Combat Details.

From a young age, my inheritance was the dirt. My tribulations were a sanctifying streamlet that scoured off the begrime of enfeeblement. The tears I sprinkled and the blood I spilled were the waters my roots soaked up. I kept some solemn vows, sparsely disseminating seeds of fiction to swindle my prey, all done with a peculiar drive to facilitate my eminence. In my youth, the dew of bitter misery never once stifled my aspirations. It only bequeathed much-needed acuity.
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I discovered early on that fate is not a rivulet to carry us. It is the fathomless abyss in which we drown if ill-prepared. Ergo, to preclude such certainty, I pledged never to act without erudition or prudence. This Darwinian tussle we denote as existence relinquished levity belatedly stoking the hubris of many a foe: uncertainty and terror. While an advantageous trait to retain if employed with perspicacity, it often labored as an eroding current that whittled down others' cornerstones.
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I watched lamentably as preceding houses waned, their holdings abated, while hollow vestiges of their former selves were condemned to tarry onward. Their failures were my guiding stars, imparting enlightenment that transcended everything I had gleaned from my books. Through their flounderings, I reached an unexpected conclusion. That there is no doubt; there is only fear- and I must become its mistress.
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The undeserving wills of others endeavored to coerce me and persuade me to bend the knee. Their illustrious genealogy, a distant memory, and a deteriorated carcass preordained to be triturated and dispersed into the tide of time and memory. I evoke that trepidation well. I recall lucidly, how their ghost deviated from their mortal coils. While a harrowing affidavit, their demise amplified my insatiable desire to experience life to its fullest. 

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While most stumble and lose sight of their objectives, I kept sailing through the tumultuous waves of virulent victories and catastrophic losses. For you see, I epitomize the perseverance of mountains and the ardor of the sols. My spirit, while blazing, will not be so effortlessly drowned out by a crest of woes. Some might designate it as delirium. I fancy the terminology of persistence.
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Ultimately, I ascended to my proper place. I contorted the realm and its idiosyncratic nobles like marionettes. Utilizing their covetousness against them, I systematized the fit from the lethargic. I erected a new, eternal house—the languid approach of old forsaken. I slid in its place a strict meritocracy, promoting only the cream of the crop to lord over their lesser brethren. 
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The edacity of contenders that vied against my supreme administration. A jinn has no family and no friends. I was destined to tarry in utter sequestration. I confronted the vacillation generated by stolid minds with unbridled fortitude. What is it that steers my hand? What grand designs spur on my weary soul? Do not be like them and presume limits to my ambition, for there are none. I once regarded things as they did. It served me poorly.

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I seek a new pasture to construct a world that will survive long after the final stars twinkle. Once the cosmos reignites, a regime will be ready to slip from the umbra and persist with me for perpetuity. If there is one thing I fear, it is being left alone once more to wait out the tenebrosity, with nothing but my thoughts to serve as my fellowship. You see, just exceeding the illusion of restraint, I may obtain my true infinity therein.

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Save your judgment and brace for your inescapable downfall. A demise that will demonstrate itself as inconsequential within the eyes of the cosmos. The world inevitably spirals into chaos, built on the foundation of dead men—Martyrys, whose names you can't utter and whose stories you never entertain. Save me your moral judgments. One who capitalizes on the deceased without gratitude is far from a righteous arbiter. 

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Do you reckon I speak in error? I, too, believe a mistake has been made. But the question remains: by whom? The fact you still draw breath is a grave miscalculation. One that is easily rectified if you should oppose my rule. Do you doubt me? Would you sooner face oblivion than see reason? It would be best if you glimpsed beyond your finite perception. I've formed this iteration of my empire to dwarf all my former works and span eternity. 

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There is no honor in battling for a lost cause, only stubbornness and belated shame. Everything changes, in this world most of all. So bow before the lioness of the sands. And I might yet bestow upon you a kernel of clemency.

 

 

Lessons and Humility.

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As a cub, I had the most illustrious of instructors who provided much-needed tutelage. The worldly attainments of my progenitors were merely a pulpit to project my influence upon this rancors world. The realm I was born in, Eladine, was anything but a bucolic pasture. Within its governmental structure prowled witless reprobates. These nincompoops wrongfully deduced magic to be some sort of fulmination against the natural order. What nonsensical trite, the arcane isn't intrinsically evil or good. Such arbitrary jargon couldn't pertain to a force of the cosmos. 

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Those hackneyed scalawags had stifled the development of their nation under the pretense of rectitude. The conjugality between religion and state seldom exhibited itself as benign to the people. Such dogmatic varlets were destined to weigh down their subjects deep within the abyss of misery. This animus engendered division that pivoted brother against brother in an anesthetized civil conflict that would verify itself as insipid. The land became enmeshed in war, the blood of the fallen drenching the very earth. This conflagration singed everything around it, ultimately leaving the world in a state of utter ruin—the vestiges of what was only bequeathed a barren future. And a society without meliorism is as serviceable as an infertile womb or a limp man below the belt.

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Such knaves, while the root of the virulent disease, were not wholly culpable. The people who abided by this infection were equally imputable. There were two kinds of manifestations of devilry within my eyes. Those that were perpetrated and those that were stomached by didactic men. This meadow could no longer bear fruit, any dream of redemption long since scoured by the constant privations of its denizens. Nevertheless, the carcass and its maggots proffered the sustenance my intellect required. Their bewailings were a warning of the folly of ignorance and the fallible yearning to put morality over practicality.

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That kingdom justifiably dissolved from memory. Its maladies were but a footnote that scarcely carried a lasting ripple across the waters of time. The globe kept rotating; the retention of others was far too flimsy to hearken toward its delinquency. Time and time again, with each metempsychosis of the world, I beheld an identical melodrama unfurl. Whatever it might be denominated as, this vile cycle was anything but a glamorous indication of our iniquities. Fetchingly, an unforeseeable nosey parker emerged from another world. Their armies laid waste to what was a necropolis and left the gateway ajar for me to slip through.

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Long gone was that greenery. The panorama before me was arid and covered in dunes of white sand. Their customs were quite truculent by nature. And while conceivably swinish when contrasted against my appetites, I did see a glimmer of potential. For, unlike my defunct home, this reality paraded itself infinitely more versatile. These cretins didn't squash magic as a mechanism of evolution, but instead, they embraced it. There was naturally only one thing absent from their equation, and that was me.

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Solitude was a curious thing. Even one as distinguished as myself could fall victim to its entanglements. The need to procure communion was a reminder of why I meander down this path; it had gotten the best of me. Mistakenly, I joined an assemblage of humans. My time within their ranks seemed agreeable enough. The coin we had culminated through our entrepreneurial pursuances rendered some repletion. However, their unappeasable avidity knew no bounds. As a Bovine, I was deemed expendable given our differing appearances.

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It didn't take long for them to capitulate to their despicable impulses. Ostracized for matters exceeding my control, I discovered myself shackled like some esteemed mare and hauled off to the slave market. There, within a sporophore forest, I was auctioned to the highest bidder. The most egregious malefaction was that their evaluation of my worth was attenuating at best. My beguiling figure had always served as a tool within my arsenal. The depravity of genitive wants had been exercised to attain particular arrangements in the past. So the irony wasn't lost to me when my "masters" strove to exploit my voluptuary figure as a system of corrupting young men.

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These pitiable nits were easy enough to bewitch. Dumbly, they'd sign away their future for fleeting comforts. My nimble body was the center of attention as I worked the alien art of pole dancing to swindle then. Once coaxed, they ingested those execrable spores. I was whored off to the next witless berk to replicate this sequence. Swimmingly, my overlords kept these aroused ruffians off of me. Not out of charity; but from the point of view that if spoiled, I would be as effective as a dull blade.

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My ribald antics had induced the focus of the headmistress, an elf who had taken a liking to me. Naturally, I couldn't criticize her, given the zenith of feminity salaciously splitting before her eyes. While Valerica was equally buxom, my time under her edict was inexplicably narcotic. I learned a lot from that knife ear and even felt the blossom of an amorous attachment. Was it Stockholm Syndrome? No, it was just exceedingly conspicuous to discover such competency within the world. And as much as it grieves me to acknowledge it. The elf did enlighten me concerning this badland and its history. 

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How ironic, that my time under a yoke and donning that collar was perhaps the happiest I had ever been. Nonetheless, such jollity couldn't exist forever. I had risen to a prominent place within their hierarchy. However, humanity once more saw fit to strip away what solaces I had managed to erect. Their meddlesome habits led them to kill off my mistress's overlord. The two beings were bonded intricately, to the point his departure left her body without a soul. Fruitlessly, I sustained her vessel in some ill-fated effort to resuscitate my love. Only to be met with unbridled despair that fluttered from my lingua scurrilities.

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I dug her grave with a comminuted heart and buried what could have been a homely if not satisfying existence. Rising from that tomb, I would take that spiked collar, a symbol of my servitude, and encase it in gold. Impetuously, I flaunted my death and resurrection as I once more felt coerced to pursue my original aims. Calling upon my mastery of the earth, I shielded my curvaceous form with blackened stone and implored the rock to present my halberd. I had heard tales of the Beastkin and Jungle uniting against these tyrannical prime apes. And so, I was off to join their cause and wiggle my way into their good graces. Who knows, maybe this ambivalence might be the spark I need to inflame my sovereignty and claim my legitimate position as headmistress over this world…

 

The Eternal House

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My altruism was met with wholly parsimonious consequences. The people surfeited themselves on my exertions. Their eyes were far too myopic to behold the luster of my projects. Like mongrels, they appeared inclined to return to their forefather's vomit.  Their dehydrated blabbers lapped up the bile of self-centeredness. Despite my sincerest efforts, the peasants were inept at accepting the changes and quarreled. Their uncouth essences were so intransigent that the betterment of their existence was repudiated for their traditionalism.

I raised many institutions from the sands. Education and industry were at an all-time high, and the middle class was birthed from our opulence. But, they spurned it all and slighted my sermons. Their gelatinous hearts were so saturated in their suet that they couldn't sense my commiseration. And so, a drastic stratagem was in order. My golden eyes could observe that distant tempest, and having lived incalculable lives, I alone surmised the outcome. My wherewithal was gradually amassed within Nirvana.  

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That second breakdown, unlike the first, would illustrate itself devoid of clemency. Mothers suffocated their babes rather than watch them starve, while brigands and monstrosities contested the hamlets daily. Famine, war, pestilence, and anarchy became mundane exposures. All those outside of my walls weltered within the outcomes of their missteps. Nonchalantly, I surveyed athwart the desert, conceding now that to be loved, one needed to be both fretted and reverenced. And to truly liberate these children from their lesser penchants, I needed to exemplify both aspects. While unbecoming, this stumbling wasn't without precedent and hence was not beyond my control.

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Many who had queried over my schemes found themselves now coerced. That ruination just beyond their homes depicted a grisly portrait. The sort of epiphany that even the most staunch and ardent naysayers discovered themselves impotent to renounce. This macabre exhibition of entropy spurred many to bend their knee. And, rather than hold preceding transgressions against them, I exonerated these Charlies of their offenses.  After all, I am nothing, if not amicable. That outside of my hold toiled as a model of which I could substantiate my claims.

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The Eternal House reached its inevitable alps. The squalid solutions of the former empires all but scoured, bestowing me the opportunity to mold it as I deemed fit. People are odd creatures. They are keen to exchange autonomy for security. Blissfully oblivious to the fact that such actions insinuated they warranted neither. While others abode within the dilapidated remains of what was. Our lights radiated across the twilight with the objective of not reliving the past, but instead forming an unprecedented future.

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My factories belched out blackened smoke to the welkin, while the industry many were incapable of replicating progressed almost undeterred by the flounderings of yesteryear. That municipality within the center of the desert became the beating heart of the providence. Its cadence swelled as those asphyxiating in anguish solicited after asylum. Those who could be of use were taken in, while the deadweight like chaff was flung into the wind. While ruthless, I only had so many resources and couldn't afford to feed and shelter an unending horde of bottom feeders. 

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Ultimately, my paradise found itself under attack. Aversions from behind the veil materialized within the firmaments and ventured to assimilate all I had architected. We stood unified and repelled their onslaught. My triumph only inspired the people's love and fear for me. Even the Khan of the Beastkin Union, who was somehow present during that little shenanigan, found herself unable to resist my allure. Our two factions, formerly divided, found themselves developing a pact. With our resources combined, we concocted a strategy to retake the desert and sequentially restore harmony to an otherwise orderless land. 

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Nonetheless, despite things looking up, I am hardly so insensible to gloat and assume ascendancy. The time to exult within eminence is dawning, but it isn't this day. No, for now, I am preparing for what is to follow. I am keeping a vigilant eye on the azure and to the north. For if there is one thing I have garnered from my time in this Darwinian world. It is that there is always another predator seeking to gorge itself on your feats. And that leniency will only bequeath you a swift exit from this reality.

A reward deferred.

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These topaz eyes scanned the province, taking notice of recent murmurs and the telltale auguries of an impending tempest. While most wallowed in their thoughtlessness, I sought something more. And rather than be scoured off the desert, I marshaled my house and fortified it. There, behind those barricades, I assembled the desert's wealth. While most of the world went inert, my lights and factories remained active. The wheels of industriousness kept my forces equipped and supplied earthly comforts for the peasants. Zir-Zadim, Nirvana, Sandslout, and the northern providence were kept alive by my hand alone. 

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Outside, the world plummeted into disarray. The ringing of blades only silenced the discord of their kerfuffle. That mishmash manifestation of turbulence debilitated my political adversaries. While they vied against one another, depleting resources and straining their militaries, I watched and resumed the swelling of my ranks. Their finite cognition demonstrated itself as their grandest liability, one I intended to exploit. The day came after I had subjugated the lizardfolk for the curtain to be dropped.

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We rose from the shade. Our banners raised high as this union known as the Eternal House once more inundated the wasteland. One by one, each bastion of resistance discovered itself whittled down to its core. When my enemies realized what was dawning, it was too late. Their traditionalism and need to be sanguinary had doomed any prospect of a future outside of my dominion. And struggle as they might, there was no rebutting the certitude of my triumph. Lamentably for them, I had learned from my past stumblings why they have not.

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Like mongrels, they returned to their vomit. At the same time, I underwent a great awakening via introspection. My failures of yesteryear could be lumped into a singular phrase. While a rare commodity, empathy wasn't the currency these barbarians championed. No, they esteemed only one thing: power and its rigorous application. Once trampled under my heel, the fickled hearts of the people turned against their incompetent lords. Servants beheaded and eviscerated their former masters to placate their new sovereign.

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The people knelt before the Tabernacle and implored me for security of their own accord. Invariably they offered liberty upon my altar. I, being benevolent, accepted their beseechments. However, internally I chortled. Those who deliberately bartered freedom merited neither safety nor autonomy. That haze, that otherworldly film, was a blessing masquerading as a nemesis. The aberrations prowling within, only strengthened the people's faith in my abilities to protect them.

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 I became something much more than a woman within the commoner's eyes. I ascended to that of an ideal. It was an ideal propagated not by my own hands but by those zealots who saw me as the only future for their dilapidated providence. Thus, after a plethron of disappointments, the world I envisioned, finally became tangible. The conquest of myself, the power locked within, and the projection of my will brought this adamant desert to its knees. And so the age of the Lioness begins, one that will never fade as long as I helm this ship. However, this is only the beginning of a new chapter. And the night ahead will be dark and full of ordeals.

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The False Dreamer

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How disappointing. No matter my exertions, this wasteland was not revising its trajectory. And while I could sink my capital, manpower, and wisdom into the coming internal ambivalence. I would, at most, achieve a hollow and pyrrhic victory. If there is one thing, I've learned through my time inhabiting this world. Only a nit continues to invest where there is no apparent or sizable payout. And without an exit strategy, I'd be forced to sink in my resources for perpetuity. 

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And so, with a heavy heart, I submitted my resignation as this Badlands CEO. And while many might have reckoned this to be my final downfall. I, however, was not so willing to fade into oblivion. And so, using my network, I dispatched a series of messages to the north.

The Verdant Dynasty may have presented itself as a foe on occasion. However, this didn't imply that there wasn't mutual respect or that they were blinded to the services I could render their providence. 

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Intolerably, I was left to wallow and wait for a response. In the meantime, I put together a plan rather than be inert. I took the energy harvested from the anchor and poured it into the small pocket realm I birthed. Utilizing its power, I steered it and cut a hole through the space between the pages. My true self, that collection of memories and magic tucked from snooping gazes, rained across my volcanic domain.

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For too long have I strived after this moment, a juncture of apothesis. And somewhat belatedly, it was now within my clutches.

I was powerless to expedite the procedure and thus drew on my forbearance and veered my golden eyes elsewhere.

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Quickly, I dispatched my orders; the vaults filled with gold and precious gems were emptied. Along with the libraries I kept concealed from the world. Despite my suggestive exterior, I understood the laws of business quite well. To secure safe passage, I must offer up a tribute that none could refuse. And what was it that the Verdant Dynasty frothed at the mouth for the most? Knowledge concerning the desert's history and its abandoned research.

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There were those few that might designate me as a traitor. Although, in my eyes, the true apostates were those who renounced reason and logic to return to their vomit and traditional ways. As a mistress, I may have been demanding, yet, I wasn't without a heart. In secret, I arranged meetings with my house's brightest and most efficient members. One by one, I persuaded them of our predicament and supplied the resolution. Now convinced, we worked on one to put together this exodus. 

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The desert would be punished for its lack of faith. Not by brimstone and hellfire. No, such theatrics didn't suit my method of doing business. Instead, I will strike them with ignorance, destitution, and silence. Without my coin and infrastructure, the denizens of this blighted land will writhe under the poundage of their deficiencies. There will be no coin, no education system, no law, no government, and zero industry. The world's beating heart will burst, its volcanic ash will coat the land, and with it, no stone will remain unturned.

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Eventually, Valerna accepted the terms I proposed. Without hesitation, I set my plan into motion and destroyed Nirvana so no one could use its carcass to profane my legacy. And those abandoned were doomed to wallow in the consequences of their decisions. And just like that, the white sand empire was no more.

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My journey proceeded without an episode, and once we reached those giant gates, the spider welcomed us into her flock. What followed was an intense game of lion and mouse. The other state leaders questioned me, contested my authority, and aimed to paint me in a horrid light. Ultimately, they would fail, and I emerged relatively unscathed. However, my passage necessitated a cost.

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The leaders of this empire attached me to my old comrade Watari Devante. And just like that, I was charged with assisting him in bettering the skeletal highway. A land that was not entirely as developed as the rest of their country. And given it stood between the desert and the jungle, I surmised they placed me here so that if the south should invade, I'd be the first to perish or pulverize the opposition. 

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Nevertheless, I won't balk from this challenge and will rise to the occasion. While some might be prone to consider this a downgrade, I beheld it in a different light. This string of unfortunate events gave me another patch of soil to convert and build into my ideal image. And, with that energy within my pocket world new ripened. I stepped in and bore my true calling as an arch jinn. Everything, despite some minor setbacks, was going according to plan. That dream, an eternal empire, was now inevitable. And only I can helm it and guide it to its true alps.

Samara Del'Fluent passed that day, and the false dreamer was born. And though empires may die, the lioness always survives.

 

Samara's Account of Recent History
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I've witnessed the death of empires, the exchanging of crowns, and the shifting of the dunes. I've remained true to my vision throughout the discord and ambivalence. Legions have opposed me; the scores of the dead nourish me. My existence has been one ripe with strife. The endless hurdles set before my course merely delayed the inevitable. My house, an eternal one, was destined for victory. It didn't matter if it took a week or a millennium. The advantage of what I am is that the constraints of time hold no authority over me.

The human empire thought they could imprison and peddle me off like some lowly strumpet. I took great satisfaction in watching their self-cannibalization. Their most significant failure was their quest for complex answers when they need only look inside for a simple one. The internal squabbling and unquenchable thirst for power led to their ruination. The other races were united by their hatred. A contempt I shared, having been a victim of their bigotry. 

The cycle of violence alienated the human specimen from the rest. But what sealed humanity's swift expiration wasn't the barbarians at the gate. No, it was their arrogance. They could not see reason and unify against a common adversary. The houses within their ranks turned on one another, each aspiring to capitalize on the chaos to amplify their authority. Admirable, albeit ill-advised. Chaos is a beautiful thing; it facilitates society. The conflicts of today are instrumental in the construction of the tomorrow. Nevertheless, if not handed judiciously, it can sow rot.

The human species learned this truth, although it came far too late. After their time in the limelight waned, those who remained couldn't accept the change. Foolishly, they continued to rebel. Their animalistic tendencies were brought to the forefront as their kind dwindled. Each battle and each war diminished their population and stoked the fire of contempt. Ultimately, it resulted in their extinction. Their terminal silence resembled their lives, trivial and devoid of reason and purpose.

I should be grateful; the vacuum they left gave me a clear route. The age of the Beastkin soon followed. The other species were far from kind. They were blind, unable to learn from the folly of those who came before. That cycle of small-mindedness continued, its blade aimed at those who looked different. The white sands were painted red as the smoke of war blotted the cerulean skies. Like a stampede, war drums caused the desert's foundations to tremble. 

Many would be usurpers held the crown. Their fall preordained as they refused to learn from history and thus were destined to repeat it. I, however, was not so forgetful. I knew the old ways were a dead end. One would need to adopt a new lens if one strived to rattle the established order. The Nokhoi (fox folk) were an interesting lot. Their allegiance to their leader was unequivocal. I need only illustrate myself as indispensable to rate their fidelity. 

The other great powers bickered and butchered one another—a great and slow exsanguination. They were too keen to accept my gold to fuel their destructive penchants. I weaponized debt as a guillotine to embolden their pointless wars. The burden I placed devastated their economies and strengthened my coffers and industry. It wasn't till their once mighty roars were reduced to a frail whimper that I showed my hand. The Nokhoi and Bovites had become the future. Everyone else was obsolete to my grand design.

Foolishly, I endeavored to resuscitate the white sand empire. I poured many coins into its reconstruction. However, no amount of capital could alter the fact that she was dying. All I could do was delay the necrosis initiated by those who preceded me. 

Trade had begun on an international level. I rubbed shoulders with many leaders of distant lands and tribes. Most bored me. But one stood out. The Verdant Dynasty and its spider queen were threats. However, they weren't my enemies today. I used their court to build a rapport with those further up north. The necrotic swamp and its denizens were savages. But there was no denying that, unlike the desert, they had a future. 

Diplomacy became routine. My wealth and the advancement of my house were crucial to securing an alliance. Zelena and Florentina were enterprising leaders of that northernmost territory. But what they lacked was the resources to construct their ideal world. While nascent and a gamble, the remotest possibility of success was infinitely more attractive than unconditional death. My people, those under my employment, would be spared. However, those who were not would be left to languish in the doomed world they've created.

A great exodus was underway. It took much deliberation and secret meetings to persuade my allies that this was our only course of action. After many failures and suffering, I delivered my people to the Promised Land. The Oni, Bovinites, Nokhoi, and Swamp folk were a most unorthodox coalition. Nevertheless, it was necessary, for we all had a piece of the puzzle crucial to producing a better tomorrow. 

The Nokhoi had its military and cavalry. The Oni are scientifically minded and they think outside the box. The Swampkin, that eclectic array of specimens, were the commoners critical for any society to function. And my people, the Bovinites, were the source of wealth. Industry, the military, engineering, and capitalism all melded to formulate a new order—an empire nested within the fathomless expanse. The Eternal House survived, but it was forever changed.

What began as a laughing stock to pompous aristocrats now manifested as something more than a lineage. It metamorphosed into an idea and an eternal empire…