Mio

@Llir@Josh3738Curious how implementation is expected to be done? Will it just be a retcon that it has always been an accepted thing and it's pretended it hasn't been otherwise, or are groups with these beliefs be expected to make posts about the legalization and new allowance etc. Surely this was considered. Another random ruling inquiry but something tells me its possible to happen, presume someone were to dislike / not practice Canonism, talk poorly about it, what be it for its past practices and ways, and they are punished severely for this, how would this type of situation be handled? I'd presume it'd be allowed and without punishment, as it isn't for their sexuality or whatever be it they're getting punished for, just dislike of Canonism. Still curious regardless. Furthermore, on the topic of sexism, I think people should definitely give admins more time on this and it should be thought about VERY thoroughly, I'm glad admins took this step to talk about it more. It must consider some Orders of Knighthoods, Brotherhoods, Priesthood, a lot would be required to change if it were just a blanket ban, so good on admins for taking the cautious steps.

"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" ALEKSANDR II had spoke once.

"centuries will pass and they will speak my name" "marius audemar they will say..." "...this is my claim" "TSAR MARIVS AVDEMAR."

say on skibidi

I never wrote one for Aleksandr II I started twice but scrapped both, I was done with the character before he died thus the motivation wasn't there but that's not to say the character and story didn't happen, and that the time playing him wasn't enjoyed. I feel it's an injustice sometimes that I didn't close the book but I feel whatever I wrote at the time wouldn't have been my best, and even sometimes like a year later I'll get a new idea, or hear a new lyric in a song that sparks it. honestly though at the end of the day write it for yourself, who cares what you post on the forums, forums are a creative outlet don't worry about maximizing your views or upvotes; pick it up again when you're motivated and drop it when you're bored, come back when you get inspired and restart if you feel unhappy. You'll probably get it eventually, and more likely than not you'll probably be left with something you're happy with.

"RECRUIT MORE! RECRUIT MORE! RECRUIT MORE!" Cried the Ferryman beggar

hello! glad and moreover honored to see you've picked haense as your first home on LOTC. I joined haense back in 2020 at the start of covid and through lockdown I feel in a sense the diverse community and the (several) encouraging leaderships who swapped the mantle over time had in a way raised me through my younger years. I'm sure with time you will begin to realize more and more, if you do hopefully stick around, that haense is far more than just a minecraft nation but really a community in full that extends beyond LOTC with numerous people who will be there for you should you need it. Ironically enough, one of my lord of the craft stories begins in relatively the same path as you. I had just joined Haense as suggested by a player named Miniguy through discord - who I had never spoken to before, but he was ever helpful and committed to bringing me into the community as he was the Lord Marshal of Haense. He sent out a soldier in the BSK by the name of Bjornolf (rep2k) who introduced me to the city, showed me around, recommended a few places of work, and suggested I join the BSK which I put off to, "maybe another day". I initially pursued a position in the hospital, hoping to do alchemy and medicine and I very quickly found out within a week that doing medic RP would lead me to working alongside the BSK anyway! So while I declined at first, I witnessed enough PVP trainings, arrests (leading to executions), and really overall the brotherhood the BSK displayed and said **** medic RP and enlisted. With time, I grinded up to a Lieutenant and soon enough, with a group of three other players, within the BSK we formed a sub-group dubbed the RHMP (Royal Haeseni Military Police). We focused on detective work, interrogations, and the King, Sigismund II (seannie) - had granted us a small Blacksite area for our questionable (YET EFFECTIVE) work. I had once chased one of our perps all the way from Haense to Oren on Arcas (two maps ago, ended in 2020) by foot, with both of us running out of food half way, me and one of the guys were in VC the whole time and instead of chasing he had turned the other way to grab a horse first (clutch). I just remember fondly it feeling like torture walk-chasing after someone for what felt like twenty minutes. Soon enough my horse guy caught up and unfortunately the perp ended up turning the situation super weird and I called a mod and they got banned instead of arrested. These things happen, don't get discouraged by it if it happens to you, one bad apple don't ruin the batch. I pursued another one really big case IRP (big to us, at least) but one thing you will find with kind of detective RP is that evidence on minecraft and really in any kind of medieval period is difficult to impossible - but with letters being a newer modern addition it could be easier, I wouldn't know! I do remember though that we got two or three BSK soldiers to false-testify once (probably more), rehearsing the finest details of the story and that was fun. That's one of the "tamer" memories I have, a lot of my core ones are from raiding / battles / wars, but there's a lot of roleplay moments that stick with me and I sometimes wonder if in a decade out I will still remember them. Hopefully now you know what you can expect, what can be accomplished, and really the bounds of what's possible (which is a lot). The more work you put in and the more people can trust in your competence the more likely it will be that they will go out of the typical boundaries to grant you room for ******* around and having fun. A lot of it realistically and especially in nation RP, is about proving yourself if you wish to achieve whatever you desire. Before you know it you'll be the one pulling the lever on the gallows to execute a criminal or even the BSK officer bossing others around - or getting them to false testify. Or maybe your AI will be doing it and we won't even know. Obligatory reply to this because humanity is simply superior to any kind of race and I disagree with Seth's philosophy but seth I love you regardless. I wouldn't say it's so much about how much time you have with a character to do something but how much you can make of the time you have. I've played about six humans in four years, and with this you give yourself the opportunity to give characters different gists, personalities, allegiances, roles - without having to force all those personalities into one character for a long haul. If you're to play an elf I would recommend it be simply because you want to play an elf and not because you want to play the same character for a decade straight. Ending off a character and writing that last chapter in their story good or bad will make you look back on the entire character in a different light. One trap I think a lot of newer players fall into is starting a second character really early and trying to "split their time" between the two. Some people may disagree I'm not sure the consensus on this but as your first character do EVERYTHING you wish and play your first one out until you feel their story is complete, however brief or long that may be. Don't save something you want to pursue for your "next character", the best part about roleplay and storytelling is how fluid it is to your desires, so fulfill them.

Marius Audemar smiled, for the cycle spanning centuries before He would continue for centuries after,"You two shall prosper." Vowed the man, sharpening an Ancient Raevsblade.

Really cool post and ideas, thanks for putting this out Java and rising to the ranks of ambitious techies. This is cool! I'd suggest for every current basic colour there is for the default player add a corresponding pastel colour accessed with Coal VIP. Honestly, I wouldn't give more colour options to every single player - frankly it's not needed to change your LOTC experience in the slightest. Giving pastel to even the lowest rank of Coal really would define the rank even more so as a very easy purchase for committed players. If I were to restart my time on LOTC and Coal VIP provided now a whole new range of colors, bold, and italics, the purchase would've seemed all the more tempting. And yeah, give hexidecimal custom input to some other rank. Maybe gold to encourage the coal VIP --> gold VIP pipeline. I'm having trouble with this idea because I might not fully understand it. I think while, in an ideal world, if everybody could agree that all is fair in love and war this function would work, but we do not live in a minecraftopia. Currently halting just follows the rulebook and is handled player-to-player should no rules be broken. If a rule is broken, then mod gets involved to solve it. I don't think this area is something that should be forceful (which isn't suggested I know), but it not being forceful kind of makes it redundant. This seems to be one of those flair > function ideas. Super neat. I'm Diamond VIP and the ability I looked forward to the most was this function to swap skins, was especially neat having one skin be with a helmet and the other without meaning for dynamic changes in the moment - the only downside, and really the killer, was that cooldown. Super super inconvenient. I think the current two skin slots for Diamond VIP is fair. Of course, removing the cooldown would be much appreciated too. I suggest to maximize EULA-friendly VIP perks though the current status of the skins plugin should be hand-me-downed to Gold VIP. Either keep the two skin options with cooldown at this rank, or reduce it to one skin with cooldown too. Gives more variety to the many ranks and adds an enticing addiction to the skin function that possibly the upgrade to diamond from gold would be worth it. I'm not sure what the rationale could be for removing CT resource cooldown. Already it is extremely quick, you can gather resources even quicker currently than I believe was agreed on at map launch by the grace of squakhawk. During the dev process I was a big shill and still am that the LOTC staff philosophy to resource collection should ultimately be that collecting resources should be as on par in time to collect in vanilla minecraft as possible. In better words, in no case should it be vastly more efficient to dig up dirt on your tiles and grief the land than go to resource island, as was the case on Almaris where people had sapling farms. Brutal times. If what I put previous is already currently the case then in reasonable fairness I don't think there's any need for change. If what I put is quicker than what is current, then change should be considered! Overall, I think basing the basic vanilla resource collection should remain rooted in divesting some of your time. If you seek a shortcut, as this removal of times would be, use LC. It exists for a reason and has been a very good money sink thus far. Honestly, training sword is kind of useless. What's even cooler now is that most RP weapons are additionally functionable mechanical minecraft weapons. If you don't want the durability tick then you purposefully elect to remove its functionability with the /edit roleplay command. The only thing creating these training weapons would appeal is people who want to spam out two stacks of "custom" (stacked) swords for dirt cheap and sell them at extortionate prices. At the very least, the current way is having to make the item proper, having to get a decent amount of iron. REMOVE THE CURRENT TRAINING SWORD! Nobody trains with it anyway! I think it's a bit funny that the subpoint here is actually more important than the primary point. Yipee to colored leather armor . . . but be much more careful with the removal of the cooldown. You'll be changing the PVP meta a lot and if this is a true consideration, it should be a wider discussion. Instead if I could suggest anything I would look into the code of how /status prohibits players from accessing chests, furnaces, you name it -- then, apply this same process in regard to when a player who is statused is on a horse to give only them the cooldown. This would mean that no status = no cooldown, but status = cooldown. What is achieved with this is common players wanting to ride city --> city are unharmed by mechanics intended only to affect PVP. PLEASE CHANGE THE HORSE WHISTLE DINGING SOUND. ______________________________________________________________ Anyway, overall a really neat post with a wide array of neat ideas! Good job, hope to see it all come to fruition.

THE RAZING OF WINBURGH Mitya carried the King of Haense slowly up the hill. The rolling green hues of the Heartlands were nothing like the bleak skies and jagged terrain of the north, and yet it had become familiar to Aleksandr all the same. That notion was a disquieting one - surely these gentle lands, where the sunlight held warmth and the rain did not freeze, should be foreign to him– And yet they were not. Too many years, he told himself as he trotted Mitya past a copse of oaks, their branches bearing red-yellow canopies as autumn set in. Too many years in the east. It had been so long since the war’s maiden battle amidst the namesake stones of Whitespire, where Orc and Veletzian blood ran in rivulets between the cobblestones, and longer still since he first sensed this great war looming on the horizon, but it had all passed in a blur. Breakwater, Brasca, Westmark, Hippo’s Gorge, Stassion, and Drusco all mingled into one indistinguishable battle in Aleksandr’s head, marked by ceaseless charges and endless melees. That, too, felt wrong. Battle should never feel so normal to a man. Perhaps most unsettling of all, though, was that these wars were not merely burnt into Aleksandr’s being, but that of his bloodline. His father had fought these wars. His grandfather had fought these battles. His great-grandfather had fought these struggles. He had always known that, but Aleksandr thought that he would be the one to break that cycle -- while his forebears had won their wars, they had always broken bread with their foe and returned north, only for that foe to strike back when the next generation assumed their thrones. When he read of his ancestors’ conquests as a young man, Aleksandr wondered why they never had the will to break the cycle themselves - to forego the brief reprieve of peace, and make it so that their historic foes would never pass their torch to another. But he understood now. As the wind gusted, stirring his cloak behind him and his locks around his crown, Aleksandr closed his eyes. He had climbed a mountain of corpses to scale the walls of Breakwater, greased the cogs of his artillery with the blood of the vanquished at Brasca, and led the Covenant to victory at Hippo’s Gorge on a road paved by hopeful sacrifice. He understood, now - he understood what only someone who wore a crown, what only someone who commanded a thousand banners with ten-thousand men, could ever understand. His gloves creaked as he gripped Mitya’s reins, and the stallion paused; it cocked its head backwards, and idly nuzzled Aleksandr’s hands. It is no wonder they never endured this path. Unbidden, memories flashed in his head of burgundy-clad bodies hanging from tree branches. Few men … few men could ever endure this. He felt the burn in his throat when he had roared for the Covenant infantry to follow at his heels, and sunder the Veletzian lines. This weight could never be borne … not forever. Slowly, he inhaled. Not forever. His eyes slid open, and shimmered with resolve. But a while longer is all I need. He flicked Mitya’s reins, and started up the hill once more. No cycle went forever unbroken, but he had come closer than most - he had walked farther down the path than any monarch had in centuries. As the whistle of the autumn wind grew louder as he neared the hilltop, he drew what comfort he could from knowing that greater destruction might lead to some greater peace. He had no choice but to believe that. Aleksandr summited the hill finally. Between him and an abandoned Winburgh stretched an empty plain, trees sparsely giving cover to some areas. A decade ago he had dreamed this stretch would be one filled with battle and sacrifice, yet alas – it was a straight path without contest. He mustered a smile; this was it. He raised his sword skyward, briefly glancing behind him. The journey which had brought him here was one drenched in blood, the Covenant had crossed rivers and surmounted great heights, faced great loss and caused greater, in this moment ahead was all that was needed to face now. And so the sword was brought down. In the distance, in the ground – all that could be heard and felt was the grinding of wheels and the stomping of hooves nearing. The Grand Covenant would bring down Winburgh, this war – this age of terror, would be razed to ash. [!] The following letter would be addressed toward all within any and all ranks of the Covenant. “‘LO, SOLDIER OF THE COVENANT, May the peace and prosperity brought upon you be well, the Grand Covenant brings forth a final calling. The Winburgh Proclamation has ushered peace between the realm; our goal has been fulfilled, and you, a monumental part of history. You have endured war, your father and mother would have endured war – their fathers and mothers before them! War has plagued our continent, yet this war is no longer. Rally together yet again, brothers and sisters in arms to bring a final end to this. As per the Winburgh Proclamation it is to be seen that the city of Winburgh be demolished and a monument erected. Surveyors have trotted the lands North to South, East to West, and deemed it certain that no citizen remains within the annexed territory any longer. The Annexed City of Winburgh shall be RAZED in three months and you, called to partake. Marching orders shall be provided to you by your respective commanders and Majesty’s. Let the ruins of Winburgh bear witness: where we walk, enemies bow. Signed, The Covenant"

"Thank Godan." Muttered the King of Haense. "No more rebellion."

The King of Haense had only recently returned to the Prikaz that evening when Amaya sat down to discuss her plan. Aleksandr couldn't help but feel guilty - had his disappearance over the three-months been a cause? Alas, of everybody, he knew Amaya well, and she certainly fend well without him. Thirty-five years was an impressive feat for a Queen, especially one at the forefront of the courts for so long, she deserved rest. "You kept your promise. Godan, how well you kept it."

THE CROWNS SHADOW: REVELATION AMIDST THE REEDS “Where … am I?” As soon as Aleksandr formed the thought, it echoed around him in a disembodied voice. “Where was he?” At first, he thought the voice was mere disorientation. He blinked as the groggy darkness receded, and found himself beneath the bare branches of an oak tree, clawing at a pale sky. The oak stood alone in a glade of tall grass, sparse except for a few saplings that broke through the foliage, and the oak itself seemed to be dead. Slowly, he reached forward, and traced his finger on the deep grooves of the grey bark. He squinted his eyes at what looked like scars and etching in the bark - left by a Descendant hand, not nature. “He wasn’t alone.” That time, he knew the voice was not in his head - or at least, he knew it wasn’t just in his head. Each skittering thought in his frayed mind seemed to … echo, disembodied in the air around him. “How - …?” “He wondered how it was possible.” His heart began to quicken, and he glanced around to see an expanse of that nondescript glaze in every direction. And something about the sky felt … too empty. “Rotting mage,” he found himself growling through grit teeth. “What fell magic is this?! You promised me answers about the stars! Speak, before I carve your lying tongue out!” As his words were swallowed by the empty sky, he knew he was being foolish; knew he was lashing out at something he did not understand. “ … and something he did not understand, and something that his own hubris had wrought,” the disembodied voice finished. Ancient steel hissed against leather as Aleksandr ripped Svjetlast free from its sheath, and brandished it against the emptiness. No sooner than he had, though … “ … drew the famed blade of Svjetlast. Would it serve him any better than a blade of unstoried steel, though?” The words sent a chill lancing through him - he had pondered that very question before, but only to himself, in the deepest pockets of his mind. “And the King wondered how the voice could know those unspoken questions, the likes of which no isolated reflection could recover from his unconscious. So much pride, vested in an old piece of metal … What good did it do him, really?” “You do not command me!” he bellowed so hard his throat stung. “The King proclaimed that it did not command him.” His armour clanged as he sank back against the weathered trunk, and the Voice continued to taunt and tease at his own powerlessness. For what felt like an hour, he could not make out the constant tide of words as the Voice teased him with its monotonous drone, and his vision spun. “I have to move,” he breathed eventually. “I have …” “ … to find a way out of here.” “And so the King weeeent …. That way!” The Voice never faded as he trudged through the grass in a random direction. Despite the fact that there was not a soul in sight, he felt like his boots somehow disturbed the glade’s tranquillity. “ … and he found himself stepping carefully.” He took large strides, and took some small measure of comfort for the sound of the rustling grass just to have some other sound besides the Voice. He resolved to ignore the Voice. “He decided he would try to ignore it.” No matter how far he walked, though, Aleksandr seemed to draw no closer to any of the blurry, distant glades. “And he realised there was nothing else but the tree.” The Voice caused him little duress, now - not while he could narrow his focus on finding out wherever he was, much less how to return home. From the tree, he tried walking every direction - there had to be … “ … something, surely.” Gripping Svjetlast for some vain comfort, he stomped one way. “And so he went -” Narrowing his eyes into a determined glare, he pivoted to another direction. “And then he turned -” He quickened his pace as he changed course yet again. “ … that way!” Aleksandr paused, and Svjetlast fell limp in his hands. He had gone in each cardinal direction - if this place even had directions - and now he faced the way from which he had started. Four directions, four times, and the Voice had input for each of them, practically reading each of Aleksandr’s exact thoughts. Then, he realised. “Are you …” “ … me?” It was no trick of the mage that had teleported him to this place - that much was clear, now. He did not understand how, but it was a projection of him - a vocalisation of his own internal monologue and thoughts. Every action, every belief, and every doubt was laid bare and narrated without filter by the Voice. “ … by himself.” Filled an odd amalgamation of fear and unease, he started forward once more, and the Voice narrated every move. Fear and doubt battled in his mind to trigger panic, but he held his resolve as shakily as he could. “Despair would do him no good, he assured himself.” He counted one-hundred paces from the leafless oak, just to see if anything at all changed -- and he realised that only one thing had. The sun seemed to set quicker, he noticed before long He had no idea if that was because time passed differently here … “ … or if his perception of time was simply warped. In any case, the wayward King certainly had no intention of lingering in this place until nightfall.” It was not just the sun that seemed awry, either; despite its angle in the sky, he had cast no shadow, unlike the endless stalks all around him. Growling in frustration as the tall grass forced him to move with slow strides, he instead sliced with Svjetlast, and sliced his path forward with the ancient relic. The sword of the foregone kings of Ruska - since Barbov the Black himself - used like a peasant’s scythe. “It weighed heavily upon Aleksandr how humiliating it looked - the foremost commander of the Grand Covenant, stalwart King of Haense, and victor many battles, reduced to using his ancestral blade to cut grass.” “What, is this some witty lesson in humility?” he snarled impatiently. “If so, you’ve made it clear enough.” “ … and that it was clear enough.” He let the blade fall still as ribbons of slashed grass drifted around him. “Is that all I have to do? Learn humility?!” He spread his arms. “Fine! You’ve done it; lesson learned! I am a humbled King!” “ … he said, but he knew his words held no truth.” He clenched his jaw, “and hissed in agitation. He believed there was a way out of this place - he had no choice but to cling to that faith. But he knew not whether it was a physical or mental exit; for now, all he could do was to march onwards.” Aleksandr had never imagined he would take umbrage with his own thoughts, but the Voice’s narration felt too much like an external command, that was what boiled his blood. As he took to slashing his way through the chaff once more, he swung Svjetlast with increasing aggression. The angle of the setting sun glared into his eyes, and a biting mark of time’s swift passage and his need to return home. His resolve felt more and more frayed as fear of being trapped in this place - condemned to madness by his own thoughts - gnawed at him. It was just as his hopelessness reached a breaking point that he spotted something that, for the first time since he had awoken here, filled him with hope. A clearing, in the middle of the field. He took off at a clumsy run, his heart pounding until he kicked through the last of the tall chaff, and found himself standing on a flat, perfect circle of earth. Not grass - not even dirt. His boots crunched under something rotten and dry, like dead tubers barely poking through black and burnt soil. It was a circle of death, in a field of life. There was no escape, but there was something there in the clearing with him. It took him a moment to realise what that odd, dark thing was. “A shadow,” he breathed. “His shadow,” finished the Voice. Aleksandr was not sure how he knew it was his shadow that stood in the centre of the dead clearing, “but he simply did know. Yes, he had no doubt. It was innate to him, yet also apart from him. Unreconciled.” The dead soil cracked as he advanced at a slow walk, his eyes fixed on the shadow. The shadow stared back eyelessly, but the weight of that stare almost made Aleksandr flinched. As the King moved, so too did his shadow, holding the shade of Svjetlast in its own featureless hand. Around the shadow, the death rippled, and the soil darkened further as even the tubers withered into crisp, burnt flakes. The shadow raised its blade. “I will not die to some other trick,” he called out bitterly. “And I will not …” “... die without fighting.” He closed the distance, and brought Svjetlast down with pure instinct, and no form nor stance. Like parting water, the shadow glided away from the blow … and the next one, and the next one. Aleksandr drew on whatever measure of composure he could, and fell into his sword-forms as he pursued the shadow: the rapid thrust of Sigismund’s Eye, precisely side-stepped; the tripartite-arc of the Huntide fell inches short; and even Bralt’s Folly, a deadly manoeuvre meant for much younger men, somehow never touched the shade. “... never touched the shadow. He wailed his blade around, trying to hit something that could not be struck.” Aleksandr slowed his strikes. The shadow did not strike back; it merely circled around him, as taunting as the Voice. Of course, that was ridiculous, since … “ … that would only mean he was taunting himself. The Voice, like the Shadow, was him.” Aleksandr clenched his jaw again. “If that’s the case …” “ … then why was it apart from him, he wondered? Separated. Denied.” The anger faltered, marred by doubt. He did not need to ask what he denied himself, for … “... he had always been proud. Too proud to kneel;” As the shadow moved, the clearing rippled, and, for a second, the empty realm changed. Instead of the shadow before him, instead Aleksandr saw … “... himself, when he refused to kneel before his allies and the Pontiff to make peace with the Adrians, long before he ever fought Veletz. The senseless act of kneeling; the ceremony of respect. Denied from himself. Unreconciled.” “Too proud to think.” Another ripple, and another distortion. The shadow became Aleksandr again, staring down at a boy named Louis Dresney as he presented a box of two leather balls before the Haeseni Court. His breath almost caught in his throat as he watched the shadow - “watched himself,” - drew Svjetlast, and skewered the boy for his insult. “Blinded by pride, and sparked to senseless rage. Denied from himself. Unreconciled.” “Too proud to see.” The shadow rippled once more. Now, Aleksandr saw himself standing on an icefield, facing down a gaggle of bearded men. “That …” “... was the memory right before the King had found himself in this place.” From this unseen angle, Aleksandr saw the faces of his retinue standing behind him as he faced the bearded mages, “and he wondered why Ser Walter’s hand was glued to the pommel of his blade, ready to draw. He wondered why his wife’s face was etched with such sickly worry at what she was seeing.” Memories of the biting wind whistled around him. “And he wondered why his own eyes seemed glazed; fixed at something unseen, something greater …” He watched himself step towards the tricksome mage. “ … and yet utterly oblivious to what was happening around him.” As the emptiness stabilised, Aleksandr faced the shadow in the dead clearing once more. The shadow did not move, and nor did he. “What in the Skies am I supposed to do?” he growled. “What, he wondered, was he supposed to do?” He tried to summon his anger again, and grip Svjetlast with determination, but it would not come - what the shadow, what the Voice - what the reflection of himself - had shown him clung too sickly, too cloying. His anger melted out of him. His pride - his strength, his weakness - melted. “What am I,” “supposed to do?” The sun had ebbed almost to the horizon, bathing the empty world in deep gold. His voice quivered as he asked, “What am I supposed to do?” “ … he begged, now. He knew there was no foe here to vanquish; no army to crush. The realm truly was empty, for the King was utterly alone within it. The Voice, his voice; the shadow, his own. The memories …” In the blink of an eye, sprung from the shadow, he saw what felt like everything throughout his life. He saw not only those moments of baneful pride from before, but also … something else. He saw his family - Amaya, with her steadfast love, who ran herself ragged as the very hearth that kept Haense warm; Emma, whose innocent spirit vindicated Aleksandr when he felt the burden of rule; and Ivan, in whom he put all his hopes for the future, and in whose name he did everything for that future. He saw his friends and companions - Viktor var Ruthern, who had worked tirelessly to smith arms and mail so that they would triumph in war; Ser Walter and Ser Gawyn, knights who pledged to him their blades, and their lives; his allied sovereigns, John, Sybille, Catherine, Sigrun, who had all joined their vision together to beckon Aevos into a new age. “ … his regrets,” the Voice finished. For all the love of his family, it had never given pause to his pride - that was the exact reason he had ended up here, fooled by some wizard because he had been so confident he could never be so duped. The same was true for his friends, his allies, his people … “The King looked back towards the lone oak, not far back in the field.” As the sun began to set, he slowly started back towards that tree, and let Svjetlast’s tip loosely scrape against the ground in his limp grip. The sun’s glow grew deeper, from gold to orange, as the shadows fell sharply across the field. His shadow from the dead clearing followed behind him, still. Something - something important - gnawed faintly at his mind as he kicked through the chaff towards the tree, his shoulders slouched. He knew what he had to do. “He just wished to watch the sunset a little before he did it.” He was only mildly surprised when, as he neared, he saw that the oak’s branches were no longer bare. A leafy canopy of brilliant green had sprouted, through which the setting sun’s light fractured in orange cracks. The bark, too, was a lively brown and traced with moss and lichen, but those man-made markings Aleksandr had spotted when he first awoke remained. Aleksandr looked down to Svjetlast, and then raised it. Clumsily, he carved ‘ALEKS’ into the bark in blocky letters to join the markings of those who came before, and idly wondered what fate they had met. “ … and what fate he himself would meet.” As he turned back to face his shadow - which remained some ten feet away - the sunset light had almost faded. The sky was a darkening blue, touched only by the last of the orange light to the west, and he was mildly surprised to see distant constellations sparkle in a sky that was no longer empty. A faint wind blew, stirring the grass around him and the shadow. “He could not kill his shadow, for it was a part of him.” Aleksandr closed his eyes, and drew a deep breath. “It was those parts he had sealed away, and refused to acknowledge.” He slowly opened his eyes, and gripped Svjetlast tightly. “It was cast by him, though he denied it until now.” The last of the sun’s light glimmered on the fabled blade’s edge as he raised it. “And so, he knew how it could be vanquished.” He pressed the blade’s tip against his breastplate, and pushed. No sooner had the point began to press into him did Aleksandr’s eyes pop with the sound of howling winds, and his flesh jolted with biting cold – the warmth of a campfire his lonely company. With a clatter, he dropped Svjetlast to the frozen earth, and staggered back as the gale tugged at his cloak and whipped his hair. It was familiar, alas, “This is …'' He began, and paused. No Voice spoke his thoughts aloud. “ … where I vanished.” The sound of hooves nearing stampeded in the distance, he heard orders shout aloud and the clambering of armour and mail at that same length. “YOUR MAJESTY . . ?” Called one, the voice carrying over the lake and resounding through the valley. He was back, his sword at his feet, and … he blinked, looking around. Tucked under his left arm was some kind of … book? He remembered feeling it within his grasp before, right before he had been transported to that alternate, empty realm. It had been in the hand of the mage, but … why did he have it now? Is this what …? He let the thought trail off. There would be time for answers later. He knew not how long he had been gone, and he knew his absence would have only sewn chaos. “IT’S HIM!'' – “BY GODANS GRACE HE HAS RETURNED!” – “SEEK OUT THE PRINZEN AND KOENAS.” – “SEND WORD HE APPEARS WELL.” Those calls of nearly a dozen knights and soldiers in disarray brought the King to sweep and spin. He must compose himself. He bent down, and picked up Svjetlast. He did not bother to wipe the snow and dirt off it as he slid it back into its sheath. After all, it was just a sword.

Aleksandr roamed a plane of grass and wheat; lost. He'd thought that all would be well upon his return - if he could. Alas, time would prove to that King the truth of the matter: this would not be the case.