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This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 
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Jak Koke
    been widened, much jungle has been cut and burned to clear land for farms and buildings. And there’s a shantytown growing like a pestilence along the stream, polluting the same water which falls crystal clean in the riflev. It must be stopped.”
    Gvint focused his ebony eyes on Pabl. “I know about the village,” he said. “True, the shantytown is an eyesore, but it’s not an immediate threat. I’ve been very busy with my duties here at the temple, and I have been garnering help from air elementals. Ten are searching for Reid Quo right now.”
    “I hope they find him soon, because we are vulnerable without Reid. I can’t be Named and you cannot perform all of your duties to the rock. We all know that no new ones can be brought into the world without Reid. We need him, and I see no harm in searching for him.”
    Gvint continued his stare unabated. “I don’t want the brotherhood scattered across Barsaive and the world looking for him. We need unity now. I need as many of you here as possible until Reid returns.”
    Pabl looked down in the face of Gvint’s stare. “I need some time to think, Elder,” he said, then walked across the hard tile to the verandah. He pushed through the curtains and walked out onto the broad steps.
    The erosion sculpture of Mynbruje stood huge and stately on his left. Pabl climbed up the rock to the Passion’s arms and sat on the level place formed where his forearms merged into the liferock. The roar of the waterfall filled his ears as he focused on the surface of the rock and prepared for his karma ritual.
    Images of pain and suffering flooded his mind. That was always how the ritual began, the pain starting slowly, then growing. With each image he struck the rock with his fists. He remembered the rape victim he and Jan had discovered in the ditch just outside Bartertown.
    He struck faster and faster as the images came more rap-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 
    34
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Jak Koke
    idly. Pain shot through him as he watched the burning of an old dwarf’s farm. Bandits had started it to destroy his crop because the old man couldn’t afford to pay protection. Black smoke billowed into the air as small animals fled the flames.
    The fire had spread to the forestland next to the farm, burning for two weeks, down to the river before it had died out completely.
    The rock grew hot under Pabl’s rapid strikes until it glowed a deep red. He thought of the shantytown in Rabneth, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. Transgressions against nature were by far the worst.
    Images came to him of his search for the lost castle of Yon Fuiras. Pabl had studied the various scrolls in the Great Library, trying to piece together a coherent picture.
    Jan had told him to give it up. That obsessions like this were not always a good thing. But Pabl couldn’t stop; he knew the answer was just beyond his reach. If he just had one more detail, he would understand. Then he found the diary of an old air sailor who had visited Yon Fuiras before the Scourge.
    They set out two days later, catching a T’skrang riverboat to the river port Wynar, then from there, they traveled on foot up into the Scol mountains. Celagri and Jan gave up after two weeks of searching the barren mountains and tried to convince Pabl to return with them. But two weeks was nothing, and he told them so.
    They argued and tempers grew until Jan and Celagri decided to leave. Never before had Pabl’s friendship with Jan been so strained. Jan was right, obsessions are not always good.
    But he had come this far and he couldn’t give up now.
    Three days after Jan and Celagri had walked away, Pabl found Yon Fuiras, empty and destroyed by fire. The ashes of bones and buildings formed a gray dust over the still heart of structure. The castle had been a stronghold of natural beauty, built into the