critter

Henrik Amador begins the unending movement of his legal texts from his own private office to the Duma Hall, interrogating his army of daughters on preceding Lord and Lady Speakers the whole long march long.

1350 A.H. - Present ─── From Ashes, We Rise EST 143 E.S. - Present | 1590 A.H. - Present ⋅ ───⊱༺⠀☨⠀༻⊰─── ⋅ ⋅ ───────────────⊱༺⠀I⠀༻⊰─────────────── ⋅ IN THIS YEAR OF OUR GODAN AND HIS PROPHET FIVE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE, I ATTEST to my witnessing of HORRORS I would not have thought possible in this world while on the road to Reinmar. We had ridden at the behest of the young Lord Siegmund Weiss, who came to our party gathered outside the Esrova Palace to report on the attack of Inferni upon Reinmar. I rode with a student of medicine intending to act upon the field as medics: but upon our arrival our horse was impaled on the weaponry of a beast at least nine heads tall, with wings like a bat’s but sized like a drake’s, and the head of a bull. Its axe wounded my leg before I might have drawn blade or alchemy, and I fell into the water-ditch of the field, whereon healers tried and failed to remove my wounded body from battle. ABOVE US formed some abominable thing beyond fathom, named GASHADOKURO and identified to me as something beyond LICH. I would have died in its shadow were it not for the past kindness of some ancestor of mine, who encountered that dark servant which meant to slay me before its corruption, and by terrible whim it warped its last shred of human memory to spare me as its messenger. Accordingly I mark the events of this strange and terrible month in my house’s annals, and in rare fashion choose to print them and store them amongst these archives so they might, perhaps, be of any service or insight to those who face these dark beasts in the trials to come. Among their ranks we on the field had observed witches, some of Descendant stature, who could summon projectiles of ice which wounded like the worst of crossbow bolts. There was the bull-headed thing, and some like it with many limbs, and maws where a gut would be. Others were as skeletons draped in aged cloth, and among them GASHADOKURO itself, who summoned a cry which struck fear into even its own servantry so powerful they were forced to flee. I do not possess a memory so acute I could definitively identify any of these abominations, though those familiar with the spawn of Iblees will surely recognize some features of common dreadspawn. They addressed each other once, at least, as ‘brothers,’ which I took to imply the bond somewhere between those of Azdrazi or soldiers: forged in the occult and battle alike. Our forces waned upon initial contact. Many among us who rode to Reinmar from the North were decades younger than I: initiates and aspirants brought to witness the blooding of blades, and instead foisted onto an unexpected frontline without reinforcement. They were slain with glee, and their deaths used to taunt those archers still within the city walls. The corpses of the fallen were raised as trophies. One dark figure shifted into the proximity of Gashadakoro and glowed as if an ember in the flame. I lose memory after this moment. I do recall the legacy of AMAYA of VENZIA, the Martyr Queen, so recently codified in grief and memory: and I vow to my house and to myself that I shall never, for every day I draw breath, allow a call to the battle against the Infernal go unheeded. I am no champion of light: but I am a man of history, and a man who knows war, and a man who refuses to live on the side of cowardice. It is the gift of GODAN I live, and so in GODAN’s name I fight. Until the next crossing of our blades. PETRAVEZK IV VATRAGAN, His Excellency, Henrik III Edvard Amador, Lord Speaker of His Majesty’s Royal Duma, Viscount of Zvezlund, Baron of Mondstadt, Lord Archivist to the Royal Valdev Library A depiction of the carnage wrought in the fields outside the Reinmaren capital.

1350 A.H. - Present ─── From Ashes, We Rise EST 143 E.S. - Present | 1590 A.H. - Present ⋅ ───⊱༺⠀☨⠀༻⊰─── ⋅ ⋅ ───────────────⊱༺⠀I⠀༻⊰─────────────── ⋅ VA EDLERVIK, It is the pride and pleasure of House Amador to announce the union of Aster and Osta Amador in a ceremony aligned with Scyfling tradition. We welcome our new kinswoman with open arms, and appreciate the understanding of our true friends and allies for the couple’s choice to maintain their privacy and respect in a small ceremony reserved only for close kin given the recent and tragic losses within our family and Kingdom. PETRAVEZK IV VATRAGAN, His Excellency, Henrik III Edvard Amador, Lord Speaker of His Majesty’s Royal Duma, Viscount of Zvezlund, Baron of Mondstadt, Lord Archivist to the Royal Valdev Library Her Serene Highness, Emma Anastastya, Princess Royal of Hanseti-Ruska, Duchess of Karlsburg and Karosgrad, Viscountess of Zvezlund and Baroness of Mondstadt

Henrik Amador stares at a crumpled pile of letters, unsent and unfinished. Sestra, I implore you to... - Poppy, Come home. ... - Pops, Your room is ready at Mondstadt. Bring your ... He has cried, of course, for her before. He has mourned her, and worried for her, and ranted and raved over her. He has written a million letters - begging, demanding, pleading, plying - for her to come North, come home, come be safe with him as they had when they were young and had nothing but each other. Ride alongside him, as they had in the war. Drink with him. He had been on the cusp of figuring out just how to say it - if he had just had another day, another piece of parchment, another ... The chill in his heart is heavy, and he knows that this time, he will not get another chance.

Henrik Amador saddles his horse, looking to his daughters as he ties the girth and adjusts the blades strapped to his back. "Remember this, lasses." - "When darkness comes for our kin, we ride t'meet it."

Henrik Amador saddles a horse for he and his wife from the not-far-off home of Valdev, cussing all the while. Tinctures clatter in the saddlebag - nothing the palace physicians couldn't provide, but without which he would feel, surely, as if failing in some way. Not yet, he prayed. Not another, so soon.

By Henrik Amador. Published in Valdev, Hanseti-Ruska, 520E.S. For Esfir; Selyne; Emma; Nikala; Nerida. The sword can stab. The axe can hack. The spear can impale. The halberd can swing. The bow can shoot. The hammer can smash. The shield can block. What blade do you want?

1350 A.H. - Present ─── From Ashes, We Rise EST 143 E.S. - Present | 1590 A.H. - Present ⋅ ───⊱༺⠀☨⠀༻⊰─── ⋅ “Let the world know… Let them know I made it.” The Gem of Amador 15th of Tog & Yermey | 520 E.S ⋅ ───────────────⊱༺⠀I⠀༻⊰─────────────── ⋅ VA EDLERVIK, As the mightiest oak falls and rattles the forests, so too does the loss of Liridona Ingrid Amador, our Gem, shake this house to its heart. She was as mother to so many of us, her arms and her heart open to every child of the Viscount’s generation, and there are no words befitting an occasion so solemn. MOURNING RITES For a year’s time, the House Amador will enter mourning blacks, as befitting the death of a regent emeritus and acting matriarch. On the grounds of Zvezlund, a great tree befitting her legacy will be marked forevermore with her name as known by GODAN, and the title LIRIDONA enters the annals of our ancestors to be borne by those worthy daughters in the bloodlines to come. Funeral rites will proceed in due time. The Gem of Amador in her youth. PETRAVEZK IV VATRAGAN, His Excellency, Henrik III Edvard Amador, Lord Speaker of His Majesty’s Royal Duma, Viscount of Zvezlund, Baron of Mondstadt, Lord Archivist to the Royal Valdev Library Her Serene Highness, Emma Anastastya, Princess Royal of Hanseti-Ruska, Duchess of Karlsburg and Karosgrad, Viscountess of Zvezlund and Baroness of Mondstadt

The broad shoulders of Henrik Amador wrack with sobs - a monumental loss, rippling through the house.

Henrik Amador seethes further North, hammering his frustration into a litany of blades to be sent to his kin in the Duchy.

Henrik refers any inqueries to his previous missive. TO ALL THOSE WHO WOULD REPROACH MY KINSWOMEN, NOW AND FOREVERMORE: Piss off about it.

The face of Henrik Amador, grim except in the company of his own wife and children, sets into a hard, unforgiving line grimmer still than the usual. He waves off the comments of bar patrons and his fellow smiths; resigns himself in silence to the library for a time, poring over historical texts as if searching for some insight. Though not close with his brother-in-law, he suspects the feeling in his bones is one of disappointment. He spares himself a moment from his studies to pray for the temper of the Princess-Consort, and returns once more to the comfort of precedent.

"Vy lot," remarks Henrik to his daughters, who babble and stuff their fingers in their mouths, "-are 'bout to have a damn fine uncle."

1350 A.H. - Present ─── From Ashes, We Rise EST 143 E.S. - Present | 1590 A.H. - Present ⋅ ───⊱༺⠀☨⠀༻⊰─── 7th of Jula & Piov | 514 E.S ⋅ ───────────────⊱༺⠀I⠀༻⊰─────────────── ⋅ VA EDLERVIK, It comes once more to my reluctant attention that the honour of the daughters of the House of Amador remain a subject of scrutiny within the public eye; in fact even eyes so far-flung as our friends to the South, among those soldiers with whom my late sister Poppiya fought and fell. As the father of girls who shall one day be women, I want for nothing more than to raise good, honourable daughters of GODAN, and to rear them in a house of fine repute, with our pride rooted in our service, endurance, and loyalty. I wish for them to one day forge a bond of mutual trust and devotion with a good husband, and to treat all those they meet with grace as I myself have learned from my esteemed wife, the very embodiment of all a Matriarch of this House ought be. I expect their sole surviving aunt, my dear sister Theodosya, and all other daughters of this House to set such precedents for them; and to encourage in them the burning fire of our honour. I must, then, write to those who find this precedent lacking, and who would air these grievances on the winds of public exchange; and as a man who avoids at all costs the unending writs of the aviary, shall do so upon the same stage. TO ALL THOSE WHO WOULD REPROACH MY KINSWOMEN, NOW AND FOREVERMORE: Piss off about it. PETRAVEZK IV VATRAGAN, The Honourable, Henrik III Edvard Amador, 1st Viscount of Zvezlund, 11th Baron of Mondstadt, Patriarch of the House Amador and Lord Archivist to the Royal Valdev Library

Henrik Amador rises, silently, from his childrens' playroom. He shuts the door softly behind him. He takes ten paces onto the nearest balcony, and, facing the snow-thick forests and hills of the Haeseni wilderness, bellows a string of curses to make sailors crimson and soldiers sweat. Several nesting birds abandon their nests. A doe, grazing peacefully beyond the walls, gallops far off into the night at once, and a bear raises a groggy head from hibernation, wondering if it has local competition. He thereafter folds the missive neatly into his pocket, and sets at once to finding his littlest sister.