Shau: In Exile

Quest type:	Errand
From NPC(s):	Emperor Shau
Required adventure school:	Any (level: 50)
Locations:	Barasavian Desert
Previous quest(s):	Shau: Survival of the Fittest
Next quest(s):	Zuyazu: Keep Your Friends Close..., Shau's Mercy
View this quest in the Quest Tree

You have successfully stabilized Shau's living situation. He has a story to tell you.

Quest text

You have aided me, Saris, and I keep my promises. Will you hear the tale of how the withered ones turned the Welger into slave soldiers?

I"ll listen to your tale

You see - some time ago in the past our race had a choice. Serve the "Withered Aegis", or be wiped out. Some bowed to the dead out of cowardice, though they would not admit it, while others bowed thinking the future conquest would please Varrantoth...

What side did you take?

I admit that I was deluded by thinking conquest would please him and bowed. It was then that I doomed the Welger as their Emperor.

In our culture the word of the emperor is not just law... I am Varrantoth's mouth. My words are the words of a god, and thus it is that the entire Welger race fell into line behind the Withered Aegis.

What made you change your mind?

We have been disowned. All of us feel it.

It is that all Welger have a weak bond to Varrantoth. The emperor's family bloodline has the strongest. It is what we used to communicate his demands as his representative. It is thought that perhaps we are his most direct descendants in the world, thus our blood is thicker.

When I bowed, the bond was cut. I thought it was just myself at first, but soon came to be aware that it was all of us.

I have wrought a great shame on my race that disgusted our lord so much that he cast us away. I regret this.

Does losing your bond hurt you at all?

Always.

Imagine that I am as if I was put in a dark, airless pit - and my essence is consumed forever by maws of blades, never to be fully torn to pieces. I am two places at once - here, and there. I am not tormented, but stuck in it. I feel a maddening sense of loss, pain, and regret.

The strongest of us have eventually lost their minds and become dangerous and uncontrollable Berserkers.

That sounds awful. Will all the Welger eventually go insane?

Eventually - unless someone finds a way to make amends.

The priests work so fervently to try to appease him in the city you called "Tazoon". Rituals. Prayers. Offerings. Trophies. The wall of water runs red with pollution from attempts to appease him for relief.

I feel that it will not work to convince him to reconsider disowning his disgraced children.

Only when the last Welger takes its last breath free of being a slave, will he welcome us home. I intend to make that happen... watching my subjects crawl like maggots for the walking dead disgusts me.

How do you plan to free your people?

Shau shows you an amulet around his neck.

The only way I can.

The way we understand each other is this amulet. Without it, my language is as incomprehensible to you as the grunts of a sow. It is an ancient artifact handed down through generations - long before the withered existed. A time when we had ports, boats, and trade.

To understand the traders who came, these 'tradestones' were created from some very rare stones. Only a handful exist. All but mine have been lost in the ranks of the withered. They corrupted them, and now use them to order other enslaved races.

How does an amulet help me?

There are some Welger who may share my sentiments about joining the withered ranks being a mistake. Take my tradestone and look for a blacksmith named Zuyazu within this city you have called Tazoon. They will know that I gave it to you, though they won't know why they know. Its an effect of the stone as a result of some of its inner power being of the mind.

If you show him the stone, he might have an idea to help you weaken the foothold in Tazoon. Most Welger will attack you as they feel you coming with the tradestone. There might be others outside of Zuyazu who might assist you. The only ones of us that are not at all likely to help you are the priests - they are far set in their ways - but their younger acolytes may be much more amicable.

As my Tradestone is now yours, you will need to use it next time you want to speak to me.

I see. That sounds useful.

You have received 1 Shau's Tradestone.

Steps

• Listen to Shau's tale

Rewards

• Adventure Experience: 40800
• Money: 25s
• Reward: Shau's Tradestone