a long journey. If not for them, they would have been overcome by the extreme temperatures.
The infection from the previous scuffles with the wild animals gave Chang-Shi a heavy fever.
Thankfully, the Ephedra plant Yang-Wei picked up on the way cured the sickness, temporarily.
There was worse to come. The journey toKara Hot took thirty grueling days.
Finally, they had reached their destination but there was no great city wall, no tall towers,
temples, paved roads or houses. All that remained was a sharp rock with an inscribed piece
in ancient Mongolian so old that none of the two could understand. Both of them sat there,
troubled and low on morale; they had come all this way for nothing but a stone. Chang-Shi took
out his excavation kit and with just one tap on the stone, a loud rumble followed and the sand
caved in, but the pair didn’t fall, for they had been sitting on the rooftop of the city all along.
Looking down, the city had lost its colorful patterns and some heritage had been damaged but the
infrastructure remaining was very well preserved and was a beautiful sight to the two explorers.
After a long climb down the tower of which they identified as the church, they immediately made
their way to the king’s fortress and in the great hall. They found heaps of treasure; some, which
were believed to have been lost forever. Chang-Shi immediately collapsed into the vat of treasure.
Yang-Wei, however decided to explore the palace walking past the vast hallways and once
glimmering bedrooms with curiosity. But once he walked into the enchantment room, a terrible
sight filled his eyes…
The room was filled with skeletons and in the center, the corpse of what appeared to be a rich
noble with a black gooey orb floating in his palm. Looking closer, Yang-Wei noticed a bracelet
with golden lined words ‘KharaBaatar’. Surveying this curious yet disgusting sight, he noticed an
opened scroll with a curse in what Mongolians call ‘Mage Speech’.
‘May the power of Tengri protect my treasure.
I sacrifice my family, enemies as well as their allies and next generations in return.
May death be brought upon them.’
The once true and just king’s desire for gold and fear of loss of power has brought corruption
to society.Regardless of the loss of innocent lives, he would sacrifice them in order to protect
his treasure. Because of KharaBaatar, the Gobi has been spreading out slowly since, like a huge
spill of corruption brought by humans, their activities and their waste. The Yangtze River soon
followed; the industrial waste broughtthe once great river to its knees by ravenous capitalists,
just as KharaBaatar’s greed did to the Mongolian empire. The earth’s atmosphere has also started
to crack; holes have started to appear and the ozone is thinning. Humans however still blinded
by greed and lust for money and power are unaware of such happenings and the world is just
breaking up bit by bit… Bit by bit…
