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Hello, listeners, be advised that this show is an immersive audio experience.

It may seem like sounds are coming from the sides or behind you. Listener discretion

is advised, as this content is intended for adult audiences only. Kukud presents Birds of Empire

Season 2, created by Jason Liu.

The last days of Roeck. He was weary of war. His men could tell by the way he removed his armor at night as if shedding skin peeling bark from a tree. In the early days of fighting, he was legendary, for never being seen without it strapped over the heaving mountain of his chest,

worn to sleep, to bathe, to pray, and of course to kill.

The marks of the sacred elk so carefully etched into the iron

when fresh from the forge now replaced by a new language written by the weapons of his

enemy's blades and scratches and teeth and skulls. Roeck could feel the armor now hovering behind him, hung from a set of antlers an artisan had turned into a weapon rack. He wondered where the young man was now. So many had been lost as the rams pressed them from all sides, demons in search of the relics that they longed to possess.

Roeck looked around the table at what remained of his captains. The look upon their faces reminded him of his children at feeding time, and he smiled.

It startled the warriors so much that one of them tripped back on his heels at the sight of his leader's teeth.

The priest came to bless them all. Roek moved his mouth in time with the prayer.

All praise be to Ka. His children live within us.

Keep watch that we might one day be free. Plains Elk held that their bodies were temporary vessels for their sacred spirits, which they believe have been imprisoned there by the Shadow King,

a jealous demon who longed to be like them, longed to have their purity and ability to travel freely through the clouds and beneath the waters.

The tale goes that he made three shapes from the clay

and trapped their people's spirits within them,

creating the first human forms.

At the time of their death, Plains Elk believed that their spirits broke free from the clay

and moved back into the great fields of Alden where the goddess of pain and suffering could not enter.

...