The Arkoloteri
The Arkoloteri is the oldest and most prominent faction in Old Sond. It captures most of Sond’s original architects, earth-shapers, and bone-breakers. These are the very people who created the labyrinth, the ones who moved mountains and drained rivers so that their descendants might inherit a better world than the one they created. Because of this, they are intrinsically tied to Sond as a machine. They maintain its infrastructure and carry out its day-to-day functions according to the same laws they wrote thousands of years ago. The Arkolote see themselves as the rightful wardens of Old Sond, the sole authority on its care and keeping, and the stewards of an extinct world that they will one day bestow on their descendants.
The Arkolote are excellent allies because they are powerful, well-organized, and fundamentally motivated to safeguard the future of their descendants.
The Arkolote are dangerous enemies because of their dominance, inflexibility, and allegiance to traditional power structures.
Stewards and Wardens
The Arkolote keep a living record of the high Asthaom desert— the very desert they drove to the brink of existence. They gathered at the dawn of the Thousand-Year Drought and collected Asthaom’s plants, animals, lichens, stones, and waters, sealing them all away inside of vast machine-worlds called Arkais. They care for these Arkais still today, just as they have for a thousand years or more.
The Arkoloteri manages its Arkais with the solemn propriety of a museum, or perhaps a mausoleum. Like all of their other duties to Sond, they follow an ancient and meticulous protocol. Nothing changes unless it must. This is by design, as their sole purpose is to keep the old desert alive until their descendants are prepared to receive it.
Everything—from the pebble to the pine—is part of a closed system. This is an absurd concept to the Sarikote, but it is one that the Arkolote have embraced for their survival. They watch over these Arkais with an unblinking eye, intervening only when necessary, and only to ensure that each system can sustain itself in the greater equilibrium. This separates them from their peers, who view the Arkais variously as gardens, homes, seed banks, holding cells, or experiments.
Prisons and Orreries
Each Arkai is constructed around a “false sun,” a dazzling orrery that functions as the prison of a god. Like the rest of Old Sond, the Arkai is powered by gods’ blood, which the orrery filters and emits as solar radiation. This light has an uncanny quality that distinguishes it from true sunlight, but it fuels life in the Arkai all the same.
In many ways, the Arkai is an extension of its prison-sun. Nothing can be allowed to get in, and nothing can be allowed to get out. The seal is the point, and the integrity of this seal is also a point of pride for the Arkoloteri. They consider this their main distinction from the other factions of Old Sond. It is only through strict adherence to protocol that they have protected their Arkais from the ravages of time, and never once unsealed them. No other group can claim the same.
These seals are so important that the dividing line between a functional Arkai and a fallen world is as thin as a hairline fracture. Any Arkai that is breached is immediately expelled from the Arkoloteri. It does not matter how small the breach, how short the hour, or how precious the contents of the Arkai. There can be no margin for error, when it comes to the future they owe their descendants.
Fallen Worlds
The loss of an Arkai is, perhaps, the single most devastating thing that can happen to an Arkolote. The Arkai is its contents as much as it is the community around it, and to lose an Arkai is to lose this community. Old Sond is haunted by the bones of fallen Arkais, grim reminders that there can be no replacement for what is lost.
An investigation is typically opened after the loss of an Arkai. Its purpose is twofold: to understand the events leading to the Arkai’s failure, and to hold the guilty parties responsible when appropriate. These investigations can last centuries, as the Arkolote do not rest until they are sure that no other Arkai will ever be compromised in the same way. Many of the Arkai’s former stewards are too attached to their home to be re-assigned anywhere else, and stay behind to man these investigations. Others cut ties with the Arkoloteri entirely. To come from a lost world is a mark of shame, and most never recover their reputation in the eyes of their peers.
Loss is a bitter reality for the Arkoloteri, but not all Endlings see fallen Arkais as “lost worlds.” In fact, they are the birthplace of many splinter factions in Old Sond. Devoted Arkolote may feel compelled to manage fallen Arkais under their own authority, even after they are expelled. Some groups are recognized by the Arkoloteri as legitimate, but many are not. Even small differences in ideology can drive a rift between the Arkoloteri and these splinter groups. The fallout of such conflicts is dramatic, leaving behind wounds that last decades.
On the other hand, there are the rare, few Arkais which were willfully unsealed. Some were broken open as acts of sabotage, others to defy the Arkoloteri. No matter the cause, unsealing an Arkai is the single greatest offense that one can commit. The expulsion of such worlds from the Arkoloteri is immediate and violent. There is no tolerance for betrayal.
Relations
Neighbors
Most outsiders see Arkolote as House Sarikote who were too devoted to the old regime to give it up. Rather than falling in with their relatives, who searched for a way to live in a transformed environment, they quit the surface world and retreated into Sond under the guise of self-sacrifice. They nominally admit their wrongdoing and consider Sond to be their apology to the world, but they are not meaningfully different from the people they were thousands of years ago. They simply choose to subjugate their former masters, rather than the masses.
The Arkoloteri, for its part, does little to assuage these fears. Their purpose is to conserve and protect a bio-cultural heritage, not convince their critics of the necessity of their work. Maintaining the old machinery is a necessary evil in ensuring their legacy survives… Or so they say, anyway.
At the end of the day, the Arkoloteri is content not to quibble with other factions. They are steadfast allies when dealing with threats to Old Sond, but silent on most other issues. This is not without its difficulties. Many argue that it is necessary to navigate the political landscape of Sond, if only to maintain useful alliances. Others are sincerely moved by the plights of their neighbors. However, the Arkoloteri’s code prohibits its agents from deviating in their work. They cannot afford to compromise it, no matter the cost.
Allies
The Arkoloteri forms a united front with the Thousand-Year Vigil and the Library of Wounds. They are the labyrinth’s original wards, and thus are natural allies. Though they work interdependently, they may convene as one body when threats emerge to Sond as a whole.
Enemies
The Arkoloteri may not engage its critics, but it is not without enemies, either. Those who threaten their Arkais are chief among them. The Arkolote are willing to defend their work with force, if necessary, and they wield inordinate power even among Sond’s architects. This is where tensions arise between the Arkoloteri and the other splinter factions of Sond. Drawing the Arkoloteri’s ire can be a death sentence, and though the organization shows remarkable restraint in some cases, its judgement has been swift and brutal in others.
Ne Cantesci know this all too well— and are one of few groups that the Arkoloteri consider a legitimate threat. Like many others, they formed from a fallen Arkai. Unlike their peers, however, ne Cantesci were born in the fires of war, and heeded a call for help that many others did not. Their defiance has earned them no love from their siblings, but they have managed to survive as a thorn in the Arkoloteri’s side.
Though they share a common interest in the wellbeing of Sond’s Arkais, they have radically different ideas about how to care for them. Ne Cantesci believe that the Arkolote are doing a dangerous thing by keeping their Arkais in glass boxes, and are out of touch with the needs of the modern Sarikote. They must abandon their clinical, hands-off stewardship ethics and make contact with their surface siblings as soon as possible. Dismantling the Arkais and unsealing Sond should have been their first priority for at least a hundred years, and to delay is a fundamental betrayal of Sond’s purpose.
In theory, the Arkoloteri has no opinion about making contact with the surface. In practice, their actions speak louder than words: They cannot suffer the idea of it any more than they can suffer the existence of those who would dare to.
Ancestors
To ensure the survival of life as they knew it, the Arkoloteri created the self-sustaining machinery of Old Sond. It was a promise to their descendants, that one day they would pay their debt to the future, truly and finally. But Sond was a paradox—a self-sustaining machine that would one day stop sustaining itself. When that day came, Sond would be unsealed, the Arkais would be opened, and the old gods would crawl out of their prisons hand-in-hand with their own wardens, free at last of their ancient debt.
But when would they know that day had come? None could agree. They knew that it could not be accomplished within the human lifespan, and this was enough to catalyze the creation of Sond, thousands of years ago. However, it was difficult for the Ancestral Sarikote to imagine a future for themselves. What apology could there be for the killing of a future? For some, the only appropriate sentence was very close to eternal.
For this reason, the Arkoloteri has taken a cautious approach to counting their debts. Their guilt is unquestionable, but more importantly they recognize the practical limitations of unsealing Sond. The high Asthaom desert is still a radically transformed desert. Although the modern Sarikote are devoted stewards, they are more concerned with bringing what they can into an uncertain future, not restoring something that was. Re-engage with the world too soon, and the Arkoloteri risks manufacturing another ecological crisis in an unprepared desert.
There is the matter, too, of those lost in the labyrinth. Unlike the Endlings, the old gods were not willing prisoners. They had committed incomprehensible acts of violence against the world and thus forfeited their claim to a future. But thousands of years have passed since then, and their names are all but forgotten to the surface world—and yet they are still trapped in the bloody machinery of Old Sond. The severity of their punishment has arguably eclipsed that of their crimes. Indeed, most gods have been driven mad by pain and isolation, and those who try to escape act more like cornered animals than sadistic tyrants. Many Arkolote fear that freeing them would spell disaster for Asthaom.
Some also hesitate to unseal Sond because they harbor paternalistic views of their descendants. The modern Sarikote are directly descended from the Ancestral Sarikote, but in some ways, they are still a young people. They have adapted to a changing world by following their Houseless ancestors, whose way of life had endured through House tyranny and long ages of myth. New practices are inevitably created to wake up older ones, which had gone to sleep during this era. Ironically, these practices concern the Arkoloteri the most. They are untested by time. For this reason, some Arkolote believe that their descendants are not yet ready for what the Arkoloteri will give them.
This sentiment is couched in legitimate concern for their well-being. Foreign powers have long sought to fathom Sond in search of lost history, miracle panaceas, weapons of war, or anything else they imagine is down there. The Sentinels already contend with an increasingly curious (and sometimes dangerous) global theater. Add to this the Arkolote’s fears of feasibility, hardship, ethics, ecology, social stability—it seems there’s no end to their concerns, even though they created this mess through their inability to give up control.
This isn’t to say that they are unaware of the irony. Nor do they dismiss the work that their descendants have done to heal their thousand-year-old wounds. The Arkoloteri simply prefers the risk of seeming condescending to the risk of unleashing incomprehensible horrors on their descendants.
An extremist few say the unsaid thing outright: The modern Sarikote are not worthy of their apology. They are their own descendants, and they alone must decide their fate. Perhaps the greatest threat to the Arkoloteri is posed by its strongest advocates, the ones who would do anything to ensure this machine lives forever…
The Great Divide
The generational divide between the Old Guard and New Guard is strong within the Arkoloteri. It deepens with each passing year because of the very thing that unites them: The “dues” they owe their descendants.
Like all Endlings, the Arkolote are captivated by their surface cousins. The world that they have nurtured in their absence is beyond anything they can imagine. However, this sentiment manifests very differently between the New Guard and the Old Guard.
The Old Guard still remembers what the world used to be like. Their feelings of warmth for the modern Sarikote are colored by memories of how bad things used to be, but they are also tempered by memories of what they lost. Because of this, the stakes of the last thousand years are high—and highly personal.
The New Guard has no such memories. The prison-machines of Sond are all they have ever known. They often struggle to think of the modern Sarikote as their descendants, because they themselves are a young people. To them, the modern Sarikote are more like peers who have nurtured a kinder world than the one they live in.
This creates tension between the Old Guard and New Guard when it comes to their work. Like the modern Sarikote, the New Guard have inherited a strange and difficult world—but unlike their descendants, they are not permitted to change it. Likewise, the Old Guard struggles to explain their rigid, unwavering devotion to Sond. Hiding from the surface is only natural, if you know what kind of havoc you wrought there, but to the New Guard this is incomprehensible. If their work is so important, why deny their relatives any longer?
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