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BlindScribe 
Wordsmith  Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
 Posted: 10 Nov 2012 at 17:21 |
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Calimba in Flames
It was a conversation I had been dreading for days, but also, one that I knew could be put off no longer.
I came in straight from the field, blood and mud and grime streaked, not sure if that would help my case, or hurt it.
Velociryx was not in Cerilon, but had set up a command post to monitor the situation in embattled Calimba, and was currently in a hastily constructed camp on a bluff that overlooked the city, some six miles from it.
As I entered his tent, I saw him slumped at his desk, head down.
It was the only time I had ever seen him weeping, and it stopped my heart.
"H-How?" He choked out. "How could this have happened?"
I shook my head grimly. "I do not yet know, but I swear to you I will find out, and we'll make whoever is ultimately responsible pay."
He stared at me for a very long time, and I saw him calculating. Assessing.
In some of the possibilities that flitted through his mind, I saw my own death, and I can't say I blamed him for thinking it.
Had our positions been reversed, I'm not sure I'd have been so gracious, patient, or understanding.
At length, he merely said: "This was supposed to be a simple transfer of cities from me to you...grow your holdings on the western side of the peninsula, so I could focus on the east...we need to find out who doesn't want to see this happen...find out and crush them as they have tried to crush us.
He let out a long, ragged sign. "Calimba...my beautiful city..."
"We'll get it back." I vowed. "I can fix this."
He nodded and I left him quickly, lest the conversation be drawn out any further, but my words echoed inside my head.
I can fix this.
I wanted to believe that, but honestly, I didn't even know where to start.
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| BlindScribe
Wordsmith Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
Posted: 11 Nov 2012 at 11:27 |
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What Came Before
But perhaps I should back up a step, or mayhaps several. When last I wrote, the pack of hungry Chimera were feasting on resources and Velociryx had just been named the largest landowner on Devil's Isle.
What happened just after that was...I had an idea.
A vision of how we could better control and police our piece of the island, and thus, exert more control overall.
I remember being so excited when I unrolled the map across Vel's expansive desk and pointed excitedly.
"See...if you sell me the cities of Dol'Doras, Calimba, and Sutheron, that gives you more expansion options in the eastern portion of the island..."
"Given the King's decree that no Lord may posess more than ten cities in the realm...yes, I see it...and it would consolidate us both in a nice, tight pattern, with shared borders for ease of defense...I like it!"
I beamed proudly at this. "I'd like to start with Sutheron then...we could do sort of a mock wargame, you know? A simulation of the preparations for a siege before taking control of the city...would give our troops some much needed practice for later, and you said yourself that the Chimera should have a trial by fire."
"Well, yes...but I didn't envision that it might damage my own cities."
"Oh no...no damage...the whole thing would be a mockup. There'd be no actual fighting, but all the preparations would be the same. Practice...that's all."
He considered this a moment, then nodded.
"I like it....yes! Let's do it. Sutheron first, then Dol'Doras...Calimba last...the city of music. You'd better treat her well. I think she's my favorite out of all my kids...erm...I mean cities, but don't let my other cities know it."
He smiled at that, and I smiled with him. "No worries...she won't be going anyplace, and she'll always be a part of the family."
That's what convinced him, and that's how it had begun.
Innocently.
Just a few land grants and transfers to sort things out on the peninsula before the next phase of our expansion...
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| BlindScribe
Wordsmith Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
Posted: 13 Nov 2012 at 20:12 |
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The Tournament
If I had to put my finger on one specific moment in time when things started to go astray, I guess it would have to be the start of the King's Tourney.
The whole of Devil's Isle was abuzz about it, as I'm sure was the whole of the Kingdom.
Because we are, as yet a small alliance, we knew better than to think we had a prayer of winning such a contest, so some of our members, including the redoubtable hero of our Realm, the Dwarf-Lord Machete, ventured afield to join forces with the Kaendrian Crows for the duration of the competition, on the thinking that shared glory was better than no glory, and Velociryx gave these various departures his blessing and wished them all good hunting.
For a time afterward, the Halls of our alliance capital ran quiet, and were filled with more echo than voice. It was an even mix of chilling and eerie, and I confess that during those days, unless it could be helped, I did not spend much time in Velociryx's Great Hall.
One of my Chimera Pack Mates, Kleo, the mighty huntress from the central isle, however, did, and it was during this time that she was named to the post of Chief Recruiter for the alliance, and recruit she did!
True, many of the new faces were Orcish ones, and as an elf, this gave me some pause, but truly, after getting to know them, I fell in with them easily enough, and was pleased for their company in our homeland.
Now, so far, you may be wondering how these events could have led to Calimba falling under an actual siege, rather than a mocked up one, and it began with this:
Some weeks after the King's Tourney began, two things happened in close proximity to one another, that set a curious chain of events in motion.
I missed it at the time, but in looking back now, there can be no mistaking it. This was planned, though by whom or what, I cannot say. Still. And it infuriates me to no end!
The first event was a letter from our Hero, Machete, who reported that the tournament went well, but that the Crows had been ousted from the guardianship of the Kumala "node," and were rallying troops to try and reclaim it.
Velociryx lept at the opportunity to lend a hand, and immediately ordered every troop that could be spared from the City of Calima, under the command of one Gavin Hargreves.
I confess that I did not know much about the man, save for the fact that he seldom spoke, never raised his voice in anger that I heard, and was utterly devoted to Velociryx.
Just before his departure, I heard he and our HighLord conferring in the Throne Room.
"Realistically, what do you think my chances are?" The General asked.
"Slim to none if you must know, but we need to show our Brothers, the Crows that we are useful...that we can contribute more than just trinkets and resources, and don't worry...I'll pull your bacon out of the fires if anything should happen to you...you're too valuable for me to lose, understand?"
He did, and the two men embraced before Hargreves mounted his charger and led some three thousand Calimban troops (a mix of heavy and light cavalry, with archers and swordsmen in support) off on their grand adventure.
Save for Hargreves himself, who was returned to us headless, along with his (equally headless) mount, it was the last we saw of them.
So that was the first.
The second was this:
Not quite two weeks after the troops had departed, I heard screaming just outside the gates of Cerilon.
A woman's voice, and I hastened to the gates to see what was the matter and if I could assist in any way.
"Scribe....Scribe I'm glad you are here! We have to tell Velociryx!"
"Y-you were screaming...are you hurt M'Lady?" I asked Kleodora in concerned tone.
She waved me off. "Oh, that...no...that was mostly frustration. I can't HURT them, blast their hides!"
I noted then, that she had a gash on her lovely forehead and another on her sword arm.
A fight then, and a fierce one, from the look of things.
"Hurt...who, precisely?"
"The minions of the Heart of Corruption."
"The...whowha?" I asked, not sounding particularly Scribish just then.
Her brow furrowed rather prettily as she turned me back toward the way I had come and we hurried inside the gates. "I've been tracking them for nearly a week now...the...vines, or growth, or whatever you want to call it that the Heart of Corruption spawned...all that's gone now, and these...Podlings, or Heart Minions, or...I don't even know what to call them precisely, but they've sprouted up in the place of the vines and are on the move...several score of them passed through my territory, headed here, and I've been tracking them...they're still moving, so I don't know if they mean to stop at the coast or keep going, but either way, there's a change in the Heart, and I thought Vel should know."
"Indeed he should!" I agreed, and we picked up our pace.
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| BlindScribe
Wordsmith Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
Posted: 16 Nov 2012 at 16:23 |
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Mystery of the Melders
They were called, as it turned out, Melders.
Being new to the region, I had never heard of them before, but when Kleo and I sat down with Velociryx to bring him this latest news, he seemed to know of them.
"Dark tidings indeed." He murmured. "And yes...to answer the question neither of you have asked yet, but which is writ plainly enough on your faces, I have at least some experience with them. In fact, that's how I met Machete...I daresay I would not be here now if not for him...he saved my life."
"Aye, and I'll not soon let ye forget it, lad!" The great Dwarf said with a rumbling chuckle as he set his tankard of ale on the table where we were all gathered. It gave off an unsettling thud of finality.
"Both of us were marked by the day, we were." The Dwarf continued, rolling up his sleeves to show me a series of long, ropy scars that traveled up most of the length of his well muscled arms.
Velociryx opened his shirt to reveal similar scaring on his chest, with a central mass that looked eerily like the drawings I had seen of the Heart of Corruption since beginning my research on the matter, and I found myself wondering for the thousandth time who these people were, that I had fallen in with.
"Well, if they're on the move, there's nothing for it...nothing we can do, except hope that they don't decide to stop here. I can tell you that although we would fight valiantly, there would be little hope. I have seen firsthand what their spores do to living tissue, and it isn't pretty."
We spoke at length about it, and later that afternoon, were joined by Renn and one of our newest Chimera, Zagar, who all confirmed seeing Melders in the vicinity of their holdings.
Whatever they were doing, there were a lot of them.
"Almost like a migration." Renn offered. "Like maybe...they did whatever they had intended where the Heart of Corruption was, and now..."
He didn't finish, and he didn't need to.
It was unsettling, especially because these creatures...whatever they ultimately were, were so foreign to us. So alien.
At the end though, we all agreed that we would triple the guard on our respective city gates, and pray that they simply passed us by, and this state of affairs continued for nearly the next month.
At its peak, we received the grim news that General Hargreaves had been slain, along with his entire force. Two days later, his body was returned to us in the condition I described previously, and Velociryx, though he had known the likely outcome, was stricken with grief.
"Summon the Priests and Wizards." He commanded. "I promised him that I'd pull him back from the abyss if he met a bad end, and that is a promise I intend to keep."
This unsettled me. Renn too, I noted, for he shifted uneasily at the pronouncement. "My Lord...are you sure this is wise? We know little about the Melders, but what we do know suggest that they are highly magical in their nature...a spell of this sort and power, cast while they are agitated, active and so near..."
"There's little choice, Scribe." He told me. "Every day he remains as the corpse he is, the spell gets harder to cast, and given that he was returned to us headless, it's already going to be difficult...Melders be damned, I keep my promises!"
He did, and I helped him.
Much to our collective sorrow.
Edited by BlindScribe - 18 Nov 2012 at 03:23 |
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| BlindScribe
Wordsmith Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
Posted: 16 Nov 2012 at 16:27 |
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** What follows is reproduced here from this url: http://alpha.illyriad.co.uk/Codex/Faction/33
This is part of the official Illyriad lore on the Melders that I discovered while researching them. My best guess is that the creatures we saw were created when humans ingested (or perhaps perished near) the vines of the Heart of Corruption (which themselves, seem to be a corrupted version of Devil's Vine, that I have written about before). If true, that would make them part man, part plant, and part magic. A true abomination.
~Scribe
Extract from the Diary of Abremides the Explorer, returned to the Empirium by the Windseekers, apparently found at an abandoned campsite in the far South West of Illyriad
Day 137: We gave our farewells to the kind Windseekers, and whilst we were sad to leave the comfort of Hanlif, we were also keen to get on with the expedition.
Our Windseeker friends have warned us against this journey with increasing agitation as they describe many possible dangers - but seeing how we are implacably set on our path to go they have let us depart, even though their farewells seemed disturbingly hollow.
Our supplies, now fully replenished, should see us through many moons of exploring this unknown area, and we sailed WSW from Hanlif.
Day 142: The camp we have pitched on the beautiful shores of Southern Kumala is sufficient to withstand any of the occasional gales that blow in off the sea.
My good colleague Cartishaw has begun cataloguing the flora, especially the truly wondrous vines - of all colours of the rainbow - that hang their tendrils down from the treeline at the beach's edge.
Attached please find some pressed flowers, herbs and a couple of illustration of the astonishing visions of nature that we see before us.
It is an amazing and most beautiful place.
Day 143: Cartishaw came back to camp, complaining of a bitter red rash that has broken out on his lower arm, apparently a result of an entanglement with some of the vines.
He is running a high temperature, but luckily we are fully supplied with not only my medical kit, but also various potions and poultices that should rally him for tomorrow!
Day 144: Cartishaw's tortured screaming kept us awake all night.
The rash had turned - quicker than one could possibly countenance - into a terrible, almost translucent boil that pulsed and shifted under his skin, and moved with almost perceptible speed up his arm.
Friar Matthew feared the use of magic - but none of his abjuration prayers seemed to have any effect.
Eventually, at around Hour 4 past Midnight, we brought all the camp's oil lamps into the tent, gave Cartishaw a small plank of wood to bite down on, and made to amputate his diseased limb.
The second the knife punctured his skin the boil deflated with a fine hissing, spilling a mist of grey-white spores into the confines of the tent where we were clustered. Luckily, we were all suitably attired for such a dangerous surgery as amputation, and had masks of the finest silk and linen cloths to cover our mouths and noses.
The limb itself came off remarkably easily, like a rotten bough on a diseased swamp tree. We burnt it on the camp fire, and have cauterised poor Cartishaw's stump.
Day 144 Addendum: Cartishaw is dead - over a period of 6 hours he leaked fluids and malodorous bile from every part. Finally his skin sloughed itself off like a serpent - and his body... I cannot describe it better... simply melted onto the bedsheets - a bubbling, gaseous, horrid sight.
The smallest blessing for us was that his screams stopped many hours ago after he spat a discoloured mass of flesh (his tongue and much of his larynx, we assume) onto the floor.
However, I can neither think nor write clearly, for my brain is on fire and my vision is fading rapidly. I fear the spores have entered my flesh through my eyes.
Looking at the other members of the expedition - who are themselves complaining ever louder about aches, pains, swellings and contusions - I fear the worst for all our souls.
This may be my last entry.
Edited by BlindScribe - 16 Nov 2012 at 16:28 |
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| SunStorm
Postmaster   Joined: 01 Apr 2011 Location: "Look Up" Status: Offline Points: 979 |
Posted: 16 Nov 2012 at 21:43 |
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Very well written BlindScribe! (^_^) I am loving these posts.
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| BlindScribe
Wordsmith Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
Posted: 16 Nov 2012 at 21:44 |
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General Hargreves Returns
To this day, I cannot tell you exactly what went wrong, and I'm an Elf. Elves and magic go together like...tree houses and chocolate chip cookies, and...well, never mind. In any case, I can tell you that the spell that got cast wasn't Elfin magic, though my own Wizards wove it out.
No, this was...an abomination.
I will not apologize, nor make excuses for us.
Yes, had we been more watchful, we could have shut it down (I oversaw the process myself), and even after the spell was complete, had we been more decisive, it's possible that we could have killed that which we had just created (or reanimated, or...whatever it was we had done), but the sorry truth is...we didn't. We weren't as vigilant as we should have been, and thousands ultimately paid the price.
It started off mundanely enough.
A group of elderly, stately looking Wizards in the finest of their finery, solemnly joined in a circle, swaying slightly as they chanted the words to a spell nearly as old as time itself, in a language even older than that.
It was beautiful, in its way. Stark and terrible in its beauty, and I was caught up in it, as I am when I see most things magical.
But less than a quarter of the way through the ceremony, just after we had reattached the fallen General's head with a binding incantation, something...
happened.
A gust of wind blew in, powerful enough to extinguish all our candles and the three fire pots as well, bringing with it screeches, screams and cries from the night.
Then came the thunder...A fierce, growling thunder.
Had the word occurred to me then, perhaps that would have been the catalyst, but alas, it did not...only later did it re-enter my mind, and by then of course, it was much too late.
The wind, the thunder and the sudden darkness though...these were all mere trifles.
Distractions.
The main event was what happened with the spell.
An oily tentacle rose in the midst of the room, composed of nothing but shadow and thought.
It coiled itself around the energies that was our spell...that had been, to that point, steadily feeding into the body of Gavin Hargreves, and slowly...ever so slowly and carefully was breathing life back into that corpse, and then....
The change.
The energies darkened and intensified.
No longer did they feed into the lifeless body in measured steps, but rather plunged, deep and sudden, that empty vessel taking the full measure of those energies in a single instant.
There was a crash and an Elven scream, then more than one, though how many, I could not say. I only know that when I regained my senses, my voice was but one of a chorus, and that although we could not name the reason for our fear, we also could not stop our own screaming.
In time, however, the limits of our own bodies took care of that, and one by one, our screams died in a series of hoarse, rasping coughs, and a short while after, the angry whine of those mystic energies faded as well.
I was about to breath a sigh of relief at that when one final growl of thunder rumbled, then went silent, and
dear gods what took its place...
....a heartbeat.
A deep, slow...almost ponderous heartbeat that was loud enough for all of us to here there in the quiet after the maelstrom, and with every beat, I swear that each of us in the room jumped.
Jumped and flinched at the thought of...but no. There was no thought then, because it was only half formed.
The truth of it was that we couldn't
complete the thought.
It was that terrifying.
Then, our worst fears were realized when the body of Gavin Hargreves twitched once.
Again.
Then began sitting up on the stone table where we had lain him.
Somewhere screamed anew...I know not who, and three of my Wizards fled the room that instant.
I ordered the members of my House Guard I had with me to bar the doors as I gave chase, with my remaining Wizards just behind me.
Get the Wizards back here...reform the circle, then reenter the sealed chamber and put that thing down.
That....whatever it is that we have created.
That was the plan that flitted fleetingly through my mind as I raced to calm my men, and in time, I did.
Calm them I mean.
Courage and nerve restored, we went back to the sealed chamber to end the matter, but of course, it was far too late for that, and the chamber was not nearly as sealed as it had been when we left it, which is to say, it wasn't sealed at all.
The door, a sturdy brass and oaken thing, had been reduced to bits of kindling, and the half dozen guards I had posted outside...all slain, and tossed about the hall as though they were a mad giant's forgotten playthings.
Six lifeless, broken Elven soldiers. The best of my personal guard, gone.
I wondered with dread how many more there would be before we contained this beast, and ran to rally more of my men, and that's when the word occurred to me.
The word that had been following me in one form or another since I first tried to leave this cursed island.
Stormbind.
 Edited by BlindScribe - 16 Nov 2012 at 21:51 |
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| BlindScribe
Wordsmith Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
Posted: 16 Nov 2012 at 21:45 |
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:) Thank you, Sunstorm! It is much appreciated! I see the "views" counter going up steadily, so I know that somebody's reading, but I'm always glad to hear from those who are!
~Scribe
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| BlindScribe
Wordsmith Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
Posted: 21 Nov 2012 at 19:04 |
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The Rest
The rest, you can guess.
The General, or rather, whatever twisted thing came back when we tried to work our magic, went home to Calimba.
Once there, he killed the Lord-Mayor of the city and installed himself as the undisputed Master of that place, forcing the Court Mystics to mask his true form from the general population, and killing any who would not bow to him.
As soon as his base of power was secure, he declared the city to be wholly independent, and began making regular patrols within a day's ride of the city gates to enforce his will, and I responded with the only option I had left, in my estimation.
I rallied my own forces and marched on the city to lay in a siege of it, which I had been planning to do anyway, but in mocked up style. Now, it was for real, and I was as terrified as my men. Nonetheless, we had to root him out.
Two days after the siege began, it became clear that the General would not come quietly, and in fact, he had taken to beheading the corpses of those slain by our siege efforts, and displaying them atop the wall, while shooting the headless bodies back at us.
Whether this fascination with headless bodies was a specific strategy designed to dishearten us (which it very definitely did), or some after effect of his own death and headless state before we partially restored him, I cannot say to this date.
In the end, all I do know is that my men kept up the pressure on the mighty gates of Calimba, the city of light and music until at last we sundered them, then charged in and gave battle to those who remained inside.
In all, I lost more than two thousand men before we brought the creature low with enchanted weapons and silver.
We re-beheaded the body and burned it, sealing the ashes in a silvered urn and dropping them into the sea so as to take no chances, and while that solved the immediate problem and brought what was left of Calimba into my fold as planned, none of it would restore her glittering spires, nor put notes of joyous music back into the air of her streets.
I was touring the damage...walking along a dust and corpse strewn lane that had once (as near as I could tell) been a market district, when Velociryx found me.
"Are you coming to dinner tomorrow evening? Main Hall, Cerilon?"
I shook my head and bowed it. "I'm surprised you would even invite me after...all this." I said wearily, not meeting the HighLord's gaze.
I saw his shadow nod in the late day sun. "Aye...there's much to recover from, tis true, but this was not all your doing. My own stubborn pride surely played a role...had I been content to let that one promise to a dead man go, I could have saved thousands of lives. It is a mistake I'll not make again...I...I sometimes forget that in this position, I must temper my decisions based on what's good for the whole, and not what's "right," because the two aren't always the same. Mostly yes...but not always. I forgot that, and it cost us. It cost us dearly."
"Don't be so hard on yourself." I told him. "No matter that it was a bit sloppy and bloody, we came through, and I'll rebuild her. Down to the last spire and fluttering banner, I'll restore her to her former glory. You have my oath on it."
He smiled wanly at that. "Everyone else will be there, and they'll not understand if you can't come. In fact, it could start a rumor that I had you murdered or banished you, or something equally silly. Promise me. The rebuilding can wait a day."
"What's the occasion?" I asked him. "Why are we all getting together?"
He seemed surprised, but then shrugged. "I guess perhaps you would lose track of days, being in the field with the troops and all. Thanksgiving." He told me. "The fall festival of our Mighty King, and despite these recent troubles, we have much to be thankful for."
And that was certainly true enough.
"I'll be there." I told him.
And I meant it.
Where else would I go?
That word entered my mind again.
Stormbind.
Where else indeed.
I wondered if was even possible for me...for any of us to leave this island (which I increasingly thought of as cursed), and resolved to put that to the test, not long after the Thanksgiving Day feast.
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone, from all of us in REALM! :)
~Scribe
Edited by BlindScribe - 21 Nov 2012 at 21:55 |
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| BlindScribe
Wordsmith Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Status: Offline Points: 168 |
Posted: 02 Dec 2012 at 13:52 |
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Of Nightmares & Plans
It is a dream that will haunt me forever...the final battle that led to the recapture of Calimba, and I dreamt it again the day after I'd returned to my city of Haven, having participated in the Feast of Thanksgiving with my HighLord and the other luminaries of the Realm.
The scene in my head had been recreated to perfection...every nuance and detail accounted for.
The heat of the midday sun as we prepared for the final charge.
Breaching the mighty gates of the city.
Fighting block to block to clear the last of the resistance out of the town's central district, until all of the combatants had fled to the Great Hall in the center of town, itself walled off and fortified.
The siege engines were brought forth to prepare for another push, but it proved to be unnecessary.
The retreat was a ruse, and the wily General attacked on our exposed flank, destroying two of the five siege engines we'd brought forward before we could respond.
His men were incensed, and fought like demons. Whether this was out of fear of the thing that led them (at some point..I know not when, the General had let his spell fall away, so that all could see him as he truly was), or because they actually were demon possessed, or some other reason besides these, I cannot say. All I know with certainty is that each of his men fought like three of ours, and they inflicted terrible losses on us before we slew the last of their number and finally surrounded the great fiend himself.
Velociryx had lent me several members of Ba....of a group that's not supposed to exist, and nearly all of my peers were present for the final battle.
Ren nearly died fighting the creature, and only Kleo's lightning reflexes pulled him away from the deadly flash of the blade in time, though to his credit, the sturdy human did inflict a terrible gash to the creature's side.
I tried repeatedly to close with him and do him harm, but my attacks were nigh on useless, I am shamed to say.
Velociryx managed to get in a small grazing wound to the beast's left shoulder, but was rewarded by a gash to the side of his head that nearly took his left ear off. After that, he was held back by four of his Footmen, and unable to materially participate further, though he screamed and lunged at the beast in his rage.
Finally, it was a member of that nonexistent company who slipped in and knocked the beast to the ground. Darmon, as he was called by his peers. No last name, and I know not where he hailed from, but I have seldom seen a more wicked display of swordsmanship than I saw on display there. He was magnificent in his maroon cloak, fighting Centrum Style, with a blade flashing in each hand and no shield....he feinted left, then rolled beneath the creature's legs, which were spread wide in a seasoned warrior's crouch.
Quicker than thought (and it surely must have been planned before hand, or by way of some strange telepathy), he gained his feet, pierced the General with both blades at kidney level, then freed his hands and grappled with the undead thing, pinning the creature's arms and kicking at the backs of his knees such that he buckled.
Machete was there with his war axe, which had been sheathed in silver for this fight by our finest smiths, and ended the monster with one final blow, taking his head from his shoulders, and missing Darmon, who stood just behind him, by no more than the width of a human hair.
It was the kind of masterstroke they write songs about, and I was in awe of them both.
With that one blow, the battle came to an end, but I confess that it did not hearten me any.
The sun, which had been hot to the point of being oppressive before, now seemed to hold no warmth, and a heaviness stole into my limbs...in truth, into every fiber of my being.
I turned a slow circle and surveyed the damage...the blood and mud and pile of corpses, heaped together in what had once been...what? A market district?
Probably. At least, as near as I could tell from what little remained here.
Gods, the damage! Calimba would recover, of course. I had vowed to make it so, and it was a promise I fully intended to keep, but it would be quite some time in the doing.
There was no quick or easy way to see it done, even accounting for our near unlimited resources, and it pained me on that day, as it has pained me since.
I awoke well after the sun, feeling groggy and un-rested, as I often did when I had the nightmare. Still, there was much to be done, and Ren, Kleo, Machete and I were to be at the forefront of the festivities today.
First, we were expecting a new arrival today...a dwarf called Bezi, who I knew nothing about, but that the Court was all abuzz with excitement about his arrival.
Then there was the negotiation with our northern neighbor over the fate of the City of Argenia, which Velociryx wanted to add to his holdings, and was currently in negotiations to secure rights to it (he had me leading that effort...since I had proved myself utterly inept at swordplay, I was assigned negotiation duties), then of course, there was my upcoming "experiment."
My attempt to see if it was even possible to leave this cursed island.
I had my doubts, but I was determined to find out once and for all.
Stormbind.
That word that seems to have been following me since my arrival here.
I am no closer now to finding out what it means than I was when I first heard it, and it mocks me. It taunts me.
Long term, nothing is more important than finding out what it means.
~Scribe
Edited by BlindScribe - 02 Dec 2012 at 14:08 |
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