This current situation brings to mind an incident with a warlock mage I
came across in my journey throughout this land. One quiet day while I
was tormenting the churchies in the bascilica, an ethereal portal
appeared before, making a horrific noise. Antarax Moonflair strode out
of this portal his eyes glimmering with rage preparing to cast a spell
to end the poor churchies life...but, some Shallamese archer shot him in
the back and he died. Of course, being Shallamites we danced around
shallam waving the head with a pike like we actually killed him
ourselves, until all of the sudden, that damned annoying noise came
again, and plop, Antarax was back, preparing to cast the same spell when
the same archer shot him in the back. This happened, once or twice more
I believe. Given its quite humorous watching Antarax's stubborness, but
the jist of the story is this..."If something really bad happens in a
situation the first, and you find yourself in the exact same situation
as before, why the hell would you proceed in the same fashion as
before?"

-Given, you could simply answer "Duh, they're Shallamites" but really,
isn't the definition of a fool, a person who makes the same mistake over
and over again?

To be honest, I really don't see why everyones complaining. Hashan was a
nice city, I would say sparkly, but that goes against the whole darkness
decor. For years, Hashanites sat giggling like schoolgirls as Ashtan,
Shallam, and Oakstone beat the crap out of each other. Fires, floods,
meteors, big rats, demons plagued the world, except Hashan. It was only
a matter of time before those indecisive 'neutral' folk within Hashan
got theirs. Remember all those times, you all sat in your city smirking
and laughing at other peoples suffering? Well, now its their turn.

Reverting back to my Antarax's story, the world should have been
expecting some other halfwit mortal, to go running after the chest,
quivering with anticipation to see what goodies were locked within. Most
of us witnessed Shakti's accomplishment of obliterating the Bascilica
and killing most every innocent person within a 50 foot radius. Now, if
we all thought about this (some did) If one box, unleashed a giant
meteor that slammed into one of the defining points of one city,
wouldn't it be wise, to get away from anything that is 'big'? Come on
people, it was quite obvious with "Clouds of Doom" and Massive Meteors
that Varian wasn't exactly here to help lead us into a new age of
enlightenment. Instead of sitting in your city being arrogant and
'neutral' you should have either been heading for the hills, or trying
to show a little compassion for those who got screwed by fate. Don't
blame your arrogant stupidity on those around you, for it is not their
fault. You had all the facts and the possibilities before you, and you
chose to sit in your 'big' city, while someone unleashed a power
everyone knew, was going to destroy something else 'big'.

Shakti and Charlotte are only possibly to blame. They opened put the key
into the chests, the unlocked the latched, they helped bring this upon
us. But we cannot forget our parts in this, did any of us try to
rationally work this out? No. Ashtan stupidly killed everyone who
touched the key, Shallam stupidly attacked every Ashtanite that
mentioned the word key, Hashan sat there laughing like a bunch of rabid
hyena's. Not once, did anyone stop and think "gee. this thing already
gave us this pretty clouds of doom, maybe opening this shiny box is a
bad thing"....damn, even a troll could think that..."Other make pretty
cloud, pretty cloud not so pretty, pretty cloud hurted me...Other make
box...other make mean cloud DUH!" As you can see, even the most mentally
inept troll can figure this out.

As you begin to consider condemning Shakti and Charlotte to lives of
suffering, we should all sign ourselves up for the same punishment. Not
one of us tried to help the situation, we all became the instruments of
our own demise. The responsibility of guilt does not fall solely on the
shoulders of two complete different women, but it weighs heavily on our
all shoulders. Every single one of us who was awake during this time of
terror, is guilty in some way or another for the immense amount of
suffering brought upon us...

-Calhoun

Penned by my hand on the 25th of Lupar, in the year 288 AF.