Peril's End: A Soldier's Journal (Entry One)

[Creeperhelix1337 50]

To whom it may concern,

 

It is with great regret that I withdraw from the holy body and it’s subsidiaries to pursue a role within the military for the oncoming battles. I pray thee safe passage through this war as I hope you pray mine.

 

Joshua

 

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Entry One

Penned 7th of the Grand Harvest, 1575

These warring shouts and triumphant cries now rattle my hut upon the moment of this writ. I fear for the future that I know not, to embark on foreign seas on the call of the Emperor. Some years ago I had opposed war entirely, yet the corrupting seed of the Dreadlands continued to sew itself deep into the bosom of the world. Who am I not to answer the call to arms? This war will be perilous, this I know for sure, yet glory may hang in the balance.

 

They who shout and drink merrily unbeknownst to their impending danger call the upcoming fabled confrontation ‘The Battle of Crimsonholt’. I will call it ‘Peril’s End’. To our peril or theirs, I do not know. I am a young man, infatuated with the scholars and politicians of yore who had created the iron bastion known as Oren, upkept by warring feudal politics and conniving, dastardly men who who would draw kin’s blood for personal gain. All this to shield itself from the degrading indolence of the outside world.

 

A system of natural selection, if you will, to continuously improve the men who called themselves ‘Orenian’. To pit one’s self in this dangerous game would be their own doing, to success or to death. Yet, every chance decade or century comes the call that would be to save their society and bring order to the world. Brave men or cowardly men cared not, for it was Orenia that defined them, and ultimately what would bring them to arms. I am one of these men.

 

To understand a war such as this, we must delve into the politics surrounding it, lest we forget what we toil for. Once this is achieved, the battlefield and surrounding areas must be painfully scrutinized and picked apart, so that we may know our enemy and their home as they long to know ours. I describe this brewing conflict of ideology in A Letter to Johannesburg.

 

Yonder past the glimmering coast of the northern isle, we find ourselves raging past seas plagued by rogue winds and treacherous storms that roam those tropic waters. It is said bandits coast these waters, looking for stray trader ships to rob and plunder as they see fit. A lone ship finds much trouble in these seas, a fleet having tenfold the grief. Past this conundrum would lay a wild line of jagged rocks and impregnable jungles. Few have sailed here, and even less have made it within the land. These are the accounts of sailors and their charters, to without we’d know virtually none of this mysterious land.

 

The isle that houses the Dreadlands also hosts the War Uzg, a notoriously feisty and increasingly violent band of greenskins that lay to the east of the isle. Rip currents and rogue waves assail onto the eastern line, drawing in stray vessels to crash upon their cliffs. Haven is shattered once they are feasted alive by the savages that live within. Due to the nature of the wilds that permeate our enemy, we have little account of what lies within, though vague testimony can be delivered by the scant men who’ve escaped the land’s maw. A dense thicket surrounds the jungle, weaving vines to constrict a wanderer’s movements. Strange creatures echo out their strange sounds all throughout the trees as if to mystify those who survey.

 

Further beyond the jungle opens a wide, beige expanse of dying wheat and grass. The sea’s moisture crumples, billowing crystal clouds drying to starved traces upon an ever blue sky. Water here is as pertinent as ever, the land having sucked dry what last drops one could salvage from chance rains. Furthermore the crashing rapids of a river is heard, and here salvation is given.

What animals that may roam these lands come to this river to drink and to flourish together regardless of what the hunt demands. The river expands to the north, into the growing parched lands of the isle, where the Harians cast their homes. And so this river is life in an environment that beckons death. All are born by it, and all shall die by it.

 

These are the accounts of sailors who have gone beyond the call to explore this isle, and who have come back in death or in life with the manuscripts to testify. All this and more has been given to us to prepare for the battles that approach. A myriad of eager companies scour these streets of Johhanesburg in search of green recruits with death wishes. Veterans flock to the taverns to relish in patriotic shouts that draw them into a bloodlust for the enemy. And I, the common man, prepare to fight the anathema that haunts our future. We are different men fighting for the same cause. That alone is a beautiful thing.

 

[Wendigo 786]

Moved to the Archive. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.