The Second Exodus

[Shorsand 2006]

Luciensburg, the Fourth of the Month of The First Seed, Year Thirty of the Second Age

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I write this now with tired hand. The days have been long; our hours toiled. The stench of burning corpses lingers from down the Monte, coupling with the sickly sweet of summer hay. For two years myself and others labored to save this City, to bring it into Light and Goodness. The festering below was a challenge, and in our naivete we thought we could quell the tide of vermin, but Fate plays its hand as readily as Man does. We were wrong in our thinking, foolish in both action and inaction. Happy, we were, to send foreign blood to spill in the depths below. Confident, in our strength to stay the Evil beneath. We made merry in the tavern; spoke of ribs and asparagus and maidens, drinking good drink. It is all but dust and echoes now.

 

I was away when it happened. The chaos in the streets already too embroiled in hot fervor stop. When I arrived, it was too late. Rocks and hot embers pelted my jerkin from on high. Smog-choked streets packed with armored men and frothing Rats. I heard the rattling din of chainmail and plate, cries of warriors and shrill calls from the fleeing citizenry. Everything was aflame -- the abbey, the tavern, the homes. All that which we toiled for so long to build, to maintain, and to keep safe.

They came in hordes, larger than I have ever seen. Angry, frothing, rabid, pouring brown, ragged tides from the maw at the top of the Monte. Stragglers emerging from tunnels and burrows unknown in the countryside. We did all we could to save the City, to save our People.

Yet it was not enough.

The City stands a smouldering ruin, a crumbling castle on the horizon. I am blind to the Holy, the Void that ravages the land near, and the embers that burn upon the Monte, ghoulish vermin ravaging its wounded corpse, picking at the remains. Seen through the forest, the City crumbles. Seen through the trees, smoke rising thick and grey, the City crumbles.

We pray for an end that does not come.

The City is lost. Hope is but a far off beacon on a long-gone shore, the raft which we cling to bound dismally together by Brotherhood and Struggle.

This is the way it Ends, or the way it Begins.

[Minuvas 3193]

*A dutiful member of the Imperial Government, remembers his Canonist friends from the Norland war and prepares to help those who need it*

 

[Sarcof 98]

Grifter stands at the palisade that the stalwart men of the city of St. Lucien had erected. The civilians, the peasants were all gone, spread to other lands where they might find safety, might find peace and shelter. Next to him stands Isaac Jebediah, a Lector of St. Owyn, the two men both looking out at the city, talking quietly. A third joins their number, Isaac spitting dipspit onto the ground, Grifter smoking, the two looking away. All three were dirty, unkempt, and recovering from their wounds. All three remained, amongst the others, to hold the line.

[Reckless Banzai Screamer 15456]

Father Paco wept for the loss of the Temple of St. Lucien and Blessed Jon Renault as his Lector brothers and he grabbed what books they could carry and their Ark of Owyn before abandoning their home.

 

Macaws and Toucans roasted in the city's inferno. . .