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Written By Luca

March 15, 2017, 5:32 p.m.(2/6/1006 AR)

For those I've given hurt or insult to for my journal entry revelling in the slaughter of men, know that I meant no insult or disrespect to those I killed or their families. This is not apology for the killing but for my taking overt joy in it as I take in all combat.

To repeat words of a private apology to one I hurt with my poor handling of this:

I was told they were criminals, they tried to evade a ship marked in Thrax colors, they were proven to have had the drugs they were accused of I believe after, but most importantly, they tried to kill me first when I reached their vessel.

I live for combat. It gives me meaning and purpose. And yes I find truest combat, the challenge where life is on the line, to be the greatest, far above the first blood honor duels fought to keep tempers in check. When someone tries to kill me, I kill them and I delight in that. It doesn't make me a good person nor noble. But I never claimed to be one.

They could have stood down and been peaceably boarded and questioned, but instead drew down on me en masse, and paid for it. They further could have stood down after the first death, but they fought on to the last.

I hold no pity for those I killed. Rather I honor the challenge they gave me. I'm sorry that that has caused others pain though for the public joy of that killing. Genuinely so.

Ultimately, they are just worthless words of another silk so I'm sure they will only make things worse, but at least the words are out there for all now to accept or reject as they will.

Written By Isolde

March 15, 2017, 4:46 p.m.(2/6/1006 AR)

Strength and Hope (A Service to the Thirteenth.)

We know there is Darkness on our doorstep. We know it is things of nightmares and legends, with scraps of memory and parchment to tell us how to stop it. We know this, and it seems terrifying, insurmountable.

But it is not.

We have overcome before. We overcome now. We will overcome again. Just look to the Hall of Heroes, if you wish proof of victory over Darkness past. I dare say it is almost a holy place in and of itself, the way it inspires us, shows us that we, too, are full of greatness. They overcame the Darkness, and so shall we.

In the current days, the Faith rediscovered old rites, designed to stem the tide of Darkness that comes. Our leaders, Duke Regent Gabriel, Lady General Calypso, Lady Surgeon Eirene… just to name a few… are stronger than any leaders we have seen in our lifetime. They lead us to victory, and Victory over the Darkness. And on the morrow, in all the days to come, we will -continue- to overcome the Darkness. We will persist. We will thrive. We will succeed.

But it will take each and every one of us to do so.

Today, I beseech all of you to look within yourselves. We are one people, united and strong, but we are a people made up of individuals, each with our part to play, our duty to ourselves and each other. We have work ahead of us, make no mistake, and it must start from within.

We have the strength within us, to overcome our own Darkness, and burn bright for the whole. We are mandated by the Thirteenth, to overcome and use our Darkness, lest it consume us. But be not afraid. The Darkness within us is not a force of evil, nor is it anything to fear. It is simply the Passions, which, left uncontrolled, could consume us. Greed, when controlled, urges us to fight more fiercely for what is ours. When uncontrolled, it consumes us and leads us to ruin. Hate, when controlled, makes us see our enemies with utter clarity, allowing us to attack precisely. Rage, when controlled, gives our bodies, our minds stamina to endure long, arduous times. These are not things to fear, but to overcome, and put to our purpose.

<Insert Invocation of Strength and personal Blessings.>

Let it be known, that this gift is for all our people. Each one of us can be a beacon of hope into the darkness, offering advantage to wisdom and against the darkness. Each one can take those passions within us, and turn them into a force for our people. It is ever a personal journey, and one can always call upon one of this Shrine to help guide you to become your strongest self. Go forth, with Strength and Hope, and be whole and Complete. And so it is.

Written By Freja

March 15, 2017, 1:23 p.m.(2/6/1006 AR)

The simple things - how often I forget their pleasure.

We get so tied up in the image others wish us to project that we lose the original sketch somewhere along in the process.

I never angle to be a masterpiece, but I can control the medium and color palette at the very least.

Written By Eirene

March 15, 2017, 11:19 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

City full of dumbasses. That is all. Not aimed at anyone in general.

And again - I need to trust my instincts. Self-preservation has gotten me this far and through countless skirmishes and encounters.

Written By Orazio

March 15, 2017, 10:53 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

To the Faithful Reader:

Please be aware that, although devotion is appreciated by the gods, the shrines of the Pantheon are not meant to substitute for inns, bedrooms, or hospices. Please do not sleep in the shrines.

Written By Anze

March 15, 2017, 10:21 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

I don't recall these regular family meetings or dinners in farhaven, I don't really think that was a thing we did. It's good to get all the family together for a bit even if it sometimes just devolves into a yelling match.

I do remember eating with Fergus and freja though, which was usually a lot of two of us ganging up on the other one. Or me making bad jokes to try and get frump and frumpette to crack a smile for once. Miss those sometimes

Written By Mae

March 15, 2017, 10:14 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

I renounce my fake title. I don't want to be Prince Mae. I never want to hear it again.

Written By Clover

March 15, 2017, 10:07 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

Last night I slept underneath Aion's altar-- the one with the star at the Shrine of the Lost. I did not dream as I was hoping to but instead slept so deeply that I did not awaken with the sun. In fact I only awoke up when the priests of the Pantheon came to check on me to make sure I was well. What I sight I must have been! Sleeping in a bedroll in front of an altar in the middle of winter.

My sleep was so deep and so refreshing I feel as if I could skip *the entire* ((these words are underlined)) way back to Wyrmguard Estate. Or like I could possibly run the entire Gauntlet at the Telmar Tower! In fact, I think I will do that!

I may not have dreamed, but surely Aion blessed with good sleep!


P.S. If you're reading this I feel that as a physician I must warn against sleeping outside in the winter. It is an incredibly foolish idea and I've laready been scolded by multiple people for doing it. I will, perhaps, wait until spring to attempt this again.

Written By Ophelia

March 15, 2017, 8:08 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

Relationship Note on Artorius

I don't know how Artorius sleeps.

Having another human being to look after is quite possibly the most stressful thing I have ever experienced in my entire life.

She's not even mine! And it's what, for a few days? A week? Two weeks? And she's not even the terribly helpless tiny pink kind of child that's 90% potato.

I can't sleep. I just stay awake and stare at her and occasionally go into panic mode.

Should have seen the face of the waiter that convinced me we were finally under attack when he dropped a tea kettle in the stairwell. I'm proud to say I mobilized us within 30 seconds and made him have an accident in his pants within 45 when I showed up on the staircase wielding a sword in one hand and a chamber pot in the other.

She does keep me on my toes, however. She finds the strangest things to do. I think we'll make strawberry jam tomorrow. She assures me she knows just how.

Written By Serafine

March 15, 2017, 2:38 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

Dire circumstances. A war on the horizon. An army of soldiers more monster than human.

And still, we must not forget ourselves.

Many of us write as a way to give offering to the gods, a piece of ourselves immortalized by scholars and the Faith. We write about our fears and our prayers, hopes for the battles to come and the fights we must step forward to meet whether we want to or not. Gird our loins, sharpen our blades, bring our comrades and our beasts of war; we -fight-.

And yet.

I see pockets of humanity. Moments preserved that last no more than a heartbeat, the flap of a butterfly's wing, the few strumming notes of a song.

Land and power and money hold nothing to these precious seconds of our lives, strung together like beads on a necklace.

I saw an Iron Guard, off duty, take a bite of a pastry sold from a cart. A stolen moment between protective authority and proud baker. The icing dribbled clean from the stubbled chin of the guard, the proprietor a grinning, beaming woman with silver hair and a face full of wrinkles, a little boy wrapped in furs at her side, clinging to her cloak in the cold.

I didn't see fear or sorrow. I saw three people in a moment, joy in all of them, the little boy with round brown eyes gazing at the armored guard, the woman, coins in her hand, watching as the same man lost himself to the bliss of her baking.

Simple. Small. A minute or two, a simple pleasure that lit the corner of the street. Only I bore witness.


These moments are everywhere, they are precious because it reminds me that, mistake of birth having placed us where it might in this world, we are all the same. We breath and laugh and eat and shit and fuck and love and fight. We sing, whether we're good at it or not, we hug the people we care for the most, we howl and rage at those that anger us and do us wrong.

So this fleshy exterior we march around in, these ribbons on bones and guts, it's deceptive. This isn't what we fight for.

We fight for the moments of joy we've had, the rich sorrows and the singing light, and for the ones yet to come. The kiss of a loved one, the bitter fight in a family, the raging grief we pay for loving so deeply.

Not all of it is sweet. Much of it is bitter. And I say, savor all of it, and fight for more to come.

Fight for the chances and the time to experience more before we discard these clumsy vehicles of skin and carrying onward beyond.





Or take a page from Lord Commander Silas' book, and fight for chocolate.

Written By Kima

March 15, 2017, 2:08 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

I was once told that people can only disappoint you.

Yet if they are important to you, you will love them all the same. Because we none of us are perfect.

Written By Dagon

March 15, 2017, 1:25 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

I am a simple man. Put an enemy in front of me and I will cut them down. Put the innocent behind me and I will protect them. But what can simple men do against the forces arrayed against us? Forces whose names they have told me not to speak. Forces that a sword cannot touch, that a fire cannot harm, and that an army cannot diminish. Forces that can erase your very existence from the face of the world.

Soon, we go out to meet these forces. Soon, I may die against these forces. But that thought doesn't scare me. I would gladly give my life, if it meant success: if it meant the death of the Triarch, and of the face that haunts me in the Mirror.

What terrifies me is that I might die, and that it will be for nothing. That these armies will trample over my corpse and go on to slaughter those that I love. I won't let that happen. I can't let fear sway me.

Gods, if you are listening... if you ever listen, like they say you do... we could use a miracle.

Written By Costas

March 15, 2017, 12:10 a.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

There are no paragons save for in stories. At best an exemplar is only that until glimpsed with sufficient attention. In the moment when they are faced with the thing that makes them weak.

How bitter faith tastes when it turns to disappointment.

Written By Simone

March 15, 2017, midnight(2/5/1006 AR)

Dear Gentle Readers:

Everyone that you will meet will play a part in your story (or a role in your play, if you have a flair for the dramatic.) While some will take chapters, others will take paragraphs, most will only fit a sentence or two. You, my gentle readers, need to make sure that you are the notes in the margins - that you live so full that the excess of scribbling overflows into the lives (books, plays) of those you hold most dear.

But, my dears, you must come first.

Unless you meet someone so deeply important that you'll put their name in the title.

M. Simone Greenmarch

2/5/1006 AR.

Written By Silas

March 14, 2017, 11:43 p.m.(2/5/1006 AR)

I love chocolate.

Whoever discovered how to create this concoction deserves eternal praise.

Written By Harald

March 14, 2017, 10:32 p.m.(2/4/1006 AR)

Armies gather in the deepening dark, brave hearts hone keen spears while trembling against a distant dread. They wonder if their strength will fail, when all the evils of the world are roused, when all sins are called to account before the bloody handed headsman of destiny. They regard the lives lived behind them and wonder, of all the days between this and their first, which might have been better spent? They wonder, for such is the mark of a wandering mind seeking solace in dark days, and such is natural.

Many do this, but we do not. Regret is an iron chain dragging down the shield that no warrior should need to hear in battle. Our deeds will endure, the fine alongside the foul. Death cares naught for regrets or intents, but marches ever on, unforgiving and grim, the fisherman drawing his due harvest of souls.

Fear him if you wish, fight him if you must, but let his shadow fall upon your mind in times of trial, for his shroud is a comfort: which path stretching before me into distant days to come will I choose? Which path, when my dying day dawns, will I be proud to state before Death: I chose this course, and with my blood and breath I have kept it.

Let the judgment of death be your conscience and never fear. For fear is the guardian of hate.

Written By Zhayla

March 14, 2017, 10:06 p.m.(2/4/1006 AR)

Relationship Note on Fortunato

Fortunato is not only the master of metaphors, he is absolutely, definitely, completely, ENTIRELY the master of pictures of kittens. If he's not careful he'll miss his calling as an artist of nothing but small fluffy things. I'm sure that picture will be remembered centuries from now. A thousand years from now!

Written By Fortunato

March 14, 2017, 9:57 p.m.(2/4/1006 AR)

Relationship Note on Zhayla

A kitten. A puffy kitten in a nest of sand and bleached driftwood, her bright orange fur in stark contrast to the pale. She is sleeping, or at least relaxed, her paw crept over her nose, her tail crooked, but still and placid along her side. Only the perk of her ears hint at anything like alertness. Moon shines down on her, its full, round shape shaky and silver, shaky as a reflection in the water.

Labeled at the bottom, "There, Zhayla. A kitten."

Written By Dominique

March 14, 2017, 9:01 p.m.(2/4/1006 AR)

A ship is safest at the shore. But, that is not what it is built for

Written By Calypso

March 14, 2017, 8:07 p.m.(2/4/1006 AR)

Half of my job as Minister of Defense is making battle plans, coordinating unified military movements and seeing that the compact forces are well informed.

The other half is chasing down ridiculous rumors and squashing them in to oblivion.

Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.

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