This is a True Story.
At the request of the Survivors, some names have been changed.
Out of respect for the heroes of Ephia's Well, the rest is wrote exactly as it occurred.
I arrive in the Scald at about midnight, on a Airship provided by the Great Baz'eeli Company, Gohari Heavy Industries. One of their Indentured Servants allowing me to sup from a chilled glass before we landed, it was the last of such creature comforts.
I am the only reporter to embed from the Baz'eeli Unified Press, another was supposed to come as well. However, he dropped out after completing the mandatory defence training that the Third Legion subjected us to before our arrival. He gained a sudden moment of sanity, as the intructor described the ashy residue of corpses sticking into our Tlyonssian Respirators as a "object to swallow", especially if it was "chunky", and so he left.
Taken to a ramshackle outpost, far to the outer border of Scald, rarely visited by the main bulk of Union of Kardesler. I meet my first of the Jannisaries, a few men and women in their early 20s, wasting their time. None of them ashfolk, of course-. They're all barbarians. As soon as I enter, one of them asks me if a figure known as "Bashir" died, they all pester me. Then, as I deny knowing if this "person" died, they state that "Maybe he really died, and they're just not telling us to keep morale up." Another says, "You know, I heard he was in the Consulate."
There is a layer of dust that emanates from this barbaric place and in this barbaric camp onto and in everything, and I so deeply miss the civility of home, and especially the politeness of the Gohari Servant and the crispness of my fruity bubbler...