Xarkly

A bounty was posted in the cities of Man, Elf, and Dwarf, and word of mouth brought to it the Orcs without much delay. Frayed pieces of paper, many of them ripped by rain and inkstained, were haphazardly nailed to bulletin boards needlessly in their dozens, stacks upon stacks of paper held in place by rusty nails. The letters were blocky, and uneven, as if written by a child just learning to write. WORKERS WANTED TO KILL BEAST REWARD FIND WAGON NEAR CLOUD TEMPLE

In response to this thread: Edward Audemar Barbanov reached for the silver wine pitcher on his desk, but when he tilted it into his glass up, it was empty. He dropped the pitcher to the floor with a clatter. Two more pitchers, dented from their fall, lay at the foot of his desk alongside the shattered remains of two glasses and pools of red wine. “Gah ...” The old Prince pressed a beefy hand to his greying temple, and then thumped a fist on the table. “Boy!” he called out for his manservant. “More wine! Quickly, now!” When there came no reply, he slammed both fists down on the desk. Pain jolted up through his arms, but he ignored it. “BOY!” he all but yelled. Still, no answer. It was only when he tried to stand from his armchair, before he was forced back down by drunkeness, that he realized the only light in his study was silvery moonlight admitted by the wide window behind his desk. The hearth of his fireplace was cold, his candles unlit. How long had he been shacked away in here? His manservant had probably long since gone to bed. He threw his head back against his chair, and watched his vision blur with tears as he stared up at the dark ceiling. “Godfric? Georg?” he called out for his sons, his voice strained, though he no knew there would be no answer from his boys. No. He would never hear their voices again. Your sons are dead, his own voice rang in his head. He closed his eyes as warm tears trickled down his cheeks. “Yes,” he whispered back to himself. “They’re dead. And I wasn’t there to protect them.” The voice in his head laughed. And what would you have done, old man? You can barely lift an axe anymore, nevermind swing one. His fists clenched on the armrests of his chair. “I could … I could have ...” Could have done what? Beaten a Renatian squadron to death with your cane? “I … I ...” Grief erupted into anger. He swept his arm across the table, flinging papers, paperweights, pens and inkpots the floor. “AAGH!” he roared as his glass paperweight shattered. Sucking in deep, heavy breaths, he suddenly realised a small family portrait had been among the items he had just thrown from his desk. “Oh, no,” he breathed. He dropped to his knees and frantically began sifting through the papers, oblivious to the shattered glass that drew blood from his wrinkled hands until he finally pulled out the golden frame. He sighed with relief as tears dripped onto his lap. The glass covering the portrait was shattered, but the painting itself was still intact. It was well over fifteen years old now, but each face in the picture was unmistakable. He stood in the centre, a heavyset man with broad shoulders and raven-black curls, not like the thinning grey hair he sported now. Two of his four sons stood on either side; Josef and Otto on the left, Georg and Godfric on the right. They seemed so young back then, still children. Of course, Edward had never seen them as anything besides children. He traced a bleeding thumb over Godfric and Georg. Dead, the voice in his head whispered. Dead. Tortured and murdered. Dead. ”No,” he murmured tearfully and hugged the cracked painting to his chest. “They can’t be dead. It’s not fair.” Life is not fair, you old fool. ”No, Georg, he …” A tear splattered on Georg’s painted face. In the picture, Edward’s own hand rested on his shoulder. “He was … he was just made Palatine. Skies above, the boy was bright. Too bright to be killed.” He remembered well his last conversation with Georg, in the palace throneroom. ‘This world needs more thinking men like you’, he had told them, ‘or we’ll be stuck at the mercy of violent men forever’. And now he’s dead. ”And now he’s dead.” His voice was scarce a whisper. “And there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.” That confession sent pain lancing through him. He was an old man now, nearing his seventy-second winter. “I can’t avenge you, boys,” he sobbed, and pressed his forehead to the painting. Through teary-eyes, Godfric’s smiling face stared at him from the canvas. He had spoken his last words to Godfric on the same day he had spoken to Georg; he had made his son promise to stay safe at the Siege of Helena, and to marry his beloved before fate had the chance to intervene. And intervene it did, the voice in his head intoned. ”This is all wrong.” Heat crept into his voice again. Anger flared inside him, knotting his stomach, straining his voice. “I was never meant to outlive you! You were supposed to bury me, not the other way around!” And then his anger deflated in an instant, and he burst into fresh tears that racked his old body. They streamed down to the floor, staining the papers, mingling with the spilt wine and dripped blood from his cuts. Edward had never been much good at anything in his life, but his sons were the one thing that he could truly be proud of. He had thought that on his deathbed, he would be able to look back at his life and smile, knowing he had made a difference to the world simply by siring four brilliant sons. And now, two of them were dead. ”My boys,” he wept. “Dead before their father … and there’s nothing I can do. What kind of fate is that?” A cruel one, said the voice. Sucking in shuddering breaths, his eyes looked to the silvered mace hanging above the fireplace. Ceremonial, but the weight could still split heads. No, he was too old to avenge them. But he would try all the same.

if you’re including ‘bIg sTorY’ events in that statement, there hasn't been any because it’s been virtually impossible to get any event builds done because the lack of a Dev Team Admin (who now controls Et builders thanks to this merge) caused the team to stagnate

finally, the change people have been crying out for !

Stopping fly is a joke, it's a one line command. You don't even need to.TP to the player

Old Edward Barbanov balled up the missive and tossed it unceremoniously at his manservant. "Good fuckin' grief," he glowered, picturing Yuri's face from his childhood in Markev. "Did Renatus take your damned balls when they deposed you?"

The Old Crow Edward Barbanov could not help but smile as he read the missive. “That’s my boy.”

The Old Crow, Edward Barbanov, had his manservant escort him to church that evening, though once they reached the threshold the Old Crow insisted on walking the aisle himself. It was empty at this hour, with most folk sitting for their evening meal or, if they had the misfortune of being young and strong, off warring in the field. The tap of his cane echoed through the church as he made his way slowly through the altar, above which the golden light of the siting sun streamed into the hall through stained-glass windows. Relief flooded his old bones as he unceremoniously dropped to one knee before the altar, and clasped his hands together. “Didn’t know either of you, Sarah and Otto Kortrevich,” he muttered under his breath as he watched the sunlight gleam on the surface of the altar’s golden cross, “and truth be told, I didn’t much care for you.” “But you lived and died with honour,” he went on, unsure whether he was really praying for Otto’s soul or simply thinking aloud. “And that’s more than this traitor Rodrik could ever hope for.”

The Old Crow, Edward Barbanov, was filled with morose when he finished reading the Princess’ letter. The clock on his mantel had just tolled eleven, and his study was lit only by beams of silvery moonlight admitted by a wide window behind his desk. “Well said, girl. You understand what this new Cub of Curon does not.” he mumbled. “Even if his war goes **** up … Well, any man with an ounce of courage would choose an honourable death rather than life as a treacherous coward.” Sighing, he reclined in his armchair. Edward Barbanov did not regard himself as a godly man, but that night he prayed.

Old Edward Barbanov laid down his copy of the missive. Interlocking his sausage-sized fingers, he shut his eyes and sighed. Each of Marius’ words rang true with him, of course – he was a Barbanov, after all, the Old Crow of the Alimar clan, and yet, having read the King’s address thrice over, he felt nothing but fear and uncertainty. Not fear for the victor – he had lived long enough now to not only learn of the cycle of empires rising and falling, but he had seen it himself when his brother Karl Sigmar reigned. No, Old Edward did not fear which dragon stood triumphant at the end. All Edward feared now was that his sons would not live to see that end, no matter who won.

Old Edward Barbanov cared little for politics, but he did care for people and in the spirit of being a cranky, semi comic-relief character, often thought the moral characters of the modern day were pale shadows compared to the men he had grown up with. And so, when he heard the news while working his way through a pint of milk – the doctor said he needed it to keep his old bones strong, though Edward wasn’t so sure how true that was – he couldn’t help but scowl. “Pah,” he grunted to himself, sitting alone at the head of the Alimar dining table, bathed in pale morning light admitted by narrow window behind him. “Otto bloody Kortrevich might be decrepit. He might be infertile. He may well be the biggest fool of man who ever walked the world.” The old man clenched his fist. “And I’d choose him over this thrice-damned traitor Rodrik any day.”

“Good fuckin’ grief,” Old Edward Barbanov stewed when he heard the news during his evening bath. “If you’re going to appoint your own Pontiff, at least raise a new clergyman rather than the fucker you deposed. I swear, youngsters these days do everything half-arsed. You didn’t see this kind of carry on back in my day!” he ranted to his manservant, who frowned uncomfortably while scrubbing the old prince’s back.

“Don’t ever wear a crown, boys,” Edward Audemar Barbanov remarked to his sons when they convened for dinner. “If these louts are anything to go by, it’ll rot your damn brain.”