The Cursed Souls of Liriethem - Forgotten Lore of Liriethem Volume 1

Farewell to a great king

The procession moved slowly and without clatter. All the people sang with sublime voices, full of harmony... although without too much emotion. The song had no words and had a sad, almost lethargic tune, very much in line with the event that was taking place: a funeral.

Most of the courtship was composed of women, except for a few eunuch men who were responsible for transporting the body. All, men and women, were young and had beautiful features. It was the royal entourage, chosen especially to perform this task: the ceremonies related to the passage of life to death of the sovereigns and the royal family of Liriethem. The servants were thirty-five in total, one for each year that the monarch had been on the throne, and all wore white silk clothes that floated with the wind, which gave the procession an otherworldly appearance. They went barefoot to prevent any noise from interfering with the harmonies of the songs.

They carried a large bundle, also wrapped in the same kind of delicate clothes: the late King Oril Liriethem III.

Great changes were now expected in all cities, both those belonging to the kingdom, and in foreign ones. Whoever became the new king would have a great task ahead: to maintain the unity of the kingdom of Liriethem. Oril III had been a strong king who, thanks to different political and military strategies, had led his realm to become a power in the region. With his death, many neighbouring kingdoms, including a handful of rulers from several cities in Liriethem itself, saw the change of ruler as an opportunity to take a place of leadership that would allow them to follow their own ambitions.

(Footnote: The exact number of people living in the kingdomof Liriethem is unknown, but among the seven most important cities, it isbelieved that the number of inhabitants varies between 300,000 and 700,000.)

As was customary in the long-lived kingdom of Liriethem, the late kings were to be taken to the ancient city of Liamsa. This tradition was hundreds of years old, as explained in the paintings and inscriptions at the gates of the city, made of countless dark stone arches in different states of deterioration. These murals told the story of how Liamsa had been founded and how it became a great religious capital: it had been priests who built the foundations of the city, with the aim of transforming it into a religious mecca, so that all the followers of their religion could calmly study their theological secrets. The faith of these monks was called Tilianism, a religion that is currently professed throughout the kingdom and is accepted by royalty as the official religion of Liriethem.

(Footnote: Because of the size of the city as it is seentoday, it can be inferred that the number of monks who had gone to study andlive in the ancient Liamsa was about 200,000, which at that time, as it doestoday, meant that it was an enormous city.)

But at the time of its greatest splendour, Liamsa was attacked and destroyed almost entirely. What can be understood in the stories told at the entrance of the city (apparently, a few survivors of the attack wanted to leave the events registered in some way before leaving the city forever, and left the messages carved in the stone arches that are still standing today) is that the population was decimated. The monks were not bellicose, they had no weapons and it was not part of their creed to attack other living beings. However, nobody knows who sacked and destroyed the city, since there is no writing about it in any library of the kingdom nor does this information appear in any of the city murals - the monks themselves probably never knew themselves who brought the ruin to their perfect city.

With the passage of time, the ruins of the city of Liamsa were completely abandoned. It was only after almost 200 years that the royal family decided to use the remains of the city for something helpful and transform them into a great mausoleum for their royalty, a tribute to their dead kings.

(Footnote: Some sources offer another explanation: thepriests were expelled by the king of Liriethem ruling at the time, because ofthe massacres and tortures those priests organised with their followers. Yearslater, during the first attempt of reconstruction of Liamsa, many human boneswere found in common graves. If these were part of the tilianist humansacrifices or if they were the corpses resulting of the looting of Liamsa afterwards,the truth remains, until today, unknown.)