A Brief Narrative of Olimpia's History and Culture—

To those who can comprehend these words, I leave this as a record. One of the myriad accounts scattered throughout the Republic, left by those who can look ahead and see where our road leads. Except my message isn't meant to be a warning screaming into the heavens, begging for someone to notice and avert the catastrophe. I am not that idealistic or hopeful.

Perhaps that makes me a heartless bastard. Then again, what person of note within history doesn't fall into the heartless bastard category? The idealistic, be they children, sheltered women, or weak men, try to preach that we should aspire to the path of higher morals. That kindness and acceptance should be placed above all else, but such talk is worth less than the effort it takes to convey.

Even while the fools preach their beliefs, the cold and callous who have worked all their lives to accumulate wealth and power are shaping the world to their liking. Centuries from now, it will not be the plebeians shouting in the streets or what they preach that is remembered. It will be those who blazed trails over uncharted ground, using the blood of their subjects.

I have come to understand and accept that I will not be one of those individuals. There is no shame in admitting this to oneself, as it is merely an acknowledgment of one's limitations. As mortal beings, we all have them. That is a truth in which I have found peace in recent years, after a lifetime of self-loathing and struggle.

This is not meant to excuse my failures or justify my lack of achievements, as in many ways, I am extraordinary. My life is one that many individuals would envy. I come from a wealthy family with a long and illustrious history, and my mental abilities are at a level that few can match and even fewer exceed. Yet, so little of it is something that I have achieved on my own or had a hand in creating.

My mental powers are the result of generations of careful breeding. Something that those who can read this will undoubtedly have in common. However, the political, social, and economic maneuvering I have instigated on behalf of my family can be summed up with a single word: maintenance.

As my life has unfolded, it has become abundantly clear that, despite my rank and privileges, I am by no means exceptional. At least when compared to my peers. To those who see this and are below my station, it might seem like I am complaining while bragging, but that isn't the case.

I am simply stating that I will, at best, be a footnote in history. A fate that is arguably worse than that of a son of a destitute farmer born in the countryside. Practically nothing of note can be expected of those born of a low station. If they double the size of their inherited fields or the size of their house, they have done more to elevate their descendants than I have. With all of my advantages, I have only maintained what I have been granted.

So, I turn my thoughts toward the future, but not to my own achievements and goals, or even those of my children and descendants, necessarily. I turn my gaze to those of a generation so far removed that any resemblance between us is nothing but a fleeting fancy. Past the end of my line to that of my entire race, and all those in between, I write this for you.

Because even as I watch my own grandchildren grow, I see it. Should I turn my eyes to the greater Republic or on the infant Traitor State, I am sure I will find that the rot is all the more pervasive. There is a pervasive lack of understanding in our society. A cancerous growth that is insidiously seeping into every crevice from above and crawls up from below. A blight that will be the end of our people if it can not be excised by any means necessary.

Do you know of the Mad Scholar? Of course, you do. Should you be an Olimpian, you will know that name. You will know his story, as I have no doubt you have read entire sections of his wall and perhaps a biography or two on his life.

The first question is simple. And yet, it must be asked before you can begin to understand why his presence pervades society. It is one that many think of, but few can ever start to consider. Why? Why do you know of him and have read his writings?

His title is the Mad Scholar. By its very phrasing, it does not convey any level of credibility to those who hear it. And that is just the start. If you look at any of the common texts that have something to say about the man, they consistently mention his nonsensical writings. His absurd and irrational accounting of history.

According to them, he has no insights and nothing of note to be conveyed to anyone. There isn't so much as a kind word that can be found concerning him. In every conversation he is mentioned in, the context is always in a negative light. But he is perpetually brought up.

Hundreds of years after his death, from the time I pen this — and I will bet my family's fortune that the trend will continue endlessly into the future so long as nothing changes — the man and his wall will never be forgotten. If there is nothing of consequence carved into that stone, if there is no truth to his words, then why does everyone know them?

It is because there is no falsehood carved into that stone.

All nobles of the middle rank and higher know this, but most do not take the next logical step. They don't ask the next question, a trend that is only increasing with every generation. The cause is simple: as time marches onward, people forget. Common knowledge, known to even the lowest street urchin at the time it is discovered, is lost, suppressed, and hoarded, until only the highest levels of society are still aware.

An intentional series of circumstances that I, too, am guilty of. People crave power, and if you want to rule our society or even influence it in a significant way, you must understand the truth of our past. You must know and contemplate what was considered knowledge hundreds of years before you were born, a feat that will become increasingly difficult as trends continue. Because the factions that do not take kindly to those who dig up the past are only growing in strength.

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They have taken it to such an extreme that, on multiple occasions, individuals have taken it upon themselves to destroy the Mad Scholar's Wall. And they succeeded in inconveniencing individuals for a time. Not that it is such a hard achievement, as the wall is all but unguarded. Then again, it is also an Artifact, making guarding it all but unnecessary as it has the ability to reconstruct itself.

To my understanding, it was the first structure to ever achieve such a status within our society. Most would counter with the statement that the Gauntlet and the monument outside its walls are Artifacts, but they would be mistaken. The actual fortress is crumbling as the years take their toll, and the obelisk was constructed by the elves' last High King.

The Mad Scholar's Wall was the first object that had enough focused willpower and intent directed at it to effectively make it eternal. That alone should be enough to convey its importance to others. And yet, everyone still considers it something to be mocked and scorned.

Repetitive, I know, but I need to drive the point home. You need to understand that our mental powers are a weakness as much as a strength. No, in totality, they are more of a weakness than a strength to our people. Out of the millions of Olimpians, perhaps a few thousand have the ability to resist the social compulsions that plague us. Something that takes more than a little training and effort, as you have no doubt experienced in your noble upbringing.

All because of the Actualization Cycle, as it has come to be called.

We believe something to be true. Our power, subconsciously, begins influencing the world to reinforce our beliefs. And the actualization of our beliefs only reinforces them. It is a cycle that can happen by accident or on purpose, for good or ill. Though by this point, it is all intentional.

The most commonly used example of this — and the turning point in our history — is that of the Earth Sphere Experiment. An endeavor that, by the end of it, made earth spheres into the now practical and common resource of every legion that people take for granted. The logic behind them is basic: take a patch of soil and compress it until it reaches a rock-like state. You are simultaneously digging earthworks and creating throwable objects capable of breaking bones.

Except in the early days of the Republic, the majority of the population was unable to replicate the elven trick as we can today. Instead of a compressed ball of soil that rivals stone in density and weight, earth spheres were mashed dirt that were loosely packed together, and a child could rip them apart. Helpful in moving dirt, but little else.

That is, until the Cezarian Family's patriarch was out on a campaign in the year 428 of our glorious Republic, and they were running out of ammunition as they were being besieged by a horde. So he devised a plan that relied on people's perception. Everyone knew that if someone thought a task was possible with mental powers, it was. And if they believed it wasn't, they could fruitlessly spend their entire lives struggling and failing to achieve the task.

Based on that logic, the High lord grabbed a little-known but powerful noble, and the lord began moving among his men with him. The nobleman pretending to be a commoner began compressing the earth to form spheres using a new technique he had invented, showing it off to everyone. Under the High Lord's gaze, the noble would boast about his unrivaled technique and challenge commoners and nobles alike to contests forming the earth spheres, besting them at every turn before moving to a new cohort and doing it again.

Eventually, with the aid of a few more conspirators, his men began to believe that the technique really did work. That anyone with decent control could form a stone-like sphere with it. As the records indicate, legionaries who could barely compress the earth tighter than they could with their hands began making earth spheres capable of bashing in skulls by the end of the campaign. After the legion returned home, the High Lord bragged about his trick to his peers, and they quickly started to contemplate the ramifications of his discovery.

So the second question was finally asked: to what extent do our expectations and beliefs alter reality? It burned in their minds, and it wasn't long before they sought to discover the answer.

Over the course of the next sixty years, rumors began circulating that anyone could compress dirt as well as a noble with a new psy technique. They even sent out individuals well above Average in rank to demonstrate this new casting, right before the rumors appeared. The style of casting was slightly harder to execute, so if anything, there should have been no impact or a negative one. Except the result was the opposite.

The more challenging casting method served to differentiate the two styles in the minds of those who learned it, subtly suggesting to them that it should work better. That fact, reinforced by decades of rumors and perhaps a firsthand demonstration, meant that it wasn't long before the quality of the average person's earth spheres began to improve. With minor improvements appearing in the most skeptical, the overall result snowballed.

Small gains of the first to attempt the casting built upon each other, reinforcing the beliefs of those who came after. By the end, commoners who could count the number of orbs within their reserves on two hands and had no mental training could form earthen spheres comparable to nobles with a hundred times their abilities.

There were glorious celebrations in the small drawing rooms of those who were in on the experiment when they finally ended it. And right after they finished, people's minds turned to how they could use this knowledge to further empower themselves. Protecting the Republic by making all of its citizens capable of casting beyond their abilities was all well and good, but how was this going to allow them to further strengthen their positions?

It wasn't long before the streets were abuzz with rumors. Every tavern you walked into, you would hear tales of how the local noble family was the strongest humanity had to offer. That with every generation, they would become stronger as their bloodline strengthened.

And it worked.

Well, there had to be some adjustments to the women selected to strengthen a family, but that was a minor concern. What mattered to everyone in the know was that from one generation to the next, there was a seven percent increase in the expected mental power growth. It was more than proven that our expectations quite literally shape our reality to a far more significant extent than we first believed.

It was not long after that realization that an insurmountable problem arose. It could not be helped. The higher the rank, the stronger the common people expected the nobles to be. Except there could only be so many nobles at the top, and there was only so much land to rule over. So many people to be told what to believe.

For a time, the situation was mitigated by constant expansion. Those with ambition only had to gather a legion and move out into the unclaimed lands. But soon enough, the easy places to claim ran out. The north was blocked by the Broken Mountains and its endless hoards. The waters in all other directions were slowly being explored, but few had faith in discovering anything.

So the nobles turned to look at each other, hunger burning in their eyes. A single question burned in their minds. "How strong would their children become if there were only one ruling family?"

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