There are many mysteries lying buried beneath the rocky, blood-soaked soil of Central Asia. Most are little more than myths, stories told by grandfathers to sleepy children around the hearth. But many were constructed around kernels of truth, no matter how fantastic they appear today, and can take a strange hold over the minds of men. Power is an elusive thing, and sometimes the elements that grant political power are elusive and difficult to measure . . . but sometimes they're concrete, ancient, and nearly forgotten. Even in modern times of machineguns and drones the imagination clings to the mythical, making people act imprudently and take insane risks. When these two worlds collide, ancient and modern, choosing between bad options can sometimes be all that's left, especially when survival is at stake.
