Some Forty Years later...

Chapter One

The elegant buildings and bright streets of the city of Grand Coryan shone in the bright early morning sun. Many people from across Onara were attracted to these sites, especially pilgrims from all over the Coryani empire, who came to see the temples of the mother church, or perhaps to see the Emperor. The lone ragged man sleeping on the street corner snored loudly as the flies and maggots about his body reacted to the rising heat of the morn'. The robed man in black was prodded by the innkeeper of the inn he had been asleep in front of. People avoiding the man just stared at the poking. Gasping and coughing, the ragged man woke up, startled he stared at the innkeeper.
"Get up, ya' stinkin' bum!" Shouted the obese man in a stained white apron.
After letting out a long hack and cough, he stood up to face the innkeep. The innkeep stared into the man's face, a pitted ugly thing. His left eye was cataract, and pussly yellow. His other uninfected eye was gray. Unshaven, and his was covered in wet mucus. The man was nearly forty; but seemed to be nearly eighty with his ugly look and gangly lack of flesh and muscle. It was clear he was val; his right eye confirmed that.
"So," spoke the ragged Val, "You've decided to accept this poor Cancerese man? Maybe a plague won't visited upon your inn after all." He scratched his bent and uneven nose, avoiding the maggot sleeping upon it. "Get away from 'ere. I don't give a damn if you- what the hell are you eating?!"
The Val put a green rotten piece of meat into his mouth, and was chewing vigorously. People about him were gasping at the utter disgust of his display.