering every few years, sacrifice bulls to the pantheon, and confirm their alliance. The Acalanti grew steadily in wealth and might. In time, however, it became corrupt. The spirits convened in a great council... and... They let the chosen survive.

 

The Wizard-King understood the implication.

 

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-Oh Acalanti, we shall honor you, your histories lost and forgotten, honored, with our weeping

 

Truly, he could but think, as such events having transpired, and him having witnessed them by means of proper ritual, the mind of the Wizard-King was opened to understandings. Truly, it was plain to see how such a role in the time-period, and the event... Seeing the fall would traumatize our peoples. The ancient superstitions around gold, the sheer reverence that must be held for ancient lores, and the pained loss at seeing such a culture, an enlightened society, even one as their enemies, become destroyed by forces beyond their power. This swift destruction of our greatest adversaries, but yet our greatest brothers. The loss of all their ways, all their knowledge, yet it goes to show the ways such a state may fail. To the corruption and degeneration of those such societies, and the doom that befalls those who repeat the most ancient of sins. Showing what befalls those who fall to despairing states of corruption and the war, and the inability to act on it. On purpose, did our ancestors, the winners of the war, the survivors, decide to forget.

 

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-Ahe'Nautes offering his greatest city to his eldest son, 12000 years ago

 

OH THOSE SWEET LOST LANDS OF OUR YOUTH, THOSE SUNKEN ISLES

 

WHERE BLISS WAS HAD AND ALL THE WEALTH OF THE WORLD FLOWED THROUGH TO THOSE BLESSED BY THE GOLDEN SUN

 

Ay'Acalanti, your memory but nearly lost.

 

Edited February 9, 2022 by SteppeNomad