Written By Ann
Jan. 15, 2024, 6:50 p.m.(7/23/1021 AR)
To the Last.
Choice will always matter.
Written By Lianne
Jan. 15, 2024, 6:09 p.m.(7/23/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Jan
Written By Raven
Jan. 15, 2024, 5:20 p.m.(7/23/1021 AR)
Written By Victus
Jan. 15, 2024, 3:51 p.m.(7/23/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Donrai
Written By Victus
Jan. 15, 2024, 3:51 p.m.(7/23/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Dagon
Written By Victus
Jan. 15, 2024, 3:50 p.m.(7/23/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Denica
Written By Victus
Jan. 15, 2024, 3:46 p.m.(7/23/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Alarissa
Written By Victus
Jan. 15, 2024, 3:44 p.m.(7/23/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Leona
Back then, I disagreed. I saw the monuments and history written into the stone as more important than life itself. Held close to my pride in the fact that Maelstrom is one of the few strongholds in the Compact to never fall in war.
Well. I'm older now. A few tens of thousands have died. I look at those walls now and I wonder what it's all for, if but a monument built on top of dead bodies that'll never get to walk their ramparts.
Still. It's home.
I walked the length of the Graveyard of Swords. I stood before the great Colossus of Mangata. Things that I have been fortunate enough to put into motion and see completed in my lifetime. Perhaps something will be left of it, when all is said and done. If not for us, then for the ones who come after to see. To grieve. To remember. To theorize once we've been long forgotten. Just momentos that tell them we were here once.
Do not cry for what will be lost. Tears in our wake, never at our wake.
If they remember me as someone who did their job "adequately", I think I'll be happy. I still miss you, Leona. Silver. Whatever you call yourself now. You'll always be a Thrax to me.
Written By Aconite
Jan. 15, 2024, 1:50 p.m.(7/22/1021 AR)
When I die my blacks may be made public. I did not really trust them once I knew what lay beneath the library. So they won't say much.
Written By Jan
Jan. 15, 2024, 11:01 a.m.(7/22/1021 AR)
Written By Sen'azala
Jan. 15, 2024, 8:09 a.m.(7/22/1021 AR)
Home is where you stand.
Houses and castles, those are buildings. They can be rebuilt, or built elsewhere. Fields and orchards can be replanted, or new ones grown. Things you own, no matter how precious, no matter how irreplaceable, are ultimately just things. As painful as it may be to leave somewhere you love, somewhere you've been your whole life, somewhere your family has lived for generations, that place is ultimately a patch of land, earth and stone. You can find another. No matter how much it may hurt, you can find another.
Another Reckoning is here. If all you've got holding you in place is pride, then toss it aside and walk away. I don't expect to be listened to, but there are plenty of houses that refused to retreat to Arx the last time whose names you don't know because not a single person was left to remember them. Some of the names that managed to be remembered came back to haunt us, such as House Marin. If you are trying to endure this alone you won't survive, and your lands will be taken from you anyway.
There are forces moving to protect major holdings, escort refugees, or try to slow down what's coming. There are not nearly enough for any of it, and every single person who can wield a weapon who does not aid those efforts or fall back to defend Arx in favor of valiant but ultimately pointless last stands is not only throwing their own life away, but the lives of however many other people their actions could otherwise help save. What's at stake is not a house, not a holding, not a kingdom, and not the Compact. What's at stake isn't even Arvum and every person living on it. It's the world. We hold the city or everyone dies, and no one in the entire world will be left to remember you.
Home is where you stand, and if we do not stand together, the only thing that will matter will be who gets devoured first.
Written By Mabelle
Jan. 15, 2024, 1:48 a.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
I will not leave now that it is threatened again.
Our people will be safe.
House Laurent will live on.
I am none without Artshall.
Written By Lys
Jan. 15, 2024, 1:13 a.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
Written By Titus
Jan. 15, 2024, 12:59 a.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Khanne
For example, Duchess Khanne absolutely adores hairpins. She has probably over a hundred pairs and is always overjoyed and happy when a new pair is gifted to her.
I like to eat the Blueclaw Vine, it has a hot and peppery flavour and a velvet texture. It also has a faint glow of light blue in the summer nights, and if you were in Caldera you could catch a very rare moment when the nightbirds come to drink the nectar of those flowers and their feathers glow with a million different colours like little rainbows or auroras at night.
Written By Lys
Jan. 15, 2024, 12:01 a.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
THE TRUTH AND LIES OF LYS DE LIRE.
I am a liar. I am a con artist, a scammer, a grifter.
I was abandoned as a baby to an orphanage. My parents were last known as 'Lord Valt' and 'Lady Willow'. One was a con artist and the other a grift. Two people pretending to be nobles with the idea in their heads to seduce a real, rich noble to land themselves a rich, titled spouse. Somewhere in their schemes they fell in love. They had me and abandoned me to the orphanage. The status of my parents is unknown. Do they live? Maybe. Are they dead? Maybe.
I grew up there in that orphanage in the Lowers. It was awful. I left younger than I should have. I was never good enough at any job to do well in them. I was too loud, to bright, to charming, to stubborn, to opinionated, to ready to fight. I fought customers, I fought my employers, I fought everyone and everything tooth and nail.
I belonged no where and with no one. I slept on the streets. In the backrooms of shops. I slept in dirt. I slept on the beach once or twice. I didn't always know where I was going to get food from because I was often without a job. And I was so very, very tire of fighting tooth and nail to survive. I was tired of trying to claw my way up to a better life through honesty and hard work.
Then Lord Commander Audric of the Valorous Few was ennobled by Talen Velenosa. As a reward for Talen winning the Rose Tournament, so many many years ago. Audric grew up in the same orphanage as I. So why wouldn't we be related? Why couldn't I be one of his long lost cousins?
I didn't expect him to welcome me with open arms. I didn't expect him to give me everything I had never had. I never expected him to give me a place to belong. I never expected him to teach me how to fight. How to /really/ fight. I didn't expect him to nurture me. To guide me. I didn't expect him to embrace me as family and love me. And yet he did.
I didn't expect him to not only help me awaken my natural abilities but to accept them. As unsavory as most find powers gifted to one by the abyss.
I miss him daily. But it is time to live. Time to let the ghosts go. Time to laugh again.
Time to stop pretending. Time to stop pretending at happiness and find some real joy. Time to step into the light and tell people who I am. I have no desire to harm others. No desire to see the world ended. To be torn asunder. But I am not a good woman. I am a Liar. I am a Trickster. I am a Teller of Tall Tales. Veil smiles upon me. I am telling the world this truth now, so that you know. It is not must job to show you the truth. When you see me, when you meet me, when you hear my words. It is your job to figure out what the truth is and what is ... the trick. The joke. The lie. Because:
I am Alyssa de Lire, Baroness of Afflua, Liar and Trickster.
Written By Faye
Jan. 14, 2024, 11:17 p.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
Written By Jan
Jan. 14, 2024, 10:36 p.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
Written By Raven
Jan. 14, 2024, 10:35 p.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
Written By Fatima
Jan. 14, 2024, 10:13 p.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
The hiding of belongings and material objects, while touching, will not matter if all is devoured.
There is a fine line between stupidity and bravery. Sometimes, they are one and the same.
Lemons are sweet and honey is sour.
Written By Jan
Jan. 14, 2024, 10:08 p.m.(7/21/1021 AR)
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.