Category: Journal Entry

They assume that we claim Dunland, and that inherent pride in our ancestral home gives shape to our hatred of Xavier Renett. While it’s easier to let them believe that, nothing could be further from the truth.

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The fact that the Renett household sources servants from our isle is well-known, and our orphanage particularly infamous within that network. But we weren’t aware then how aptly-named The Lion’s Den Home for Orphaned Boys truly was, as the house was nothing more than a pipeline to usher impressionable youths into lifelong servitude.

We were still in single digits when House Renett’s representative came, doling out contracts with the promise of a brighter future to await us across the perilous Strait of Edges. Nowadays our image of Dunland is more often informed by shanties and song attesting to her verdant hills and sun-soaked skies, but back then the dank interior and peeling walls of our orphanage were all we had off which to base our impression.

We didn’t know what we were giving up– we likely never will. And we blame him for it.

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Befreckled and auburn-haired, you’d have to be blind to mistake us for anything other than Duns; however, our alignment with the culture has always been lacking. We would grow up in Rogalia, ever-estranged from our homeland. Our fellow Dunnick servants helped to initially raise us, imparting the language, a healthy dose of superstition, and an even healthier appetite for hard liquor– but there’s only so much to be done to shape an impressionable youth during the few years we spent terrorizing Renett’s halls.

While our list of assigned chores was long, we always made time in the day to act a proper menace. We were decidedly taken off tending to changing the sheets when we once scattered fermented berries atop them and left the window strategically ajar. It was quite the hilarious find for our lord to happen upon a great flock of birds that had weaseled their way inside, by then having grown fat and drunk as they shed feathers and filth throughout Lord Renett’s bedchambers. We servants had to clean it up, of course, but it was worth it for the look on our lord’s face….

Nor can we forget the masquerades hosted in his honor. Feasts made for a time of great stress among the servants– it was the least we could do to share with our inner circle that we had taken tongs to secretly stuff the dining chair seats full of poison ivy leaves. Rogalians are a vainglorious lot, venturing to incredible lengths to maintain decorum– even as the itch of fresh hives flushed angrily across their backsides. The servants all took bets on which of those self-important peacocks would be the first to break, and could not have been more shocked to see how they mutually playacted through their agony until the bitter end (albeit with many a private moment reserved for violent itching). We supposed that maybe the masks helped to shield their discomfort. Just so, the evening did end early, leaving plenty of time for our lord to vent his fury thereafter.

We were taken off tea duty as well after we intercepted our lord’s negotiations with a brimming cup for his guest that was more lemon than leaf. We were gleeful to still be in the room when they took their first sip, our frame plastered dutifully to the wall as our lord’s guest spit the sour concoction across the table and utterly decimated our lord’s fine silk jabot. Arrogantly, our victim accused Lord Renett of meaning to deliberately slight him. Between honeyed words of apology our lord met our lingering gaze; the daggers in his eyes cut deep– sharp and savage in a way we’ve not beheld since.

We’re not sure what we cost him that day– nor did we care. It was enough to know what a thorn we were in his side, and to anticipate the hard-won smiles that our tale would bring to our circle’s lips. We couldn’t have known then that this was the final straw when, comparatively, we thought it only a minor transgression among many…/many/ more impressive examples.

By the terms of our contract we had expected to follow in the footsteps of the Dun servants before us, and to serve until death under Renett’s roof. But within a month of our last mischievous act (that we were caught for, anyhow), we were informed that our contract had been bought and sold. However patient and protective our community of redhead servants was, they couldn’t safeguard us from what was to come.

We don’t remember much from the moment that our contract was ceded to House Drake, nor of the transition to Torchgutter to follow. We expect that we blocked the worst of it out– but it was in short order that the intensity of isolation set in, as the friendly faces of our countrymen were supplanted by the loathsome sneers of our new overlords. The sting of sparks shorn from the pyre and the odor of festering bodies– some unlucky bastards still living– left staked in the sun to waste became an ever-present element that dominated our life, thick as the curtain of terror and hysteria that came to suffocate us in the night when all else had grown quiet.

He did this to us.

Animosity towards Xavier Renett clung to the spare corners of our mind and filled us with malice. Any sense of spirit or resistance slipped away under the mounting strain of the day-to-day horrors– every day more atrocities beyond imagination…more bodies to the pyre. At that time it was all we could do to survive– and to spite.

Dunland be damned– I’m no renegade or freedom fighter. If it weren’t for what he took from us…everything would be different.

Svart’s Journal – Game 13

Svart remembers back to the events of Lord Rennet’s Party…

Svart had heard of the party Lord Rennet was throwing. A party where everybody pretends to be a vampire. Svart was excited to make a costume for this party. I had collected and put together lots of cloth. Applying my great needleworking skills, I wrapped myself skillfully in dark rags as that is what vampires wear.

There are a lot of new people in town lately. No doubt that many of them are bandits here to spy for the witch. That or they are more Gothics here to take over Njord lands. This party will be a good opportunity to study people.

Along the way, I met a woman who was not feeling well surrounded by dark figures. Svart greeted them according to his disguise.

“Hello fellow humans. Are you going to the party of Lord Rennet where people dress up as vampires.”

The woman replied, “I was going, but I feel too weak all of a sudden. I was going to take this bottle of mead. If you are going, will you take it there for me?”

“Of course. It is no problem” and Svart took the bottle of delicious mead from the woman and addressed the figures around her, that darted back and forth like smoke covered in dark rags.

“Are you going to Lord Rennet’s party, my fellows?”

They hissed “No, we will stay here with the woman. Knut is at the party, and we fear to go there. You must be brave if you are going there.”

Svart replied, “I am brave as well as clever. Knut will be no problem for me”, and I left the group for the party, having outwitted even other vampires.

Svart arrived at the ‘Everybody pretend to be a vampire’ party dressed in his carefully crafted outfit. He drifted through the party pretending to be a vampire pretending to be a human. People cowered in fear, as Svart was so convincing that everybody thought he was a vampire. He could hear people cower in fear from him as murmurs went though the party.

To the side, Knut took the cigarette from his mouth and said “Eh! It is only Svart dressed in one of his magnificent outfits” in his husky, manly voice. Knut is Svart’s longest living friend left in Runeheim. Helgi, Rolf, Shanahan, Ms. V, and Victor, all dead or missing due to the Witch or her spies manipulating events against Svart’s allies. Svart hopes the Witch does not notice how he is friends with Svart and that nothing bad happens to Knut.
Eventually, he turned over the bottles over to the party, both his and the one he picked up from the woman along the way. The mead the woman had was quite good. Sweet and spicy!

Svart glided through the crowd just like a vampire would have. He looked after Graham winning money from some poor sucker that obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with! Then he came across the other needleworker I had met today, Tuva’s son. Svart stopped to admire the finely crafted outfit he had spoken of earlier. It was nice. Very nice. Svart wonders how he managed to cheat enough of his customers to get the resources to make such a garment.

While at the party, a man asked for everybody’s names. Svart made up a stupid human Rogalian name to give as still pretending to be a vampire pretending to be a human. When Dvart asked for his name, the seated man announced that he was Lord Rennet, in disguise! Svart, not wanting to miss a good opportunity for business, threw off his disguise and revealed himself as actually Svart, who is hardworking and dependable. Lord Rennet was impressed with Svart’s disguise and ability.

After that, the mead was growing low, and Svart returned home.

Reason stood at the edge of an abyss.

Not physically. Physically, they were set up in a dusty workshop — more of a repurposed barn than anything — so graciously lent for use to Runeheim by the Rogalian lord. Luckily, between the tools they’d brought with them and after patching up a few things in the shop, Reason was able to quickly get to work.

Reason had fallen into an easy rhythm of sawing through the unprocessed lumber. The scent of pine that hung in the workshop had a toasted note to it, singed by the friction of the saw, so fervently was Reason absorbed in their task. The work was not effortless, though, and sweat beaded under the carpenter’s fiery, disheveled locks.

Their mind, however, was far away from their humble station.

Though the autumn air was warm and humid, the memory of last night’s walk brought a chill to Reason’s limbs and chest. They could still feel the entity’s voice, frigid— like the icy rattle of a chain wrapped around their body and soul — and how helpless they felt in its presence.

It promised to give them anything they wanted.

Anything. /Anything./ Magic, power, adoration, success.

They had always desired more, in this life and in the past; always wanting things that were just out of reach, thirsting for the things that knowledge brought.

Surely such promises couldn’t be real.

A part of them hoped they were true, though. The two dreamed so big, worked so hard, and did everything in their power to inch them closer to their goals.

Reason could still feel the horrific sensation when it poured into their body and endeavored to push out their essence, and would have still given it all up were it not for the terrifying inability to touch Rhyme without burning themselves. It was that alone, that deep-set fear of losing the other, that had pulled the two of them out of the lullaby of promises it wove.

It was the one thing they could not bear lose.

Even with how spotty their memory was, Reason could painfully remember how lonely it was to be O’shea. There was no warmth in books, no buddies in the Rogalian war camp, no allies in the Fire Guild. Ripped from his roots as a child, and never allowed to plant any. There was only cruelty in Torchgutter, and even those closest to him, like Celandine, at best maintained a professional arms-length distance. Always surrounded by people, yet only had himself for warmth.

Still, the thought would not leave their mind, buzzing like a persistent cicada with the unyielding question of “what if?”

‘What if what was offered to us was real?’ Reason thought. ‘What if we could have all of it: magic, and love, and purpose?’

‘What if Rhyme could have anything their heart desired?’

Crack!

The wood snapped under Reason’s plane, crumbling in a puff of sawdust at a weak point at the knot. Reason swore loudly as they recoiled from the break, feeling a stinging feeling on their wrist from where the splintered wood scraped them. Damned Renett lumber, they should have known. The forests here were shriveling under the lord’s purview.

Reason sighed and wiped away the swirls of wood shavings off their workstation, taking a moment to gauge the snapped plank to try and work out how they could still salvage it. Perhaps if they had time they could at least do something decorative with it.

They returned to their work, their thoughts still adrift on the murky wind.

An unbidden memory surfaces: a candled flickering, an unwavering gaze. There are so many questions sitting here unanswered in the dark.

What fault lies with faith and what salvation can we hope for. Is it better souls come unbidden, striving toward a blessed death, instead of being so cruelly used in their vessels? What is the difference if we have no choice at the end? Only that we decide when and how our souls sit at rest. But then why tolerate followers of the old ways at all. Why give them the grace to choose Benalis. Is this not validating their faith, by giving them choice? They are necessary otherwise what does the church strive for.

The candle’s flame sputters suddenly and goes out. The silence is unbearable.

“For the she wolf!” they called. A icy cold shiver went down Vestri’s spine. Her. Here. He caught only a glimpse of them before the war dead he was facing swung again – somehow the appearance of the wolf-men increased its prowess, its menace. His allies turned to face the wolves behind them, and their formation shattered. Vestri tried to face the Draugr in front of him, but he could only do so much alone with a knife.

The nasty wardead in front of him, one so long decayed it looked like it had been drawn with his left hand, struck with uncanny strength, keeping Vestri from being able to get close enough to finish it. The new armor he had just gotten from Oddny was pierced quickly, he felt the warmth of his own blood staining it. He lunged, it dodged, and he was struck again. His legs faltered, his vision getting blurry. A cry from behind him – like a fool he turned and…

The ground rose to meet him as the rusty blade was pulled out of him. It was all he could do to hold onto his own knife and he crumpled to the ground. His strength left him as quickly as his blood seemed to be. He could just see Olof, collapsed in a bush, there was Gisla on the ground with her shield just in front of him, and Vogel – with an arrow still in his fingers, down just beyond Gisla. But… where was Virgil?

A cold, slimy, hand grabbed his head and lifted it up. He could see Virgil now, surrounded by no less than four war dead and the two wolves. Dodging their blades with deftness, a taunt on his lips. Was it enough? Could he do it?

The blade touched his neck, too cold for how much of his blood was on it. The ragged edge apparent against his throat.

Was it enough? Were they good enough? Did they appease her? Was it worth it?

The blade was pulled hard and fast.

Did we save Kallevik?

Jolting awake, his heart pounding, Vestri reached for his knife as he eyed his surroundings. His small campfire was faintly glowing embers, the moon hanging low in the sky with the stars twinkling above the plains. He was near the ruins of a village, all the way at the edge of that map he was given months ago. Not a pair of green eyes in sight. He steadied his breath and tried to slow his heart. There were no green eyes anywhere he could see.

o0o0o
Even so far away, the memory was so fresh, so clear, so primal. He had never experienced a hunt like that. After finding the grove Skógerblóði was to be in, gathering with the other hunters – and Gisla and Vogel who had been chosen by Skógerblóði to join this hunt. The six of them, Njords all, to face this hunt. Vestri was so proud to stand with them, he felt they would be unable to even smell defeat.

How wrong he was, and yet, how right.
o0o0o

He turned his knife over in his hands, studying the blade carefully – its scratches so apparent in the dim, cold light of the moon. Slowly he ran his thumb along the flat of the blade, feeling them.

When they were surrounded, Vestri was the first to fall – his shame – the Father bringing him back to the fight, and then, when they scattered, hearing them descend on Gisla while he just fled. As he ran through the woods, no matter what direction he looked – another spawn, his lungs hot, he was far more sure of his step than he had any right to be, his legs carrying him back to where he remembered losing Gisla. And there was everyone… except Java. As Gisla got back on her feet and pointedly abandoned her shield, Vestri looked at Vogel. There was no need for words, they both understood. A nod, and Vogel went to face the spawn, and the rest charged into the woods – there was only one other place the spirit could be…

His heart was no longer pounding in his ears, his breathing regular. He took one deep breath and let out the heavy sigh, willing this nightmare to leave him in peace.

o0o0o
Carefully moving with Eskel as he ambushed the few pursuing spawn, he heard the call – and saw the single pair of eyes in the distance. It had to be The Horned one. Running up the hill to find Java, defiant, brandishing the knife she’d only been given perhaps a half hour before steeled his resolve. Charging in to face the spirit before it could do more harm to their mage friend. While they traded blows with the spirit, Gisla and Eskel almost being hit by a tree thrown by the spirit, Father Erasmus pelting it with arrows, Vestri himself desperately trying to break its hold on Gisla. After an eternity of fighting, Java, from behind and her knife leveled, finally silenced the spirit of the forest and its animals. Then a cry of triumph, battered though they were.
o0o0o

Putting his knife away properly, Vestri laid his head back down on his pack, and pulled his bedroll close to ward off the creeping chill of the late summer night. He stared blankly at the stars above him, his eyes open, but unseeing.

o0o0o
Calling for Vogel as they cleared a few lingering spawn in the woods, Vestri became increasingly anxious. How long had it been since they left him to hold off the spawn? Vogel had already been saved by the Father once, was he going to be alright? A glimpse of his cloak by a bush, and he and Gisla broke into a sprint. Vogel lay there, barely breathing with awful wounds and an empty quiver. The Father was quick to administer to him, and Vestri looked around – there were no arrows that missed their mark. What if they had given Vogel a knife? He offered a shoulder to help get Vogel back to town. He’d saved us all, saved this hunt. “It wouldn’t’ve been a bad way to die” he’d said to Vestri in a ragged breath with a wry smile.
o0o0o

Closing his eyes, he resolved he would find his way back to them. He would protect his friends, just as they had protected him. As the night deepened, Vestri found his resolve returning. He would not be defined by his fears; instead, he would rise above them, ready for whatever challenges lay ahead. He let sleep take him once again, this time into a dreamless slumber.

In the fading light of evening, Vestri, a simple hunter from the Greywolf town of Kallevik, stood on a rise overlooking the vast plains not far from the tundras south of Runeheim. The sun dipped low, casting long shadows that danced across the grass. It had been a month since he, Gisla, and Vogel had stumbled into Forum, spawn nipping at their heels, their bodies weary from the wilderness, their spirits bruised but not broken.

The memory of their harrowing journey loomed large in his mind. Endless nights spent huddled around meager fires, haunted by the howling winds and lurking shadows. Each day, they had fought against the chill and hunger, their only solace the bond forged in survival. Gisla, with her fierce determination, had led them through the worst, her sharp eyes spotting dangers long before they materialized. Vogel, undaunted in his positivity, had been the heart of their trio, weaving tales that kept their spirits buoyed when hope seemed thin. There had scarcely been time to mourn the ones they had been separated with in the storm, and now it felt like it was too late. As he surveyed the plains a quiet but desperate hope was always there that maybe he would see them again out here.

He referenced the map he had been given before heading on this trip – his hometown nowhere on it – and sketched a simple approximation of the vista he stood on. Returning it to his pack, he set about finding enough kindling to start a small cookfire while there was still light enough to do so. As he set about this task, his mind returned to the events that transpired after his arrival. Rescued by a Paladin from vampire spawn – yet the Paladin assured them that it was they who were the valorous. Hearing of the concerns of the one-eyed Branded on his path forward. An ambush by bandits in the wood. The down-to-earth mage. Court where we were encouraged to weigh in despite being so new to this land. The offering and the hunt. Freeing the Disir. The crow. The invitation to hunt Skógerblóði the Horned from the spirit themself. The meat… The meat…

The fire was small and comfortable, he set about cooking a rabbit he caught earlier that day and watched as the fat sizzled on the wood growing coals.

This was what they needed – a real chance to show what Kallevik was capable of!

Things are falling apart around us. Chased from our home by the Fafnir’s. Sheltering with the least loved Rogalian lord in existence, Lord Xavier Rennet.

Things seem pretty dire. My companions show more and more strain against our situation, plus nothing seems to be falling our way.

The death of Brenna of the forgotten weighs heavily on my soul. I cant help but feel the wrong charismata died saturday night of forum. I was duty bound by my allegiance to Gotha and the church to side with Sir Baldwin, but I cant shake this feeling. Not only is the good knight not good or worthy of following, his pushing of Brenna in the situation guaranteed the outcome. Add to the situation that unkillable fallen paladin Lucien and the entire situation was just a nightmare. In the end by the actions of others, Brenna fell and was declared anathema. In that moment she had to be put down. But everything to that point wasnt her fault. It was Baldwins, it was Luciens, and it was Ragnar’s. I do feel bad for the barzark, knowing that with his advice he caused the fall of a friend, and ultimately was forced to take her life.

I think my anger stems from impotence. I could do nothing to stop the fight, nothing to bring it back from the brink. Charismata dueling is like monsters clashing, everything around them injured is merely unintended casualties. Did I do enough by simply protecting the various innocents from being slaughtered during this clash of titans?

Shouldnt that be a good enough job by a mortal like me?

Then why cant I sleep.