The First Heresy of the Dawn

[Ternce]

[A journal is written with modest, short entries on each page]

My name is Sandor Kosvozic.

The year is 725.  I am born on a farm outside of Berez on a day when the snows fell heavy.  I have two loving parents, a sister, and two brothers.  The fourteen years that follow are happy enough.

The year is 740.  A recruiter comes to Berez, saying that the Duke of Gundarak had been assassinated, that his holdings were in turmoil, and his lands needed liberated from the despotic governors he had installed.  My two brothers and I accept his payment of forty wolf fangs, with the promise of honor for our family, and Count and county.

The year is 740.  I am a boy imagining himself a man, and am not prepared for these nine months.  I am among the pikemen that build the vanguard during the siege of Zeidenburg.  When the order comes to set fire to the thatch roofs of the farms and the slums, mine is one of the hands casting torches.

The year is 741.  I return home.  I help my father bury the bones of my two brothers beneath the willow on the edge of the pond where our livestock drink.

The year is 742.  I cannot sleep at my home anymore.  The screams of soldier and peasant alike flood my dreams, and memories of my brothers keep me from peaceful sleep. The image of the slums of Zeidenburg burning in the dead of night haunt me.  I leave to head East to distance myself from what I've done, and the displaced people who have come to Berez to live.

The year is 744.  I am married.  My wife is of the number of refugees that fled from the West who no longer have homes.  I hide my role in the conquest from her.  My love for her is so great that I knew this secret would break her heart.

The year is 745.  I have a son. I work as a carpenter's apprentice in a shop outside of Vallaki.  My dreams are still dark, and the secret I keep from my wife burns into me like a hot iron.  Each day I look at them, and imagine a boy imagining himself a man might come and take them from this world, for the sake of a purse of wolf fangs, and glory for Count and county.

The year is 748.  I have a second son.  I have learned the trade well, and have made a good living as a wainwright .  I have my own shop.  The love for my family and my job drown out my past sins.

The year is 749.  A man comes to the shop who stood at my shoulder in the siege of Zeidenberg.  He starts to reminisce of the siege and his spoils, and lays my secret bare within earshot of my wife who has brought me my midday meal.

The year is 749.  My wife fights with me bitterly, and the disgust in her eyes and on her face becomes too much for me to look at her anymore.  I try apologize to her, and to explain to her, but she will not listen.

The year is 749.  My wife leaves, taking our children.  I too leave.  I can't bear the disgrace from my neighbors.  I head north to Krezk.

The year is 751.  I have burned through my savings and turned to drinking.  I am a beggar in the streets of Krezk.  A man in a faded red robe picks me up out of the gutter, and offers me a meal.

The year is 756.  I have given my sins to the Morninglord, and he has taken them from me.  The clergy here has been kind, but I long for the family that has left me, and set out on the road to Zeidenburg where she may have returned.  I pray she might forgive me as I have forgiven myself, and the Morninglord has forgiven me.

The year is 759.  I help to spread the Morninglord's message of hope to the downtrodden and displaced of Zeidenburg.  I have made friends, but have yet to find my family in my travels between here, Teufeldor, and Berez.

The year is 772.  My travels have brought me back to Vallaki.

[The rest of the pages so far are blank.]

[Ternce]

The year is 772.  It is the tail end of autumn.

The Lord has led me here, to Vallaki, to show the light of the New Dawn to all who have eyes to see it.  I ask his forgiveness, as I forgive myself, for the anger that wells up in my heart at the Ezrite clergy of Vallaki. 

Once have I risked my own life to save them from the terrors of the night in their fervent quest to "Slay the Legion" who might yet be saved, as the tormented beast of Krofburg might have been.  It is a small mercy in life to let those whose hearts are heavy with darkness know that they are loved, and can be forgiven.  They have the opportunity to return to the light if for nothing else to go into the next life with their hearts unburdened. That opportunity is robbed by this misguided quest.

Twice have I saved their wardens from the brink of death.

Three times have I forgiven Her faithful for speaking blasphemies in the Sanctuary of the Coming Dawn.

Two times have I seen them ask for succor and for Mother Lizuca to return an ally to life.

One time have I seem them ask for succor and for Father Ilie to return an ally to life.

Yet everytime, they pretend it did not happen.  They continue on and deny the miracle of your divine light, as if you are but a convenient footstool for their own goals of rising above those who I name my brothers and sisters, and those I would name such.  I even invited them to the pig roast of our Holy Day, and the hand I extended in brotherhood and good will was spurned.  They make use of our hospitality only to further self serving ends.

Your patience and your mercy is infinite, My Lord, but I am just a man, weak of flesh and spirit.  I beg you to take this anger from me that I might walk into the New Dawn unburdened.  I know there is goodness in them.  I know them to mean well in their hearts, but they must be removed from the shackles of pride, arrogance, and elitism placed upon them by men who have destroyed a noble message by building a church around it.

Thy lips be cleansed.

[Ternce]

The year is 772.  The winter is fast approaching.

I have met with the other members of the clergy of Vallaki, who have returned from business abroad, citing pilgrimages to Krezk, and the Village.

I have never before seen a congregation as this.  Dawnbringer Mars has asked me to officially join his fold, but has told me that first I must be trained in the way of not only scripture, but of the blade.  Of all the regions of the country I have visited, I have never seen one church sponsor a militant force.  It is both bizarre, and refreshing to see those so willing to carry the light of the Lord into the darkest places of this world.

Of their number is a man named Kaine, who seems overeager to purge every last vrolok from this world.  He has that untamed wonder in his eyes of a man unblooded who's soul has not been burdened by leaving children orphaned for simple trespasses that might yet be forgiven.  I pray that he never have to make use of his training.

I have also recognized what I am sure was once a young toeheaded girl that I had seen running about the temple in Krezk.  She has grown to be quite the young woman from the skinny child I remember who's teeth were just a tad too big for her mouth.  Her heart seems filled to bursting with the love of the Morninglord.  They do good work in Krezk.