Xarkly

THE RIMETROLL EVENTLINE OVERVIEW A male Rimetroll. He is a little bit upset. For generations, the Rimetrolls have lived peacefully in the mountains of the Rimeveld. They are a unique breed of Trolls who long ago forsook violence, and instead lived as vegetarians in the frigid slopes of northern Almaris. All this was made possible thanks to an enchanted Totem Pole - a gift from early Almaris settlers - that allowed food to grow in a farm despite the Rimeveld's murderous cold. For centuries, they lived in the Rimeveld, forgotten by the rest of the world. They, in turn, became vegetarians, and forgot what it meant to fight, to kill, or to raid. They lived their days in blissful ignorance in the far north, rearing families and growing vegetables. Alas, in the first event of this Eventline, the Rimetroll's Totem Pole was destroyed, and with it their food source. Without a way to feed their families, Rimetrolls wandered into the nearby lands of Haense and Norland in search of food, and began reaping the human's farms, though they were too stupid to comprehend the damage they caused to the humans or why the humans opposed them with fire and steel. Now, as the Rimetrolls awake from their hibernation and grow desperate, they begin aggressive attacks on any and all farms on northern Almaris in a bid to feed their starving families. Though incredibly stupid and passive by nature, a few elder Trolls spur them on, knowing their race faces extinction if they do not act. As the Rimetrolls compete against the human realms for food, the consequence of lost raids weigh heavily on Haense and Norland; for every Troll raid they fail to propel - for every harvest lost - their lands succumb deeper to famine. And so, as the Rimetrolls attack from without and famine begins to rot the nations from within, a harsh struggle looms. How will the Eventline work generally? From the weekend of March 13th-14th onwards, the Rimetrolls will resume their struggle to feed themselves after waking from their hibernation. Whereas before they stole from the farms of Karosgrad and Elysium - and had lengthy interactions, both violent and passive, with their respective peoples - these new raids will increase in both strength and frequency, and hungry Trolls will range far beyond Karosgrad and Elysium. No farm in the north will be safe. Every week of the eventline from this starting point, an Update Post will be made to include important information such as the Troll's current strength, the raids lost by each nation that week, etc. Critically, these posts will note how much food each territory has lost that week, which will effect have badly they suffer from Famine as the Trolls trigger massive food shortages. Famine will be reflected in roleplay through Famine Events. What exactly are Rimetrolls? The Rimetrolls are - obviously - Trolls, but there are some major differences between them and normal Trolls. Rimetrolls are, by nature, extremely passive and friendly. They're not inherently violent, but when push comes to shove, they'll definitely fight. They're also incredibly stupid, and, as result, easily manipulated. For example, a Knight was able to prevent a raid on Haense by convicing the Troll he was in the wrong place. The Rimetrolls do, however, have certain abilities that can turn a scuffle in their favour: Size & Strength: The Rimetrolls are, at minimum, eleven feet tall and as wide as a boulder. As a result, they are incredibly physically powerful; Frost Breath: Rimetrolls are able to suck in air and exhale a massive cloud of sub-zero cold that freezes anything in its path for up to ten feet. Its so cold that it can freeze a human solid, but they'll melt soon after (if they aren't squashed before that); Throwing: Rimetrolls have disproportionately long arms. Paired with their strength, their capable of throwing projectiles with devastating strength, like a mobile artillery unit; Troll Roll: If a Rimetroll gains speed, they can tuck their arms and legs together and roll at incredible speed like a deadly ball, and squash anything in their path; Mobility: Rimetrolls can use their long arms, strength, and Troll-Roll to move incredibly quickly in snowy and mountainous terrain. However, in any other terrain, they move relatively slowly. They can only charge for a short-distance, and their Troll-Roll is likewise limited in distance except when used down a slope. What are Famine Events? Based on how many successful raids the Troll's carry out on a nation's farms will reflect which state of famine they are in. Based on this state, the nation will experience various side-events to reflect that state of famine. Generally speaking, these include (and these are just examples): Mild Famine: In this stage, the Trolls have only managed to take a little bit of food from a nation, but it is enough to have a tangible effect on the populace. To reflect this in roleplay, that nation can find themselves subject to ambient events such as: An influx of refugees and beggars; A crime spike; Infestations of rats and other rodents as they struggle to find waste to feed on; Protests against the government for the food shortage; Middling Famine: In this stage, the Trolls have generally succeeded in around half their raids on a nations farm. Based on this state, the nation will experience various side-events to reflect that state of famine, which can include stuff like: Riots over food and against governments for failing to repel the Troll threat; Fights breaking out between civilian groups over food; Wild, rabid animals dwelling the roads; Severe Famine: In this stage, the Trolls are succeeding in the majority of their raids on a nation's food supply, and this crisis will be reflected through significant roleplay events like: Peasant uprisings; Civilian attacks on the nation's farms and granaries; Outbreak of disease and illness from malnutrition; Groups of cannibals forming. How long will the Eventline last? This will be based entirely on the input of the nations involved. Generally speaking, it will probably last throughout March and April. How can I get involved? Currently, the nations involved are Haense and Norland, since they are the major northern territories. However, if you are a Lair or Settlement that operates out of the North Hub, you can send me a message on Discord to have your territory subjected to this eventline. Who are the ET involved? As of this post, we're putting together our Troll Team to run this eventline. You can contact any of these people about, who will be running these events over the next few weeks: me @JuliusAakerlund @Wizry @Burnsider @Limo_man @MonkeNotic Is it just fighting and famine? Nope. The Rimetrolls, as you'll see in the events, are not a bland race that exist purely to attack these nations. They are a fleshed out culture of monsters with their own customs, culture, and history, all of which can lead to a variety of non-combat events in this Eventline. For example, Elysium was able to convince some of these Trolls to protect the town in exchange for food rather than raid it, while Haeseni soldiers have visited the Troll stronghold in a bid to make peace and even made friends among them. So no, you can definitely expect a lot more other than just them coming to kill you. How can the Eventline end? As is normal for this kind of Eventline, there's a lot of ways it can conclude as the events happen and players interact with it. Generally speaking, there are two vague directions it can take: Troll Genocide: It's you or them. Wipe out the attacking Trolls in their entirely to prevent them from starving your nation to death. Restoration: Somehow, figure out how to rebuild the Troll's farm so that they no longer need to raid the human realms to survive. This involves lengthy non-violent interaction, and divulgences into Almaris' history as a whole.

A QUIETER ROAD @Gusano Puffing out a cloud of smoke, Konstantin Wick left the Church. As he stepped outside into Karosgrad's square, the twin banners that had been hung for his dear friend's funeral - Lauritz Christiansen's golden Kaldenic swan, paired by the Justiciar's crow - snapped in Konstantin's direction as the wind suddenly picked up. Even as he trudged across the square, his pipe smouldering in his mouth, the voices followed him from the Church. Konstantin had left before Lauritz's funeral had ended, but he did not feel particularly bad about it. Instead, he found himself ... pensive. There had, of course, been tears at the service, but there had also been laughter prompted by a new spirited kind of sermon. Konstantin did not mind, not really - he knew Lauritz would have wanted laughter at his funeral, but Konstantin could not consign himself to join in. As he mounted the steps leading to the Nikirala Palace, he paused, and glanced around as the late-evening sun slanted across the city. Though there was still a crowd thronged near the Church, merchants remained hawking at their stalls, craftsmen and burghers drifted to the tavern as the evening service ramped up, and a gaggle of children were playing on the street. "Life goes on," he murmured to himself as the soft wind picked up again, messying strands of his grey hair. He broke into a half-jog, then, into the Palace and to his wife's apartments. By the time he scurried back outside the Palace gate - breathless from his haste - the evening light had deepened, and the tolling of the Church bells echoed across the city. He had fetched his redwood lute from his wife's apartments - the same instrument he'd played since he first settled in New Reza - and he skirted around the Palace, taking the path to the Royal Gardens. The Gardens were blissfully quiet, as usual. The noise of the city was muted to a distant din as he set off down the Garden path, the gravel crunching underfoot, and the trees flanking the path swayed gently. He passed by the rows of statues erected along the path in honor of the Knights of the Lily, and it was when he arrived a face carved with face with an eyepatch that he stopped and sighed. "You would have liked the funeral," he muttered idly as he eased himself down, then reclined on the grass in front of the statue, with the Garden's stream trickling nearby. He knew it wasn't a grave, but he far preferred this over some graveyard. As the sun continued to sun, the light fading as it shone through the leaves around him, he leaned back to lie on the grass, propping his head on his hands. "Ahhh. You remember how we started?" His left hand began to pluck a few idle notes on the lute. "In a big city, a very long time ago, far away." When Konstantin had first settled in the Empire on Arcas, he was without friends. He was a Wick, and so the family he did have were ... eccentric. Lauritz had changed that, though; he had been the first Konstantin had called friend, and the first to really teach him much of anything. It was with Lauritz that Konstantin had began his grand legal career; it was with Lauritz he had formed the famous Christiansen-Wick Solicitors; it was with Lauritz that he had endured the House of Commons; and it was with Lauritz he had revolutionized the Haeseni legal system from scratch. Really, the old man had been there for most of the important parts of Konstantin's life. It felt truly odd to think that Lauritz was dead, now. He kept having to remind himself of the fact. "And look at how we finished," he murmured softly, staring up as a wispy cloud passed through the darkening sky. Now, he found himself in a new Haeseni city free from Oren, surrounded by baby-faced bureaucrats, and soldiers who had never seen war. A different world from the one he and Lauritz had grown up in. "Heheh. Do you remember our walks?" he asked, giving the lute a strum. He and Lauritz had often gone on walks, often when something monumental was about to happen. They had walked the outskirts of the Helena moat when he had first become President of the House of Commons; they had walked the smoke-hazed courtyard of Ekaterinburg after Koeng Sigismund's pyre when Konstantin had been thrust into the role of Palatine; and they had walked the New Reza Gardens beneath a murky, rainy sky when Konstantin was preparing to propose to his wife. He began to laugh, but it wasn't long before he trailed off wistfully. "Ah. I suppose you won't be good for walking anymore, now that you'd gone and died and all that." It was only as Konstantin cocked his head up did he realize his eyes had begun to water and blur his vision. "I'll ... I'll miss them." His voice had grown a touch shaky, too. "Godan, what's happening?" he grumbled to himself, laughing wearily as he threw his head back against the grass. Lauritz had died of old age - a natural death - and Konstantin had made his peace with it. Why was he suddenly tearing up, then? "You know," he said hoarsely, tears trickling down his cheeks as he continued to pluck notes on the lute. "I always considered you as ... as my brother." His laughter returned again, stronger than before and more suddenly like a cough, even as he continued to weep. "I'm sorry I never got to tell you that," he managed between breaths. Konstantin could not have said how long he lay there in the middle of the gardens, crying and laughing while playing on the lute, but by the time he stood, the deep burnt light of the sunset had been replaced by the pale light of the moon. It was only by telling himself that his wife would be wondering where he'd vanished that he managed to push himself to stand, and laid his own wrinkled hand on Lauritz's statue. "Thank you," he breathed softly, throat choking up again. "Brother." He would miss his walks with Lauritz. He knew that for a certainty as he began the slow trek out of the Gardens. Life went on, though, and Konstantin had no choice but to continue with it. In his eyes, life was just a little quieter now.

Konstantin drops down from the chandelier of Franz's bedroom, mouth agape.

Konstantin Wick pokes his head out of Franz's wardrobe, wondering what all the noise was.

HAESENI ZVAERDSA: SCHOOL OF THE WHISPER Foolish is the warrior who thinks that strength and size are paramount in combat. There is an enlightenment to those who dedicate themselves to the science of sword-fighting in the Haeseni style (Naumariav: Zvaerdsa). These learned warriors dedicate years to not only honing their body, but also their mind. Those learned in Zvaerdsa care not how large their opponent is, or how strong, for every enemy carries a weakness, be it an overextended swing or exhausting aggression. This text marks the first of its kind to grace Haeseni libraries for the purpose of mentoring future generations of Haeseni Knights and Squires, particularly those who do not use heavy weapons such as longswords and poleaxes. This Zvaerdsa, which I have named the School of the Whisper both in recognition of its lighter characteristics and my own moniker as a Knight, encompasses not only sword-forms and attack styles, but also breathing techniques to better a warrior's stamina and focus in combat. I pen this in the hopes of translating traditional Haeseni Zvaerdsa from custom into text, and to inspire my fellow Knights to do likewise so that we may one day build a true library of martial works. - Ser Aleksandr Hieromar Barbanov, the Whisper BREATHING FORMS An unlearned warrior might scoff at the notion that breath is important to combat, but in doing so he betrays his naivety. One of the greatest techniques the learned warrior wields is masterful and conscious control of their breath in combat, which serves both to maintain focus, conserve energy, and fortify balance. As such, Breathing Forms constitute a key aspect of the School of the Whisper. These Breathing Forms, each of them with their unique uses for different situations, require dozens of hours of practice to ingrain themselves in the mind of a warrior so that they will not instinctively lapse into uncontrolled panting in combat, and instead teach their bodies to constantly use these Breathing Forms. All these Forms require strong lungs, which in turn requires extensive training on the part of the warrior, and this training is often an arduous endeavor: I myself learned through submergence in the waters of the Karosgrad Gardens for as long as possible every day over the course of years. Concentration must then be drilled into the mind of the warrior once they have strengthened their lungs sufficiently, and they must expose themselves to pain or discomfort - such as standing on a bed of coals - and ignore the pain to exhibit these Breathing Forms. Breathing Form One: Four-Beat Breathing Overview: In combat, a warrior must not allow themselves to succumb to nerves and lose concentration. Instead, the sole focus of their entire being must be on their opponent, and an unsteady hand or reckless instinct can spell death. The first Breathing Form allows one to steel their nerves, quash fear, and achieve clear focus once again. It is salient for warrior's to use in stressful situations. Technique: Four-Beat Breathing is very simple, and is achieved simply by inhaling for four seconds, holding one's breath for four seconds, and then exhaling for four seconds. Inhaling must be done through the nose, and exhaling through the mouth. Use: Four-Beat Breathing is the School's standard Breathing Form, and should always be used by a warrior unless they find themselves in a situation which specifically requires the use of another Breathing Form. Breathing Form Two: Frayed Breathing Overview: Prolonged combat encounters can leave a warrior exhausted, and in such cases they will require more air than standard Four-Beat Breathing can provide. Frayed Breathing is thus useful for the conservation of energy when a warrior's stamina dangerously wanes, and when they wish to recover their breath and energy as quickly as possible. Frayed Breathing does, however, require the conscious use of both the mouth and nose simultaneously, and is therefore particularly tricky to master. Technique: Frayed Breathing requires a warrior to suck air deep into their chest, rather than just their diaphragm, as quickly as possible without resorting to panting. The warrior must then exhale using both their mouth and nose at the same time to quicken the process and allow them to draw deep breath once again. Use: This second Breathing Form should only be used as a last resort, when a warrior's strength is fading and they must preserve their stamina for as long as possible. Naturally, Frayed Breathing is most useful in drawn-out battles in which a warrior is offered little reprieve. Breathing Form Three: Brace Breathing Overview: If a warrior finds themselves facing a relentless flurry of strong blows, this will exact a toll of their body regardless of whether they deflect the enemy strike or absorb it with their armor. Brace Breathing steels the body in the moment before impact, allowing a warrior to keep their balance and focus to outlast an aggressive opponent. Technique: A warrior must first identify a pattern in their enemy's strikes, and time their landing. Just before impact, the warrior must draw a deep breath into their diaphragm and expand it as much as possible without breathing into their chest to strengthen their core and dampen the shock from enemy impact. Use: Brace Breathing is a defensive Breathing Form, and allows a warrior to remain firm in their footing until they find an opportunity to counterattack. It should be used when a warrior consistently finds themselves forced on the defensive during a fight, typically against a stronger or more skilled opponent. SWORD FORMS Combat is not unlike a language. The enemy raises their blade to strike, and the learned warrior must respond in turn to answer the strike appropriately. It becomes an exchange of forms; when an opponent attacks with the Roar Form, the learned warrior answers with the Deafen Form. Mere untrained instinct and blind swings, however strong, will serve only to render one vulnerable against the learned warrior who not only has perfected their own Sword Forms, but can recognize the forms and patterns of another and exploit the weaknesses that come with them. Thus, the School of the Whisper contains several Sword Forms to be utilized against opponents of all varieties to emerge victorious. Akin to the Breathing Forms, hundreds of hours of training are required to replace these rehearsed forms with reckless instinct that a panicked warrior will naturally resort to in a fight. Sword Form One: Echo Requires: This Form requires the use a bastard or longsword. Function: The Echo Form allows a warrior to stun their enemy and follow-up with a critical blow. Execution: The warrior must strike openly and forcefully at their opponent to bait them into parrying. When the enemy does parry, the warrior should press their blade against the enemy's in a clinch, and then, as the enemy begins to parry the warrior's blade to the side, they must thrust their hands forward to slam the pommel of their weapon into the enemy's face and stun them. The warrior should instantly transition into a more powerful swing at the enemy's vitals to capitalize on their disorientation. The Echo Form is versatile, as it is ideal as an aggressive opening attack or a counterattack against an enemy parry. Example: Sword Form Two: Hiss Requires: This Form requires the use of two weapons, one of which must be a dagger. Function: If executed correctly, the Hiss Form is a devastating disarming technique that can also maim opponents. Execution: The warrior must strike at their enemy with either a broadsword or shield, and force them to block it with their own weapon. Then, with the dagger in their own hand, the warrior must precisely slice at the enemy's fingers or wrists holding their weapon to incapacitate the hand and render them extremely vulnerable. If the enemy is wearing inadequate hand protection, the Hiss Form can easily slice off their fingers. Example: Sword Form Three: Deafen Requires: There are no specific requirements for this Form. Function: The Deafen Form is used against a shielded enemy to trip them to the ground. Execution: To execute this Form, a warrior must rush the enemy and feign a strike at their head in order to make them raise their shield to defend. In doing so, the enemy will place the shield over their face and temporarily block their vision. During this moment of blindness, the warrior must drop low and sweep the enemy's legs out from beneath them, or otherwise strike at them through the knee or foot. The warrior must build up momentum in their charge in order to sweep the legs, but if executed correctly, the shielded enemy will be tripped to the ground. Example: Sword Form Four: Sing Requires: This Form is incompatible with long weapons, such as longswords or polearms. Function: The Sing Form is hyper aggressive against opponents using heavy or long weapons and robs them of the strength and momentum required to use them. Execution: A Warrior must evade or deflect an initial strike from their enemy, before they press in to close the distance between themselves and the enemy. The enemy will naturally attempt to step back, but the warrior must doggedly follow and keep them in extremely close quarters to frustrate their attempts to draw back to gather momentum for their own strikes. Within such close quarters, the warrior will have the advantage with light, small weapons. The Sing Form is especially effective the warrior can use it to force their enemy against a wall. Example: Sword Form Five: Murmur Requires: A quick, light piercing weapon is required for this Form. Function: The Murmur Form is used to withstand aggressive or armored opponents and slowly weaken them through bloodloss. Execution: The warrior should familiarize themselves with the opponent's pattern of attacks, and use quick footwork to maintain enough distance to deflect and evade strikes until a window to strike can be identified. With this window, the warrior must strike at a weak point in their opponent's armor - the forearm will be the easiest to reach, but if possible, a blow to the armpit is far more effective. Once the opponent is bleeding, the warrior continues to evade their strikes until bloodloss weakens them enough for the warrior to assume the offensive and overpower them. Example: Sword Form Six: Chant Requires: There are no specific requirements for this Form. Function: Chant is a somewhat niche Form which can be used when the warrior does not have firm footing, but otherwise should not be used. Execution: If a warrior finds themselves with insecure or no footing - should as when in the air, on ice, or underwater - they must twist their entire body with their blade outstretch and draw strength from the momentum of their turn, allowing them to slash a wide, circular arc to strike anything nearby or ward off opponents. Example: Sword Form Seven: Roar Requires: The Roar Form requires a shield or strong buckler. Function: Similar to the Sing Form, the Roar Form is hyper-aggressive through the use of a shield to constantly maintain the offensive and overpower opponents. Execution: With a strong shield to absorb strikes, a warrior can raise their shield and charge their opponent to force them back or throw them off balance. The warrior must maintain a continual charge and thrust to prevent the enemy from coordinating an attack of their own, and, similar to the Sing Form, can be particularly effective if the shield can be used to push the enemy against a wall. Continual shield thrusts to the head will eventually concuss an opponent, after which they can be finished off, if they are not thrown to the ground by the shield's force beforehand. Example: Sword Form Eight: Whisper Requires: There are no specific requirements for this Form. Function: The Whisper Form is a last-resort method to land a mortal blow on an enemy at the cost of a grievous injury to oneself. Execution: When a warrior is certain they cannot beat their opponent through conventional forms and they cannot disengaged, they can deliberately allow the opponent's blade to impale a part of their body. Ideally, this should by the arm. When the enemy's blade is sheathed in their arm, the warrior must withstand the pain and take the opportunity to strike at an opponent's vital region while they cannot move their own sword. Example:

MEMOIRS OF A SILENT KNIGHT VOLUME II: I DID NOT LOVE HER Ser Aleksandr Hieromar, the Whisper Knight, and his elder sister Nataliya. These are the memoirs of Ser Aleksandr, a Knight of Haense sworn under a Vow of Silence. They are not published. Characters mentioned are @MotherLay @ColdestPepsi @Flapman @Zaerie @Gusano@doreebear@CaptainHaense Read Volume I, on why Aleksandr took his Vow, here. Music: I never had much mind for love. Not like my siblings, at least. Sometimes I think my little brother Franz may have been born just to love and marry; he always had that social disposition, his odd charm, and not to mention the cohort of damsels he surrounded himself with growing up. I always teased him about that, but I suppose he took it for jealousy. It would be a reasonable conclusion, though ultimately inaccurate. I'm quite sure what it is that makes Franz and I different in that regard; often, when I would sulk in the corners at feasts and balls, he would try to coerce me into dancing with someone, or try to figure out which maiden I had taken a liking to. There never was any maiden, though. I never seemed to share the feelings Franz had. My other siblings didn't share my lack of concern for love - as far as I know, anyway. Josef wed that Baruch girl at a young age, and while I'm not really sure if he ever had feelings for anything besides food, their marriage at least seemed amicable. It was political, of course, brokered by my mother and Konstantin Wick when we were just children, but I can't help but wonder if they grew affectionate towards each other despite that. I wish I had gotten a chance to ask him - ask him that, and so much more. Then Nataliya, of course, sealed her fate in her pursuit of love - she got herself disowned, stripped of her title as Prinzenas Royale - for wanting to marry the Queen's brother. She made that sacrifice, though, and I think she made it happily. To accept that ... it leaves me feeling bittersweet. She left her family name behind and moved far away to have a family with the man she loved. I am, of course, happy that she has found happiness and overcome her curse, but a small part of me cannot help but wish she still lived here in Haense with me. I miss her so. Then there is Juliya. Like Josef, she had a more formal marriage, and was betrothed and wed to the Lord Fiske Vanir. She seems happy, though I find it hard to tell. When we meet, she often drops idle complaints about where her husband has gotten off to, or why he was not around to dance when the music started They're so minor that I dismissed them as jokes at first, but I've begun to wonder if she is not so happy after all. She smiles all the time, of course, but I think Juliya would smile in the face of Iblees. Then she lost her firstborn child. Even if I could speak to ask her about, I am not sure if I would. Would she take offense? Would it be too sorrowful to speak of? The last thing I would want to do would be to offend her. She has a child now, happy and healthy. Still, I think I must one day ask her whether she is happy in her marriage. Lastly, there is my twin Stefan. I wonder if he found love on his travels. I wish he would return home, or even write to tell us he is not dead. Of course, we are children of royalty, and marriage is no simple affair. My father King Sigismund allowed his sisters to marry freely out of love in his time, but my mother and Josef regressed to traditional political marriages. That makes sense, of course. That is how favor is maintained and loyalty built. Most of us were betrothed from a young age -- even me. It was some Helvets girl, though her name escapes me all these years later. I do, however, distinctly remember that Franz, Stefan and I called her Rat Girl because she kept a rodent as a pet. My mother called off the betrothal when I was nine, though, and had only met her once. To this day, I'm not quite sure why she ended it - at the time, I think I was just grateful I would not have to marry a girl with a pet rat. I wonder where she is now. From that point, neither love nor marriage were a feature of my life. My mother retired from public life, and Josef became the King of Haense proper when he turned fourteen. Those years feel like a grim blur, when I was hardly worth remark. I was just a gaunt, stuttering Prince with nothing to offer and nothing to do. It was as I came into my later teenage years that the notion of knighthood cemented itself in my head, and I pursued it vigorously for the years that followed, so much so that I did practically nothing else. I have no friends to show for my time, and most certainly, no love. I do have my knightly title, though - I succeeded, and became Ser Aleksandr the Whisper after I swore my Vow of Silence. However, then came Marcella Barclay. We had met a few times before, when we were both much younger. It shames me to say that I mocked her at our first meeting - during our Oath Hunt to join the H.R.A. - but she had her revenge when she trounced me in a tournament in the tavern. After that, our sole interaction was in the form of sneers and begrudging looks. I did not see her many years after that, and I soon forgot about her as I dedicated myself wholly to becoming a Knight. Then, not long after my dubbing, Duke Friedrich Barclay - the Lord Marshal of the H.R.A. - approached me. Supposedly, he had been struggling to arrange a marriage for his sister, owing to both the fact that there were not many bachelors of age in Haense at the time, and because she herself supposedly refused most matches. Lo and behold, his sister was Marcella Barclay, and she had reluctantly agreed to consider me for courting. I was, needless to say, rather stunned at first. Why on earth would she agree to that? I was, however, a grown man now. I considered it from a wholly political point of view; it was my duty as a Prince to continue the lineage of my House, and the House of Barclay was a very good match indeed who had long been overdue a royal match. I accepted the Duke's offer. Marcella and I began to meet after that, and we reacquainted ourselves. She was no longer the arrogant, reckless young girl who had charged a bear during our Oath Hunt over ten years ago. No, she was a grown woman herself now. She was as sharp as a blade and worked under my uncle Konstantin as Deputy Palatine, and though I was never attracted to the appearance of others, she was ... pleasant to behold. I was tense, at first, while she was blissfully carefree. She laughed at me when I asked about dowries and the formalities of betrothal, and when I brought up such with her brother Duke Friedrich, Marcella took off swimming into the lake to avoid it. She could not have cared less about it. We spoke - well, she spoke, I waved my hands - of the world, and places we would like to visit - we agreed to one day visit the Halflings together. She told me of 'beach parties' that were held at Reinmar, where they wore bizarre flowery shirts. She promised to make me one, even, and invited me to one of these parties. Of course, I would never attend one. Marcella is gone, now. Shortly after she succeeded my uncle as Palatine, she abruptly resigned. There was no official missive from the government, no statement on her departure. Word from House Barclay was that she had decided she was too young to be Palatine, and went travelling. No one seemed to know the truth of it. She left me a letter, though, slid under my door when I returned from sparring one day. Aleksandr - I'm afraid that our adventure to the Halflings will have to wait. I've come to realize a few things about the world, and would like to see more of it, and more of myself. Recently, I noticed that I was unhappy," she wrote, "I felt quite hollow. I've never taken a moment to think about myself as a person, only my future projects or what work I was going to do. Never stopping like that only results in wrinkly old women that have nothing to show for their lives but some empty accomplishments that go in history books. History books don't write what you enjoyed or what type of person you actually were; they don't write if you stargazed, or taught your niece to swim; they don't show anything beneath the surface, and I don't want to live my life as a person in a history book." It was of no concern to me. Or, at least, that was what I told myself. Why should it matter? I had agreed to the betrothal based on pure politics, on my duty to the House of Barbanov-Bihar and as a courtesy to the House of Barclay. Her letter ended with these final lines: "I'm sorry that I kept my judgment from when we were younger. I should've seen the growth and noticed that perhaps you weren't the same anymore. That'll forever be my fault and I regret that I waited so long to see it. I'll avoid the Halfling village on my travels -- I'd still like to go there with you when I get back." I did not love her. If there was one thing young Aleksandr knew back when he sulked and spoke to no one but his brother, it was that he - that I - had no need for love. The same is true to this day; my goal is become a true Knight with the power to root out dishonor, cruelty, and malice within Haense, and I have no need of a marriage, and I most certainly had no need of love. At least, that was what I told myself. I realized that night it was a lie when I sat hunched over my desk and - to my great surprise - found tears welling in my eyes. For the life of me, I do not know why. Still, I know I did not love her, and I am resolute in knowing that my duty and my destiny has need of neither love nor marriage. Even so, a small part of me could not help but long for the kind of companionship I had started to believe she would bring. I swore a Vow of Silence to never speak again, and I have precious few I consider friends besides Franz, Nataliya, and Juliya. But I cannot speak to them, and they have their own lives to lead: Franz is married now, with a horde of children, and besides from that he is a Knight himself and is running for his fourth term as Maer of Karosgrad; Nataliya, too, is married with children of her own, and she lives all the way in Providence; and Juliya is no different, and has her own family to attend to. I think, deep down, I wanted someone who could perhaps understand me despite my silence, and someone who could be there for me in those dark nights when my apartments of the Nikirala Palace are so very silent. I did not love her, but I cannot help but wonder if I might have grown to. My mind keeps asking that question, but there is no point in dwelling on it. She is gone, and I have my own destiny to follow. I know that, yet I find myself lying awake these nights, staring at the ceiling. I suppose this feeling is loneliness. I do not think, though, that I have suddenly become lonely now that Marcella has gone. Rather, I think I was always lonely, and she merely reminded me of that fact. She taunted me with a possible cure to that loneliness, and when that cure vanished I was left all too aware of the loneliness I had become numb to. It is like a cripple who had lived his life without the use of his legs since birth - by the time he is a grown man, he has no idea what it is like to have functioning legs, and his entire reality is based off the use of his broken ones. But then, one day, a doctor tells him an exciting new development in medicine might restore use of his legs. He grows excited, and his minds rushes with all the possibilities, only to find out that the medicine will not work. He loses nothing, for he has long since learned to live without legs, but he feels their loss ever so painfully. I did not love her. That is what I must believe if I am to numben myself once again.

MEMOIRS OF A SILENT KNIGHT Ser Aleksandr Hieromar Barbanov, the 'Whisper'. VOLUME I My mamej once told me that our family was cursed. Cursed by some old Scyfling, supposedly. I've no mind to give credence to anything supernatural, but looking back at the lives of my parents and siblings, I can't deny the hardships that have befell each of my us. My father - King Sigismund - took his own life when I was just an infant, and my mother preferred to be a soldier rather than parent; my brother Josef gluttoned himself to an early grave, while dear Nataliya was disowned in her pursuit of love; my own twin Stefan has been away travelling for so long that I'm certain that he's met some ill fate, and little Franz still claims he can see and speak to the ghosts of the dead. For a time, I thought sweet Juliya had escaped this curse, but then she birthed a dead child. As for myself, I was born with a broken voice. I could not complete a sentence without spiralling into incomprehensible stutters. To this day, I don't understand the ailment; for others, words flow as tranquil as a river, but my own words knot my tongue. It did not do for the child of a King, especially when it molded me into a recluse who sulked in corners at feasts and balls. Ultimately, I was not worthy of the bloodline I was - for better or worse - born into. So, I trained to become a Knight, though I lacked any gift for arms or warfare. In hindsight, I think it was the romanticism that lured him; the notion of some great warrior, chosen by Godan, who devoted their entire lives to helping the weak and powerless. Surely then, I had told myself, I would redeem myself in the eyes of the world; I would turn from a frail, stuttering third-born child to a decorated Knight, worthy of my father's House. I even found what I thought to be a cure to my stutter - on the eve of my Dubbing, I swore a Vow of Silence before a priest, and since then I have spoken just once to a single person. Despite my inadequacy, I persevered, and was knighted as Ser Aleksandr Hieromar, and, because of my Vow of Silence, I took 'the Whisper' as my moniker. I sit here now in the Karosgrad Tavern, writing these memoirs, having maintained my silence for nearly five years now. My Vow of Silence allowed me to hide my stutter, and, without having to speak and show my ailment, I became confident, and stronger in spirit. I recognize now, though, that this does not come without cost; there are few in this world that I love, and practically none I call friend, but these past years I've been unable to say a word to neither Franz, nor Nataliya, nor Juliya. I did not even speak to my mother the last time I saw her alive. Still, I kept to my Vow. Many have asked me - from Franz, to the Ruthern boy who watched me train in the square just the other day - why I took this Vow. Even if I could speak, I very much doubt I could answer. At first, it was to hide my broken speech - my greatest weakness. It succeeded, but hiding a problem does not fix it. Though, then again, nothing can fix it, so this Vow is a good as solution as any. I would like to claim that another reason was to prove my dedication and chivalry to Godan, but the truth is that I was trying to prove it to everyone around me rather than Him. I wanted people to look at me in admiration of the burden I had assumed in my pursuit of knighthood, and I wanted their respect. I thought it would make me stand out from the other Knights, to be worthy of the second glances I never received in the halls of Ekaterinburg, and to build my own mythos. 'The Whisper', I told myself at night with reverence, 'an icon of Haeseni honour'. Years later, I can see now how it was antithetical to seek honour by doing something as brash as swearing never to speak again purely for the recognition and respect of others. Deep down, I think I knew that at the time, but I justified it for what I think was a much larger reason. I had nothing to say. My sole drive in life was to push out of the shadow of my stutter and inadequacy, and earn my place proudly among my family as a Knight. A Knight did not need to say anything; they merely need to live by their Code of Chivalry, and obey the will of the King and Godan. What tripe. Not long after becoming a Knight, I realized that it was laughable to think life as a Knight could be lived so simply. I trained my entire life and devoted nigh every waking hour to call myself a Knight, and to champion the virtues that all men and women should live by. It was to be both my redeeming burden and rewarding blessing. Despite the training we undergo, I soon learned that the Knight I idolized in my childhood - that chivalric champion I aspired to become with every fiber of my being - does not exist. He cannot exist. This is what I realized the other day when my nephew - King Heinrik - had the Knight Paramount whip a woman who neglected to stand when he entered the room. I desperately wanted to say something, to lessen the girl's punishment for an offence so trivial, yet what could I do? I am bound to act with unquestionable honour, but also obey the King. When the King commands dishonour, what is a Knight to do? It was then that I realized I did have something to say. It was then that I realized if I lived by that prior belief that all a Knight needed to do was follow the commands of those above, then he cannot truly be a Knight. A soldier, or executioner, perhaps, but not a Knight; not what a Knight should be in my eyes, at least, that being someone who represents what a true and honourable man or woman should be, someone who lives not just for themselves, but for the betterment of others, and not only endures this dark and wretched world, but make it better. As it is, I have come too far. I refuse to accept this ... simplicity. So how can a voiceless Prince become a true Knight in a world like this? I don't know. I suspect no one does. But that does not mean the answer does not exist, and I will find it. For now at least, all I can do is to be the model of chivalry and honour myself, even if I am yet to understand what that truly means, or if it can even exist. To that extent, my Vow of Silence will help. In the absence of speaking and interacting with the world as others do, it has given my a perspective and insight that I think most lack. An understanding - an enlightenment, almost. All my life has led to becoming a Knight - all that hardship, that curse, I endured alongside Franz, Juliya and Nataliya. It has tempered me like heat tempers a fresh sword, and I very much suspect the others would say the same. It is because of that endurance that I will not - I cannot - consign myself to be being this half-knight. With that comes the recognition that the Knight's Code of Chivalry is contradictory in acting with honour, and following the absolute will of the King and Godan, for Kings can be fools, and Godan is silent. Though I will keep my Vow for now, I have found my voice, and I will embody it in these memoirs. I hope to write many of these volumes, not only to record my life, but to note my experiences that will pave my path forward. One day, for better or worse, others may find these pages, for these pages will be my voice. These pages will be my shout. These pages will be my roar.

" ... now the Emperor won't let them marry!" Ser Aleksandr Barbanov - the Whisper Knight - overheard the scandal from gossiping courtiers as he trudged his way through the Royal Gardens to the training grounds. It was the first week of Jula and Piov, and the winter's frigid cold had finally yielded to clear skies and a warmthless sun, so the gardens were thronged with Haeseni who had been stuck indoors for most of the winter. As Aleks made his way to the training grounds, his dark, shaggy hair swaying in the chill wind, he heard the tragedy of Margaux from more than one gaggle of nobles. When he finally arrived at the training grounds, leaving the gossiping courtiers behind him, he found his gloved hand shaking as he reached for the arming sword sheathed at his belt, and when he glanced to a puddle at his feet left by yesterday's rainfall, his eyes were narrowed into a glare. At the bitter wind picked up, swaying the trees around him, Aleks recalled his own family's tales of love and woe, from Nataliya, to Juliya, to Alexandria. He had seen this kind of thing time and time again among his own, and he had never seen it end well. What a wretched man, the silent Knight thought grimly to himself as he pulled his sword out. His hands were still now, and his face statuesque once again.

remove 2nd row of hearts

Konstantin Wick: GONE FISHING “... the road wandered to moonside, then morning again …” Konstantin Wick sang softly to himself as he worked. His voice was a low, untuned murmur, and his only music was the scratching of his quill as he wrote. His stage was his office, cramped and dimly-lit in the evening’s fading light, and his audience were heaps of paper, half-finished notes and unread letters, haphazardly stacked up on his desk. “... she wound through the day, over field ‘n through fen …” He trailed off, and found himself squinting at the words on the page in front of him. When did it get so dark? He had started his work penning this report at noon, when the light was bright and pale, but that had felt like it was just ten minutes ago. As he craned his neck to look at the windows behind him, he found the deep, golden light of sunset slanting through his office, casting deep shadows. He grimaced; it had become a bad habit of his, losing track of time like that. “... and then with the stars, fled to heaven again ...” Sighing, he lazily pushed back in his chair and stood. The motion disturbed one of the stacks of paper, and sent them sprawling to the floor, but he paid the mess no more than a dismissive glance as he stepped over it - he would have the Barclay girl clean it up later. He scooped up the lantern left on a bookshelf adjacent to his desk, and then cursed under his breath when he realized there was no oil left. “... but her stones did not falter, and nor did they fade …” He continued his muttered song as he stepped over the fallen paper, and trudged to the far side of his office where he kept his spare oil. At his balcony, though, he paused; here, the open balcony faced directly into the setting sun, and Konstantin had to squint through the intense golden light as the sun slowly sank into the Karosgrad rooftops. A soft, brisk wind blew softly through the opening into his office, carrying with it the distant din of voices and laughter from the city outside. “... the path did not balk, through sun, rain, nor shade …” Despite the burnished light of the sun, the frigid Haeseni air made Konstantin’s hairs stand on end as he stepped out onto the balcony. Still squinting, he made his way to the balustrade at the edge of the rooftop, which afforded him a birds’ view of the red city that spanned out before him in every direction. “... ever forward she led, and ne’er she strayed …” He sagged against the balustrade, head resting on his forearms, as he watched the city below. In the sunset, half of Karosgrad was cast in deep shadow, and half in that burnt orange light. The strength of Konstantin’s eyes had long since begun to fade, but if he squinted, he could still make out the shapes of townsfolk thronging the streets. Craftsmen drew the shutters of their workshops, dots of torchlight began to dapple the darkened red-stone buildings, and people flocked to the Old Stout Crow Pub in the city’s square. Konstantin even thought he heard the sound of a bard’s lute resonate from the tavern - that only made him frown, though; naturally, no other Haeseni bard was remarkable compared to Konstantin Wick. As the laughter of children echoed from the square, he found himself heaving a deep sigh. “ … yet no road runs forever, not even she …” Perhaps it was his choice of song, or perhaps sight of the city beneath him, but he was suddenly beset with a strange feeling of nostalgia. He could not quite describe it. He raised his hands into the sunlight. He was an older man now - nearing his sixtieth birthday - and yet he was still surprised at his wrinkles. Had they always been so, and he had just never stopped to notice? He supposed that would be just like him. He did not only lose track of time when working in his office. It always seemed to happen. “ … though the mountains she crossed, and the forests, and sea …” His voice had grown hoarse as he absent mindedly continued the song. Though time had become a blur to him, he was not oblivious to its effects. He remembered a meeting, many years, in New Reza where he had appointed the Aulic Court’s first Jovenaar. It had been a mundane meeting, no different from any other, but he explicitly remembered something he had said: in our line of work, we do not live for ourselves. To an uninformed ear, the statement rang pitifully, but not so to Konstantin. “ … but she knows she’ll ne’er sit in the shade of her tree …” It had been thirty-one - no, thirty-two - years now that Konstantin had served as Lord Palatine, and seven of those years had been as Lord Regent while Haense had been rocked by the death of King Sigismund. All at once, it felt like a lifetime ago, and it felt like it had happened this morning. He found himself laughing mirthlessly at the notion, before the laugh transitioned into a raspy coughing fit. It took him nearly a minute to calm down, and suck in the cold evening air to settle his lungs. His years of heavy smoking were, it seemed, beginning to catch up with him. “ … t’was for others she laboured, and others she loved …” He fished his redwood pipe out of his pocket. Even since those nasty cigarettes had become popular, he had kept this pipe with him through the decades. A puff from it had always settled his temper, it had always strengthened his resolve, and it always gave him the spur he needed to keep working, to keep building his dream of Haense. His other hand froze as it reached towards the tobacco pouch on his belt, and he found himself staring absently at the pipe instead. “ … and thus she’d plant her seed, and watch from above …” As he stared at the pipe without blinking, another meeting - this one more recent - crossed his mind. He remembered asking his assistant - the Barclay girl - why she had agreed to work under him, and tolerate his infamous eccentricities. To make Haense a better place, had been her answer, and to help all those who live here however I can. At first, he had dismissed it as a boring, naive answer, the same kind of response he would get had he asked any old fool on the street. Now, though, he was not so sure it had been a bad answer. A simple one, but perhaps the drive to work to make the lives of others better could not be captured in words alone. Had I been any different when I first started on this path? He asked himself. Had my desire been so simple? “ … with no choice but to believe what she had done was enough.” No, that’s a lie. When Konstantin had first begun his path to become Lord Palatine, his motives had been selfish. He had wanted fame, he had wanted respect and recognition, both for himself and for the mired name of Wick. But only at first. That had all changed when he had met Princess Alexandria Barbanov, his wife. It was only then that his motive had become to build a better Haense, and to make the lives of the Haeseni people better however he could. All his selfish motives had melted away then, like snow in the Sutican sun. “One day, her stones grew brittle, and her gravel weak …” His eyes drifted back to the city once again. The light was fading now as the sun slowly dipped beneath Karosgrad’s crimson walls, and the shadows stretched longer, and the dots of lantern light multiplied. A better Haense … In the fleeing sun, he spotted a duo of Crow Knights marching their way down Crown Avenue, the golden crow painted on their breastplates gleaming even from this distance. He could see Brandt Barclay milling about the Golden Crow Bank on the square’s corner, putting up fresh notices on his trading board, and a few moments later a score of young men and women - students, he thought - filed past him, circling around a cloaked Jurist. “ … and she could nay look back on all she wreaked …” A better Haense. Yes. From the reformation of Knighthood, to the Haurul Caezk, to the Aulic Edict, to the Golden Crow Bank … Yes, he was confident he had achieved that simple desire as best he could. Then, a more unsettling thought skittered across his mind: why am I still here, then? He certainly did not have a plan, no goals nor roadmap to speak of. On the other hand, he had never really had a plan throughout his career at all - he had simply just done things as they popped into his head. Yet, as he stood on his office’s balcony, something felt … different from before when he had worked through his various projects. He was not quite sure what it was, but he did not like the feeling. “ … and found that … found …” He stopped singing. Am I just waiting to die? His fist closed on his pipe, smashing it in his hands, and he suddenly bellowed a hearty laugh. Waiting to die, when he had still yet to live a life for himself? That was ridiculous. He spared one last glance from the city below him as the last of the sunset light - which was nearly red, now - shone on the city. He smiled softly at what he saw, and then tossed the smashed remains of the pipe over the balcony. Konstantin dashed back into his office, then, and threw open the little cupboard behind his desk. Inside lay two items, both fashioned from pure gold. The first was his Snailula One trophy, and the other was the Golden Bulava - an intricately decorated mace - that served as the badge-of-office for the Lord Palatine. Konstantin hefted the heavy Bulava on his shoulder, grunting under its weight, before he threw open the door of his office, and took off at a sprint through the corridor. He must have looked quite a sight, running past startled courtiers and servants with a golden mace on his shoulder, but Konstantin did not spare them a thought. When he finally arrived at the doors of his apartments, he was wheezing deep breaths through his toothy grin. Inside, he found his wife - Alexandria. She seemed to have fallen asleep at the parlour table, wrapped in fur blankets, a book propped open in front of her. When Konstantin barged in, she bolted upright, wide-eyes snapping to him. “Konstantin! Has something -” “Would you like to go fishing?” he stammered over her. “I -” he paused, swallowing to wet his throat. “I promised I would take you fishing.” She lofted a surprised eyebrow. “Fishing? It’s dark out, Konstantin! Besides, that promise was years ago.” His smile twitched wider. “I have time now.” Then, a mischievous gleam crossed her eyes, and she mirrored his smile. The next morning, as the Highland sun rose over Karosgrad, its pale light glinted against the Golden Bulava. The mace was left carefully leaning against the doorway of King Heinrik’s bedroom, with a short note tied to its shaft. ‘Gone fishing.’

RIMETROLL EVENTLINE: THE LAST TO REMEMBER The Rimeveld, Northern Almaris The frozen earth of the Farm crunched under Bido's heavy footsteps. The Rimetrolls - the huge, fat creatures that had inhabited the Rimeveld in northern Almaris for centuries - were an old tribe, and even for a Rimetroll, Bido was old. He was one of the few old enough to remember a time where the Rimetrolls were not peaceful vegetarians; a time where they had not spent their days in blissful peace in the Rimeveld, with nothing to do other than raise their families and waste their days with sleep and games. He remembered a time before the Farm; before they had had an ample source of food, when they had needed to fight, slaughter, steal, and kill for their food. No crop could grow in the Rimeveld, not with the intense cold that quickly killed any creature that was not a Rimetroll. That was why, centuries ago, they had been forced to fight and steal food from the civilizations to the south. They could never have migrated to the south themselves; no, they were Rimetrolls - they were monsters, to be feared and killed. So their way of life had been to raid the farms of Descendants - or warmies, as the Rimetrolls called them - in the fertile lands of southern Almaris, and then retreat to their mountainous home in the Rimeveld. They had been a war-like race, then, who lived purely to kill others so that they could survive. But then they had been given the Farm. It had been a gift from one of the lands to the south that the Rimetrolls had raided - a totem pole, with strange faces intricately carved up its wooden length - that had been imbued with some kind of magic from that land, a magic that Bido - nor any other Rimetroll - had no hope of comprehending. But it had worked; when they had planted the Totem up in the Rimeveld, it had caused the inhospitable cold to abate around a small area, and filled the soil with life and allowed the Rimetrolls to grow their food. That had become their saving grace; no longer did they need to venture south and raid. With the Farm, they had quickly lost their ways of warfare. They had stopped eating meat, and eventually, many Rimetrolls forgot how to even fight in the first place. That was so long ago. Now, Bido was one of barely half-a-dozen Rimetrolls old enough to remember a time before the Farm. The Rimetrolls of today did not even knew what death really was, much less what it meant to kill another. Violence had been completely erased from their memory after centuries of peace and happiness. After all, why recall the horrors of war in a world where there was no concern but to raise your family? To love your mate and your children? Bido was glad that was what the Rimetroll people had become; they were no longer monsters, no longer feared nor hunted by the Descendants to the south. They were friendly to a fault, and mostly forgotten by the world anyway. Sometimes when a wayward Descendant found themselves lost in the Rimeveld and slowly succumbing to the cold, the Rimetrolls helped them; they gave them warmth, and food, and returned them back south to safety. They had forgotten violence, but Bido had not. The Farm - the source of the Rimetrolls' peace and happiness - had been burnt by Descendants some months ago now. As the snow spiralled down in a strangely calm wind, Bido stared ahead on him at the burnt husk of the Totem in the Farm's centre. It had been set ablaze by Descendants, and its magic destroyed; as a result, it no longer warded off the cold, and it had murdered the Rimetrolls' sole source of food, and their sole source of peace. The worst part was that Bido did not know why - he did not know why the Descendants had torched the heart of his people. And now, his people starved, and they barely understood what was happening, stupid as Rimetrolls were. They had ventured down south cautiously, and some of the Descendants down there had given them food, but Bido knew it would not last. He sighed deeply, his heavy breath seeping out in mist. Then, he glanced up in surprise when he saw a round shape shift at the foot of the burnt Totem. "Cob?" Bido called huskily. Cob - a younger Troll, with decorated paper talismans hanging from his curved horns - looked up in surprise. A goofy smile split his furry face as he waved a broad paw at Bido in greeting. "Bido! Hi!" he grunted cheerily. "What you doing?" Bido asked, narrowing his eyes at the younger Troll. Cob seemed to have several misshapen planks of rotted wood stuffed under his arms. "Oh, this?" Cob's smile widened as he brandished the wood. "Cob trying to fix Totem!" The wind briefly picked up, sending the snowfall into a flurry, as Bido sighed once again. "No fix, Cob. It broken." "Hruh? You sure?" Cob asked, scratching his chin with a long, grey-furred arm. "Me think if we just give Totem new wood -" "It broken, Cob," Bido cut him off with more anger than he intended, his fists balled at his side. Most of the other Trolls did not understand what magic even was, nevermind that it was the reason their Farm had been able to produce food so far north. "Oh." The planks clattered from Cob's arms to the dead soil as his smile faded. "... But...why it broken?" he asked meekly. "Warmies," Bido grunted through grit teeth as he glared at the burnt totem. The blackened faces of the wood stared back at him as the wind continued to pick up, whipping snow into his face. "They break it, Cob." "Warmies? Hruh. Guma say he meet warmies, and that they not so bad. Why warmies destroy Farm?" Bido's fists were clenched so hard that they had begun to hurt. He closed his eyes, then, and sucked in a slow breath. Cob, nor any of the other Trolls, did not understand. They did not know what violence was, and it was unfathomable for them to think that Descendants might try to harm them. It was unfathomable for them to think that anyone would want to harm anyone, for they were too young to remember what life had been like for the Rimetrolls before they had been blessed with the Farm. But Bido remembered. "Because warmies," Bido began, opening his eyes once again and unballing his fists, "are bad, Cob." "Bad?" Cob said, his face blank. "Like Yetis?" "Worse than Yetis." That produced a small gasp from Cob, but it was clear from his dull eyes that he did not really understand what Bido was saying. "But... what we do for eats, Bido? Me not has lots of food for cub, and me lady barely have any food at all." Bido glanced into Cob's eyes, then. It was clear the younger Troll didn't understand why anyone would want to harm them, but the worry was obvious in those eyes. Bido could not bear to stare into them for longer than a moment before he averted his gaze with a hiss. "You no worry, Cob," he said, gritting his jaw as he slowly turned back towards the Farm's exit. "Me ... me know a way to get food again." He did not need to look to know that Cob's face had lit up at that, and he heard the younger Troll clap his hands gleefully as he bounced from foot to foot. "You do!? Ahhh! You amazing, Bido! You smart!" "No, not smart," Bido said as he stomped out of the farm. He wasn't smart; he just remembered how Rimetrolls survived before the Farm. And so, he knew how they could survive once again.

"About time someone put those Grassheads in their place," Konstantin Wick rumbled his agreements, leaving the group of soldiers frowning in concern after they had brought the document labelled 'Rubern' to him.

FIFTH CEREMONY OF THE LILY Fifth Edict of Elevation into the Order of Queen Maya and the Lily Issued by the CROWN On this Vzmey ag Hyff of 358 E.S. VA BIRODEO I HERZENAV AG EDLERVIK By order of the Krawn, the Fifth Ceremony of the Lily is hereby called in the Spring of 358ES in order to bestow upon individuals the honour of membership into the esteemed Order of Queen Maya and the Lily in recognition of their contributions to the Kongzem of Hanseti-Ruska. Those summoned are called upon to kneel before the Krawn at the next sitting of the Royal Court, and take the following oath: “I, [Name], hereby swear my service to the Krawn and Kongzem of Haense, in obedience to law and the dignity of the nation, as well as to the benefit of the Haeseni people. I swear to protect the Haurul Caezk and the Jeremic Rights of Life, Liberty, Bearing Arms, Privacy, and Property through righteous action and pious defense, holding true in life and in deed the sanctity of my person and the Kongzem. With Godan as my witness, I do so swear.” Those listed below are the individuals called upon to recite this oath and enter the Class of 358ES of the Order of Queen Maya and the Lily: ALEKSANDRA LUDOVAR TO THE RANK OF KOSSAR, for her innovative, passionate and dedicated service as Kastellan of Settlement and exceeding the expectations placed on such an office in recognition of her success in procuring consistent immigration to the Kongzem. @AnonymousAlexa IV JOVEO MAAN His Royal Highness Henrik Karl, Grand Price of Kusoraev and Prince-Regent of the Kongzem of Hanseti-Ruska.

THE HAESENI PUB QUIZ EXTRAORDINAIR ROYALE SPECTACULAR EXTRAVAGANZA Saturday January 30th, 5PM EST/10 GMT in the Haense Tavern Do you seek riches? Admiration, perhaps? Respect, maybe? If so, reader, your noble quest has reached its climax. You have found what you seek - you have found the Haeseni Pub Quiz Extraordinaire Royale Spectacular Extravaganza, whose champions are recognized by all for their unquestionable intellect, their indominable wit, and unmatched wisdom. This Extravaganza, this tourney of the sharp-minded, summons YOU, reader, to compete this year in the Old Stout Crow Pub! Participating The Quiz Extraordinaire Royale Spectacular Extravaganze is open to any and everyone - up to a team of three people can participate. Submit the below form to register your team: Team Name: Team Members: Format The Quiz Extraordinaire Royale Spectacular Extravaganza will consist of a total of twenty questions, separated into four rounds. Round One: General Knowledge Round Two: Karosgrad Trivia Round Three: Haeseni History Round Four: Any kind of question could pop up in this last round... Teams will each be given a book to write their answer to each question, which will be collected at the end of the Quiz. The Team with the most correct answers will win, with a tie-breaker round for any equal scores. Prizes First Place: 100 Minas, an item donated by the NGS from their expedition to the Outer Nether, and a leftover relic from the Scyfling Invasion. Second Place: A free custom weapons commission from Barclay Bargains®! Third Place: Fret not, for you shall not go home empty-handed for your valiant (though ultimately vastly inadequate) efforts. Salvaged from the New Reza Wick shop, and a treasure of the family for generations, the third-place runners up will leave with their heads held high, and this secret third-place trinket...

EVIL UNMASKED Chapter III: The Raid This is part three of a five-part short story I started last year, and hopefully intend to finish by March. Before reading this part, you should read the earlier parts first. Chapter I: Far Ridge Chapter II: A Vision For ambience, you should play both these tracks at the first time, and loop the first one: The cold morning wind carried the scent of fresh smoke through the trees. What a mess this has turned into, Iblees thought irritably. Twigs and frosted grass crunched underfoot as he jogged behind the six Far Ridgers who had come to Krug's hut earlier that morning - in which Iblees had invited himself to stay as a guest - with news that a nearby farm had been raided in the night. Despite his ridiculous philosophy of no Far Ridger needing to rely on others for help, Krug had not hesitated to take the lead; he ran at the front of the line now, his shaggy hair bouncing with each lumbering step, and his jaw clenched with a determination had had not exhibited yesterday. Much like he had invited himself to spend the night in Krug's hut, Iblees had invited himself on this rescue mission too. He felt like he had little choice: for one, he could no longer let Krug keep avoiding him. Iblees had come to Far Ridge - Aegis' most wayward, northern settlement - to convince Krug that it was far past time that he followed in his brothers' footsteps and become a King, and the leader he kept pretending Far Ridge did not need. Aside from that, however, Iblees wished to see this raid - or its aftermath - for himself. The morning had brightened now, and golden sunlight fractured through the canopy of leaves overhead, but that did little to improve Iblees' mood. Raiders in Far Ridge. This is rotten timing, he thought grimly. Krug's land was all harsh widlerness, and the people here constantly warred against the elements for survival, but they were never bothered by other mortals. That was both due to how far away and remote Far Ridge was from the southern settlements ruled by Krug's brothers, and because most mortals considered Far Ridgers too much trouble to trifle with. In that sense, at least, Far Ridge was a peaceful place. All of Aegis should be peaceful, Iblees bitterly reminded himself. That was his mission, after all. When he had first descended to this mortal plane, when he had abandoned the other slothful Aenguls and Daemons, he had done so with the goal of building a paradise out of the lawless, purposeless existence of mortality. Iblees had first taught them to farm, so mortals were not at the mercy of wandering the wilderness in search of food; he had taught them to build walls and shelters, so that they were not at the mercy of the weather and elements; and, most importantly, he had taught htem to love and respect, so that they were not at the mercy of each other. Some mortals, however, are slow learners, he told himself as the smell of smoke grew stronger. He was a Daemon, and he had himself thought himself immune to fickle mortal emotions, but at that moment, his blood boiled. The stench of smoke continued to grow stronger, and the excited caws of ravens echoed from nearby, before the pine trees suddenly gave way to a long tract of grassland that rolled out into distant hills. Just a short distance from where the trees stopped lay the farm, and Iblees skid to a halt at the sight of it. Columns of wispy smoke curled up from the burnt thatch roof of a long hut, and ravens perched on the motionless corpses of goats in the pastures bloodied their beaks on the bodies. They slaughtered the animals. The irrational anger swelled up in Iblees again; usually, raiders seldom bothered stealing livestock, since they were too cumbersome to flee with, or butchered and ate them on the scene. That the raiders had left dead animals behind without eating them meant they had been killed for sport. "FAN OUT AND SEARCH!" Krug roared, his voice splitting the silence like thunder. The ravens took flight in alarm as he stomped towards the hut with his axes in hand, which Iblees eyed with concern. Tools purely for killing. At Krug's command, the other Far Ridgers gripped their hunting spears and wood-axes - which, unlike Krug's axes, were tools for hunting and woodcutting - and cautiously spread out across the smoke-hazed field. Iblees did not follow. Instead, as the frigid wind swept across the field and filled his nostrils with the sharp scent of smoke and blood, he closed his eyes. As a Daemon, he had powers beyond mortal reckoning, though he had not used them in a very long time. As part of his mission to guide mortals to paradise, he knew he had to do what no other Aengul nor Daemon could: he had to understand mortals, and how their strange minds worked, so he had lived just like one, seldom using his powers. At that moment, though, he tapped into those long-dormant powers, and as he exhaled slowly, he was suddenly aware of everything around him: he could sense the lifeforce of Krug and the other Far Ridgers, pulsating like warm energy; he could sense the ravens nearby, perched on trees and the burnt roof, cawing impatiently as they waited for the Far Ridgers to clear off so they could resume feasting; and he could sense hundreds upon hundreds of creatures in the woods behind him, from insects to hibernating bears. He felt a flood of relief, however, when he sensed life inside the farm hut. Survivors. After seeing the animals so wastefully slaughtered, he had feared the worst for the farmers themselves. He began to walk towards the hut before he abruptly stumbled down on his knees in the frozen earth, and pressed a hand to his forehead as his vision swam; he could feel the frosted grass being crushed under his own weight, and thousnads of leaves tremble in the wind as if he himself was every one of those leaves. It was an inexplicable sensation, so much so that he had forgotten what it was like to use his Daemonic powers. He had inhabited this mortal vessel as a disguise for far too long that even a small exertion of power render this body disoriented and nauseous. He laughed bitterly under his breath. I suppose this means I have succeeded in learning to be one of them. His joy, mirthless as it was, was quickly forgotten as he staggered back to his feet, his vision stabilizing as that sensation of awareness faded. When he started to walk again, it was with slow, clumsy steps. Fanning the smoke out of his face as he drew close to the hut, Iblees brushed past two Far Ridgers examining the nearest goat carcass. They both frowned, and gave Iblees concerned looks. He thought one of them might have said something, but disoriented as he was, he did not hear. Instead, he stepped over the farmhouse door - which had been crudely hacked apart with an axe - and found himself inside the hut's smokey interior. The hut itself had not been burnt - just the roof - but the smoke from the burnt thatch hung heavy. Krug's cloaked form dominated the room, and another Far Ridger stood beside him, but Iblees' attention immediately shot to the row of people against the back wall of the hut. The farmers. There were seven of the farmers in total, and Iblees' could tell immediately that four of them - two women, a man and an adolescent boy - were dead, glazed eyes staring up at the burnt thatch. The other three were alive; a grown woman and a young girl, their auburn hair a tangled mess and their faces stark white, stood in front of a man with a blood-soaked bandage wound over his chest, clutching skinning knives defensively. All seven of the farmers - the dead and the living - wore their sleeping clothes, with the women in coarse shifts and the men shirtless, and in breeches, their linens shredded and bloodied by the weapons that had killed them. The only weapons they seemed to have were short knifes, more cutlery than weapons. They barely had a chance to defend themselves. "The raiders," Krug grunted as he scanned the bodies. "They are gone?" The surviving woman's wide eyes - red and watering from the smoke - frantically scanned Krug and the others, but as she recognized them, she slowly lowered her knife, and clutched her daughter close, who still brandished her knife in shaking hands. "Yes," the woman answered hoarsely. "M-my brother Pad and h-his son, Aggan ... th-they drove them into the woods, but they haven't returned yet." When the man sagged behind the woman and her daughter managed a wheezing breath, Iblees brushed past Krug. He moved to kneel down beside the injured man, before the young girl flashed forward, lunging at him with her knife. Iblees stumbled back in surprise, right before the mother grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back and holding her to her chest. "I'm going to help him," Iblees said softly to the girl, who must have been the man's daughter. That much was obvious from her defensive reaction, and the way so looked at Iblees with the irrational hatred he himself had felt when they first arrived at the farm. That was what startled Iblees about her face; she did not cry, nor even look half as afraid as her mother. No, her expression was one of hatred. Hatred not for him, but hatred for the world. Iblees reached up slowly, placing a hand on the dagger and gently lowering it. "Is that okay?" With her mother stroking her hair, constantly muttering "It's okay, it's okay," the girl nodded slowly, and she let the knife clatter to the floor. "He didn't do anything wrong," she breathed, her voice barely audible even to Iblees' enhanced hearing. Iblees had not asked for it, but the girl's expression, and the hate in her eyes, was a stark reminder of why he had to turn this world into paradise. As he looked back to the wounded man, his face slick with sweat and his breathing like a shallow whistle, Iblees realized he still had a long way to go. "Krug," Iblees said as he carefully peeled back the bloodied linen bandage around the man's breast. "Take the wife and daughter outside, and get them some clothes to warm up. They will freeze in this cold." He grimaced at the sight of the thin, but deep gash running across the man's diaphragm. It oozed blood, but that was not the problem; the man's lungs had been punctured. "Take the bodies outside, too, and see them buried. Then leave me alone to heal this man." The man didn't appear to be conscious, but alive - for now. With a wound like this, he will die. Iblees was quite certain of that. Behind him, Iblees could practically sense Krug's discontent at taking command from him, though he acknowledged it with a curt grunt. "Do as he says," he told the other Far Ridger. Within a few moments, the mother and daughter had been shepherded outside, and the bodies were carried out. Krug, however, had not moved. "You are not going to help them, Chief?" Iblees asked mildly. He removed his canteen from his belt, lifted the man's bandages, and sprinkled water on the wound. "Do not call me that." "Oh, you must forgive me. Everyone else seems to call you that," he said innocently. "I asked to be left alone." "I heard you." Iblees stifled a sigh. Though he was a renowned healer - as a Daemon, he understood the mortal body better than mortals themselves - he could not sew a lung back together. Not through natural means. No, he would have to use his powers again, and he did not wish for anyone - especially Krug, of all people - to see him perform a miracle. After all, he had raised Krug and his brothers with the warning that any magical being was never to be trusted, for he feared that one day the other Aenguls and Daemons might take a selfish interest in the mortal plane after Iblees had tamed it. It would not do at all for Krug to learn that Iblees was more than the wise mortal he claimed to be. No matter. I will just have to perform. He carried a number of herbs and poultices with him on his travels, for he always passed towns and villages in need of care, and so he would simply have to pretend he was using those supplies to heal the man while he would really use his powers. "Well, if you wish to stay, tell me; do you know what could have prevented this tragedy?" he asked as pulled out his pouch of Tippen's Root. Krug scoffed. "You think to have this conversation again? Now?" "Leadership could have prevented this," Iblees went on calmly. "Silence yourself, Wizard," Krug hissed. "I have no patience for this. Not now." "Not now? Has the raid soured your mood? Take a good look then, Krug. It is a consequence of your neglect." Iblees kept his voice nonchalant, as if discussing the weather. "If you had listened to me, if you had stepped up as the leader you were meant to be and helped your people prepare for these problems-" "I said silence." Iblees raised his voice, patiently speaking over Krug's objections. "If you had organized defenses, if you had a militia to respond and walls to defend, none of this might have happened. Do you know what your brothers do to prevent these raids in the south?" "I will not be like my brothers. I-" "In Horen's land," Iblees hushed him, "bands of horsemen patrol the outer territories every night and respond quickly to any threat. Malin's folk have beacon towers all across their land, and when one is lit to signal a threat the entire population knows within the hour. Then Urguan, of course, has his people build on hilltops and protect their farms with walls of stone. But then here, you just leave your people to fend for themselves." "That is how-" "That is how they become strong, yes, yes, I'm familiar with that prattle. Tell me something, then; those dead bodies carried out just now - is that your idea of strength, Krug? Did you see that girl's face? Is that strength? Seeing her father, her family, cut down in the night?" When Krug's only response was a sharp inhale, Iblees continued. "It is not just raids, of course. It is everything. Your brothers have food stores, unlike you. If famine strikes, they will not be wiped out. If you just listened to me -" "If I listened to you?" Krug flared. The blackened floorboards creaked as he took a step forward. "Pray tell, then, Wizard. If your counsel is so wise, then why are there raids at all? If you and my brothers have cultivated such a paradise in the south, why do their people come up here raiding?" Iblees paused, his fingers bloodied from pressing against the wound. "A fair point," he muttered softly. He had no answer; no matter how much he tried to teach mortals, no matter how far they had come towards building his paradise, there were still mortals who preferred to steal from others rather than provide for themselves. Then, there were other mortals who simply enjoyed cruelty and bloodshed. Iblees could not understand why the Creator had ever made people so evil. Despite his inability to answer Krug - and himself, to an extent - the argument had served its purpose: he had riled Krug up enough so that he did not notice Iblees exerting his power, and the man's wound began to miraculously close with the flesh and lung alike knit back together as if they had never been rent in the first place. Thoughout the healing, Iblees had kept his back to Krug while idly sprinkling herbs and poultices on the wounds, with Krug too agitated by Iblees' remarks to notice what was happening. Despite that, Iblees did mean every word he had said. "Now then." Iblees said after he tightened the cloth back around the man's chest, his breathing returned to a slow rise-and-fall. "Get him somewhere warm, and get some water into him," he told Krug dismissively as he wiped the blood on his cloak, and strode to the door. "And where are you going?" Krug asked, his eyes still brimming with disdain. "The wife, she said that two others followed the bandits into the woods and hadn't returned yet. I'm going to see if they have grown strong, too," he chided, and left Krug standing alone in the smokey hut. Outside, Iblees found much of the smoke had cleared to admit the golden, warmthless sun. The Far Ridgers were still spread out across the fields, looking about cautiously, and a small fire had been set in a distant pasture - well away from the burnt hut - where the wife and daughter huddled together under a cloak. Their eyes snapped up as Iblees stepped out, despite the distance, and bewildered smiles broke out on their teary faces when Iblees gave them a slow nod to confirm the man would recover. Then, he turned to the bodies of the farmers lined up on the ground just outside the hut. A Far Ridger - a woman with a proud, beak-like nose - stood overlooking them with a bleak look. "Has anyone checked the woods?" The woman's eyes were startled as she looked up, as if she had become lost in thought while staring at the bodies. Looking into the glazed eyes of the dead adolescent boy, Iblees decided he could not blame her. "The woods? No." "Two other farmers followed the bandits there, supposedly," he said, before he sighed and started towards the pine trees. "Never mind. I shall check myself." That suited him fine. He had had enough of Far Ridgers and their stubbornness for one day. A moment later, however, the grass crunched behind him as the woman jogged to catch up to him, a boar spear in her hand. "The raiders may still be there?" "They may well be." "Good," the woman said coolly. "I will kill them for what they have done here." Something about the way the woman said that, something about the eagerness in her voice, made Iblees pause. With those piercing eyes and beak-like nose, she had the look of a proud hawk - Iblees recognized her. "Your name is Grahla, yes?" When the woman blinked in surprise and nodded, Iblees explained, "Yes, I remember you. Thirteen years ago when I came visiting, Krug held a boar hunt in my honour. You were the winner, if I recall rightly." He knew he did recall rightly; a Daemon's memory was without fault. Still, it was bittersweet to think back on a time where Krug had celebrated his visits to Far Ridge, though Iblees had never asked for that. Krug had always been slow to trust Iblees compared to his brothers, but at least back then he had still resembled the curious boy that Iblees had raised to be a king. He sighed, and resumed walking towards the trees again. The look in her eyes was too similar to Krug's. "I heard you argue with Krug," Grahla said as she trailed behind him. "What you said about us needing to be like the south ... it is wrong." "And why is that?" Iblees asked dismissively. "Because strength and might makes you different from the Horen, Malin and Urguan's people? You saw those bodies yourself, Grahla. You saw how they were cut down in their beds before they could even defend themselves. What strength did they lack?" He shook his head. "Survival of the fittest few is the death of the weaker many. If you think that should be the way of the world, I suggest you tell that to the farmer's daughter. See if your answer remains the same." When Grahla called, "It is not that," Iblees paused and cast a look at her over his shoulder. "No?" Grahla steeled her gaze, staring back at him defiantly. "Because the southerners have conquered nature, they make an enemy of themselves." Despite everything, Iblees barked a laugh. "Ha! You have a sharp mind, Grahla." Seldom did Far Ridgers actually understand Krug's philosophy of uniting people against nature, against the harsh world, so that they did not devolve into fighting each other. In the south, where life was much easier than in Far Ridge, mortals often schemed against each other in pursuit of more power, wealth and influence. It was another sickening reality of mortality, a dark trait that all mortals seemed to possess to some extent, and while it was true that Krug kept his people peaceful and united up here, it was also merely hiding from the problem. With his counsel, with strong leadership and direction, Iblees knew they could build a paradise where that dark side of mortality need never rear its head. He just needed Krug to trust him. "You needn't worry about Krug and I's disagreement," he said as he continued walking. One way or another, that 'disagreement' will be settled soon. He could not afford to delay anymore. Grahla remained silently following him as he stepped into the forest. Once again, he closed his eyes, and tapped into his powers to sense everything around him once more. An overflow of life assailed his Daemonic senses, but he had little difficulty detecting mortal lifeforms just a little further into the trees. There were not many, which Iblees meant hoped meant it was just the other farmers and not the raiders. As he relinquished his enhanced senses, he did not make the mistake of moving this time, and instead let him readjust to the rudimentary senses of his mortal body. "You call Krug by his name." He had to wait a few moments before he regained his balance, and he supposed Grahla made for interesting conversation. "He does not like it when he is called Chief." "He told you that?" "No," Grahla said pensively, no doubt wondering why Iblees was just standing there. "But I can tell from his face when people say it." "A sharp girl indeed." He was relieved when he kept his balance after taking a step forward, though his body still felt sluggish, and he started towards where he had sensed life. He carried only a small dagger with him, but he was not afraid of running into the raiders. Iblees was only afraid of three things: the possibility of other Aenguls or Daemons interfering with his work; the risk of war between the civilizations he had so carefully nurtured; and, lastly, what he would have to do if he could not convince Krug to listen to him. As the pair of them waded through the foliage, with the sunlight breaching the canopy to cast bright gold fractures through the forest's deep shadows, it was not long before Iblees heard the sound of metal ringing against metal. He took off running and, mere moments later, pushed out into a small clearing of pine trees to find one of the farmers - shirtless, and wearing unlaced boots - brandishing a wood-axe, facing a shorter male whose lean form was offset by bundles of fur. One of Malin's people, Iblees realized instantly from narrow face under the man's wolfskin cowl. The raider gripped a wood shield and an axe of his own, but he had barely looked up towards Iblees in surprise when Grahla surged forward and skewered his torso with her spear. Spitting up blood, the raider was pinned to the tree behind him by Grahla's impale. Her face twisted with rage, Grahla pulled out her blood-soaked spear and thrust it into the raider again several times before Iblees pulled her back. "It is done," he told her firmly. "Do not take pleasure from it." She swivelled her hateful gaze between Iblees and the raider, and he breathed a silent breath of relief when she nodded begrudingly and stepped back, though not without spitting on the raider first. "Are you hurt?" Iblees asked the Far Ridger who had been fighting him. He did not seem to be injured, but the fellow was sweating all over, and heaving deep breaths from exhaustion. "No," he panted. "He - he was too slow to strike me. Thank you for the aid, Wizard." Iblees' eyes drifted back to the wounded raider as blood pumped from his wounds. "Your kin on the farm," he said to the Far Ridger. "She said two of you followed the raiders here. Where is the other?" "We did not mean to fight them, merely see where they were going to hide," the man said as he leaned on his knees to catch his breath. "My son Aggan, I told him to run when this craven lagged behind and spotted us." "Aggan has not returned to the farm yet," Grahla muttered concernedly. "He cannot have gone far - you two go and look for him," Iblees said, though he did not not take his eyes off the wheezing raider, who glared back up at him. "I have some questions for this one." Murmuring their agreement, the two Far Ridgers made their way off through the trees. Iblees remained standing there silently for a few moments, and then briefly tapped into his powers again to confirm that Grahla and the man had moved far off. He could sense a third mortal somewhere out there in the woods, which must have been Aggan. Releasing the sensation again, Iblees crouched down beside the raider. "You are from Malin's land?" The raider gave no answer, though it was clear he could understand Iblees despite his wounds. "Why did you come here?" Iblees pressed. "A bad harvest? Did you think you would find easy pickings? Or do you simply enjoy killing?" This time, the raider did answer: he spat a glob of blood on Iblees. Iblees simply let the blood roll down his cheek. "If you tell me why you came here and where I can find your friends, I will make your death quick and painless." Iblees could use his powers to heal the raider, but he had no intention of doing so. Mortals like you have no place in my paradise. "Wh ... what does it matter?" the raider managed through clenched teeth. "I will die ... all the same ..." "And as you die, remain unrepentant?" Iblees stood, looking down on the raider. "You should know that there are fates worse than death." Then, Iblees let his Daemonic power flood through him. His mortal flesh burned and blackened, unable to withstand such energy, and his veins glowed like fire. He grew taller, his limbs elongating as his flesh burned away, and wisps of deepl black smoke began to radiate from him. A Daemon had no true form - they were simply a powerful, sentient energy - but Iblees took this one now to intimidate the raider into submission. All around him, pine needles began to burn from the heat of his power. "Last chance," he intoned in an impossibly deep voice, his breath exhaling cinders. He had hoped to frighten the raider into answering, but the gambit was more effective than he intended; the fellow's eyes shot open, and he began to shriek and push himself back against the tree. His mind had snapped at the sight of Iblees' Daemonic form. Sighing out more cinders, Iblees raised a hand with long, black claws, and silenced the raider's maddened shrieks with a slash across the throat. A wasted effort, he thought bitterly. So far, everything had worked against him today. He willed his form to shrink, and began to rebuild his mortal body - he had physically burnt out his mortal vessel with his little display of power, and so now he drew on the lifeforce of the trees around him, causing the pine needles and plants to wither, as he regenerated his body. When it was done, he sagged forward against the tree. He had barely used his powers at all in his centuries of living as a mortal, and now in a single morning he had used it thrice. The nausea returned in force as he resumed his mortal sensations, and he began to retch on the ground. I will build paradise, he told himself as he stared down at the raider's body, his body still smouldering from residual power. I must - A twig snapped behind him. Iblees' whirled around to find a white-faced young boy on the other side of the clearing. Aggan. The farmer's son. Iblees' heart sank; in his occupation with the raider, he had not noticed one of the lifeforms draw closer to him. The child's eyes were wide open, shimmering with terrible realisation. "Child," Iblees asked slowly, though he knew steam still trailed off from his newly-formed skin. "How much did you see?" When the child took off sprinting back towards the farm, Iblees pinched his nose, and sighed deeply. Everything was going wrong today. He pulled out his dagger.

me happy.

Rimetroll Eventline: The Trolltryst A Rimetroll in the Rimeveld Oxx, Chief of the Rimetrolls, sighed. A Trolltryst was meant to be a joyous occassion, but today certainly was not one. The Rimetrolls of the Rimeveld were the last surviving clan of Trolls - for good reason - and a Trolltryst was a meeting of their entire people. The Rimetrolls had inhabited the Rimeveld for centuries, but these meetings had only ever been called four times; the first was when they had first invented the Trolltryst, and decided on the name because the then-Chief - Ugga - had heard the word 'tryst' from a human and thought it was funny; the second Trolltryst had been when they were given the gift of farming, ending their need to venture south to steal food from the Descendants; the third had been Oxx's five-hundredth birthday; and the fourth was today. The fourth was indeed bleak compared to the prior three. Oxx sat hunched in his cave, staring at his distorted reflection in the ice; his age had really began to show, with his once-brown fur turned pale silver, the flesh beneath that fur wrinkled, and his curled horns brittle and frail. In the cavern just beyond his personal cave, the rest of the Rimetrolls awaited him. Oxx thought they would share his anxiety, but that hardly seemed to be the case - he could hear dull chatter, even laughter, echo from the cavern. He could even hear one of them playing the ice chimes! While, at first, he had thought it good that the Rimetrolls were not panicked, but now he knew that they did not realize the dire situation they faced. The Rimetrolls had never been an intelligent breed, but what was worse was that some Trolls - like Oxx - were not ignorant of that fact, of that crippling limitation. With another deep sigh, he looked about his cave. He knew he was procrastinating, but he just wanted a few more minutes before he had to face his people, and decide what they would do. His cave was a little one, a cozy little alcove carved from ice - like all Rimetroll caves - lit by a small fire in its centre that made the rest of the cave shimmer faintly as the surface ice turned to water, though it would take a fire a thousand times as hot to actually melt the Rimeveld's thick, thick ice. He had a few personal affects scattered about the place, including a tattered human banner - so faded that Oxx could no longer make out the bear-and-bull crest emblazoned on it - from the Descendants that had given the Rimetrolls the gift of farming, the horns of his dear old friend and mentor Ugga, last chief of the Rimetrolls, and the horns of his father Tog, and then there was his carved staff, a thick white-stone club engraved with intricate spirals. Slowly, he stood, his horns brushing the ceiling of the cave, and gingerly picked up the staff. As he took a few slow steps towards the mouth of his cave, he glanced back to the horns hung on the walls; Ugga and his father had lived through much harder times, when Rimetrolls had to fight, steal and kill just to feed themselves. If they could keep the Rimetrolls alive through all that, then Oxx could certainly do this. Despite that, looking at the horns only instilled him with sadness, and with mourning for his old friend and dear old father. Despite his position as Chief, at that moment as he looked at the horns of the fallen, he felt very much alone. Steeling himself as best he could, he ducked under the low-ceiling of the cave's entrance, and out into the cavern beyond. The mountains that dotted the Rimeveld were hollow in parts, with giant caverns like this one having been carved out by Rimetrolls long ago. The pale light of the frozen mountains above entered the cavern through a crevasse far overhead, through which snow gently flickered down to where the rest of the Rimetrolls were gathered in anticipation. It had been over one-hundred years since the last Trolltryst, and Oxx found himself taken aback by the sight of all the Rimetrolls gathered in one place. The cavern was packed with grey-skinned males, the shortest of whom was nine-foot and the tallest fourteen, and all of them as wide as a boulder with small, stubby heads mounted with curled horns; and then there were white-furred females, who lacked horns but were taller than the males, many of whom had tiny cubs on their backs on in their arms. The Rimetrolls had never been a big clan, and they had lost hundreds of their kind in the time where they had needed to fight for their food, but it filled Oxx with pride to see nearly two hundred of his people left, and resolve to keep it that way. As Oxx entered, their grunting conversations slowly died, and Mumo - who was playing the ice chimes - abruptly ceased his playing. Nearly two hundred beady trolls eyes turned to Oxx expectantly. " ... Hullo," Oxx grunted after a moment, his gravelly voice echoing through the cavern, as did his footsteps and the tap of his staff as he made his way across the ice, towards the centre of the cavern where the snow filtered down from the mountain. The cavern rumbled as nearly two hundred Troll voices grunted back. "Hullo, Oxx." "Hi Chief." "Where Rumbo?" "You have any food, Chief?" "Slobz still gone too." Oxx slammed his staff against the ice, and signalled for them to quieten. The cavern grew hushed again, and as Oxx looked around into the clueless faces of the Rimetroll, he, despite being far older than most of them, felt just as lost. But he was the Chief and, like Ugga once told him, he had to at least pretend to know what to do. Slowly, he sat, and the Trolls all around him did likewise to signal the start of the Trolltryst. " ... Everyone know why we here," Oxx began at last, his voice echoing through every nook of the cavern. "The farm gone." Centuries ago, when the Rimetrolls raided the old human realm of Balian for their food, stealing their harvest and inflicting famine. There had been fighting - for a time - but back then, the Rimetrolls had been a warrior clan, and even the masses of the human armies struggled to hold them off. Instead, however, the Balians had made a gift; they had given the Rimetrolls a Totem pole, imbued with some of their magic that was far beyond Oxx's understanding, that allowed crops to grow in the frigid Rimeveld, where no plant would ever naturally grow. That had signalled a new age for the Rimetrolls, and all of Almaris, where Oxx and his people no longer needed to steal, to fight, to kill to feed themselves. Now, they grew their own food, fed themselves, and fought no one. Then, a few days ago, when humans had come into the Rimeveld exploring, that Totem had been burnt. Just like that, the Rimetroll's farm, their sole source of food - their sole source of peace - had withered up and died once it lost its magical protection from the Totem, and was instantly murdered by the cold of the Rimeveld. "Lots of farms south, though!" one of the female trolls, Shog, perked up cheerily. "Me and Rumb go other day. Got lots of food." She grinned goofily, and pat the tiny Troll cub cuddled up on her shoulder. A few of the other Trolls rumbled in agreement. "Lots and lots," one of the males, Skipz, added. "It further away, be more food than before." Other Rimetrolls - the smarter ones - were frowning, though. "Rumbo and Slobz go to south to get food, um ..." the Rimetroll who was speaking - Hig - counted on his fingers, muttering to himself before he stuck up three sausage-sized fingers. "They been gone this many days!" Uncertain grunts rippled across the crowd. "They ... they dead?" "Na, na, they just lost, me think." Oxx sighed again. He knew for certain that Rumbo and Slobz were not lost; they had gone south to steal food for the humans and they had been killed, just like in the old days. It had happened hundreds of years ago, before the Rimetrolls could grow their own food, and Oxx was deathly afraid that it was about to happen all over again. "They dead," Oxx said, silencing the crowd and drawing surprised stares from the other Trolls. "They dead, because the food in south belong to others. Not us." "But ... then what we eat?" Mumo asked meekly. "If we try to take food, they try stop us," Oxx replied as calmly as he could. "It simple." "But ... me take food, and no problem," Shog added, frowning as she patted her cub. "Me 'n Gog, too," Skipz added. "You lucky, then," Oxx grunted. "We -" He was cut off by a loud growl from one of the Rimetrolls as they stood. Oxx recognized the Troll instantly; Bido was distinct with his darker, shaggier fur, which some Trolls said he had because his father had been a different breed of Troll - one of the nigh-extinct violent ogres who destroyed entire villages long ago - while others said it was because he was bad at grooming himself. Either way, he was one of the eldest Rimetrolls, almost as old as Oxx himself, and Bido was one of the only other surviving Trolls from the time where they had raided and killed for their food. "This stupid," Bido growled, narrowed eyes sweeping across the gathered Rimetrolls. "These humans destroy our farm! It was they who burn Totem! And now, when we go to take their food after they ruin ours, they kill us!" Oxx watched in concern as some of the Rimetrolls nodded at Bido's words, mirroring his glare. "Oxx right! It very simple!" Bido went on, balling a shaggy-furred fist. "They take our food, so we take theirs!" Hig frowned, scratching his chin with a long arm. "But ... Oxx say they stop us. They kill us, like Rumbo and Slobz ..." "Then we kill them first," Bido retorted, prompting gasps and surprised grunts from the crowd. "No, Bido," Oxx intoned, rising to his feet with a glare of his own. "That not our way." He jabbed a finger at one of the symbols on his staff. "We no kill!" When the old humans had gifted them their Totem, gifted them food, Oxx had been the Rimetroll who promised that they would never fight, never kill, again. Rimetrolls had not even eaten meat for centuries, much less killed someone. "That same symbol was on Totem," Bido shot back. "And human burn it!" A growing number of the Rimetrolls began to echo their agreement, and that infuriated Oxx; they had no idea what Bido was arguing for, and what his words really meant. "We no want to, but we have no choice, Oxx! What else can we do?" Abruptly, the cavern fell dead silent. The Rimetrolls all looked to Oxx, with the same question in their eyes; what else can we do? " ... We ... speak to humans," Oxx said uncertainly. That was the only other possibility that came to mind, and he had serious doubts about it. "We - we see if they can fix Totem, or give us food." Bido, across the crowd, narrowed his eyes as the silence resumed. At last, he spoke, and quietly asked. "And if that no work?" "If that no work ..." Oxx closed his eyes, and sighed. Once again, despite the hundreds of Rimetrolls around him, he felt all alone. " ... If that no work," he said, opening his eyes. "We do it your way."

With a weary sigh, Konstantin sagged back against his office door as he closed it behind him. He could still smell the smoke of the pyre, wafting it through his balcony, and the usual din of Karosgrad seemed muted tonight. He remained leaning against the door for a long moment, before he sighed once again and ran a hand through his iron-grey hair. He trudged across the paper-strewn floor to his liquor cabinet, and picked out his favourite vintage of Wick Wine; his Outhouse Brandy. A few moments later, he stood on the balcony, overlooking the buildings of Karosgrad glow with torchlight beneath him. He gently poured the brandy into a small clay cup, and then fastened the cork back in before he raised the cup towards the crescent moon in a toast, and drank.

Snail Owner: Konstantin Wick Snail Name: Slicky Wicky Residence: Nikirala Prikaz

Letter to the Aulic Court Regarding Trials KRUSAE ZWY KONGZEM Issued by THE OFFICE OF THE PALATINE On this 11th day of Tov and Yermey of 355ES VA VE JOVENAAR I HAENSE, The Office Palatine sees fit to refer to the Aulic Court on the composition of trials, specifically trials with a need to be done quickly and efficiently in circumstances where three Jovenaar may not be available. The Palatine is thus considering several possibilities, including 'citizen' and 'non-citizen' or 'flight' trials: the former would be in cases where a Haeseni citizen is charged, and there is little danger of the charged citizen fleeing the Kingdom; the latter would be in cases where a suspect is charged and arrested but is liable to flee if court proceedings are delayed, thus giving rise to a need for quicker sittings of the Court with lesser Jovenaar. Another possible solution under consideration by the Palatine is that all trials will only require an odd number of Jovenaar. This matter is not one of legal interpretation; rather, it pertains to amending the Jura i Sparveed out of practical necessity to better accommodate justice, and so it is prudent to seek the opinion of the Jovenaar in that regard. His Excellency, Konstantin Wick HKML Lord Palatine of the Kingdom of Hanseti-Ruska

god who woulda guessed telanir would yet again lead a team to ruin; Anyway that's a shame sorry to see you go; take care and thanks for your work.

Ok yeah this is what I was looking for. This is different from the example you cited from the rules, because you specifically cited some kind of wrongdoing or violation of an agreement. Having a defensive agreement with another nation is not a violation, nor is that nation getting attacked unless you're included in a three-way agreement with your allied nation and the attacking nation. The Rules need to be amended to reflect this because it's not at all clear that an alliance with no violations will get you a CB. We've discussed why raids are useless, NotEvil also covered supplies pretty well now that we've moved past bronze, and chain allies and 'organizing' still doesn't count for much when we've a 2 tile movement to contend with. These just feel like really band-aid solutions to a problem that doesn't really exist and can't really be justified.

This is still loaded with presumptions here and that's my issue. An ally being able to participate in a war is contingent on the presumed existence of these circumstances that just aren't always going to exist. A war having already happened with a requirement is a circumstantial presumption in the same way it is in the treaty example I listed above. This is circumstantial response to a general concern as to how allies can actually participate in a war with this silly 2 tile limit. If you remove your circumstantial examples, we're still left with no guidance as to how an ally interacts with a war - how would this be navigated if a war involving no treaties were to happen today? It's completely unclear, and that's the problem. If your answer is 'nothing', then that feeds back the purpose of alliances and diplomacy being drastically undermined. I'm not advocating for complete teleportation with no obstacles; I specifically advocated that you should be restricted if you're blocked by enemy or uncooperative-neutral territory. Anything more than that (and ships if crossing water) is an over-ambitious approach that has been tried and failed in the past. But let's for argument's sake agree on that. It still does not justify a flat 2 tile limit in any way. There's no reason to tailor this to the 'possibility of expansion' and a requirement to spend tens of thousands of a mina just to walk a few extra hundred blocks when this makes zero sense with the RP motive cited by the Rules themselves. If you want to retain some element of realism, then make it something like 5-7. 2, however, is just silly and once again is detrimental to diplomacy and alliances. Great, thanks. NotEvilAtAll actually touched fairly well on why this approach doesn't really make sense for these rules. At the end of the day, you're still undermining diplomacy and alliances to the extent where they are significantly less valuable in favour of larger nations. As a result, there's less incentive to RP and meet and build relations and marry and all that other jazz with other nations and, as a result, there's less RP being created from this goal. 'Raid' assistance, for the reasons described by NotEvil, is just not really compelling in light of that.