The Iron Dragon

Chapter 36. The history of the Qun

"I'm not really an expert on these artifacts, but I have a friend and comrade who is also in the Inquisition, he knows more about them and studies them. All I know is that they are of old Elven heritage and that they can bundle a large amount of energy and create a kind of protective shield that blesses a large area. Then no more cracks can appear in this area and no more demons appear it is really very useful. These artifacts react to magic and therefore to the crack in my hand. I activate them so that no more cracks can appear and the demons stay away from this place. They are very rare and mostly well hidden so that they are not easy to find and destroy. So far I have found only quite a few, but I hope that this will change soon. It is really good that we find one here so we can make sure that the emerald graves can return to their normalcy". I was fascinated by these artifacts and now that I knew what they did, I was just more fascinated. When I heard that the Inquisition was employing someone to study these artifacts, I felt the desire to meet and consult with them, but I would have to go to the Heavenly Fortress and that would be almost impossible. We went on and I caught myself here and there as my eyes wandered to the great Qunari, which had its place beside me at the moment. Not one detail of his whole body escaped my attention that made it difficult for me not to stray from time to time. But what distracted me even more was his smell. Most people would probably have looked at me in disbelief if I had told them that I liked the smell of the bull, but I definitely could not deny it. The smell of sweat, blood and sheer masculinity came my way and to an extent that would have put some people off, but I found it just beguiling and a little bit exciting.

While I was deep in my thoughts, which definitely had nothing to do with the horned warrior's body, I only noticed minimally how the door in front of me flew open and the croaky body of an undead made its way towards me. From the outside, I had not been able to notice my confusion about our sudden visitor, but I asked myself the question, when I let myself be so distracted. Out of pure reflex because of our sudden enemy I hit with a little too much force across the open door directly against the head of the undead and from there into the nearest wall. While the body of the undead was only on the ground and what was left of his head was flowing down the wall, I could only see to the huge hole in the wall which I had caused.

"huh...". I cleared my throat and pulled my hand back, some pieces of the wall falling off my hand.

"I was in my thoughts." I could feel the looks of the others and so I turned away.

"Remind me never to interrupt you while you're thinking I'd hate to end up like that." I cleared my throat and then nodded, the subject was closed for me. I let my gaze wander to the great Qunari one last time and noticed that his eyes were resting on me as well. His facial expressions remained unchanged, but I could see something in his eyes that looked like a certain amusement to me. I knew that he had noticed it, that was not very surprising to me either. This man displayed an attentiveness that I had seldom seen and that even though he only had one eye to see. I could see again and again how his eye perceived everything around him, missing very little if anything. I knew this alertness of Qunaris, for it was not unusual for them to keep an eye on everything. I knew that under the Qun, the faith, the Qunari, there were different ranks for which one could be trained and therefore it was quite interesting for me what role the bull might have played in this. I knew a lot about the Qun, because it was described in detail in many writings of this people, but it was something about which many had a very divided opinion. Some saw it as a blessing and others as a curse.

The Qun was based on a code from the Qunari called Ashkaari Koslun. He was a philosopher of the Kossith, that's what the Qunari was called before the Qun existed, Kossith was nothing else but a horned big giant which, when you look at a Qunari that way, fits quite well. The Qun came into being around the sixth age, which is the age of steel at the time I was in my seventies, so I'd been there for quite a while. Not too long after that, about 20 to 30 years after the new religion had spread, almost all the Kossith of that time converted to the qun and have been called qunari ever since. Also dwarves, humans and elves could also convert to the Qun and were then simply called Qunari as well. What I found particularly exciting was that nobody, not even the Qunari themselves, could say how their race really came into being. Some Qunari claimed that they were descended from dragons, which would explain their horns and their strange connection to these beings. The horns of the Qunari say that when you look at them in all their forms, they really look very similar to a dragon, and I had often heard and been told by some Qunari themselves that they felt as if something in the dragons was talking to them. Of course I couldn't answer the questions about the existence of the Qunari, but that they had something to do with dragons, I couldn't disprove with my knowledge either.