Prologue: Out of the Wilderness (Maissa al-Bahari)

You were a remarkable child and a blesssing to your geriatric parents, coming in the winter of their lives with six strong older brothers many years your senior. Your father, a tribal chief amongst the nomadic Bahari, had already seen his sons follow the Holy Divine's path as Dervishes, the spinning acrobatic warriors that defended the people against the dangers of the desert. It nearly broke your mother's heart when at the tender age of six, a Jandicary visited your tribe and told them that you had the gift from the Holy Divine and must be trained for the perils of your fate. Reluctantly, they allowed you to be educated by the tribe's shaiq, a Bahari priest, and over the course of your education wandering Jandicary would arrive to improve your discipline with the sword and teach you the tactics of battle. Dozens of different men and a couple of women were your tutors as you wandered the Bahar desert with your tribe.
It was on your sixteenth birthday that you finally received the blessing of your parents on your journey as a Jandicary neophyte and the gift of the family treasured heirloom of Dragon Silk clothing to protect you. Set an almost impossible task you travelled alone to the Arkash Mesa where the spirits of the long-banished Shaitun tested your endurance and resolve. For nearly two years, you lived a life of peril and subsistence; your body and mind taken to the edge of what they could endure; your will to live tested and your faith in the Holy Divine's great plan for you shaken time and time again. The final baptism of fire saw you defeat the plot of an Efreet, an evil elemental of the plane of fire, with barely a breath left in your body.
Having endured the trials that saw you become truly a rod for the One True Faith, you returned home to your father's tribe only to learn that your parents and your brothers had all been slain in a devastating attack by the monstrous desert creatures called Ugkrya. The brutish ogres had come in force and your brothers had bravely faced them despite their numbers to allow the rest of the tribe to make their escape. It seemed your ties to this world were severed and you felt a great emptiness in your soul. It took all your discipline not to seek to devote your life to bloody vengeance for that went against all the teachings of your order. In your heart you knew the Holy Divine had other plans for you.
Desolate and unsure of your path, you meditated for weeks in the hill lands seeking divine guidance. It was in the depths of your fasting that a vision came to you of a perilous danger to all the people of the Caliphate. A nightmare vision of an elemental horde unleashed upon the lands and the burning of a city you had never seen in your own life. Once out of your trance, you tried desperately to recall the details of the prophecy, sketching what you could remember using charcoal and granite.
Seeking answers you returned to the remnants of the tribe where you sought the counsel of your old tutor, the shaiq Mustafa ibn-Quom, who recognised your etchings as none other than the City of Pearl, Darvish Kapur. It was clear to you then that your destiny lay there and the Holy Divine's role for you would become clear once you arrived. So you travelled across the desert with the few meagre possessions you had and arrived at the almost alien city, with its bustling people and thick walls that felt like a cage for your soul.
Three weeks you have stayed in the city, moving every three nights as the bonds of hospitality allow those friendly to your order and people to give you shelter. You have wandered every street and alley of the city and learned many of the names of those you met but still there has been no sign or divine guidance as to what danger awaits this tranquil city.
Still your trust in the Holy Divine has never faltered and on this spring day you find yourself in the coffee house north of the Bazaar listening for anything that the One True Divine puts before you as a guide.