CONDEMNATION OF ONE'S OWN

[Mordringfan 166]

The Frost Dwarf reads through the missive, seeing how they could make easy Mina. They prepare to travel through the Elven cities in search of those whose names was on the bounty-list.

[_FirBranch_ 20]

Tachelyth sits on the top of the make shift crow's nest of  'The Red Dawn', after a short stop along the shore, having picked up some of the recent news, for the new job they had been assigned by Captain Percy. "Kae sulier. Kae'leh estranged mal’onn'ii, mali heya'ito lae as malii’mal'ehya it seems other tal'Talonnii are kina. Kae parsaer. Kae will ito'ahern of this."

And thus the androgynous figure slides down the ladder, to go figure out how they could manipulate the situation.
 

Spoiler

Excuse my horrendous elvish, I am trying D:

 

[MailC3p 2402]

A Sythaerin of nearing 3 centuries had the missive handed to him by a servant at his place of residence. One leg crossed over another as he read it aloud for all to hear, stopping briefly for bouts of laughter and chuckles to himself at the ridiculousness of the missive. However two names on that missive seemed to stand out to him in particular, 'Lenniel Sythaerin' his daughter, and the one who wrote the missive, Lorandril. An Aheral who spent the better part of a decade trying his hardest to court the very same Sythaerin who he now places the bounty on, an aheral who once shrunk at his very presence now wishes death upon his daughter and will pay mina for whoever foolishly throws their life away in this foolish attempt? A mockery, yet he was ready for any fool that would dare attempt.

[clearlynoko 201]

Aurelith's daughter in law sneers at the missive, pocketing it for later. Perhaps she should have been less of a bystander about the alleged mistreatment of Lorandil's poor girl.

"Maylii, come look at this nonsense," she calls to her wife. @Little_Kitty48

[Atlas Got Cubed 49]

Within a gilded home an elfess and her lliran were informed of the missive, handed to them by one whose beloved was on the list of bounties.

 

"A shame" She mused to herself, in the silence after her companions had left. "His gripes with the Silver State have merit. If he had chosen to direct his ire toward the establishment, rather than my own kin, we might have had a lovely conversation over tea."

 

"But alas, his decision was made out of selfishness, he has only proven his impurity"

 

In a few strides, she stood before where her sword rested upon the dining table. The blade was gingerly lifted into her pale grey hands. A thumb brushed over the metal's edge, then it was braced against a whetstone. 

 

With a newly honed blade, the elfess wandered through the house in search of her mentor.

 

"Halerir'thilln, I bring good news. There is a kinslayer to hunt."

@Ferd0207

[Morigung-oog 5697]

6 hours ago, acronius_ said:

It is necessary to recognize. . .

. . .transgressions against me. . .

. . .the entirety of Elvendom. . .

. . .my own people are a scourge on this plane.

 

Damn them all. Damn them to the stasis after death, and pain in life.

 

Let them suffer.

 

[!] The following would be detailed first in letters to the author’s family and friends, then released months later in a continent-wide missive.

 

To whom it may concern,

 

It is necessary to recognize the events undergone in the past century and change, beyond the time of most upon Azuras, but not forgotten to some. The circumstances require that I preface my statement with the following:

 

My hand has always been forced.

 

The eternal indoctrination of my mind began in childhood, nearly two-hundred years ago. I was made to believe that I was fortunate to be born in my station, among the proletariat of the Haelun’orian ilk, simply because I was indeed born among them. My mother was pure, and my father, but neither were very wealthy, nor involved in politics. They were a simple pair. This principle was a pleasant idea in the mind of a youngling. To imagine that I was somehow better than any individual who shared my skin, my hair, and my eyes, only because of the banner I had fastened to my lapel, was exceptional.

 

They were killed by a band of urukan when I had just passed the threshold of valah adulthood, and I survived by their mercy. They wanted jewels, and my parents had failed to provide such. El’urukan could not fathom that I would carry anything they did not. So, I was free. I was left in the jungle north of Haelun’or upon Aevos, roughly thirty miles east of north relative to the old merchant city of Kaethul by my recollection. By all means, I should have died. I nearly did, in fact, and my sister, another pure ‘aheral, met her end there. I do miss her yet, every day.

 

I found the road eventually. It was simple to return to Haelun’or. I watched the sun for one day, discerned which direction was east by watching it set in the west, and I followed the road thence. The climb to the top of the mountain was arduous, but I made do. I was turned away at the gate. Without my parents to vouch for my origin, and neither of their names being on the city’s ledgers, as they lived at the base of the mountain, I was deemed an outsider, despite my blood. The caution expressed was enraging, and I was denied again, and again, despite begging and a request only for simple sustenance. I subsided on berries growing from bushes along the city path. Those citizens that passed by were alerted from the bridge as to me and ordered not to give me anything. They were content to let one of their own starve at the gates of their city. 

 

Eventually, I resigned myself to that label they had forced upon me, and I turned in defeat. I heard talk on the road in my hunger-induced stupor of the city upon the coast, the merchant city of Kaethul, and something in my subconscious led my weary feet there without any true recognizance of where I was headed. I did not stop until I saw their open gates and fell to the cobbles. I awoke, now twenty years of age, staring up at the fair complexion of another ‘aheral. He introduced himself and so did I, and he frowned at my origin. I was just alienated by my own people, and another who shared my blood showed distaste at my claiming to be of that Silver City. I am not the only ‘aheral, then, who feels unfit. 

 

I grew older at a rapid rate. Kaethul was not a friendly place, but it was certainly an active place. People came and went, evil and good, and clashed in a cacophony of singing blades. It was there, however, that I had my mind rewritten in a way. There, I peacefully coexisted with valah, bortu, and even called them peers. We shared a common goal, the advancement of the sciences and commercial wealth, and it was a simple life. The many ‘aheral there were pleasant and amenable to working with other races. Kaethul was constantly under threat from its overlord in Haelun’or, and a certain disdain grew in my own thoughts as well as those other ‘aheral within, and we felt oppressed. 

 

The Haelun’orian desire to understand and record became so easily the desire to control. I could not see the fortune that my parents had preached. I saw only silver-tongued people that could not take no for an answer and would pull any strings attached to urge the world in the direction of their own will. 

 

Kaethul fell, Celia’nor fell, Haelun’or went under vassalage of valah overlords, and I went west. I found a forest of mushrooms many fathoms high, seeming to support the eternally-clouded sky, appearing akin to a plaster ceiling. There, I lived by my lonesome for nearly a century. I did not desire the company of my people, the Haelun’orians, nor ‘aheral as a whole, and the impulsivity of the shorter-lived races became maddening. I sought seclusion. It was upon the turn of my one-hundred-and-twentieth that I revised my plan for eternal reclusivity and returned to the bustle of civilization.

 

I had not been so removed from propriety that I would have appeared castaway, but I was not of the finest manners. I fit in more with el’valah in the Heartlands than my blessed brethren. I lived in Petra, took a job in their tavern, and learned to cook. I found myself among a friendly, delicate folk, prideful in their nation, yet humble in courtly proceedings. Their lack of rationality, although reprehensible in serious instances, was endearing as if they were impertinent hounds whelped much too early. I could tolerate them. Such was my life for the peace observed before Orsathiael’s reign. I returned to Haelun’or under a different name, proffered myself as a wayward one returning home at last, and I was accepted not for the guardsmen’s good heart, but for the opportunity to bend another to their ideals.

 

I would not bend, no. I was beaten down by word, by action, and once by fists. These transgressions against me would have felled any man befallen and broken the back of an olog. In partnership with the Sythaerin family running an apothecary, the success of which I am solely responsible for, the patriarch and matriarch did not so much as acknowledge me. Their daughter, my business partner, laid sole blame for the stasis and later failure to rebuild on myself. I had ideas, I stocked the place, I advertised, and she reaped the reward for her family. The Sythaerins grew wealthy on my behalf. I was never recognized.

 

I was promised the allegiance of the Calith family. El’Sohaer of my time I had assumed to be a close friend of mine. His older relatives, some of the wisest ‘thill of the last millennium, vested trust in my word. Unbeknownst, they took every word, recorded every conversation, and flipped the context upon its head. Secrecy had made the Calith family, and secrecy kept them in power for as long as I can remember. Secrecy banished them from their homeland, killed their people, yet alas, that misfortune did not befall the prideful perpetrators. They still live, Seth and Acalmaehr Calith, and should not, but they defy the will of the universe in continuing to do so. 

 

The Ana’halrae family are made entirely of scheming, foul beings, from top to bottom. I have learned such, being unfortunately wed to one of their deceptively fair folk. I was misled into believing that they were truly benevolent. The first disparate clues came at the announcement of my daughter’s birth. I was beheld with scorn, a reasoning unknown and unsaid. I made no prior commitment to any within the family and had the child of my own volition, to a pure woman who died during labor. From that day, the patriarch vowed to see me removed from comfort, or life, if circumstances permitted. Behind my back and without my knowledge, the blessed peerage of Haelun’or were misguided to believing I was a criminal, a turncoat, and surprisingly worst-of-all, impure. 

 

I, born to two Haelun’orians, married to a Haelun’orian, father of a pure ‘aheral, was deemed impure. How nominal, how insignificant must a race of people be for mistaken steps in unexplored territory to influence the greater community? How fragile is their mind? They were told to hate, and hate they did. They were told to ignore, and that they did. They were simply told how to act by the demon named Hymnal, and they acted upon his word as if it were a decree from an Aengulic council. Lies undid me as lies bolster the foundations of the Haelun’orian mind and as they undermine all that is good and pure, and they do damn the entirety of Elvendom to stasis.

 

The remainder of ‘thill claiming blessed parentage and progeny are against the general fortuitous ongoing of the rest of Azuras and are poised to take such for themselves. They cannot maintain their haughty livelihood without taking the right to comfort of others deemed beneath them. They alienate their own people and by consequence themselves. No people in this material plane have ever been more hated than they. No people have ever done more harm than them. They are a scourge on this plane.

 

I am not advocating for another Adunic slaughter. I am, however, taking matters into my own hands. Henceforth, and as long as I live;

I place a bounty of four-hundred mina on the head of Hymnal, patriarch of the Ana’halrae family.

I place a bounty of two-hundred-and-fifty mina on the head of Acalmaehr Calith.

I place a bounty of two-hundred mina on the head of Lenniel Sythaerin.

I place a bounty of two-hundred-and-eighty mina on the head of Seth Calith.

I place a bounty of two-hundred mina on the head of Delphin Ana’halrae.

I place a bounty of one-hundred-and-fifty mina on the head of Aurelith Silevon.

 

The prize will be proffered upon deliverance of the dead and the means by which they were taken. Should the victim be proven yet alive, the prize will not be given. If this plea is not answered in reasonable time, I will be forced to find them, armed with my own dagger. Let those named above know that I will kill them. If not by my hand, then by my word. They will die.

 

I damn them hence to the eternal stasis offered by death, and so do I wish only pain in their long life.

 

Let them suffer.

 

Signed by

Lorandil Sindarin

 

A pallid magus inhaled sharply through her nostrils. Of course, the notice was pinned to her board. She gazed over each of the names, some guilty, some victims of circumstance. "... Time to play 'hero' again." Sighed the ancient, impure elf. She knew well that they would not do the same for her; they hadn't before. She was, and always would be a scapegoat.

 

 

---

 

A letter would arrive, delivered to the hands of Lorandil by some invisible, unseeable force. The pristine parchment contained a simple, stark message; a summons.

 

You are hereby summoned to Alduun, by order of Holy Ser Valithael af Bene Lisse.

You may bring one ally to accompany you.

Your safety shall be guaranteed.

Do not keep me waiting.

[laugh_giggletehe 113]

Nestled just before a borrowed hearth, Vysryana peers to the missive. A light frown tugs at scar-worn lips at the names- as well as the prices- listed.

“Cheap-ass.” Is all that is spoken,, for a time- offered only to the arid space ahead. How far had her friend fallen- or perhaps she had drug him to such a level? Lorandil was so kind in their first meetings, if cowardly….


A letter is drafted.


 

Spoiler

Oooooh....... drama...,.,

 

[T21_4jb 17]

Fenrir scans the missive, his eyes skipping over the dramatic life story until he hits the name Hymnal. He looks at the 400 mina reward tempted to murder his Fiancé for the reward, then back at the author’s whining.

 

"Booo," he mutters, a flat, unimpressed sound. "What a sissy."

 

He doesn't even bother with a dagger. He just grips the parchment and tears it down the middle, the sound of the paper snapping the only response the author deserves.
 

"All those words just to prove you’re a coward."

He drops the scraps into the dirt and walks away.

[growingivy 3382]

An elf, one who removed herself from Haelun'or half a century ago now, stared at the missive. Her daughter? Her youngest? That could not be had, not for long. She wouldn't have it.

[pexchysa 137]

Aurelith Silevon returned home, exhausted from her day of teaching and travels. She slumped into bed next to her husband, noticing the letter he had in his hand. "What's that?" She mumbled. He showed the pale elfess the contents, her brow slowly raising as purple eyes swept over it.

 

"Now, now, whatever did I do?" Aurelith scoffed, crumpling the paper and tossing it away.

[Arianthe22 242]

Dianthe read through the missive, a small laugh escaping her lips upon reading through her aunt's name, as of ah had heard a joke most amusing. But there was no joke and someone had truly placed a bounty upon Aurelith's head. 

 

Lorandil Sindarin 

 

"Let the hunt begin then." she mumbled coldly as she slipped the missive into the burning hearth of her home. 

[arxchn0ph0bia 62]

A Nordic elf gaze upon the parchment in passing, a low grunt leaving his scarred lips.

“Personal vendettas carried out by sellswords is a meaningless, empty revenge. At least have the gall to kill the disgusting bastards yourself. At least have pride that you slew them or died trying. No, just like them in the end, you use others to your own end,” he paused for a moment as his mind had wandered.

Tossair didn’t bother desecrating the missive, instead leaving it for some fool bastard to go after Idunian-owned land.

“Let the impure ones continue making an actual difference upon this land whilst you all squabble for centuries more to come.”