A Secret Atlas
Michael A. Stackpole
 Qiro Anturasi, Royal Cartographer of Nalenyr, had been instrumental for his family's reputation as the most reliable map-charter in the known world. Merchants and princes all sought his clan's maps, even as the House of Anturasi continued sending out expeditions to expand their wealth of information, surveying unmapped territories, making detail notes of fauna, flora and geography. The Anturasi had been vital to Nalenyr's growing wealth and rise in power. Considered a crucial state treasure that must not fall into the wrong hands, Qiro was confined, on orders and under protection of the Naleni princes, to his estate Anturasikun in Moriande, capital of Nalenyr. There, he continued to oversee his clan's map-making enterprise, training the scions of the clan into the family trade, ruthlessly subjecting them to rigorous training and demands, for more than half a century. Now, the family stood poised on the brink of a historical breakthrough event which could catapult their standing further and beyond the imagination of rival map-makers. Intertwined with their mission were the political ramifications for Nalenyr, the aggressive northern state of Deseiron, and Helosunde which served as buffer between the two former powers. Much of Helosunde had been under Desei occupation, and Nalenyr provided Helosundian refugees sanctuary and support to confound Desei designs on Nalenyr. Qiro's grandsons, Jorim and Keles, were tasked with undertakings that would take them in opposite directions. Jorim was to embark on a specially commissioned ship Stormwolf to make accurate longitudinal charts at sea with a secret new instrument. Keles was to tasked to rediscover the lost segment of the pre-Cataclysmic Spice Route, which would take him into ground zero of the Cataclysm, a region where the ancient wild magic still raged. Nirati, sister to Jorim and Keles, remained behind in Moriande to hold the fort, for stakes were high and there were many hidden players whose intrigues threatened her beloved brothers. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the devastations caused by the wild magic, the jaecai who had not departed with Empress Cyrsa's expedition, continued the xidantzu tradition in their schools martial arts. Their best students became itinerant warriors who travelled the realms to help fight injustice without regard to political affiliations. Moraven Tolo was one such warrior. When hints to powerful cache of ancient weapons, imbued with magicks from their former wielders, came to his attention, the jaecais became concerned that opportunistic parties would see it as an easy means of raising a strong army without the necessary ability, discipline and experience to control the power, possibly leading to history repeating itself.