A Proposition
June 5, 2017
I was visited today by a woman. She had raven black hair with the brightest golden eyes I had ever seen, her smile shown with the radiance of the sun while her eagerness reminded me of Herida. Her name was Iras Asenath, a young archeology major at the University of Letopolis in Reshara. Her visit was unannounced but Pericles had reminded me of my own fascination with Reshara. I had done not one but two semesters abroad there when I was at university. It is hard to not get nostalgic about those days, those were the days one could go to school without worrying about is it safe or not. Those were the years of not long after independence for Reshara when they were rapidly rediscovering their national identity and Parthenopias was recovering from the Peninsular War. Those were the years when I was young and as my friends put it 'free spirited.' I would spend days at a time at sites helping to restore old temples or uncover long lost ones. As such it didn't take much for Ms. Asenath to convince me to return to Reshara in what could be described as the the greatest search in their history. The search for the ancient city of Rokh.
I remember sitting in my Resharan Antiquity 3110 class at the University, Professor Iuseneb Nehasy lecturing us all. A rather short old man with white bushy hair that he was almost always unable to tame, bushy eyebrows and beard to match. Though as I sit here recalling his appearance I can't remember a day that his beard wasn't well groomed and well kept. I believe that was actually the neatest thing about him, even his office was messed to kingdom come like a storm blew through their only an hour before. It was in his class that I learned about Rokh for the first time. I also remember him lecturing us foreigners about how exactly to pronounce the name, (Roh-ck). It defied our own linguistics since the 'k' was before the 'h' but it was ancient Resharan so it was vastly different than Parthenian.
I digress though from the point. Rokh was the most important city in the ancient Raia Empire that spanned most of modern Reshara. It enjoyed a meteoric rise to power in the 11th century, stable rule for three centuries before an equally as meteoric fall. It's precise location has since been lost to time. Many people have tried to find it, including Professor Nehasy. He spent decades trying to locate it, claiming that it would really give Reshara the identity it needed.
Ms. Asenath was also enchanted by the myth of the city and wanted to find it. She had found an ancient manuscript dating to the 5th century BCE which gave a rough location for the city. It was deep in what the Resharan's today called 'The Wastes' which was a vast stretch of the desert that did not have an oasis or city anywhere within it making it truly inhospitable. It was to be a small expedition of about eighty people who would be taking several truckloads of supplies, they had even pulled some strings to have a bi-weekly air drop for water and other essential food supplies. Of course all throughout her proposal I was dumbfounded as to why she was asking me to come along on this journey. I mean sure I had a Ph.D in Resharan History for the Antiquity period but so did many others. Of course that's when Pericles came in and we talked about it, it hit me like a car hitting a brick wall. Iras Asenath was the daughter of my college love interest Set Asenath. He had tried to find Rokh nearly two decades ago and had died in the search. His body had never been recovered and his expedition was the last to enter The Wastes. I felt a sense of obligation to go along to help Iras the best I could while also feeling an intense and burning desire to find that city. I agreed. We flew out the next day.
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Reshara Country on the south-eastern continent in Artemia. Former colony of Parthenopias 1727-1960.
Rokh fabled capital of Raia. Rose to prominence in the early 1000s BCE before being lost in the 700s BCE. Location has since been lost to history.
Raia ancient Empire that spanned most of modern day Reshara. 1000s BCE - 700s BCE
The Wastes a stretch of desert in Reshara that contains no cities, towns or villages along with no surface water source making it uninhabitable to humans.