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Evania Laquette
Gratianethea ASAEN (later Evania Laquette Gratianethea Olesiar-Asaen),
grandmother of Emperor Déárán Asáén, at the tomb of her recently
deceased father, Déóron Ksiánkiril Réxlámár Almárádáriux-ASAEN, one of
the most influential Krean merchants of the era. Aged nineteen, Evania
Laquette Gratianethea Asáén thus assumed the management of one of the
greatest estates of Zhun at the time, running it in her mother’s stead.
Lady Evania Laquette was famous for her fascination with the sea and in
her later years became an eminent patron of Greater Hummingbirds.
Note that the sepulchre, typical of Ancient Krean mausoleums, rests
beneath the ground, within the extensive network of vaults several
floors under the stone altar. Each of the affluent Krean-Zhunite houses
had similar burial grounds. As marriages occurred between the families
the necropoli would be linked and a central vault would be opened for
the new branch of the families. As centuries passed these mausoleums
grew so vast and interrelated that Zhunites began to refer to anything
beneath the soil as the "Kingdom of the Dead" – an ancestral realm
existing in sync several levels below with the kingdoms of the living.
After excavating several peds of earth, one might still run into the
august entrances of one of these ancient burial grounds in today's Zhun.
It seems even the cataclysmic Breaking (known elsewhere in Nybelmar as
the Year of Darkness) could not disturb the eternal peace of the Kingdom
of the Dead. Image drawn by
Linda Tso,
used with friendly permission. |
