Written By Jan
Dec. 6, 2023, 7:19 p.m.(4/27/1021 AR)
I thought the giddiness would ebb after the wedding. I was wrong. It's gotten worse. For those of you I am about to annoy being ridiculously happy-I apologize for nothing.
Written By Denica
Dec. 4, 2023, 10 p.m.(4/23/1021 AR)
Incredible.
Written By Duarte
Dec. 4, 2023, 5:35 p.m.(4/23/1021 AR)
*** Black Journal Entry ***
Submitted at Count Duarte Amadeo's request to the Whites for the purpose of his memoir.
----------------------------------------------------------
That most people don't know what is sitting across or beside them, is sometimes astounding. If they knew the peril, they would run. It still surprises me from time to time how much a smile can hide. Some day when I die, they will potentially know what they supped with, danced with, played with and loved with. In the end though, everything has a purpose. If they choose not to walk away, it is their fault.
It is at night though, I sometimes question. Myself. Others. I talk into the void knowing that nothing will answer back. Some day though, maybe something will. I will continue what I do, what I need to do, what I should do. There is what is right, and it may not always align with what others demand. What is right, is not what is always good, the same as what's good, is not always right.
She states that she's not looking for love, and I can understand. I of all people, understand. Love is too dangerous. Love gives someone something over you. Leverage. Love is a weakness, the same as lust. I don't know that I could find another who could stomach what I have done in the name of others with a higher purpose. I don't know if I would want to because that would mean I have found another who lives as I do. Solitude is better, necessary. Solitude is the reason for my smile.
Whats in the dark?
What's in the shadows that she looks at with fear?
Do I even want to know? Because I know, it's not me.
Submitted at Count Duarte Amadeo's request to the Whites for the purpose of his memoir.
----------------------------------------------------------
That most people don't know what is sitting across or beside them, is sometimes astounding. If they knew the peril, they would run. It still surprises me from time to time how much a smile can hide. Some day when I die, they will potentially know what they supped with, danced with, played with and loved with. In the end though, everything has a purpose. If they choose not to walk away, it is their fault.
It is at night though, I sometimes question. Myself. Others. I talk into the void knowing that nothing will answer back. Some day though, maybe something will. I will continue what I do, what I need to do, what I should do. There is what is right, and it may not always align with what others demand. What is right, is not what is always good, the same as what's good, is not always right.
She states that she's not looking for love, and I can understand. I of all people, understand. Love is too dangerous. Love gives someone something over you. Leverage. Love is a weakness, the same as lust. I don't know that I could find another who could stomach what I have done in the name of others with a higher purpose. I don't know if I would want to because that would mean I have found another who lives as I do. Solitude is better, necessary. Solitude is the reason for my smile.
Whats in the dark?
What's in the shadows that she looks at with fear?
Do I even want to know? Because I know, it's not me.
Written By Titus
Dec. 4, 2023, 12:57 p.m.(4/22/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Caspian
When you're facing terrible and strange things which are fighting you and your weapons don't seem to be that effective? Fire is a great option.
Written By Skaldia
Dec. 4, 2023, 6:17 a.m.(4/22/1021 AR)
It's good to be with family in times of trouble. And these are very troubled times.
Today, I set up shop in the Harrowed Grounds, opening my little section. I have decided to name my business Libera Leathers, in honor of my hawk companion. Even if she's a troublemaker, I do love her so.
Tomorrow is another long day of meetings and briefings. There is much to catch up on since I've been away.
I forgot how noisy the city can be. Yet, there are surprising pockets of peace within the walls.
Today, I set up shop in the Harrowed Grounds, opening my little section. I have decided to name my business Libera Leathers, in honor of my hawk companion. Even if she's a troublemaker, I do love her so.
Tomorrow is another long day of meetings and briefings. There is much to catch up on since I've been away.
I forgot how noisy the city can be. Yet, there are surprising pockets of peace within the walls.
Written By Duarte
Dec. 4, 2023, 5:25 a.m.(4/22/1021 AR)
Journal
In the wake of the chaos that saw the end of Shreve's special few, I found myself confined to a bed in Pravus Manor. My body was a tapestry of pain and my mind a whirlpool of thoughts. The evisceration I suffered left me with a scar - a stark, constant reminder of the night's horrors, my guts meticulously re-packaged and sewn by Lianne herself. Each throbbing ache, every pulsing pain, was a ghostly echo of that fateful confrontation. The sounds, the sights, the feels of that evening, all swarm back when I regard that thick mass of scar tissue.
And truth be told, reader - knowing what I know now - remembering it at all is a sweet, sweet gift.
Laying in that bed, my mind wandered through a fog of pain and a daze of medications. In those solitary moments, I grappled with a grief that seemed misplaced but was undeniably real. It was not for the death of Shreve, but for the death of a purpose he gave me. Perhaps the grief wasn't about him at all, but about him just being the last of a long chain of departed father figures and mentors who cobbled a path to their own undoing.
Regret also gnawed at me. Regret for the things I did in service to the man, and regret for not seeing the signs of his fall. I promised myself to never speak or write of him again. Vellichor compels me to do so now.
The nights were the hardest. I questioned everything. I would speak into the void and half-expect an answer I knew would never come. I pondered the essence of my being against the nature of the company I kept.
Mostly, I thought of Lianne.
Before I knew it, I was back on my feet.
*****
The Lower Boroughs of Arx is a part of the city where survival often depends on quick thinking and adaptability. I would go there often. Either to walk or run the occasional errand for a Pravus noble. It isn't too much unlike where I grew up in Setarco, really.
Twilight hit with a peculiarly rapid setting of the sun that late autumn evening and those who didn't belong were hustling to safer quarters of the city before it dipped below the horizon. I, however, was strolling, with a coin purse carelessly tied to my belt and dangling. I'm sure it seemed like just a terrible oversight on my part to be carrying my silver so.
As I ventured East from the docks and began heading North toward the Uppers - a locale more heavily patrolled by the Iron Guard - I noticed I was being followed. It's not hard to notice when you are being followed - a fact that always eludes unskilled petty criminals, and unobservant marks just the same. The trick is to look behind yourself and see if someone is following you. A side-glance to a dark store window, made mirror-like by the reflection of a setting sun, accomplishes this nicely.
My tail, though, was at least clever enough to dart off into an adjacent alleyway. He was also clever enough to give me some stretches of street to cover before he re-appeared - hoping I'd quite forget, no doubt, that I had made him. And he was right, I did. And then he was cheeky enough to come careening right before me pretending to spill a crate of fruit from a nearby market store. Unconcerned for the plight of a careless storekeeper's assistant, I went to step around the lad. He pretended to hustle to collect the fruit he had spilled, and then he bumped me.
It only took a few strides to notice that my belt was lighter and that the patter cadence of my purse hitting my thigh with each step was now absent. But - you know - it wasn't a crowded street. There could've only been a single culprit.
So I turned around. The young man had already darted off, and there is no way I could hope to catch him. But stroll after him I did. Because I knew...I knew once he opened the coin purse he would simply stay put, and I would catch up to him then.
Following a trail of spilled fruit and muddy shoe prints, I cornered the lad in an alleyway - catching him just in time to watch as he threw my coin purse full of medicinal leeches across the brick-laid corridor in a fit of anger.
"I believe you have something that belongs to me." The rubicund glint of my beloved twin rondel daggers was a necessary pre-emption to his making any unwise moves.
Rakish, mousey brown hair and swarthy skin - the lad looked like a hundred if not a thousand other boys, were it not for his look of grit. He motioned where he had tossed my leeches and, obligingly (with very little impetus needed beyond request) drifted like some listless ghoul over to the pouch he filched, and gave it back.
There are a multitude of ways to get silver. Of those ways, pocket picking is a skill that one is trained for. So, I asked him how much his tax was and got a number. For his troubles, I counted it out of my actual coin purse - which I keep much closer to my person than dangling from my belt.
The boy seemed a shattered husk of a personality. So I tipped him a single silver coin for the service of retrieving my leeches (which he pilfered and then tossed). And then - he told a joke. "I could retrieve your leeches a hundred times over?"
The lad could be any lad and could have lived any life, but this is what he had: a shallow hope hung on a strange man with a weird accent carrying leeches on his hip. Why such paths are forged is up to the gods that set us each on our beginning. All I knew is I didn't feel like walking all the way across the city. So I gave the boy a chance.
Delivering a sack of leeches to Pravus Manor was the first honest job anyone ever gave Orland Lowborn. And he met me again later that night at Murder of Crows with a receipt of delivery.
In the wake of the chaos that saw the end of Shreve's special few, I found myself confined to a bed in Pravus Manor. My body was a tapestry of pain and my mind a whirlpool of thoughts. The evisceration I suffered left me with a scar - a stark, constant reminder of the night's horrors, my guts meticulously re-packaged and sewn by Lianne herself. Each throbbing ache, every pulsing pain, was a ghostly echo of that fateful confrontation. The sounds, the sights, the feels of that evening, all swarm back when I regard that thick mass of scar tissue.
And truth be told, reader - knowing what I know now - remembering it at all is a sweet, sweet gift.
Laying in that bed, my mind wandered through a fog of pain and a daze of medications. In those solitary moments, I grappled with a grief that seemed misplaced but was undeniably real. It was not for the death of Shreve, but for the death of a purpose he gave me. Perhaps the grief wasn't about him at all, but about him just being the last of a long chain of departed father figures and mentors who cobbled a path to their own undoing.
Regret also gnawed at me. Regret for the things I did in service to the man, and regret for not seeing the signs of his fall. I promised myself to never speak or write of him again. Vellichor compels me to do so now.
The nights were the hardest. I questioned everything. I would speak into the void and half-expect an answer I knew would never come. I pondered the essence of my being against the nature of the company I kept.
Mostly, I thought of Lianne.
Before I knew it, I was back on my feet.
*****
The Lower Boroughs of Arx is a part of the city where survival often depends on quick thinking and adaptability. I would go there often. Either to walk or run the occasional errand for a Pravus noble. It isn't too much unlike where I grew up in Setarco, really.
Twilight hit with a peculiarly rapid setting of the sun that late autumn evening and those who didn't belong were hustling to safer quarters of the city before it dipped below the horizon. I, however, was strolling, with a coin purse carelessly tied to my belt and dangling. I'm sure it seemed like just a terrible oversight on my part to be carrying my silver so.
As I ventured East from the docks and began heading North toward the Uppers - a locale more heavily patrolled by the Iron Guard - I noticed I was being followed. It's not hard to notice when you are being followed - a fact that always eludes unskilled petty criminals, and unobservant marks just the same. The trick is to look behind yourself and see if someone is following you. A side-glance to a dark store window, made mirror-like by the reflection of a setting sun, accomplishes this nicely.
My tail, though, was at least clever enough to dart off into an adjacent alleyway. He was also clever enough to give me some stretches of street to cover before he re-appeared - hoping I'd quite forget, no doubt, that I had made him. And he was right, I did. And then he was cheeky enough to come careening right before me pretending to spill a crate of fruit from a nearby market store. Unconcerned for the plight of a careless storekeeper's assistant, I went to step around the lad. He pretended to hustle to collect the fruit he had spilled, and then he bumped me.
It only took a few strides to notice that my belt was lighter and that the patter cadence of my purse hitting my thigh with each step was now absent. But - you know - it wasn't a crowded street. There could've only been a single culprit.
So I turned around. The young man had already darted off, and there is no way I could hope to catch him. But stroll after him I did. Because I knew...I knew once he opened the coin purse he would simply stay put, and I would catch up to him then.
Following a trail of spilled fruit and muddy shoe prints, I cornered the lad in an alleyway - catching him just in time to watch as he threw my coin purse full of medicinal leeches across the brick-laid corridor in a fit of anger.
"I believe you have something that belongs to me." The rubicund glint of my beloved twin rondel daggers was a necessary pre-emption to his making any unwise moves.
Rakish, mousey brown hair and swarthy skin - the lad looked like a hundred if not a thousand other boys, were it not for his look of grit. He motioned where he had tossed my leeches and, obligingly (with very little impetus needed beyond request) drifted like some listless ghoul over to the pouch he filched, and gave it back.
There are a multitude of ways to get silver. Of those ways, pocket picking is a skill that one is trained for. So, I asked him how much his tax was and got a number. For his troubles, I counted it out of my actual coin purse - which I keep much closer to my person than dangling from my belt.
The boy seemed a shattered husk of a personality. So I tipped him a single silver coin for the service of retrieving my leeches (which he pilfered and then tossed). And then - he told a joke. "I could retrieve your leeches a hundred times over?"
The lad could be any lad and could have lived any life, but this is what he had: a shallow hope hung on a strange man with a weird accent carrying leeches on his hip. Why such paths are forged is up to the gods that set us each on our beginning. All I knew is I didn't feel like walking all the way across the city. So I gave the boy a chance.
Delivering a sack of leeches to Pravus Manor was the first honest job anyone ever gave Orland Lowborn. And he met me again later that night at Murder of Crows with a receipt of delivery.
Written By Jan
Dec. 3, 2023, 10:06 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
At what point does being patient turn into becoming a sucker?
Written By Lianne
Dec. 3, 2023, 10:03 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Duarte
I have experienced only two things in all my life that scared me as much as the series of urgent letters I received telling me of your injuries, as seeing your torso torn open, your mustache nearly burned clean off.
You may ask me what terrors compare, if you'd like.
Let's think of it as payment, in part, for how kindly you've obliged my insistence that you not die without my say so.
You may ask me what terrors compare, if you'd like.
Let's think of it as payment, in part, for how kindly you've obliged my insistence that you not die without my say so.
Written By Amari
Dec. 3, 2023, 9:52 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
The consequences of my actions, praise the gods, haven't yet killed me.
But this last consequence? I thought it was going to chew my face off several times. To say the relationship was fraught, would be minimizing the initial difficulties and misunderstandings between us... significantly.
Squirrels are not respecters of the law, nor furniture, nor property generally, but they are cute. So, very cute.
But this last consequence? I thought it was going to chew my face off several times. To say the relationship was fraught, would be minimizing the initial difficulties and misunderstandings between us... significantly.
Squirrels are not respecters of the law, nor furniture, nor property generally, but they are cute. So, very cute.
Written By Medeia
Dec. 3, 2023, 9:27 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
I do so enjoy when inspiration strikes at the most opportune of times. I did not know I could paint! Oh, but plums and mustaches hold so much potential.
Written By Avita
Dec. 3, 2023, 7:58 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
Dearest Diary,
Did you know that there is a tale once told in the dunes of Eurus that is the very epitome of the concept of immortality at any cost?
The theory, really, is that so long as something you have done is remembered, you shall live eternal, and that each of these tales -- those which are worthy -- become the very stars in the sky?
At least, that is what I was told, once upon a time.
... Once upon a time...
Have you ever stopped to think of just how significant those four words are?
The suggestion of the importance of what you are about to hear: That once, long ago, far away, some soul did something that would echo through time like some haunting melody seeking to find your ear.
That once, in a time that so many have forgotten in its entirety, there was one thing worth remembering.
It's like being told a secret that no other will ever know, in a language that you didn't know you could speak.
... once upon a time...
Once upon a time, there was a voice...
This voice spoke a million words, each of which was a journey, and every one of them lead back to...
...
Did you know that there is a tale once told in the dunes of Eurus that is the very epitome of the concept of immortality at any cost?
The theory, really, is that so long as something you have done is remembered, you shall live eternal, and that each of these tales -- those which are worthy -- become the very stars in the sky?
At least, that is what I was told, once upon a time.
... Once upon a time...
Have you ever stopped to think of just how significant those four words are?
The suggestion of the importance of what you are about to hear: That once, long ago, far away, some soul did something that would echo through time like some haunting melody seeking to find your ear.
That once, in a time that so many have forgotten in its entirety, there was one thing worth remembering.
It's like being told a secret that no other will ever know, in a language that you didn't know you could speak.
... once upon a time...
Once upon a time, there was a voice...
This voice spoke a million words, each of which was a journey, and every one of them lead back to...
...
Written By Avita
Dec. 3, 2023, 7:48 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
Dearest Diary,
I feel as though I have asked this question a million times, yet not once have I received an answer that entertained, let alone satisfied me:
If you could tell but one story, one tale by which this weary world might remember you -- one caution to grant those that came after, one memory to remind the coming era of who you were, and what you stood for -- what would it be?
Go on.
I'll wait.
I feel as though I have asked this question a million times, yet not once have I received an answer that entertained, let alone satisfied me:
If you could tell but one story, one tale by which this weary world might remember you -- one caution to grant those that came after, one memory to remind the coming era of who you were, and what you stood for -- what would it be?
Go on.
I'll wait.
Written By Avita
Dec. 3, 2023, 7:45 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
Dear Diary,
Did you know?
I have never understood friendship.
People speak of love, and of comradery -- they speak of how their lives have been enriched by the people that they have met along the way, how they could never have gotten through their trials and tribulation without the love and support of all these people...
Did you know, diary, that support is simply another word for 'crutch'?
Where would I be now, had I waited for a friend to find me?
If I had waited for another to elevate me, rather than rising upon the horizon of my own volition?
Oh, don't look at me like that.
I can practically smell the pity on you.
I can see the 'what a shame', 'everyone needs friends' written plain upon your even plainer features.
Spare me.
We'll see if I return the favour.
Did you know?
I have never understood friendship.
People speak of love, and of comradery -- they speak of how their lives have been enriched by the people that they have met along the way, how they could never have gotten through their trials and tribulation without the love and support of all these people...
Did you know, diary, that support is simply another word for 'crutch'?
Where would I be now, had I waited for a friend to find me?
If I had waited for another to elevate me, rather than rising upon the horizon of my own volition?
Oh, don't look at me like that.
I can practically smell the pity on you.
I can see the 'what a shame', 'everyone needs friends' written plain upon your even plainer features.
Spare me.
We'll see if I return the favour.
Written By Valencia
Dec. 3, 2023, 7:18 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
It is so much easier to be brave when you do things for love, whether it be for a person, your family, your people or country, or your spirits or gods.
~~~~~~~~~~~<~<~<@
~~~~~~~~~~~<~<~<@
Written By Thea
Dec. 3, 2023, 6:53 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Eirene
Send all the entertainment my aunts way. She's earned it.
Written By Thea
Dec. 3, 2023, 5:57 p.m.(4/21/1021 AR)
Success always feels even better when everyone comes out in one piece....so to speak.
Written By Medeia
Dec. 3, 2023, 10:58 a.m.(4/20/1021 AR)
I recently found myself holding an unexpected letter that noted I live in a tower and asked after whether I was growing my hair out like in the old tale of the woman in the tower using her hair as a rope to let up her lovers, and whether I thought she was a good lover to encourage such a thing.
Oh, this sent me down some interesting thought-paths as I considered the questions. I have decided that my response - plucked exactly as initially written in my private correspondence - should be preserved:
"Fortunately for everyone, I am still insisting that all guests use the stairs rather than a ladder made from my hair. As romantic as that sounds, I suspect my neck would fail to support the weight of even the sprightliest of lovers. Really, one should likely avoid any relationships in which they are not welcome through the front door. So, no, I do not think she was a good lover - though, that is a specific comment on her staus of being a lover and not her qualities in bed. Perhaps she was phenomenal where it counted!"
May we all be phenomenal where it counts.
Oh, this sent me down some interesting thought-paths as I considered the questions. I have decided that my response - plucked exactly as initially written in my private correspondence - should be preserved:
"Fortunately for everyone, I am still insisting that all guests use the stairs rather than a ladder made from my hair. As romantic as that sounds, I suspect my neck would fail to support the weight of even the sprightliest of lovers. Really, one should likely avoid any relationships in which they are not welcome through the front door. So, no, I do not think she was a good lover - though, that is a specific comment on her staus of being a lover and not her qualities in bed. Perhaps she was phenomenal where it counted!"
May we all be phenomenal where it counts.
Written By Duarte
Dec. 3, 2023, 4:13 a.m.(4/20/1021 AR)
*** Black Journal Entry Dated Autumn 1006 AR ***
Submitted at Count Duarte Amadeo's request to the Whites for the purpose of his memoir.
----------------------------------------------------------
Maybe it's the concoctions given, maybe it's the lack of blood that by now has surely been scrubbed from the entrance. But I'm grieving for him. It's wrong, I'm sure many would tell me, but I am. Not for his death. Not for his life. There are those who saw what they saw, and maybe it is much more just the colour of youth that I remember it through but he gave me purpose. What life did not teach me, he did. To that shadows he liked to stay and there, he taught me the same. I know now why he liked them. There was a time that I would have died for him. But like those who were either father or I had considered father, they have taken steps that have brought them to their doom at their own hand.
I told Prince Laric one time, that I regretted and felt remorse for the actions that I did when I was the man's hand. I feel some remorse and regret now. Regret that I did not see what was happening sooner. Remorse that I did nothing before now, to try and correct it. I bear loyalty to Pravus, as I feel it to the inquisition. At one time, it was loyalty to him, for I thought that they were one and the same.
But now, he is gone. They are gone. Whether it is illusion or in truth, I don't know, but I know that there is a hollowness that I feel that cannot be attributed to the injuries I sustained. To the damage done to Pravus. At some point, the Duchess will visit, or call me before her and I will have to answer, I am sure, for the deaths of those in the house that I called on her to use and help.
This is the last, that I will say his name, write his name, think his name. As I lay here and use my energy to put to paper, I will do as is bidden. That which was, is no more. To fade into the ether, like the others who I called family or mentor.
May the gods give you compassion, may you find a peace that you could not here. I have to think, that somewhere you were once untouched and had good intentions.
Submitted at Count Duarte Amadeo's request to the Whites for the purpose of his memoir.
----------------------------------------------------------
Maybe it's the concoctions given, maybe it's the lack of blood that by now has surely been scrubbed from the entrance. But I'm grieving for him. It's wrong, I'm sure many would tell me, but I am. Not for his death. Not for his life. There are those who saw what they saw, and maybe it is much more just the colour of youth that I remember it through but he gave me purpose. What life did not teach me, he did. To that shadows he liked to stay and there, he taught me the same. I know now why he liked them. There was a time that I would have died for him. But like those who were either father or I had considered father, they have taken steps that have brought them to their doom at their own hand.
I told Prince Laric one time, that I regretted and felt remorse for the actions that I did when I was the man's hand. I feel some remorse and regret now. Regret that I did not see what was happening sooner. Remorse that I did nothing before now, to try and correct it. I bear loyalty to Pravus, as I feel it to the inquisition. At one time, it was loyalty to him, for I thought that they were one and the same.
But now, he is gone. They are gone. Whether it is illusion or in truth, I don't know, but I know that there is a hollowness that I feel that cannot be attributed to the injuries I sustained. To the damage done to Pravus. At some point, the Duchess will visit, or call me before her and I will have to answer, I am sure, for the deaths of those in the house that I called on her to use and help.
This is the last, that I will say his name, write his name, think his name. As I lay here and use my energy to put to paper, I will do as is bidden. That which was, is no more. To fade into the ether, like the others who I called family or mentor.
May the gods give you compassion, may you find a peace that you could not here. I have to think, that somewhere you were once untouched and had good intentions.
Written By Mabelle
Dec. 3, 2023, 2:14 a.m.(4/19/1021 AR)
Considering the blessings bestowed upon Artshall recently, perhaps I should be more attentive to Petrichor. Perhaps a new shrine in the city.
Written By Raven
Dec. 2, 2023, 11:43 p.m.(4/19/1021 AR)
For all those facing thornweave or venturing into ancient shardhavens. May the blessed Thirteen gods be with you and see you safely returned. For everyone who love those brave few, give the gods your prayers and those brave souls your support.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.