Altiak

I hate Bungo. *slits his character's throat in one fluid motion I hate Alty. *slits his character's throat in one fluid motion I hate Boby. *slits his character's throat in one fluid motion I hate dreaminspace. *slits his [her?] character's throat in one fluid motion

Hope everything goes well for you, friend Pop on ts sometime, yea?

>2016 and orenians not voting crackerjack as fav gm

Edgar notes the changes in the stock market.

Chapter III: The Barber Among Men 30th of the Deep Cold, 1537 The Once-Proud Hamlet called The Saltpans, on The Isle of Ulmsbottom Edgar de Saltpans is reunited with his compatriots. When Edgar de Saltpans opened his eyes, he awoke to a bleary and gray sky full of heavy clouds that chugged indolently across the heavens. As his cognizance returned to him, he became vaguely mindful of the fact that he was laying on the wooden floor of some sort of boat, and of the soft bobbing and rocking that would occur as the vessel glided over what he assumed was water. Edgar groaned as he lifted his head, overcome suddenly with the wearisome understanding that a considerable part of his life was spent gazing up at the stars. Edgar shook his head laboriously, as if to rid himself of such a doleful realization. Glancing down, he saw that where the flesh of his leg had been torn and ravaged by the jackal’s teeth there was a binding of bloodied cloth. Edgar looked from his bandaged leg to the strange, unspeaking man that sat at the boat’s helm, rowing neatly across the inundated and barren swampland. His broad back turned to Edgar, features obscured by a hood, the figure wore a grimy and moth-eaten tabard girdled with a simple length of rope. Not once did Edgar’s rescuer turn around to spare him a glance; his attention was wrested firmly on the imminent shoreline ahead as he guided the boat to land. It did not take long for Edgar to deduce his location. He recognized these waters as those of the Silent Sea, a laconic name thought up by a rustic folk who no longer knew it by any other appellation. No roving seabirds greeted them from above, for they had all flown elsewhere. The waters of the so-called sea were host to no fish; their numbers had been winnowed long ago by the desperation of famine. The coast was bare, save for a cluster of rough crosses and cairns of stone that stood out in stark contrast to the austere landscape. When the rickety watercraft came ashore, Edgar sat up with a sigh as he watched the ferryman busy himself with mooring the boat. After he had pulled the wooden craft aground, the large man pulled back his hood to reveal a thick and untameable plumage of hair that would never betray his age if it had not been for the lusterless slate color to it. As he turned to look back to the sea, the sight of a familiar face comforted Edgar and enlivened him all the same. He struggled to find his balance, grabbing at the boat’s hull to support his fatigued attempt at a stand. Only after Edgar had limped onto the beachy shore, wobbling and cursing himself for every step of the way, did his heavyset savior speak. “You’ve come from far away, nephew. It’s some wonder that ye’ survived th’ Mires.” Edgar stared for a long time at the seaside burial ground, grinding his teeth as a bevel of discordant voices from the past swam up to greet him. He turned to face the patient ferryman, lip quivering as he took in his weathered and ruddy features. Again, the man spoke, his voice deep and harsh. “Welcome ‘ome, Edko.” Edko. A name he had not heard for some many years. Edgar felt himself step over the coarse sand to meet his uncle in an amicable embrace, a broad grin taking form upon his haggard features. He remembered the squat and hardy man fondly, as the only redeeming aspect of the crestfallen isle on which he stood. Edgar’s uncle lived life on his own accord, unfettered by the crucibles of politics and legislature. The man’s name was Slobodan, and in the pair’s native tongue, his name meant freedom. “What brings you back ‘ere, then? All these years, my boy...” Edgar’s mouth hung agape, and it took him a momentary repose before he could find words once more. “I… I know not, uncle.” Slobodan released Edgar from his iron grip, shrewd eyes narrowing as he searched his kinsman’s face for some notion of verity. At last the blubbery ferryman nodded gravely, making his way up the beach and through the rows of grave markers. Edgar followed suit. Not long after the pair left behind the somber shoreline, they came to a tree where there was tethered an unruly mule and, attached to it, a wagon laden heavy with bottle upon bottle of brew. It made Edgar wonder if it had been by chance that Slobodan had happened across him. As he nestled up amidst the crates of pungent moonshine, however, and rode along behind his uncle’s braying mare through a land awash with mud and bare ground, he discerned the folly in his musings. In all his dealings, Slobodan did not leave anything to chance. It was his wit and guile that had succeeded him for all his years. As far as Slobodan de Saltpans was concerned, luck could take a holiday. They rode quietly for awhile before Edgar’s uncle spoke up, asking of his time abroad. “Tell me, Edko. Radovan, is ‘e well? What o’ little Kazik?” Again, he was addressed by that dreaded name of his. He hadn’t heard it since the days of his childhood, and despite the benign nature to Slobodan’s tone something about it grated on Edgar. At the very same time, the mention of his half-brother conjured up sour thoughts, recollections of Radovan’s limp form swaying from under a rope, saved with not a moment to spare. Edgar recalled the girl Radovan had lost - winsome, spontaneous, a creature beholden to none but her own free will. He remembered how on the last night he saw him, his brother had set off in search of Bonnie, still clutching futilely to the hope that she was alive. It was the same futile hope that Edgar now felt when he thought of Radovan. “Radovan’s tendin’ to some personal business, uncle. Kazik’s runnin’ a tavern.” Slobodan heaved up his immense shoulders in contemplation, barking a terse reply. “Personal business, eh? What ‘appened to yer brother? Never been th’ sort t’ leave his kin for no personal business.” Edgar paused as the wagon hit a rock on the road, the offensive contents of the moonshine bottles sloshing onto his dirt-speckled clothes. Tightening his grip on the wagon’s edge, Edgar cursed. “He’s fallen in love, our Radovan. Don’t fret, he’ll return sooner or later.” The junior Saltpans’ tone, for all his effort, came off as settled and confident despite his own inner doubts. Following a hearty chortle from Slobodan, a brief silence overcame the pair once more. Edgar took the opportunity to launch a query of his own, as the cart rattled over the cobbled road. “What about yerself? How’ve ye’ fared ‘ere in this ‘ellhole?” “Well, Edko, I…” The smuggler’s baritone voice trailed off as he sighted a charred, blackened monolith in the distance, perched atop a hill to look out on the desolate landscape below. Edgar followed Slobodan’s gaze and winced as he looked over the ruined spires of what had once been a dignified house of God. For a moment, when Edgar closed his eyes, the church was aflame once more, bathed in cruel orange light. This time, the silence that ensued was a pained one. And for a man like Edgar, who watched Slobodan’s gauntleted palm close around the four-pointed cross that dangled from his neck, his silence bore more meaning that any uttered condolences or prayers could deliver. After Slobodan and Edgar had travelled past the desecrated church’s husk, their silent eulogy a monument to the memories of the past, Edgar tensed as he saw that the road ahead approached a vague gathering of buildings built up around the shore. Were it not for the thin, wispy contrails of smoke that snaked up into the sky from the chimneys, one could have easily mistaken the settlement ahead for another ruin. But as the town grew closer, Edgar saw that perhaps it was little more than a ruin after all. The Saltpans were a downtrodden and wretched collection of half-destroyed, thatched hovels, built up around each other with a haphazard and unplanned measure to their shape. Edgar saw firsthand just how much his home had deteriorated as he passed a series of ransacked, uninhabited buildings. As for the houses that showed signs of life, they looked as though whatever materials could be accrued to maintain them were put to use. Edgar watched miserable laymen working the near-naked fields of wheat, and he felt the eyes of numerous febrile peasants on him as they shuffled around the town, bent double under loads of hay. Edgar watched perplexedly as the occupants of the pitiful huts wandered out of their homes, their feverish eyes bearing down on him. He felt panic rise in him as, in pockets of twos and threes, they approached him, grabbing crates of moonshine and hauling them from the cart before shambling back towards their homes. Slobodan remained unruffled by this occurrence, greeting the downcast men and women of the Saltpans as his mule paraded through the lifeless hamlet. Edgar saw countless faces - faces of a people he once knew as hale and hearty - as he rode through the Saltpans. They were all alike with their dolorous expressions and gaunt, malnourished frames, and in the way they moved gloomily about like phantoms. By the time his uncle’s mare left behind the sagging and wilted houses of the town’s heart, his cart was empty save for the errant young man that lay in it. With a boisterous cry, Slobodan slowed the mule to a stand-still, his coarse hands gently patting the trusty beast’s mane. The cart had stopped beside a homestead unlike most others in this war-torn region. He recognized it instantly, but something about it struck Edgar as different. It appeared more youthful and more pristine than when he last laid eyes upon the structure - as if it had aged backwards. After disembarking his mule, Slobodan walked round to the cart as Edgar began to hoist himself up, slinging an immense arm around his nephew’s shoulder. With his kinsman’s assistance, Edgar walked haltingly toward the homestead’s opening, fixated on the thought of rest. Fumbling with the key to his door, Slobodan finally managed to best the intricate padlock and step foot into his proud sanctuary. Once inside, Edgar squinted in the dim light as he looked around the cluttered and expansive interior. Slobodan helped his nephew over to a seat by a blazing hearth, muttering something about grub before he disappeared down a corridor and was gone. Edgar shut his eyes tight and sunk back in the chair, allowing himself a moment of much-needed repose. But not far from him, he heard a creak and as he glanced toward its direction, he realized he was basking in the fire’s warmth with another. “I never figured you to be the type to run from your problems.” It was the gravelly voice of a great and renowned man - one whose presence in such squalor baffled and amazed Edgar all at once. It was the voice of Adrian de Bar. Edgar glanced to the daunting man who sat a mere few feet from him, noting foremost how Adrian looked like he had aged ten years. His once-inky locks were a severe cast of gray, and he wore the characteristic scowl that was so befitting of him since the death of his brother. Defiantly, the younger man muttered a dark retort. “I’m not runnin’ from anythin’.” Edgar’s harsh, blunt form of speech sounded a world apart to that of the well-mannered and eloquent nobleman that sat alongside him. After growing distant and falling out of contact with the foreboding Ashford count, Edgar’s choice of words made him feel inferior and foolish. Then he remembered that this was his home and that he was amongst his people. He would not let himself be shamed by this newcomer. “I’ve not got a country t’ run, besides.” Edgar’s words were carried by a cruel tone, one that was not his own. He scarcely ever spoke with such disdain, for he preferred maintaining that air of level-headedness and pragmatism when dealing with friends, foes, and competitors alike. Rare was it that a threat escaped his lips. More often than not, he chose to act rather than to speak. But Adrian de Bar was not one to be slighted by a man half his age. The lord’s greying eyes pierced Edgar’s and bore no anger or admonition, but an eerie blankness instead. “Neither do I, de Saltpans. My sons and grandsons are more than capable of doing that, in case you were not aware.” Edgar’s jaw jutted in frustration, the winter cold losing its chill for a moment as he pondered before the fire. Adrian leaned closer to scrutinize him, resting his elbows on the arms of his chairs. “Now, then. Tell me, Edgar: why have you come back to this isle? You have become as much of a stranger to these lands as I find myself to be.” “I’ve come to speak with my uncle,” said Edgar. His response was clipped and distant in nature, prompting de Bar’s glower to darken. With all the chagrin of a disappointed father the nobleman spoke again. “Come now, de Saltpans. Do you think me naive? We might not share a surname, but you and I are kinsmen. The very same blood courses through our veins.” The youngster raised up his hand in concession to the count’s words. It was true - Adrian de Bar was kin to him. He was of the Ashford ilk, after all. Feeling that he owed Adrian the truth, Edgar spoke. “I’ve come to call upon my kindred and rally the Saltpans men still loyal to the name of Ashford. We’ll not survive without ‘em, back on Vailor.” As soon as he had concluded, Edgar saw that Adrian donned an atypical expression. The elderly Ashford’s eyes glinted with high praise towards him - with admiration, even. “Then, perhaps I’ve not misjudged you after all. My retinue and I have journeyed here for the very same reason, you see.” Adrian de Bar rose suddenly with a vigor that had long been kept suppressed, and for a moment his shadow filled the room as he loomed over Edgar. “Come, then,” said Adrian. The count of Drusco extended a gloved hand outward, which Edgar took no hesitation in accepting. After helping de Saltpans to his feet, the grizzled nobleman led him down a narrow hallway congested with trunks and barrels, and through an oaken door that led outside. Slobodan’s home had been erected mere paces from a high cliff’s edge, looking out over the Silent Sea, and as Edgar stepped out into the crisp evening he could see water for boundless miles ahead. He had come to know this place well, when he was but a child; he even knew what lay below the lofty peak his uncle settled upon decades ago. But as he and the nobleman beside him neared this mountain’s hazardous ledge, what he saw next took him by surprise. Just as Edgar remembered, there was a rudimentary dockyard hundreds of feet below him, nestled snugly into an indentation on the seacoast. Be that as it may, Edgar had never before seen the quays and gangways of the inlet so abuzz with activity. It was teeming with able-bodied crewmen and laborers who were busy hauling a seemingly endless supply of cargo to a trio of ivory-sailed sloops that were docked at the harbor. As Edgar looked to Adrian in search of an explanation, he was greeted with another surprise; his weathered companion wore a broad grin as he watched the legion of workers make ready for their journey below. The image struck Edgar as dreamlike and abstract, for it was the first time he had seen Adrian de Bar smile. Once the sun had dipped low and disappeared beyond the distant waters of the Silent Sea, Edgar found himself seated at his uncle’s round wooden table, a bowl of steaming goulash in his hands. Across from him, Adrian de Bar was ensconced in his chair, palms laid flat on the table’s surface. He did not bother touching the meal in front of him. Slobodan himself was sitting at the timeworn count’s flank, grinding his teeth, but also present were two men of Adrian’s retinue whom Edgar was less familiar with. The grim-faced and brooding man who was seated to Edgar’s right he recognized as Ser Caspar de Gueux, a knight of Savoy. Leftwards of him there sat a taciturn and well-groomed fellow who spoke with a guarded timidity, introducing himself as the scribe Matthias de Lyon. Once the time for introductions had passed, Slobodan was the first to speak, addressing Edgar and Adrian with gusto. “So, then - ye’ve both journeyed all this way in search o’ th’ same thing. Ye’ seek an answer, plain t’ see. I s’pose I should give one.” The thickset smuggler’s features creased as he conceded a coy grin, spreading his arms wide toward his two kinsmen in earnest. “My answer to both o’ ye’ is th’ same. The men o’ th’ Saltpans are with ye’ ‘til the final settin’ o’ th’ sun. We’ll ne’er forget th’ sons o’ Saint Lucien. You’ll not find a more dutiful band o’ men in th’ whole o’ this blasted isle. The warriors o’ God fight for ye’.” "So, then," said the man called Matthias incredulously. "A group of bedlamer boys from these stinking marshes? Forgive my curtness, but they may do more harm than good back amidst our retainers when we make for Vailor." Edgar's uncle gave a rigid shake of his head. "I understand yer' doubts, Master de Lyon. Th' Saltpans've not given you much o' an impression, plain t' see. I don't blame ye', roightly. But you must understand - I've known th' men fer years. I've gathered 'em from Saint Lucien all th' way t' Aesica. They're th' strongest and bravest o' men ye could 'ope to 'ave, be 'em from Vailor or Ulmsbottom. I'd not 'ave another band o' bedlamer boys at my side." Slobodan dipped his head, jovial expression never seeming to fade. His confident demeanor appeared to suggest that he would welcome the tribulations that lay ahead of him. Be that as it was, Edgar knew well that Slobodan was not just a carefree old man, no matter how he portrayed himself. His uncle was a man of steadfast and pure resolve, and he felt all the better to hear his words of affirmation. Adrian was the next to speak, answering Slobodan with a certain lordly formality and cadence. He did not know Slobodan like Edgar did. He knew not that beneath the amiable, pious exterior of the hefty man, there was a bottomless well of pent-up scorn that he longed to make known. “You have my gratitude, kinsman-” “No, Lord Adrian. You ‘ave mine.” Slobodan interjected brusquely, and Edgar found himself unable to measure the look in his eyes, but the count of Drusco did not seem taken aback by his words. Edgar noted the wordless exchange with crossed arms before his eyes darted to the two stern-faced retainers that had accompanied their iron-willed liege to the edge of the world. Edgar smiled to himself. They had partisan’s blood, the both of them. They toiled and fought for the name of Ashford alone. “Master de Lyon? Ser Caspar?” “Blood for Ashford,” intoned the latter of the two boastfully, to elicit a fervent nod from de Lyon. The five men who had gathered around Slobodan’s table exchanged knowing glances, for they knew that the coming days would be wrought with trials and hardships. “Th’ men are ready t’ set off, my liege,” said Slobodan. “We await further order.” Adrian waved away the remark with an air of certainty, while his retinue nodded in a dutiful fashion. “These men belong to you, Father Slobodan, and to Edgar here. I am not here to be their master; I am here to make allies of them.” As Adrian had finished, Edgar and Slobodan shared in a mutual feeling of gratification. “A toast, then,” said Edgar. Slobodan stood with a robust bellow of laughter while Adrian and his two compatriots mimicked him, raising their crude, ligneous mugs high above their heads. “And to what, shall we toast, dear Edgar?” asked Adrian, awaiting a response from the resilient young man. Edgar felt the eyes of his comrades on him, expectant and willing. He hauled himself to his feet, meeting the gaze of his four compatriots. “To the very same blood that courses within our veins,” said Edgar de Saltpans. “To Ashford.” This time it was the junior Saltpans’ response that caught Adrian by surprise, but as the assemblage of patriots echoed his rallying cry and clanked their cups together all misgivings and grievances faded away. Once they had supped and drank to their own content, making solemn affirmations to fight in Ashford's name until the dying of the sun, the men disbanded and each found a spot to rest for the night. For Edgar, the sleep that took him was long overdue. He dreamed of the picturesque hamlet that was once his home, but he dreamed also of the adversity that he was bound to face in the path he chose to take. Edgar was not afraid. The boats were ready to make sail. In the morn, he would begin the journey back to Vailor, the journey that destiny had bestowed upon him. The armada of ash-colored sloops sped over the waves, propelled by great winds. Their white sails were globed and full from the celestial gusts that carried them, and by the quickness of their journey it seemed that God himself had blessed the voyage. Their decks were astir with eager and vigorous men who passed their time with swelling invocations and chants to the Creator. To Edgar, their collective euphony was far more fearsome than any jackal’s song, and their pious demeanor far more intimidating than that of any carrion bird. The men who sailed from the Saltpans were of a unique and long-lived breed, by reason of their stalwart and unflinching loyalty to the men of Ashford. They knew that what world awaited them over the far-reaching waters of the Silent Sea was one vastly foreign to their own, but they were not afraid. They were under the benediction of God, and with the guidance of his light they were certain to succeed in what they had set out to do. From aboard the ship that headed the fleet, there was only one man who was by his lonesome. He had come to Ulmsbottom with a darkness in his heart, but as he left behind its drab shores the vernal youth thought back in wonderment of how far he had come since the aftermath of White Mountain. He had undertaken a hellish gauntlet in his search for men still loyal to the Ashford name, and he was sure that his newfound companions admired him all the more for his determination. Edgar de Saltpans felt oddly at ease as he surveyed the churning waters ahead, feeling the dip and pull of the sea as his vessel glided over it, rhythmically, methodically. It was not a leisurely occupation, to be a sailor on the Silent Sea. But then again, there was no man, woman, or child hailing from the Saltpans who knew the privileges of a leisurely life. Edgar knew this well, and he knew all the same that he was no longer alone in his endeavor for justice. There was a singular identity to the band of men he had taken with him from his home; they were a devout sort that were alike in vigor and patriotism both. Men like Adrian de Bar, men like Slobodan de Saltpans. Edgar de Saltpans had been pondering on these realizations from the very moment that the cadre of loyalists set off for the storied realm of Vailor, but there was one calming epiphany that only now washed over him. Gripped by this fulfilling thought, Edgar felt himself smile wistfully as the waves crashed at the ship’s hull. The worst of what had been seen was yet to come.

Chapter II The Sharpest Among Beasts 23th of the Deep Cold, 1537 The Lifeless Wetlands called The Mires, on The Isle of Ulmsbottom In solitude, Edgar de Saltpans treks through desolation in search of the man who could help him. Howbeit, the obscure and tenebrous marsh he found himself in was not a place to come unguarded and weak-witted. There were no ghosts here. He had peered over his shoulder thrice now as he rode through the swamp, and still Edgar de Saltpans caught not a single glance of the eidolon that haunted his shadow. Each time he had chastised himself for his foolishness, quashing his fear with reason and logic. To navigate this boundless expanse of soggy ground and foetid water it fell to the boldest and barmiest of man, but very few could boast the feat of making the journey and returning alive. Edgar had arrived on the Isle of Ulmsbottom some few weeks ago, on a neglected old barge that rattled and groaned without end as it undulated over the waves of the Shimmering Sea. He remembered the moment he sighted the mass of black, accursed land on the horizon, mired in fog and shadow, and he remembered too how he had promised himself long ago never to return. His homeland was a wretched and war-ravaged place, torn asunder and put back together more times than the dominion of Oren ever had been. It had been an unremarkable arrival, as Edgar recalled. He rode through the ruined capital city of Saint Lucien, past the stygian hovels and ramshackle churches that constituted what little civilization remained on Ulmsbottom, and into the untamed outback that was native to the island. As he journeyed westward, kept company only by his haunted thoughts and his trusty mare, he noted that the crowing of carrion birds he had known all too well in Vailor were not present on Ulmsbottom. Here, there resided a far more fearsome thing than the crow, a creature as old and savage as the wilds themselves. There were no ghosts here - only beasts and men. Presently, Edgar rode through the noisome swamps of Ulmsbottom’s western midlands, the bog having opposed him for every step of his journey. From the moment he first passed under the knotted and gnarled trees of the wetland, the sun’s yellow glow became a limited commodity, beams of pale light piercing the dusky trees’ canopies only in sparse pockets. Edgar, having discounted the rumours surrounding the swamp as apocryphal and false, found his skepticism waning as he ventured deeper into the eerily-still land. There were no buzzing gnats or croaking toads, and the suffocating silence that bore down on him made Edgar feel like a trespasser in an alien world, one in which he was not welcome. There were no wayshrines or roads to guide his path, and he was alone in his quest. Thick mud clung to the hooves of Edgar’s horse, and with ever-growing exhaustion the beast soldiered forth, strength waning as it struggled against the black grimy water. He cursed himself from atop the lethargic animal, eyes scanning the thick maze of trees for some better route that would not lead him through low-hanging creepers and mossy thickets. From somewhere far beyond his eye’s reach Edgar heard it again: the high, keening mewl of an unknown creature, its shrill tone making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. In his mind’s eye, Edgar imagined that the taunting cries were that of a squamous and immense monstrosity that lurked in the swamp, but again he shook away his childish imagination and pressed his steed onwards at a quickened pace. Edgar’s horse huffed restlessly as another cry came in response to the first, this time not as far away. The call carried over the gloomy wetland, and in response a bevel of howls came from all around him. There was a oneness to the invisible pursuer’s recurrent verse, one that dripped with devious intelligence. Edgar shuddered involuntarily, and brought a hand to the pommel of his shortsword as he glanced about for a sign of movement in the mist. Edgar’s horse, as though the euphony of faraway sounds triggered some antediluvian instinct within it, began to struggle and buck uncontrollably. Ensnared in the mud, the poor creature succeeded only to further entangle itself, whinnying and thrashing about out of hysterical impulse. With nary a moment to cry out in vain, Edgar’s horse reared up, tossing him from the saddle and into the repugnant water underneath him. Sinking into the warm and unpleasant bog, Edgar felt a mouthful of muddy fluid seep into his open mouth. With a growing sense of panic, he flung himself for the water’s surface and sucked in a great breath as he breached the inky water. He saw his horse - hind-legs submerged beneath the bog, battling fruitlessly against the fen’s terrifyingly stubborn clutch. The same hitching yowl as before sounded without warning, this time accompanied by a flash of movement from a nearby tangle of trees. Edgar found himself backpedaling through the muck, away from his hopeless mare. In the dim light of the swamp, he saw shapes, forms dipping low and darting from the trees towards his horse. The cries of Edgar’s doomed animal grew to a sickening pitch as unseen animals threw themselves atop it, growling and snarling like dogs. Edgar found himself rooted in place as he heard the cold butchery of his entangled horse, and it took him a moment before he could wrench himself from the horrific muddy sump of the wetland and flee blindly away from the insidious and howling predators. From behind him, their sickening cries sounded once more, carrying over the dead and hostile land, but this time they were different. This time, they were triumphant. Edgar had run stupidly and without a set destination in mind, stopping only when his lungs felt fit to burst from his chest some few hours later. By the time he had slowed to a halt and sunken down against a sturdy tree, he realized that night had fallen upon the swamp. Looking up, Edgar noticed that with the coming of evening the sky only seemed to have brightened. Long, spectral streaks of moonlight shone down on him, and Edgar saw the moon, cyclopean and unearthly, staring back down at him with a sort of perverse scorn. Shivering from the dampness of his muddy clothes, Edgar soon understood that he would freeze to death if he did not find warmth. He knew that destiny had pointed him on the treacherous course through Ulmsbottom, but he would not let fate, that dastardly mistress, shirk him of his life in a hateful land like the one he found himself in. Careful not to wander too far into the depths of the primeval marsh, Edgar accrued a sufficient bundle of dry wood with which to make a campfire. With his firesteel he struck a mossy rock once, twice, three times, before he was graced with a spark of light that quickly spread to form a flame, a white trail of smoke snaking up towards the heavens. For hours he sat stoking his meager fire, and after a long while the frigidity that clung to his quaking form subsided. With time, however, the inkling notion of despair that had clung to him for some time only doubled. Edgar de Saltpans realized that he was well and truly lost, with little hope of finding his way out. Slumped before the orange, glowing warmth, his bones aching and weary, he soon found himself giving into fatigue and surrendering to a slumber that could not have come sooner. A slumber that was interrupted by an alert, nearby howling, ushered in by the blue radiance of the twilight. Edgar’s pale eyes shot open, and he scrambled to his feet towards the scabbard that lay by his campfire. Unsheathing his sword and holding it tight against himself, he crouched low next to the fire, whirling around haphazardly as the very same mocking cries as before permeated the brush. Edgar gritted his teeth, bewilderedly searching for the phantoms that surrounded him and taunted him. Brandishing his sword helplessly, Edgar squinted as he began to make out more shapes, lithe and close to the ground. They slinked around just out of the fire’s dim glowing reach, and horror seized his heart with an iron grip as he saw countless pairs of eyes catching the moon’s dim light for fleeting moments at a time. On nights like this, with the moon high in the sky, pale and brooding, the spirits were free to move about - or so the folk tales Edgar had been taught growing up were wont to say. There were no ghosts here - only beasts. Jackals. They watched Edgar from the shadows with a sort of inward cunning, their gray, reflective eyes drinking him in hungrily. Their fur was grimy and streaked with muck, no doubt a consequence of their habitat, and when they bore their teeth Edgar could see rows of yellow and bestial fangs. He held out his useless length of steel as he squared up against the pack of nightmarish canines that loped around him from all sides, biding their time. They were toying with him, waiting for the right moment to strike. Rhythmically, methodically, they circled him; the sharpest among beasts. The indignation of the fate that awaited Edgar enraged him, and he lifted his sword in bitter anticipation, prepared to fight to his last breath. Spittle flew from his lips as he shrieked, issuing a challenge to the knowing and devious devil dogs of Ulmsbottom. “Come on, then! COME ON!” A lone canid, matted and greasy hide spotted with fur the color of burnished gold, surged forward, snarling as it leapt at Edgar. Off-balance and unprepared, the man staggered back and lifted his sword a second too late, and the vicious cur sunk its fangs into the soft flesh of his calf. Screaming, Edgar thrashed and stabbed at the predator that had latched itself to him, and at last his sword found purchase in the beast’s exposed flank, and he felt its jaws loosen from around his leg. The jackal tumbled backwards over Edgar’s fire, kicking up a dazzling burst of ash and sparks. The other beasts were hooting and yelping now, unanimous in their hatred for their quarry. Edgar glanced down to his wounded leg, where blood wept without end. The animals were hungry, savage, a choir of macabre creatures hellbent on tormenting him. Edgar could only watch as the fire swelled twice and coughed its final breath, leaving only the light of the moon to illuminate his hapless encounter with the beasts. Edgar turned and ran. Discarding his sword, driven to his most fundamental instinct, finding himself fighting a foe that would outsmart and outfight him in the darkness, Edgar de Saltpans turned and ran from the butchers of Ulmsbottom. At his heels they crooned and jeered their horrible song, more boisterous than the cruelest of men in their pursuit. But Edgar was a man of firm resolve, and he would not give the creatures the satisfaction of killing him outright. And so he ran, the unfriendly swamp growing darker and more oppressive as he raced along. Men garbed with plate of mail, armed with sharpest of steel, imbued with iron will - be wary, for when the Mires tarnish thine armor and shatter thine sword, it shall be thee that withers next. Edgar would join his brothers in death imminently, of that he was certain. He had gone to Vailor to bury the memories of his tormented past and, for a time, he became free of them. But as soon as he set sail for Ulmsbottom and embarked on that fateful journey home, remembrance seized Edgar. It had drawn him to his demise - a demise he would meet at the maw of a beast much crueler than the skulking crow from far across the seas. Edgar panted exhaustedly as he weaved through the dense underbrush, leaving in his wake a bloody and ravaged trail of branches. His body spited him, hated him and failed him, and soon he found his mad dash slowing to a dogged hobble as pain flared in his leg. As though by some miracle he staggered out of the hideous, deformed treeline that he had blindly raced through, and soon the ground beneath him turned to muck. Wading out with the last of his strength, Edgar collapsed into the gray waters of the shallow lagoon. Edgar floated atop the bog, arms spread wide, staring up at the night sky that shone brilliantly with its countless modicums of dreamy, far-flung light. His body drifted weightlessly over the muddy water, battered and vanquished, but in the far distance the glow of a glimmering beacon on the lagoon caught his eye. Softly swinging to and fro as it picked its way gently over the water towards him, the stunning effulgence of its glow rid Edgar of any despair. As the iridescent light washed over him, Edgar de Saltpans was suddenly aware of the fact that he was being lifted up, plucked from the jaws of condemnation by the iron hands of salvation. There were no ghosts here - only men.

JACKALS Chapter I The Crow Among Birds 12th of the Sun’s Smile, 1536 Aftermath of The Battle of White Mountain, Northern Urguan Edgar de Saltpans visits an old friend whose luck has run out. True it may have been that Edgar de Saltpans was a new face to the storied lands of Vailor, but he was no stranger to the war that had plagued it for so long. A cunning and vernal young man of twenty-two summers, Edgar had bore witness to more bloodshed than some of Oren’s most grizzled soldiery. But as he rode onward towards the bleary mountain-top pass ahead, the cold winds of Urguan lashing at him remorselessly, a lingering realization took hold of Edgar: The worst of what he had seen was yet to come. Edgar had been to this frigid, unforgiving place once before, accompanied by the most unsavory band of ruffians he could dredge up from the slums of Savoie’s princedom. His ill-fated venture into the harsh peaks of the Dwarven mountains some years ago had culminated in his own capture, and for two miserable years he was humbled by the shackles and bindings of imprisonment. The unpleasant men he had come to know as his comrades were subject to much crueler ends - ends met at the pointed blades of half-man steel. But fate, that dastardly mistress, could be subjugated by no man, and now, as the chorus of singing rooks reached his ears, Edgar feared that she had come for those that seemed to get the best of her. Loathsome and frank, this realization gnawed at Edgar as he crested a snowy hill and took in the wretched field of triumph that stretched far as the horizon before him. The charnel stench of death hung heavy in the air, to the point that Edgar’s steed froze up in revulsion and would advance not a half-trot further. Unfettered by the foul odor, the man dismounted and continued onward by way of foot, purposeful but cautious in his tread. The chatter of a thousand carrion birds as they gorged themselves on flesh and offal rattled Edgar to his core, and his pace quickened as he wandered forward through the desolation left in the wake of the battle. The carcasses left behind by the birds were so ravaged that he could scarcely tell man from dwarf. The very sight of this ugly feast made Edgar cringe and recoil, but upon remembering why he had come so far he forced himself onward. By now, he had reached the mound upon which the amorphous clutch of bodies was thickest, his steady march meanwhile eroding into a dazed stumbling gambol. More corpses - some propped against each other, others arbitrarily cast to the side, touched with wicked and mortal gouges, arrows and bolts protruding from pale flesh and torn chain-link. The bleeding field was a dreadful jumble of men whose empty eyes saw nothing, and those poor fellows who seemed locked in a twisted embrace; an arm discarded here, a leg detached there. Here, amidst a distinctly-savaged pile of Orenian bodies and jutting limbs, clenched tightly in a white fist, something caught Edgar’s eye: a worn and bronzen old coin that shone in the light and caused his gut to wrench.It was enough to bring Edgar to his knees, and he began to claw his way through the bloodied and brutalized cadavers as he squirmed towards the bronze piece. The crows perched upon the bodies cried their displeasure at Edgar’s intrusion, and flew off in retreat, leaving him alone in his trancelike crawl towards the coin. The task grew more pressing with each passing minute for Edgar as he hauled aside man after unmoving man; recognizable faces of dead friends that he would dream of beyond a doubt for each moment he closed his eyes. But it was the mortal remains of one man in distinct whose image would engrave itself in Edgar’s mind forever - that of Edward Gambino’s. Edgar’s friend lay with his back planted firmly to the ground, hands spread wide. A wayward arrow had lodged itself in his breast, and Gambino’s lifeless eyelids were peeled back to reveal colorless orbs devoid of sight. In his left hand, he held tight the worn old coin, unwilling to abandon it even in death. In this placid state, Gambino almost seemed like he had welcomed his final moments just as he would embrace an old friend. At the sight of his dead associate, cast aside and broken, Edgar felt a tremor rise through his spine. He had known the ambition and vigor that once filled the empty body that lay before his eyes. He took a fleeting moment to examine the many wounds that marred his friend’s corpse, thinking back on Gambino’s cocksure demeanor as he drunkenly stumbled off to join the ranks of men marching for White Mountain. Shifting his jaw, Edgar scooped up his friend’s corpse and hoisted it up into his arms, looking skywards to the rolling clouds high above him. “We got close.” De Saltpans’ under-lip trembled as he spoke, voice barely above a whisper. “We could’ve had fuckin’ everything!” His bellow bounded across the bloody valley, over the vast and unsightly array of dead men and half-men that covered the snowy terrain. The cry of resentment was enough to scatter the remaining crows, who took flight under fluttering wings in search of quieter places to indulge their appetites. Edgar let go of his compatriot, who slumped upon the earth and stared blankly up at him with mouth agape. Eddie Gambino had survived for so long, relying on luck alone, but as fate would have it, his luck had run out. Flip of the coin, Eddie. Rest well. You deserve it. Edgar’s digits curled around the frigid hand of his friend. With an air of tenderness and finality he settled Gambino’s closed fist and the coin within it over his heart, leaving it there as he rose to his feet. Looking down at the luckless hoodlum who had built with him a mercantile empire, Edgar let the harsh, acrid winds whip at his face before he turned away from the sight and began to pick his way back through the bodies to his horse. The storied realm of Vailor held no more worth for Edgar than the coin that Eddie Gambino would hold for eternity. Slinging a foot into his stirrup, Edgar did not spare the horrors of White Mountain a final glance. He rode from the wretched sight of triumph, and he knew for himself that he would not stop riding for a very long time. Even after departing the slaughtering grounds, Edgar de Saltpans knew one thing for certain: The worst of what he had seen was yet to come.

Suicide prank in Felsen [gone permakill]

Good meme ******

I like the Freema but thats it

ill miss you bud, you made the server a genuinely better place

all that for 2 upvotes

we wuz kings and ****

12th of Sun’s Smile, 1535 The sacred hall of God’s house found itself host to a strew of gatherers: men and women come for a view to a wedding. Under the warm glow of the Canon’s light they assembled, watching in solemn reverence as a kindly priest united staunch knight and demure lady. The hallowed union was beholden that day not only by the upright and just, but by a distinct and unusual band of men. Rough-hewn, dark and brooding, garbed in the garish caricatures of minstrels, they lay in wait like beasts of prey - skulking between the pillars of adamant, watching with the patient eyes of vultures as they strummed their lutes in benign melody. A lean, square-jawed man with eyes like muddy water stood by the doors of the church, eyes lingering on the ceremony for a few moments before he hefted up the heavy bar in his hands. With dubious intent and a perfunctory gesture he slid the latch across the handles of the doors and stepped forward. The mummers exchanged glances of unreadable assent as their comrade barred the doors, and the air of the church grew heavy, constrictive, suffocating. No longer was the ground on which they stood the house of God - it was his tomb. With a final nod to his fellows, a single musician discarded his lute and belted out a declaration that would brook no amnesty: “The dead cannot wed!” The bard’s farce had come to a conclusion, and with it came the end of innocence. Stalking forward, the rough men made for the budding newlyweds before their purpose could be made clear. Knives and swords took the place of lutes, and with callous brutality the men cut down any of the damnable entombed that stood in their way. The lean man, swerving around the violence and bloodshed that took place all around him, ascended the podium and leapt upon the avanite altar. With arms spread wide like a martyr the man looked down upon the carnage before him, and in a harsh bellow made the savagery that took place below clear: “Nobody fucks with th’ Butcher Boys!”

Let's make LoTC great again

wouldnt have been playing on the server without him tbh

The Beginnings of a Company The pair scrutinized one another from either side of the crudely-made, wooden table. At long last, one of the youths shifted in his chair, a faint creak emanating from beneath him. “The Saltpans-Gambino Company - I quite like the sound of that,” The stormy-eyed stripling would remark, pale fingers interlocking. As the two arose, a profitable friendship would follow. -===- Meanwhile, a lithe and barefooted boy of no more than fifteen years addressed the capital’s bustling square with clearly-expressed vehemence, “Let it be known to all - the Saltpans and Gambinos are now one!” He would then proceed to pin a number of posters upon the burgeoning city’s countless noticeboards and street corners. -===-