Written By Gwenna
Jan. 20, 2024, 8:18 a.m.(8/4/1021 AR)
I will pen something fitting of recording soon - once I wrap my thoughts around all that occurred and the incredible efforts of the Houses of the Northlands. For now, though...
We made our stand at Farhaven. We did not yield.
We made our stand at Farhaven. We did not yield.
Written By Duarte
Jan. 20, 2024, 4:01 a.m.(8/4/1021 AR)
Journal
Halfway down the stairs. The dream always began halfway down the stairs - a transition between up and down. Halfway down and I'm stuck. All of us are stuck: Tessa, Olivia, Violet, and me. It's so close I feel we are dreaming the same dream together. Am I really interacting with them? Or is it just fevered imagination?
Somewhere, a song wafts on a light breeze. It presents itself in an eerie fashion like a funereal march. It makes us shiver, but also yearn. It makes us want to give up. All we have to do is reach the bottom of this descent and the hunger will stop. We will be at peace.
The Halfway House called to us. It called to us in our dreams. Even in waking moments, Tessa would talk about it with a glaze in her eyes. And I felt it too. It could all be so simple. To return. To embrace corruption. To dine on the feast that waits for us in the garden.
The compulsion was powerful. An undeniable tug upon my wits urged me to return.
It had been a year - a year, at least. This new dream was just a dream - or so I thought. One of the many I had and was having. But it was persistent. Very persistent. Encouraging, even.
One day I awoke to itching. My shoulders and arms - they itched. I sat up and when I went to scratch...oh, I can't bring myself to write it.
I must write it.
Tearing through my skin, sprouting forth like wildflowers find a way in the gravel road, were black, corrupted vines. They had broken through my flesh and were embedded in my arms and shoulders. They were alive, growing, and threatened to wrap me entire. If only I could describe how the world swirled around me in a sense of motionless panic...if for no other reason than so it wouldn't come across as blase. I must've stayed in bed three days, terror-stricken, before I was able to muster enough sense to get out of bed. I found I could hide them in my clothes, somewhat, but for how long?
It was these corrupted tendrils twining around my flesh that drove me to my first long bout of solitude - for no other reason than I had become a sort of a shard, or - I imagine - the beginnings of one. But they were merely a cosmetic nuisance - frightening as they were. The real terror? It was knowing that this corruption would spread. That it would encase my body in full and once done, would compel me to march back to the Halfway House and give myself to the Corrupted Mother.
Time was running out.
Halfway down the stairs. The dream always began halfway down the stairs - a transition between up and down. Halfway down and I'm stuck. All of us are stuck: Tessa, Olivia, Violet, and me. It's so close I feel we are dreaming the same dream together. Am I really interacting with them? Or is it just fevered imagination?
Somewhere, a song wafts on a light breeze. It presents itself in an eerie fashion like a funereal march. It makes us shiver, but also yearn. It makes us want to give up. All we have to do is reach the bottom of this descent and the hunger will stop. We will be at peace.
The Halfway House called to us. It called to us in our dreams. Even in waking moments, Tessa would talk about it with a glaze in her eyes. And I felt it too. It could all be so simple. To return. To embrace corruption. To dine on the feast that waits for us in the garden.
The compulsion was powerful. An undeniable tug upon my wits urged me to return.
It had been a year - a year, at least. This new dream was just a dream - or so I thought. One of the many I had and was having. But it was persistent. Very persistent. Encouraging, even.
One day I awoke to itching. My shoulders and arms - they itched. I sat up and when I went to scratch...oh, I can't bring myself to write it.
I must write it.
Tearing through my skin, sprouting forth like wildflowers find a way in the gravel road, were black, corrupted vines. They had broken through my flesh and were embedded in my arms and shoulders. They were alive, growing, and threatened to wrap me entire. If only I could describe how the world swirled around me in a sense of motionless panic...if for no other reason than so it wouldn't come across as blase. I must've stayed in bed three days, terror-stricken, before I was able to muster enough sense to get out of bed. I found I could hide them in my clothes, somewhat, but for how long?
It was these corrupted tendrils twining around my flesh that drove me to my first long bout of solitude - for no other reason than I had become a sort of a shard, or - I imagine - the beginnings of one. But they were merely a cosmetic nuisance - frightening as they were. The real terror? It was knowing that this corruption would spread. That it would encase my body in full and once done, would compel me to march back to the Halfway House and give myself to the Corrupted Mother.
Time was running out.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 19, 2024, 10:48 p.m.(8/3/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Lianne
I'm sorry. I still don't know what to write about my ever-artful and surprising collaborator. Poet, curator, artist, dear friend. Her gallery, the Eidolon, is its own kind of metaphor. You hope that when the city is filled with terrors that the Eidolon and its works remains standing, but I know it's fallen before. Lianne has rebuilt it, and if all her collections went to ash, she'd replicate, renovate, and begin again. Malespero is its people, not its land and buildings, and art, memory, rhyme, and strength are concepts that persist even when forms you can hold are gone away. Even when hope is gone, we adapt, we survive, we remember.
Written By Lucita
Jan. 19, 2024, 9:18 p.m.(8/3/1021 AR)
While awaiting the arrival of Saikland refugees, I decided to clean out closets, some who arrive will need what clothing we can spare. I had an old armor set not in use and sent it to faith to send to someone who could use it.
Written By Titus
Jan. 19, 2024, 6:27 p.m.(8/3/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Khanne
Some fight for many things. I fight for a world that's worth protecting. You are that world, Khanne.
Be everything you can be, do all you can. While you're heading to the battle, remember those you grew up with. Remember those you've lost along the way. Remember that those who are behind you are there needing your protection. Those who are alongside you fight against a thing that would burn the whole world just to rule over the ashes. And those in front of you? They are your enemy, meet them with unyielding honour.
To the Last, my love.
Be everything you can be, do all you can. While you're heading to the battle, remember those you grew up with. Remember those you've lost along the way. Remember that those who are behind you are there needing your protection. Those who are alongside you fight against a thing that would burn the whole world just to rule over the ashes. And those in front of you? They are your enemy, meet them with unyielding honour.
To the Last, my love.
Written By Ainsley
Jan. 19, 2024, 3:45 p.m.(8/3/1021 AR)
Ok, ok. You can stop sending me messages.
I amend:
Before I die I’ll make sure to cut Azazel into tiny chunks since he doesn’t have a head for me to take.
I amend:
Before I die I’ll make sure to cut Azazel into tiny chunks since he doesn’t have a head for me to take.
Written By Titus
Jan. 19, 2024, 3:36 p.m.(8/3/1021 AR)
If you are ever unsure who you should fight, think on this: the one who desires to burn down their own nation or world to rule over the ashes is the enemy of all. Stop them with everything you have.
To the Last.
To the Last.
Written By Fatima
Jan. 19, 2024, 3:07 p.m.(8/2/1021 AR)
Day 12:
The Dune Kindom of Jay'alaz, the city without song, is no more. Its royal family and nobles killed themselves in despair. The people starved under the siege of the Dune Emperor. Eventually they opened the gates and surrendered, but it was too late. Those who managed to escape, mostly children, tell the tale of the Warrior of the Dawn and the Adept of the Rose, and their rebellion. A fledgling hope, in a city without hope.
The so-called Dune Emperor is Alaric Grayson III. Some said he is a Herald. Some said he is just a tyrant, the Fist of the Prophet, a vengeful puppet dancing on Obsidian strings. We set sail for Eurus tomorrow. I suppose we will see.
Glass is made of frozen water, and ice is made from the sands of the dunes.
The Dune Kindom of Jay'alaz, the city without song, is no more. Its royal family and nobles killed themselves in despair. The people starved under the siege of the Dune Emperor. Eventually they opened the gates and surrendered, but it was too late. Those who managed to escape, mostly children, tell the tale of the Warrior of the Dawn and the Adept of the Rose, and their rebellion. A fledgling hope, in a city without hope.
The so-called Dune Emperor is Alaric Grayson III. Some said he is a Herald. Some said he is just a tyrant, the Fist of the Prophet, a vengeful puppet dancing on Obsidian strings. We set sail for Eurus tomorrow. I suppose we will see.
Glass is made of frozen water, and ice is made from the sands of the dunes.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 19, 2024, 11:13 a.m.(8/2/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Aleksei
Was our friendship extremely strange? Are all my friendships extremely strange? All I know for sure is that when the days are dire, when it is time to go, when it is time to act, you will always be right there. Attempting some fool, big-hearted thing, caring of how much it will hurt. We have fought, we do not see eye to eye on many things, for all we have been in the cause of freedom together, but at this last, I am with you. Til every chain is broken. Until spring comes and the fields are sown for renewal.
Written By Rosalind
Jan. 19, 2024, 10 a.m.(8/2/1021 AR)
I have been entrusted with far more than I feel I deserve. My only hope is that I won't let anyone down. I will fight for my people and my family. Cillian is probably looking down, guiding my fingers, showing me what to do.
Written By Lisebet
Jan. 19, 2024, 8:45 a.m.(8/2/1021 AR)
Why is it that in the midst of all the terror, grim reckonings and obvious danger, people still must seek to gain advantage "for when we return"?
I suppose that is because they have the freedom to choose.
And even still, in the midst of all this chaos, there is still room for moments of awe and wonder.
I suppose that is because they have the freedom to choose.
And even still, in the midst of all this chaos, there is still room for moments of awe and wonder.
Written By Viviana
Jan. 19, 2024, 6:24 a.m.(8/2/1021 AR)
My sword, forged from star iron, Nightfall -- I wield against the enemies of the city we hold close to our hearts, in service of the Whisper House.
Written By Filshiar
Jan. 19, 2024, 5:42 a.m.(8/2/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Dacian
Whatever happens, wherever we end up, I will find my way back to you.
Written By Duarte
Jan. 19, 2024, 5:03 a.m.(8/2/1021 AR)
Journal
Defeated and dismayed, we left the Halfway House for Arx without a single thing to show for it. The loss of appetite made sense for the humiliation of it all - though months of planning preceded our venture, we found ourselves entirely unprepared.
I would say it took some days, perhaps a week, before the realization stuck. I had not been eating. I was not only not hungry, I was full and sated. And then, the hunger came, sharp and painful, I was starved. And yet, I could not bring myself to eat. It took everything I had to will myself to a meal. Every scent of food and every bite made me feel like retching. It was as if I were stuffing down a fifth course of entree, and yet I starved. It was a pain so twisting I almost envied Sir Jordan Ober being spared the brunt of it when he fell defending Duke Harlan Ashford not but soon after returning to the city.
I was able to find some minor relief - very minor - in concoctions of nutrient-steeped tea prepared by Lady Ray Laveer. For some months it would be the only thing I 'ate'.
But then the nightmares began. Always the same. Hungry - so hungry - I found myself back in that beautifully crafted garden surrounded by rich, plump berries. I found myself eating them but my hunger would not slake. Frantic, as if soon to die of starvation, I find myself feasting on bread and meats, an assortment of cheese, fruits and vegetables. Yet, still, I am unfulfilled. I only grow more hungry.
And I can feel it in my belly. Something evil stirring in the pit of my stomach. A parasitic thing growing and embedding itself through my gut and into my brain. I found myself in these dreams yearning for the Halfway House. Wishing myself to return to the garden and lay in it. To stay there at rest until the berries I'm sure have taken root in my stomach sprout and grow out of me and feast on my flesh to give them life and strengthen their growth. I wished to join the rest of the vines in the garden, and to give the last of my life to feed that corruption growing within me. Every time I closed my eyes I would see it.
Through these days of endless torment of unsatisfiable hunger and wretched dream, I yet fought to keep up appearances. I grew gaunt and weary, yet somehow was capable. I took on Rinel Tern - a scholar I had met at the Ambassador - as my protege. I had never been much of a religious mind beyond accepting at its word the little dogma I had been fed. But Rinel was a wealth of information and I enjoyed her lessons - even if we disagreed quite vehemently about what those lessons /meant/. The conclusions she would draw left me perplexed, but for the knowledge itself, I was grateful.
For the better part of a year I managed a life in this way. The hunger with its paradoxical absence of appetite, the dreams - all the same - became ultimately regarded as permanent handicaps. I found myself attending the shrines more and more as I kept up my study in the Faith. I took up philanthropy and did what I could to balance this constant aching for corruption with defiance in acts of piety. I was certain things would stay this way until my last breath, and I made peace with it.
But as usual, I was wrong.
Defeated and dismayed, we left the Halfway House for Arx without a single thing to show for it. The loss of appetite made sense for the humiliation of it all - though months of planning preceded our venture, we found ourselves entirely unprepared.
I would say it took some days, perhaps a week, before the realization stuck. I had not been eating. I was not only not hungry, I was full and sated. And then, the hunger came, sharp and painful, I was starved. And yet, I could not bring myself to eat. It took everything I had to will myself to a meal. Every scent of food and every bite made me feel like retching. It was as if I were stuffing down a fifth course of entree, and yet I starved. It was a pain so twisting I almost envied Sir Jordan Ober being spared the brunt of it when he fell defending Duke Harlan Ashford not but soon after returning to the city.
I was able to find some minor relief - very minor - in concoctions of nutrient-steeped tea prepared by Lady Ray Laveer. For some months it would be the only thing I 'ate'.
But then the nightmares began. Always the same. Hungry - so hungry - I found myself back in that beautifully crafted garden surrounded by rich, plump berries. I found myself eating them but my hunger would not slake. Frantic, as if soon to die of starvation, I find myself feasting on bread and meats, an assortment of cheese, fruits and vegetables. Yet, still, I am unfulfilled. I only grow more hungry.
And I can feel it in my belly. Something evil stirring in the pit of my stomach. A parasitic thing growing and embedding itself through my gut and into my brain. I found myself in these dreams yearning for the Halfway House. Wishing myself to return to the garden and lay in it. To stay there at rest until the berries I'm sure have taken root in my stomach sprout and grow out of me and feast on my flesh to give them life and strengthen their growth. I wished to join the rest of the vines in the garden, and to give the last of my life to feed that corruption growing within me. Every time I closed my eyes I would see it.
Through these days of endless torment of unsatisfiable hunger and wretched dream, I yet fought to keep up appearances. I grew gaunt and weary, yet somehow was capable. I took on Rinel Tern - a scholar I had met at the Ambassador - as my protege. I had never been much of a religious mind beyond accepting at its word the little dogma I had been fed. But Rinel was a wealth of information and I enjoyed her lessons - even if we disagreed quite vehemently about what those lessons /meant/. The conclusions she would draw left me perplexed, but for the knowledge itself, I was grateful.
For the better part of a year I managed a life in this way. The hunger with its paradoxical absence of appetite, the dreams - all the same - became ultimately regarded as permanent handicaps. I found myself attending the shrines more and more as I kept up my study in the Faith. I took up philanthropy and did what I could to balance this constant aching for corruption with defiance in acts of piety. I was certain things would stay this way until my last breath, and I made peace with it.
But as usual, I was wrong.
Written By Denica
Jan. 19, 2024, 3:10 a.m.(8/1/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Victus
You never asked me to be anyone but myself. You gave me freedom.
Written By Fatima
Jan. 19, 2024, 2:35 a.m.(8/1/1021 AR)
Day 11:
If my entries are making you feel something, then they are doing their job.
On the thirteenth day, I will share my most damning secret in my Two Truths and a Lie.
Or maybe I already did.
If my entries are making you feel something, then they are doing their job.
On the thirteenth day, I will share my most damning secret in my Two Truths and a Lie.
Or maybe I already did.
Written By Mirari
Jan. 19, 2024, 2:09 a.m.(8/1/1021 AR)
Once more, I will go to home to Setarco, and spill some fucker's blood.
Written By Lianne
Jan. 19, 2024, 12:49 a.m.(8/1/1021 AR)
There is, in the depths of the Abyss, a vast garden of unimaginable beauty. Crystalline flowers grow in every direction, stretching to the horizon and beyond, their petals so delicate that the barest mishandling might see an entire bloom crumble to dust. Each time we pray and receive no response from the Gods, a new flower blooms in Despair's garden.
In the heart of the Garden of Unanswered Prayers stands a grove which grows in bold and bright defiance of the muted beauty which surrounds it, of the inherent gloom of the Abyss. Countless copper flowers grow, each a desperate prayer spoken by Copper that went unanswered. There was no answer for her, nothing to be done to change what had to be. Not even the Gods in all their grace and capability could grant her what she sought.
Her beloved Gold had given his life to shatter the Will of Baalphrigor, to buy time to seal the Archfiend away, to keep the Dream from ending. Copper, stricken with grief, tried again and again and again to find the right set of circumstances, the right set of choices which might allow her beloved to live in the world he saved, to both save the world and save her lover. Each time she failed, each time her heart broke again, another copper flower grew. The grove stands now as a testament to the Great Unbound's tenacity and to the terrible truth that some stories cannot be changed.
Some of us alive today gave up our own dreams, our own hopes to ensure that this story, the one we are living right now which seems so impossibly grim, is not set in stone. We can yet write the ending to this chapter and the beginning of the next. Our path is ours to choose, together.
In the heart of the Garden of Unanswered Prayers stands a grove which grows in bold and bright defiance of the muted beauty which surrounds it, of the inherent gloom of the Abyss. Countless copper flowers grow, each a desperate prayer spoken by Copper that went unanswered. There was no answer for her, nothing to be done to change what had to be. Not even the Gods in all their grace and capability could grant her what she sought.
Her beloved Gold had given his life to shatter the Will of Baalphrigor, to buy time to seal the Archfiend away, to keep the Dream from ending. Copper, stricken with grief, tried again and again and again to find the right set of circumstances, the right set of choices which might allow her beloved to live in the world he saved, to both save the world and save her lover. Each time she failed, each time her heart broke again, another copper flower grew. The grove stands now as a testament to the Great Unbound's tenacity and to the terrible truth that some stories cannot be changed.
Some of us alive today gave up our own dreams, our own hopes to ensure that this story, the one we are living right now which seems so impossibly grim, is not set in stone. We can yet write the ending to this chapter and the beginning of the next. Our path is ours to choose, together.
Written By Denica
Jan. 19, 2024, 12:18 a.m.(8/1/1021 AR)
I danced in the face of adversity, and painted the walls with truth.
I celebrated trouble, and followed my heart wherever it took.
I sculpted the storm to see who I was, and never looked back.
I was always unapologetically, completely and utterly, Denica Thrax.
I celebrated trouble, and followed my heart wherever it took.
I sculpted the storm to see who I was, and never looked back.
I was always unapologetically, completely and utterly, Denica Thrax.
Written By Lianne
Jan. 19, 2024, 12:10 a.m.(8/1/1021 AR)
Transcribed from my Blacks by my own hand:
(11/19/1010 AR)
Shared only with Dusk, who replied with his own brilliant composition. Documented here for posterity, even if it's not a precisely accurate representation of my experience.
The Garden of Unanswered Prayers
Some stories are set in stone,
their endings never to be righted,
carved in ice and in copper grown.
I walked through gardens, not alone,
each bloom born of hope unrequited,
of stories long since set in stone.
For one dreamer: a garden all her own,
countless roses for a heart unquiet,
all rimed in ice and copper grown.
Blossoms of glinting metal shown
for every regrown hope benighted,
her endless story set in stone.
With futility such beauty was sown.
Only one mortal has ever delighted
in all that ice and copper grown.
Her story is one you've always known,
no happy ending or lovers united.
Some stories are forever set in stone,
carved in ice, in copper grown.
(11/19/1010 AR)
Shared only with Dusk, who replied with his own brilliant composition. Documented here for posterity, even if it's not a precisely accurate representation of my experience.
The Garden of Unanswered Prayers
Some stories are set in stone,
their endings never to be righted,
carved in ice and in copper grown.
I walked through gardens, not alone,
each bloom born of hope unrequited,
of stories long since set in stone.
For one dreamer: a garden all her own,
countless roses for a heart unquiet,
all rimed in ice and copper grown.
Blossoms of glinting metal shown
for every regrown hope benighted,
her endless story set in stone.
With futility such beauty was sown.
Only one mortal has ever delighted
in all that ice and copper grown.
Her story is one you've always known,
no happy ending or lovers united.
Some stories are forever set in stone,
carved in ice, in copper grown.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.