You have been taken by the Mists

Author Topic: Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart! - Arden Stanic, the Jester Ranger.  (Read 8880 times)

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He had been feverish, the leeches in the Ivlis marshes had proven again dangerous foes, but this time there was Storm at his side avoiding him to fall exausted, drained, and at a step from the doors of death. Storm took care of him, helped him all the way towards the inn, despite he was feeling better. But the toxins in his blood made him act more bravely. He touched curiously her ears, and she leant more to him, and then every other memory was forgotten.

The previous days the two had been again in Port-à-Lucine. He told her of the investment his mother Heidi had prepared for Arden, for his studies as a proper and educated bard. He told Storm he was planning to share that capital with her. And had also some preparations with a signet ring and an introduction at the local bank. He introduced her as "Mrs Stanic". He felt Storm was about to kill him.

It had been a big step forward. And she revealed him her real name. "Call me what you want" was her first introduction and from that moment on she had been Storm. And still she was Storm for Arden, he did not care of names too much. They were linked, they were partners in crime, they were lovers. It had arrived the moment they had really won something in their lives. And the time to worry of losing it all had come with it. And the time to be more careful, warlike and protective.
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"Little Arden is growing mult strong and at the Church they seem really interested at having him become a Warden"

"My liege, Ruggerus, as a mother I am not sure Arden is fit for this life. Look at him, his nice features and voice, he could go to study in Port-à-Lucine the arts and becoming a performer"

"Nu say rubbish, Heidi. I need Arden in the Church. He will be our contact in it, you Falkovnians are never good with tactics. And after I'm passed, Arden will be an excellent support for Christian too. I am nu planning to have my long yielded title of stapan going to some newcomer here in Sturben"

"Christian is not fit for that either. Have you seen him? Do you really know your sons? He's always around the slums, looking for whores, and sometimes he takes even Arden with him. Arden is just fourteen! And Arden himself is always playing the truant in woods!"

A noise of a slap, and then another, some cries. Silence. All this dealing with Church of Ezra had taken him back memories, harsh memories he would have rather forgotten. He had heard a sermon, or part of it, in Vallaki. The waves of Lake Zarovich reminded him of the flowing of Vasha river, that river along whose banks he used to walk or, better, to escape.

The priest of the Morninglord had been harsh with the Warden of the so-called Fifth sect, but she had been not any less. It seemed it was starting a fight from a moment to another. Arden did not care of what they were arguing about. He just knew below that temple there were masses and masses of undead roaming and seemingly just waiting to invade the Village. The Village where he had found a gilmpse of calm and happiness with Storm. When the Morninglordian asked him to find a party to defeat the danger, possibly for good, he told he would have done what he could.

Hala's cult was something awkward to him. There in Sturben the Halans were called "witches" with the clear intent of scaring people. Riva was one of them. And then Eliza. She was willing to help him, not caring herself either to preach about her cult, or to move a crusade in the name of whatever god or goddess. And the man named Arakor was with them. The fight was not easy. He had explored that area already once and he knew they had not cleared all the place. The smell of corrosion and death was all around. Yet, they managed to stop the danger. For how long, though?

"You know you are handsome?", these were the words which took him to his temporary happiness. He was aware Storm loved him as he did finally. It was the time to be a man and not her "tall child". It was the time to fight for what he really cared. And to have Heidi happy, wherever she was.

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The pain in his stomach was irregular, sometimes harsher, some other times highly bereable. Nothing if compared to the smelly pus and the feeling of thorns twisted in his spine he had suffered from. On this Storm had been more lucky because Arden took her straightly to the priestess of the Morninglord Lizuca rather than wasting precious time going to Megan. Megan reported it was not simply a disease, but a proper curse. A plague.

More others were suffering from the same, some of them had been assaulted by a more aggressive version and died. Vallaki was in awe and in waiting. And it was all caused by a lady-child, a child who claimed the lands west and who could turn into beast and bite to defend her lands. Her playing companions were rotten zombies with aggressive flies around them. He was mad at himself. Storm wanted to check the place where Arden was infected and she was infected herself. He felt it was his fault.

With Riva, Eliza, Raven, and a new met lady named Sophie he was trying to figure out a plan to destroy the neuri-child. In the short meetings he realised what some of her weaknesses, and of her minions, were. The lady child, her name was Julia, told them before attacking to warn the others there were six days left. This sense of loss created in Storm an unbalanced mood, she was playful and shortly later depressed, and aggressive. They watched the valley from the tower on Baratak. They hugged to protect each other from the cold. They would have protected each other also against the neuri-child.



« Last Edit: April 12, 2010, 10:07:53 AM by +Ciaran+ »
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The following days passed in a sort of suspension, as if pretending the cursing plague had not touched them at all, as if they were somewhere else. And they actually travelled again in Port-à-Lucine, and they checked the bank account they were sharing. They were not attatched to money, yet they were both aware it was needed, and they were starting to get used to comforts. They were leading by now a very nomadic life, never in the same place. That was because the vampires had showed themselves again to her, and they needed to be not easily detectable.

The tower was a safe place. A lady dwelling there claimed to be a vampire hunter herself. Arden had an alchemy laboratory to use there, and Storm seemed to be enjoying the snow and cold weather pretty a lot. As she enjoyed rolling in the sand and wetting her feet in the salty water of Port-à-Lucine. One of the men in the tower was questioned by Arden, at first vaguely, eventually he asked more detailed questions about the plague. The man told him he would have researched some possible cure. Time was passing, pretending being somewhere else could have not worked.

The played, they wrestled, she occasionally allowed him to win, and so they cuddled. They were like wind animals who had found each other in a wood. And it was what had actually happened. None of them was a prey of the other, none the hunter. It was not as for Ruggerus and Heidi. It was not like when Christian paid women to stay with him. It was everything natural, a mutual interchange, an uncalled oath, an intimate wedding. Sophie, hearing their story from Arden's lips, called them soulmates. And maybe they really were.

Yet, they were not made just of souls. And their bodies needed a cure. Urgently. Time was passing too fast...
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She wanted just to play. It's what he repeated to Storm more and more times up to the point he managed to persuade her. And he compared the story of the neuri-child to that of Storm herself, forced to grow up and fast after her mother was killed and her father had abandoned her in the desert with just a bow. But this child, Julia, had powers, powers she could not control, and her games were deadly.

Arden went three times in the lands west of Vallaki, along that Old Svalich Road which would lead, for some more miles, first to Krezk and then across the Borcan border. The first time he played with Julia. The result was a corroded glove and the certainty she did not realise how deadly she could be. He felt sick again. The second time he went with a party, Storm always at his side, she seemed the leader of this group. The result was pointless. Julia, again, turned into a panther and dodged them away. The companions in his party had been brave, but they did not follow his suggestion to let the panther be. The third time Storm and Arden finally managed to have Riva with them.

The land was getting worse. More and more animals seemed plagued. The fight to reach the Keep was harsh and many energies were lost. Like the previous day there was the man with the boar with them. The earlier day there were an archer, Vandor, and a sort of jester-witch, Hetic. Acid arrows, sun-like-spells, even daggers and blades sometimes, they managed to fight their way bravely among rotting and moving bodies of people and animals and storms of flies. The fight stopped when a parade of soldier-skeletons were in front of them. Arden attempted to move and was fired with some arrows. But the skeletons did not move. At some point they started moving as if following a protocol. And they allowed them to pass.

Julia was there, waiting, asking to play. And she asked revenge for those who had killed her relatives and destroyed her Keep. And then she was confusing, speaking of a man. And she disappeared. A man appeared. They hoped to learn more from him. But he was a vrolock and wanted just to feed on them. Riva remained to fight, the rest fled. Arden could feel fear and sweat, breathing hard and just running. Storm had retreated already, but he knew he could not stop now. He waited for the others to catch up. And Julia appeared again and asked Arden what about the danger he had warned her two times already about. His lips stopped halfway when the vrolock appeared again and the same Julia seemed not knowing him. When he menaced the party, Julia, not really as scared as a child should be, turned into a were-cat as she used to do and started to fight with him.

Riva and Arden discussed on what to do. They thought at first maybe they could allow two dangers to dispatch of each other, leaving with just one problem to care of. Arden had developed too much sympathy for the child though and at the last of her screams they decided to look around for her. And they found her corpse...

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He felt better as if the plague within himself had been fought and defeated once and for good. He was not able to meet Riva at all in the following day to discuss of what they had done. But he met Storm, in one of their agreed refuges, she was still unhealthy, not particularly sick but with the annoying stomach pain he remembered quite so well. Something was wrong. And he told her, and she said she would have done the same. That really relieved him.

He resumed his work, quietly and thoughtful. His thoughts began wandering about society, how poor are generally kept in that condition while richer people exploit them. Loneliness and physical pain could generate monsters. The sleep of the thought can generate monsters. Occasionally he felt bad for those who could be attacked by those monsters, other times he thought simply society would have taken a pay back for what it had done.

Every beggar he saw was an obsession. He was sure at night those could become another thing. And maybe just because they wanted just to play, like Julia.

He felt in perfect shape, but for some pain in his head when he was thinking too much about these things. Despite of what Storm had told him, despite the fact in doing that he was not alone, he was not yet fully sure he had done the right thing. Or maybe, he had simply followed the belief each individual matters more than a whole community. And on that he had almost no doubts, as the howls of the werewolves at night reminded him.
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The following days moved on, in a suspension between what had happened and what had to be done to fix. The plague had not magically gone away, though Arden felt healthy as never before. They had looked for reagents together, Arden even managed for the first time to work with steel, thus being able to make more effective arrows. They were clearly preparing again for a new visit in those lands to understand more.

And in a break, in relax, he asked her to mark him. And she did. It was painful at first, slightly less in the following days, and the pain was no more in a week. A cross, on his back, the initial of her real name. She said she was grateful to have hm at her side. He knew that she had given him new reasons to move on from his past.

The mark on his mother's head. The sudden revelation of the truth, years before. This mark was different, it was not a winged being looking to the past, but a symbol for a new tomorrow. A "t", a cross, her name. Or again, simply tomorrow.
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Storm was not feeling any better. And this had made her even more sharp and prompt to act nervously and irrationally. They fought, she promised to kill him. Eventually she apologised, but he knew perfectly how she felt. But acting suicidal was not something which could fix anything. Their investigations had had some progresses, though still slowly and not omnicomprensive. There were still many undisclosed and shady areas on their lore about the plague and Julia.

They were told by a Barovian man that they were acting wrong at killing all the rotting animals passing the bridge. He said that it meant killing the only thing which set Julia away from the orphanage and Vallaki. He warned them next time they put in danger the orphanage he would have killed them. He did not say his name, he hinted just at his grand daughter guest in the bulding, but his words had some reasons to be believed.

With Storm and Arden there was a dwarf, Gegnus. He had helped them, he proved brave, somehow too rushed in what he did, but effective in that mission. Storm and Gegnus were resolved at killing Julia, or so they seemed. Arden sighed, and made up with them a plan: they would have just run past all the monsters to find Julia and once there acting. So they did, and they met finally her.

Around her the soil blackened, the rotting corpses dressed as guards were unmoving but still attentively guarding their master. Arden asked her of a cure, more and more times. He had been healed, for having helped her, he was sure she could heal him. She replied it has not been her. And she wanted to play. And Arden started playing for her, in his wild dance, Storm helped him in an improvised show. Storm and Gegnus seemed having lost their resolution at killing the child. Julia laughed, more and more times, the rotting corpses echoing darkly her childish laughter. She seemed to understand the three were not foes of hers, they wanted just to be cured. She hinted to keep Arden as a personal jester. Then her face grew sad, and before turning into leopard she told them just these words:

"Search the man in the woods. I wish I would die".

And the search began.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2010, 05:40:20 PM by +Ciaran+ »
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He said she needed to face the truth. He told a full story with some accounts, reports, names, in his mysterious ways which seemed to be riddling the listeners. Vandor was not the man in the woods, and the same Vandor had thought Arden might have been the man of the woods he had to look for: it seemed destiny had planned they would have spoken to the real man together. During the meeting Storm was strange. Maybe the worst words of the man were towards her, she needed to face the truth herself.

Arden had spent the weeks before trying to find a cure, a series of combination of alchemical and herbalistic ingredients, he had found the wintergreen he was looking for but nothing really was proceeding at the right pace. He had the feeling it was being wasted a lot of time. He felt guilty to be healthy. Not towards the people who could have died, actually, just for the only other person he would have given his life for.

Any cure, any potion or mixture, anything, from more and more sides, would have been useful for effects but not removing the curse within the bodies of who had been infected. Killing her would have been deadly for everyone, if she did not face the truth before that, in his view. After their death, the infected would have walked again, rotting, vicious, destructive.

Maybe she was already facing the truth when she started touching the orb, wincing at each touch, clearly in an act self-torturting. Keeping alive her span of attention was very hard, maybe even harder than fighting the products of her touch. Her brother, her story. Her being. The more Arden thought about Julia, the more something within himself made him believe he could have been like her.
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Change of air and routines. He had always thought working hard was the easiest solution to have the brain focused just on mechanical movements, and not wasting time in thoughts which could lead nowhere. They rented a room for a week in the land of comforts and all they did was relaxing. Storm had told him about Loffie and her depression, Arden had attempted already once to speak to her.

Their constant fights were awkard, rushed, unpredictable, jokes which ended very often in some forms of violence. And Storm became violent to Arden too. They invited Loffie for a dinner, they laughed at her eating slugs or fish's eggs. She did not want to be laughed at, she got even more depressed. Only a push of Storm to Arden, who ended splashing in the blue ocean of the bay of Port-à-Lucine, somehow relaxed her.

Another joke. Hot coffee on innocent lips. Storm could be very mean when she wanted. As when she had whipped Arden some hours before, in a wicked circle of mutual satisfaction nevertheless. Arden made another joke suggesting a kiss. Again the overall situation backstroke and he was forced in one of the most awkward situations of this life. He felt definitely too weak towards the female world. And he was aware it was not over.

The plague, the curse, not yet fixed, and some more to investigate before trying to find the definitive solution. If it ever existed.
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He did that. Out of his heart words came out, slow and awkward, as if in a rush, for something pondered about just a little, but felt strong within. The examples he had seen in his short past were not that inviting. Most Borcans marry as if dealing with a business transaction, as a matter of fact enclosing in an "indenture" also the very same wedding oaths. Ezra church did not even deal with holy marriages, when he saw Ezrites married and with children, there in Vallaki, he thought at first they had simply signed on both side of the paper, divided it, and each side keeping a part of it. Maybe he was wrong.

And then the marriage of Ruggerus and Heidi, the one he knew better. Forced, unbalanced, violent, maybe passional to some extent. Master-slave was the best definition in his view. And the hatred towards his father, and the loss of any sense at staying in Sturben after the death of his mother.

Invidians attacking Barovia. As they would attack southern Borca. He wondered for some moments if Christian Stanic, his valiant brother, had been finding some fortunes in south Borca as their father had found his in the north, against the Falkovnians. Arden hated war. He liked peace. But he remembered something his father used to say: "If you wish peace, prepare for war". Some Darkonian motto he used to claim. He remembered those words. More arrows, more potions, more varnishes, he was preparing his personal war to keep his personal peace.

And meanwhile he was waiting for Storm. In the hope that his heart had spoken the truth.
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The big battle happened. First in Vallaki just a small group of them, then at the Tser Pool. He was given orders. He simply did what his mind told him. He did not feel that war as his, he was against war, but he was aware that keeping his own freedom meant also that. He stood for most of the two days of the battle in the same spot, occasionally raiding ahead, occasionally retreating when Invidian and Falkovnian mercenary spearmen and swordsmen managed to break the lines.

Rain, blood, mud, corpses, flies. And thunders and arrows flying anywhere, the enemy in front, almost infinite in numbers and he and his temporary companions fell and were healed, in an almost endless routine of violence. His thought about the only person he was doing this for. The hope she was safe and alive elsewhere. The fear she had been buried under the hundred corpses. His survival instinct kept him alive, his strategy had proved vital and effective in the fight.

And then the siege of the Castle. And he could feel in his veins the blood of Ruggerus pumping, and the pride of Heidi in his chest. She said it was something he could not have helped. He did not like fighting, not for a war like that. It was confusing. Only a woman was the reason. An important one, but not for him. The ancient Vistani helped people then she was escorted to the Castle. But was she really worth of all those lives lost? At the Village, in the following days, such as in the other Barovian towns he visited, yound and less young men were being conscripted. The battle had ended and was won, the war seemed to have just begun.

And for Arden it was just reasonless.
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The corpses of the fallen enemies were mutilated, exposed, humiliated. This was the worst part of the war. Just the glimpse of peace in that weird Carnival for some days. The freaks who did not want to be called that, as if a title to be earned. The nightmares, halfway between reality and illusion, the snake lady and the skeletal one, the robbers and the sudden attack. He had felt awkward with them, he almost felt he could have lived with them for ever, wandering pointlessly and just living day by day. Even those in cages were actually free to move in the camp when most spectators were not in the area. He had seen them with his own eyes. Illusion. Reality.

The reality was that war was bad. With no doubts. And the effects of it were even worse. He pondered for long time about the reasons of the humiliation of the defeated. He found no answers. And the corpses, those un-burnt and un-buried, started to move, affected by the plague whose centre was in the lands of the Von Zeklos, the lands where now little Julia lived. And she claimed having done nothing to them. They were simply uncareful and affected by it. Or it was an answer to the behaviour of Barovian peasants and soldiers. He was starting really hating mankind. He started spending more and more time in Degannwy, among elves. Also because Storm was one as well and the place was apparently safer. Invididuals matter, not people as a whole. Hardly even the talks with the elf Syor made him change his mind. Probably even the same elves taking as a whole were not that fine.

Storm and Arden, with the fundamental help of Riva, managed to improve in their eternal struggle against the vrolocks. They would have never become proper hunters. But they knew now they were able to defend themselves if in need. And then the witch-skeleton-lady. Something unknown to him. There were others around. Heroes. He scratched his back and pondered. Just an arrow in a big fight. Her cold touch and the feeling of loss, and draining. He felt he had been part of something bigger he did not fully understand. And, as usual, he moved on, not caring of it. As his role in the war.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2010, 06:06:48 AM by +Ciaran+ »
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Things had been confusing with moments of sudden calm. Arden had often a sense of eternal return, memories of his short past coming back in a new shape, expressing old meanings, sometimes newer ones, more confusing. He was not able to deny his help to Vistani, he was scared of what they might have done to him in case he did. Four other people with whom he had hardly exhanged a "Salut" or an "Adio" in the past, who proved strong, but who proved also ambiguous: he knew why he was there, the others seemed unaffected by his own superstitions. He found out the old lady for whom  the battle of the lake had been fought had never reached the Castle, and now she was probably in the hands of some group of Darkonians. Vistani claimed the ancient woman was able to open portals to other worlds. The group failed in the task. Portals to other worlds.

The desert land with the running elves, the one named Huro explained him some of their customs. It was the same place from where Storm came, but she had grown up mostly alone, with no family, and the few people she had trusted who betrayed her. Arden had managed to earn her trust, he ran with her, according to her place customs they were already married. The preparatives for their real wedding were going on. He wanted to legalize her as his family, a silly thought on a side since nothing would have changed: on the other hand he wanted his title, and belongings, and maybe even the land in Sturben remained to her, he was aware she, as an elf, would have lived longer.

The plague and the Vistani woman. He hoped also that helping her he would have fixed the first problem. His best friends and Storm herself were still affected. Lof had started to be part of his family. Her antics were wholly unbalanced and unpredictable. The games she played with Storm seemed like those fights of wolf cubs, as also Raven had stated. They liked each other though. He told her of his family, of his past. Another eternal return, as if doomed not to be free, ever, from his own past, of which he was not even responsible.

Freedom. Family. Friends. Arden's list of priorities was that, he would have done all the possible to pursue those values he kept tightly at heart. The steaming water filled the room of vapours, memories of Sturben again. He would have never gone back, he was sure of that. The couch she did not even know how to call. This was not a new life for him, but it was for Storm. He felt within he had saved her, and he was happy. The Vistani woman and the plague. Eternal return. He knew that peace would have not lasted long.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2010, 12:47:00 PM by +Ciaran+ »
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He watched at the diamond she had given him. She was always overtly shy when being nice to him. He treasured those moments even tighter in his heart.

Dew at morning, after a shivering night,
In the forest, after a thunders fest,
Animals trembling, running in fright,
Merry is the moment of a relaxing jest.
Only in the dark you can yearn the light,
Nothing will change,  time for the harvest,
Dew at twilight, reflecting on your sight.

A.S.
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Much time had passed since he was living steadily in Port-à-Lucine. His life had changed a lot in the past two years, far more than when he lived in Sturben, but now it seemed simply it had undergone a break, a delay, a sudden slowing. The working routines at the Village of Barovia were changed just by his attempt, successful as it was, to become a proper smith. It was ironic that he could not find silver: “Laws are written in silver” was the motto inscribed on Borcan currency.

His Storm coming from the desert had left him, to help Lof and Rare, both friends of his too. She wanted to help them to free themselves from that dead end in which they had remained stuck. Arden sniffed crime, kidnapping, murder, treason, scheming: just Church of Ezra was missing and then he would have not seen any difference from Borca. The dragon eating people, and the Vallaki Garda, it was not part of his life, he was not planning to have them in either, but in the chain of actions and non-actions and their consequences he had remained, again, alone. He was about twenty years old by now, his new attempt to find some base happiness in a social context was frustrated. Again.

He was not helping communities. The individuals needed to be helped on a individual basis, every time, to avoid the birth of new monsters. Every time such a thought came to his mind he felt his back itching more and more, growing nervous, stuttering, finding an escape strategy from whatever he was involved in. He had tried to help just Vistani, because worried of their evil eyes. He was told, when kid, that Vistani could shuffle the deck of their tarokka and decide the reading even before picking the single cards: and most times the recipient of the reading saw the foreseen simply happening. After the trouble with Invidians and eventually Darkonians he did not refuse any help to Vistani. Madame Eva was, apparently, finally saved, he gave his contribute when was asked, he did not when he was not asked.

He tried to believe it was just humans being led by greed, frenzied patriotism, or excess of private property feel. Other kins simply behaved the same, just with a different display of what they really wanted. Feys, pitics and hins would have helped mostly their own kin. He gave another chance to hins when he knew Shally. Her sense of freedom, combined to some form of duty, were almost the same of his own: she had joined the Wayfarer and he helped her in two occasions, and she was helping some Vistani with a Carnival planning, and he give her a hand as well. It was when he met Papu. He liked her, he was simply not ready to even think about any new relationship. The Storm had left burning marks due to thunders and lightning striking his own young heart.

He had tried to believe the lower classes of Port-à-Lucine could be helped because they showed more motivations than Barovians at some form of change. Sister Winter and his close friend Riva, of the Church of Hala, were the individuals thorugh which he would have helped, or tried to help, a whole community. It seemed, again, a worthless and pointless effort. Buildings are harder to collapse than simple trees because of the structure: and even having an only tree down does not make a forest any less than a forest. The layers of structured societies were too much for him to fight. He had pondered for a long time before his last trip. His naïve vision of life made him think that something would have been possible where things had been already destroyed. No need of revolution and restoration, he would have needed to focus just on the latter.

He did not like farewell, but he put some effort to give his adio to his closest remained friends. He was ready for a lone scouting of the lands south. His friends probably would have helped him if, at his return, the scouting had proved to be successful. He introduced Raven to Shally: he would have needed them both at his return. The mutual assistance of the packs of wolves. He felt as an alpha wolf looking again for a pack. His back was itching more than usual.

If that land were easily conquered, he could not know now; if the uncorrupted nature provided resources enough to establish a little group of people, he could not know now; if the risk and the effort was worth, he could not know now either. The scouting should have cleared his mind on those topics. He left moving southward, past the Village of Krofburg. Winter was coming and he did not know what expecting from that land known with the name of Forlorn. Its highlands were barely visible from the Balinoks. Clean sheet.

He was alone, again. But he knew that Arden will not walk alone.
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--GlamRock--

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Storm was lost. Monja was in her period of mating. He had walked and scouted the borders of Forlorn once again. It was pointless to fight, any skirmishes would have been a simple patch on an open wound. Some "condottiero" as his father would have been a good tactician to plan a successful attack. He was not that type of tactician, and he did not need anyone obeying to him, he needed free people figthing for freedom of others before that of themselves.

He knew he had to go back to the place he knew better, and find people able to fill his many gaps. Monja would have followed, finding Barovian mates. He was able to build equipment for an army, and he was aware of it. Things had changed a little after a couple of years of his Forfarian wanderings. The Village was still dark and lonely, as a rock in an ocean of sadness. Patience was the key, the everlasting key, he would have formed once more his "pack", this time with a clear goal.

He met a Falkovnian and the memories of his mother came once again. He heard of the war between Falkovnians and Dementlieuse, after the revolution of the latter. As he already knew, revolution was not possible in Dementlieu, because people just wanted what the rich had. Forlorn was the place. A new land, new people, with a common goal, for the freedom of the self and the others. Giving for what one can, receiving for what one needs.

Arden was ready to start it all over again, and never walking alone.
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--GlamRock--

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He kept working, and kept sharing stories. As usual, more often with elves or halflings rather than humans. The memory of that child who somehow changed his life for good. He had mingled feelings about that, and no one to share that story with, yet. Some stories he heard were old news. People caught by the Count, for instance, as if the Count really cared of them if they had just not bothered him. Or news about elven vampires, or people with bad need and want to learn but without patience enough. He felt tired all of a sudden. Things were not going as he wanted, thus he tried to explore a new place, Sithicus.

He, then, said to others what he saw, just statues, and woods, no people, some Vistani even got sick, and he was caught in a mist bank. And he added the place was wrong. It was wrong. He felt, in the few hours spent there, all the dismay for not having helped his caring mother, for having abandoned his family and his own land. Memories of decades before. And then, as waves trying to reach the next, other layered memories came. He abandoned Loaf to her doom, and there he lost Storm. He helped the little Von Zeklos child, and there he probably had more Vallaki people getting sick. His head hurt, he was not used to this feeling. Too much thinking, too much pain, too much... regret. He wanted to free places, to give freedom and peace, and happiness, and bliss, to all living beings, yet he was not able to see the pain of those close to him. Too much confusion in his head.

He had to do something. What, exactly, he had not yet realised, but in a dark corner of his own soul, he knew, and had always known.
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(Being drunk partially legitimates you as a philosopher - someone you wouldn't expect!)

DM Tarokka

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