Vannem sat in the ruin of the palace his feet kicked up on a broken pillar that had fallen into the room. What did they they call it again? Marab? Marba? He remembered the hard sound on the end, slipping off his translators tongue so easily, yet catching on his. Whatever the name of it was, it was quite a fine stone. Pity it was too far away to haul any back to Arath, besides small shards.

Overall, this campaign had gone far smoother then he thought it would have, at the start. It was all fine for the King to declare that they would go and grind the weakened Murtavira into the earth, he was the one who actually had to organize and lead all of it, and if this war failed, he would be the one to take the blame.

While the Daso had been expected to be savages, the shear scope of it was quite alarming. While they may have had no fear of death, they certainly did die.

Vannem idly tossed a chunk of the stone, whatever it was called, back and forth. A chair, yes, that was something small enough to be hauled back to Arath. He shifted in his own, wooden chair. Only problem with that plan was there wasn't actually any chairs mad of the stuff. He'd send a block of the stone back to the first city they'd taken, and have it carved into one.

Now that first city had been a bit of a challenge. Oh, what was it…Kaya? Blast these Murtaviran names. That had really been the only large challenge so far. Even having been beaten down by countless Daso raids, they still held strong, and their walls were high. They had held out for two days, under barrage of arrows and stones. When they started throwing firebombs they had picked up from the Daso, the city had surrendered.

Now the city was under Arathee occupation, and the thousand soldiers left behind were holding what was left of the Daso back far enough that the farmers could return to the fields. A couple of Architects had also been left their, to both assist in the repair of the walls, and to pick up any knowledge that the locals might have.

Yes, send a throne back to Arath, along with the great bronze bowl that had carried the fire at the top of the lighthouse.

"Sir? Excavations have been completed."

Vannem followed the messenger to the ruins of the great library, collapsed at the hands of Tekatan explorers. They had salvaged some documents already, but they were all historical accounts, of little interest to the Arathee.

"We found a hidden staircase, here." The architect pointed to a sheltered arch that had nearly been crushed by a large block of stone. "Leads to a small underground archive."

Perhaps there was something useful here after all...

He listens as the translator read through the categorization son the documents. History, history, religion, trade record, love letter, trade record...

"Enough! Clearly this library, great as it may have looked, carried no real value inside. Leave everything here. Like the dead, the past is meant to be buried."

Vannem turned away from the piles of scrolls and tablets, climbed out if the basement room, and walked through the streets to the center of Anabi, where a dozen Arathee were at work assembling a large stone monolith. Vannem nodded in acknolegement, then turned back to his makeshift camp in the ruins of the great house.

When the Arathee left the city of Anabi, they left a new landmark behind landmarks behind. It was a large Obelisk, in the center of the city, a final message from the conquerers.

Only those who have known the crushing heel of oppression can know how greatness truly feels, and only those who have stood on top of the world can know how far one can fall