Picaroon: Tredow Folquin

[Badelaire]

Tredow Setzahl Folquin

[Badelaire]

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[Badelaire]

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[Badelaire]

[A leather bound Journal rests in a young man's possession. The clean, crisp pages lay fresh, waiting for the first kiss of ink to detail whatever the author's muse may be. Burned into the bound cover is a single word in Draconian, the language of Cormyr although the writing itself is written in Thorass, the more common language in the author's native Dragon Coast region.....]

PICAROON

[Badelaire]

Soft Rains Fall

Feeling encroaching mortality, I want to leave some lasting imprint even if it's ink to parchment. No self indulgent prose or long diatribe of enemies to slight and payback. I've read plenty of journals in the past like that and they're all just very amusing. Written by weak hands with even weaker means to carry out what they fantasise about. No, this is going to be a record of my thoughts, that part of my mind I don't let others see or else ruin the facade I've constructed to keep people at arms length and ignorant of who and what Tredow Folquin really is behind that bitter smile.

I have no grasp of the calendar so I've no real accounting for how long I've been here and only a loose understanding of the local dialect if they speak slowly enough, but I know one thing: Nothing matters. Not who I was, not what I did, my wealth and lineage, nothing but the will to struggle. Here I have, or maybe had, a fresh start but a man who forgets his past ends up repeating it. I've been very careful to not repeat the same old mistakes but they have a habit of cropping up now and then regardless of how cautious I've been or what matters I've taken to avoid them.

More often than not it's her mistakes I end up paying for yet she's still a child, never seeing the whole picture for what it is despite my guidance always quick to snap with rebuttal, only witnessing the askewed portion of the canvass she stares at. She'll end up killing me in the end yet this isn't something she comprehends. In time it will be, or by then it'll be too late to even matter anyway. All I know is the power I've gained, both in my limbs and my mind far excels anything I could achieved back "home". My studies are intermittant, the recepticals of knowledge I'm looking for no doubt forbbidden or gaurded jealously by one of the sentient undead that stalk this loveless land. I'll keep looking till I find the answers that elude me somehow, I always seem to find myself in the right place in the right time.

Knowledge is power and ignorance means an early grave...

[Badelaire]

Heart

Of all the people I've ever met there's only one I wouldn't use for my own gain or discard when their usefulness is over. Love and hate are a strong series of emotions I find myself feeling towards her in unequal measure. Yes, I often hate her for some things she's done and put herself through, I never understand the reasons. I barely even knew her, couldn't grasp the scope of her life or understand the things that made her what she was but she seemed special in a way I couldn't quite put down in words, a clear defiance, a freedom of purpose I never had.
 
I know I wouldn't be here if it was not for her but the pain of this world and the pain in her heart has made her forget. Forget the truth in each of those blissful moments spent together and the joys of sharing your life with another without condition. She's forgotten that and needs to remember that she's loved, and not just by me. She needs to understand she is more than her pain, that almost childish fear she clings onto like a totem. I'm always there for her even unseen, to ensure others do not take advantage of her naive nature for their own ends and yet she has proven gifted in the arts I would nuture in the past, people often duped by a young face with bright eyes. I would turn my back on everyone and cast them aside and more for her. Why? The Gravity called "love". But very soon I'll have to put practice in that old quote"My enemy is terrifying, therefore I become more terrifying than he."

Terror comes in more forms than one can possibly imagine, the true terror is in never knowing...

[Badelaire]

A State of Affairs

Manipulation is a very easy thing, you don't even need to be a particularly charming or persuasive person to go about it either, just cunning. The plan is simple: Column A and Column B want Column C on their side. Column C does not like the odds it faces in denying either so it does something to upset things. This upset, say to Column A, causes them to suspect Column B due to all overlying evidence. War breaks out and they start reducing each other's numbers so that Column C may comfortably fight on equal footing. To further better its chances, Column C will ensure Columns D-Z are aware of where the real threat lies so that they may bask in the reflected chaos of self-destruction between these two mutual annoyances. When all eyes turn to you it's very hard to cause mischief and they are sure to be observed by many. I am many things but those crimes have never stained my hands, it is weakness to involve the helpless in your own agenda. Weakness. Barovia has a certain balance to it, a state of affairs. I enjoy that balance for the freedom it grants me and would prefer to see it maintained.

It's a cruel thing to use people, but only those that have it coming find themselves in such a position. Those others, the genuine ones of no agenda bar living their lives as best they can, they're not even on the game-board. Those people are the ones that are beyond reproach in my eyes, the ones I will not touch with the malice and contempt I hold for the lessers. It's a very difficult thing to contain. Malice has defined me for so long, I can't remember ever living what would be called a normal day. "Normal" is a concept that needs a punchline it's so funny. The scent of the wilds after the rains, the thrill of the hunt, the long walks in deserted places, the wind blowing in across the lake to herald a new day. I can rest easy, bathed in it all, with her, always by my side, smiling like she does when we're alone. That to me is normal.

I haven't slept in so long...

[Badelaire]

Psychic Burn

It was in all the old stories of a nightmarish world under our feet deep within the earth of great minds linked through telepathy. Beings of such alien purpose no mere mortal could fathom their nature. Illithid. Mindflayer. Whether this one was native to these lands or another passenger like I, I don't know but it has surpassed death to become something far more dangerous in intent. It gave its name as Kar'Thallax or something, the local adventurers give him some other foolish endearing one. Some succumbed to its power, as always I seem immune and it's becoming worrying. For now I've got to treat a shattered mind and sooth a troubled one. The latter is easy for it's Heart and her troubles and ills ones I know all too well. The former not so easy because of her already shattered past and poor choice in decisions. Time heals but even worse things can happen during that time. More difficulty arises in the lack of trust Heart shows, something I can be certain of and rely on to be truth.

Am I so numbed by the horrors and terror that I feel not even the slightest bit of their influence these days? The impaled bodies twitching along the Falkovnian-Darkon border I mercifully ended, the blood and the stink of it all, the murderess we destroyed in the caves along with her brood, the wars and endless battles, the snarling shapes plummeting out of the void to rend with claw and fang. When you were deep undercover you did whatever it took, you became the game and we were all players. We all got high off the action.

Is it possible I'm still addicted?

[Badelaire]

The Art of Murder

A young man sways foolish young women into following him into the night where he abducts them for whatever reason he's likely sent out for. Slaves, sacrifices, prostitution, I care little. This particular one killed the young woman he was with, his manner bred hesitation which is always something easily exploited when he should have run, we'd not have given chase. Did I care that the girl's life was in peril? Not really, I don't owe her a thing nor was I interested in playing hero. Sure, we confronted the man but it's as I always say: The weak prey on the weaker, real predators go after true game. I waited, with bated breath under The Cloak as he made his move, first aiming at Heart then firing into the girl. He never even saw White Tears coming as they smashed into his form, a short blind panic-run and we cut him down.

Heart's technique is a little unschooled, I'd have remonstrated such lack of professionalism in the past. Mutilation should have a purpose, a clear indication be it a warning or something else. Should have listened to her when she suggested we burn the body though, seems he's up and about and back to his old tricks unless there's several of them. There would have to be if the last was recovered and raised with magicks. Still, all the more good for us for it gives me the perfect opportunity to instruct for a change instead of lecture. All that's needed is a place where muffled screams and the sound of injuries being inflicted won't carry. Answers will come after.

If he's already dead, who's going to miss him...?

[Badelaire]

Sky-Blue Eyes

Up in the heights where I enjoyed revealing hidden depths I met it again. We had only passed briefly before, too many people to attract its attention for long. This time we stared into each others eyes, I saw myself reflected in them in more ways than one. For too long I stared and the pack set on me, I took many with me, a flurry of snarling fangs and rending claws before it turned black. I don't know what happened in the time I spent roaming, I thought I could hear the other unclaimed souls in those mountains screaming to be heard.

When I woke it was far from where I remembered, Heart was stood over me, face a mask of terror and relief. I smelled like a slaughter house, most of it mine. My head still aches, I refrained from using my "talents", tried to rely on just strength of arm. I know if I did I'd become no better than the things I've found in my travels, a monster using unnatural abilities to shatter limbs, burst organs and set flame where none could possibly take. Those abilities are too addictive, I can see how greater mages succumb so easily to its lure.

Taking too much from the land, a balance. The land takes too much in blood in my opinion, its anger will never be appeased, always finding new reasons, new hates. It's not my place to stop the coming storm, only to bear witness. There's a new found respect for the hunter though, next time we meet I'll show it the "stories" of the White Rain and the Decaying Flower...

[Badelaire]

Empathy

It's been a long time, some weeks, since I put pen to parchment. Some strange things have happened to me but no less strange than what others go through. In the time since my violent expulsion from the Red Vardo and the subsequent events I had a slight hand in here and there I've noticed some subtle changes about myself. It's something hard to explain, even to myself. I have not led a good life prior to the mists ensnarement, not at all when you compare it to the simple uncomplicated life of someone "normal".

The things I did were done under the allusion that order and control was paramount, that one House should hold sway over all others for the greater good when all it did was fuel the fires that torched the city. I could reason it all away that I was only doing my duty as a Chosen Man but then the more a man lies to himself the more he will believe those lies. I don't believe for one second I did anything other than for myself and the ambitions I held back then. Ambitions that are still there in some way even now, yet the moments that defined me and consumed my waking hours seem trifling, petty, selfish, insignificant. Pointless. I learned not only the other day that I have no empathy for others anymore, no desire to risk my own life for a cause, there simply is none to fight anymore.

This doesn't mean I've lost heart in the way things have turned out, if anything I've been liberated from all those cosy evils of the material world. For now I'm content to traipse this one, exploring the confines of what others have termed a prison. It's all a question of how one goes out at the end of the day. Fighting, or on his knees begging. I'm not much for begging, my knees aren't quite what they used to be and give me a little discomfort if I'm on them for long periods. Guess that leaves only one option left then.....

[Badelaire]

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[Badelaire]

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[Badelaire]

Reflection

When the offer of work first came in, it was with the Vardo. After Tabitha and Alana's scheming pretty much undid everything Caterina had built up for her "Les Chat's" project and ousted the remaining membership I was past caring what their plans were. To be honest whatever goals of pulling the wool over Dememtlieuse high society eyes was lost in endless and rather tedious talks about fashion, tea and art. Les Chats was a joke among adventurers, a group of lady-lovers full of pretences. Proof that people only ever react to what's evident on the surface.

My link to Reiko offered me a possible window of opportunity with the Gokudo and I weighed the two options up of Red Vardo and Vasille's brood. Heart, still scared and frightened of the world, told me of her fear of not wanting to spend her days skulking in the sewers so I took up the Vardo's offer through Kalmah. It was supposed to offer safety, respite, sanctuary. It wasn't.

After being "escorted" into the Drain to explain to Vasille why I chose the Vardo over his offer I was met with the usual threats and promises of retribution and allowed to leave unharmed along with Sister who I had taken along with me from Les Chats. At first it seemed like there was the promise of something I could put my skills to use with, that was until the idea of merging RVT and Gokudo to end their hidden war was formed.

So, the man who pretty much said he'd skin me for allying with the "enemy" now became the head of the Vardo's "Shadow Group". I can usually predict a person's motives very well, what drives them and therefore how to react in advance to place my counter move. Vasille was so random that was impossible. Random and unpredictable, dangerous qualities to have as a leader and we fast butted heads on literally everything under the sun, mainly Heart. Taken under his wing (literally, his Draconic lineage manifested in vestigal wings and horns and a violent temper), Heart could be described as his fledgling apprentice but all I saw were slave chains.

What ensued in the months to come was what I term Imbroglio and the inspiration to filling out this now battered book. The merger of Vardo and Gokudo was not a popular one, with many of the current members of the Vardo resigning in anger leaving the rest of us struggling to manage on our own with little direction. Rather than rebuild what could have been something of power, things descended into a back and forth into a power struggle. The old enmity was still rife and the three of us were caught in the middle trying to make best with what we could. Placating one side, trying to explain ways to proceed with the other, everything entered the doldrums.

The Red Vardo will call you family, it will be full of promises, but they will turn on you in almost an instant. I can only go off my experience within the Vallaki branch but an organisation of mercenaries, information brokers and fixers should be well aware that everything in the Unseen World has an ulterior motive. Perception, insight and clarification of facts should be the first thing done before acting. In the end it doesn't matter, we were expelled and I reacted in anger to be set on by them like a pack of wolves. That the Garda I have spoken to since in passing hold such scorn for them, evident of poorly kept business practices, yeah I'm still a little disgruntled.

Vasille's actions caught up with him in the end and he was ripped apart by wild horses. My familiar reported what had occured to me, told me of the gawkers and their clever little mouths. Funny how they never thought to say such things when the Dragon was on his legs, many knew how impossible a task it was to bring him down when surrounded by the family who abandoned him. The family he drove away with his wrath. Those few who remain seem like shadows of their former selves. Azalea (on account of her rather poisonous nature), The Vague Man (never understand a thing he speaks of), Cat's Kitten (obviously), Little Brat (Vasille's spoiled "child"), the Verzi silencer and the self proclaimed Joyless Miracle. The driving force that brought them all together was ultimately the force that split them all apart.

All I can say is now they're free to pursue their own lives without the shadow of a dragon over them...

[Badelaire]

Action and Reaction

Picking herbs which is tiresome alone but an entirely necessary task, I was found by the Little Brat. The girl is a walking whirlwind of chaos, drawing everyone around her in. I call her a brat because a spoilt child does what they want without thought to the consequences of their actions. They pass over all semblance of dignity and restraint in order to sate their indulgences, petty or otherwise. Like with Heart I'm the one who always has to pick up the pieces, sooth the worries and placate the people who's wrath is incurred.

I said I'd not pick up a fool who couldn't walk on their own to feet. I have a lot to be angry at Loaf for but she did have an infectious personality. Maybe because she's one of the few I recall since the beginning, there's been a lot faded into the mists since then, that I felt so crushed at the realisation her end had come. What is money without friends? How many times did we stand back to back, our swords against theirs, legions of the night and the demonic world? I was told years ago that we satisfy every revenge in kind but a man that can surpass his own revenge against those who already about to die transcends the common man.

Common is ignorant and dead, walking through the world with hands over ears and eyes clamped shut...

[Badelaire]

Hearts and Minds

Sometimes the company of people can be stifling, all shouting to be heard in the inn popular with most outlanders. Hard to hear my own thoughts so I headed into the town to the Bell. A young private stood at the door and after a brief moment of me eating my evening meal alone and in silence he spoke. That's the first time one has to me that wasn't an order or some muttered curse in a language they think I don't have some grasp of. Old habits kicked in, gauging mood, attitude, personal awareness.

Manipulating people is a skill, one that's hard to keep honed constantly. It is far easier to simply see how people feel by voicing your own opinions, ones you know will strike a chord within them. "You speak like you were born in Barovia". I have to admit that stunned me for a moment when it occured to me: I just know the Barovian mind well now. I know what drives them, what they fear, what they desire, what they despise.

The Barovian is a fiercely territorial person. Though they are raised on stories of the cruelties of night, magic and the unseen things that hide under a child's bed at night they have a strong national pride. The average Barovian just wants food on the table and clothes on their children's backs. They want to be left alone and never have to worry about the terrors that lurk outside their door so long as they keep it bolted shut. They have an almost karmic attitude of 'whatever I don't know can't hurt me.'

They see outlanders as an infection, a spreading virus in what is their land. People from places no map here will ever show you who stroll around cocksure and prideful, giving no thought to the average Barovian than you would an insect. Clinging onto their former gods like children on the apron strings of their mother, scared and terrified of this new world and unwilling to adapt.

"Your home must have been Iadul if you found a better life here then?" Hell. Yes, Westgate was akin to the hells. I know the Barovian mind so well because when darkness fell everyone got inside, men in House colours retreated behind the safety of castle walls and windows were shuttered against the black. People didn't stray down to the Shore if they knew what was good for them and only walked the brightly lit avenues like Silverpiece Way. Night belonged to the hybrid freaks, the Deathbringers and their masters: The Night Masks. Ruled by an alliance only spoken of in hushed whispers on the brightest of days people would pray fervantly for protection from the gods from them and their predations: The Night Court.

I know the Barovian mind well, because I've traded one set of vampires for another. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

[Badelaire]

Method

Breaking someone is different to breaking in a horse or a dog. Those in power haven't come to realise that the harder you beat a man, the taller he stands and the prouder he walks. The oppresed Gundarakite peoples are example of this. To break a person, their will, their spirit you break their mind. People often harp on about fighting with honour, noblesse, dignity and that there's a "proper" way to end someone's life.

Destroy that idea and show them first hand what a terrible, bloody thing it is to kill and then show them you relish in it, thrive in the chaos that terrifies lesser men. Show no mercy to your enemy, execute their wounded so none may come back to claim revenge even if you have to wipe all living memory of them for generations to come. Tear them apart hand-to-hand with sharpened steel and destroy their preconceptions of what a man is and you become their own personal monster. When they begin to fear you, you become stronger, better.

One thing to never forget is that all of this is simple posturing, an ogre beating his chest, a lion roaring. If you lose yourself in the facade, the display, if you succumb to the horror then you literally become the monster. When this happens you become weak, reduced, not more than a man but less and that can be fatal. I've tried to teach this way of thinking to others, to help free them from their own fears of the skulking, pervading presence of the night. Few listen or take note but Heart, the rest lie dead for the crows or to be picked over by scavengers of another kind in the temples.

"My enemy uses terror, so therefore I become more terrifying than he."

[Badelaire]

[A copied passage that seems to have had words ommited on purpose...]

If you know nothing of [blotch]; if you know everything, know today a piece of the sun has dealt a great blow to that beast of the night. From crystal, leaping forth, a beam of brilliant light, golden light sent [blotch] to hiding, perhaps into long hibernation. Yet beware. When he awakes, [blotch] too will seek out the medallion whose power all but destroyed him: The Holy Symbol of [blotch]. But I've hidden it, magically secreted it away with this note and [blotch] [blotch] the only clues to its whereabouts. Further, I have magically [blotch] the text, keeping it safe from all - save those equipped with a piece of [blotch] , a [blotch] enabling them to [blotch] my [blotch].

S.P.

[Badelaire]

Distance

Far from the madding crowd little happens, the more contact one has with the rat race the more one gets involved in affairs better left untouched. It's been some time now since the last time I've been bothered to write, very little occurs that's particularly noteworthy when you travel seldom walked lands. My days are spent learning about plants that can make herbal remedies, poison water sources or repel animals or of the many signs evident yet subtley missed in the wilds under Heart's instruction. I teach her more reading, arithmetics, fighting (when to and not to), politics, subterfuge, manipulation, gauging motive and other general "city folk" ways. It's only recently that I've been updated on what's been occuring by Grevis and Nikolos (when I can find him) and it's been a hive of activity in the last few weeks. I've not kept current on what's been going on unless it directly affected me in some way but as ever trouble has a way of finding you even when you're avoiding it.

Everyone talks of stolen souls, of Darkon and of hunting for a certain couple of bounty heads that have incurred the wrath of the Count. No doubt that meeting long ago with the three Kargat agents (would explain their request at that time but I had no idea what the word even meant until two weeks ago) in the sewers would have marked all in the room that day but I'm told it's the souls of those who rampaged through Avernus' halls that are the real prizes. It seems Heart was volunteered to retrieve something linked to all this, something I wasn't pleased about but it's done now and the matter's settled. It has occured to me that people only ever deem to inform me of things when they want something they're never willing to pay back. I'm getting fed up of being a shield for others, picking up the pieces of the problems they cause for themselves because they never just stop and think for more than five minutes. All reaction and impulse, too loud and brash as if trying to tell the world "Here I am, look at me!". How many of those are festooned in the Count's dungeons now? Smash a fist into the water and you create ripples that might alert a predator, slide your hand in gently and it'll never know you're there.

Now though, I care nothing for fame or infamy as others grapple and clamour for it. I just want to test the bars of this prison for a weakness.

[Badelaire]

Dukkar

I've sat at the fires of many Vistani tribes. I've listened to the tales they spin to each other and when I first heard the word Dukkar, it was spoke of in a tone that would make further questioning very unwise. In my travels I gathered the books most throw away because they don't hold material value or do something wondrous and magical and read through as many as I can get my hands on to learn more about this caged world and its denizens. Money is easy to aquire now, wealth I'd not have earned as a Sworn now whimsical and spent as quickly as it's earned. What is learnt in those books though can be priceless. With the knowledge gleaned from them I understand this world far better. Among those books is one called "The Great Upheavel" which details a cataclysmic event and its effects some years ago and the augeries of Hykosa.

Dukkar is not a person, but rather persons. A term to describe the Vistani's most feared and hated of kin. Male Vistani born with the seer's gift, or curse, and slain at birth as abominations. The word Dukkar means one hunted by death by it's never clear why all males who have this seer's gift are killed outright beyond some vague prophecy they adhere to. I have known a Dukkar and that's reason enough for the Vistani to worry in their eyes, that there was even one who slipped their knives. A while back three very unsual people approached us to offer a job. A wererat, some form of undead hidden beneath a shroud and the strangest of all of them, the ghost Nyx. Theyse people wanted a Dukkar (I should have picked up on them saying "a" and not "the") for their master. The job was taken and in the confusing mess that came as a result of the hunt, I managed to get the look at this feared abomination of the Vistani. All I saw was a darkling driven mad by whatever it is their seer's blood does to them if it does anything at all. A long time later I learnt that those three shadowed people were Kargatane, the agents of the Darkonese king Azalin (Azalin Rex being the title he uses to denote his majesty).

Questions that will likely go unanswered have arisen about the child Olga. She has no parents and seemingly flitted between Tasques, claiming non as her own. She has very uncanny powers of divination that the Vistani seers are famous for but I've never seen any project a sending before. She is also manipulative as I have witnessed, playing on people's (but not all people) natural behaviour towards defending a child. Juliana Von Zeklos taught me that this world, that swallows evil from other worlds like sponge, will use any form to further its malice. There is no crueller being than a child, a child knows no guile or restraint and one cursed as Juliana was uses their form to delude others into thinking them as no threat. I'm beginning to wonder now if this Olga has been doing just that. The last few verses of the hexad could certainly point towards this singular girl-child but as often these long told prophecies can be interpreted in a thousand different ways. Moot point now as it is, if that verse has come to pass in the vanishing of the girl then people should start pondering on this Inajira and what misfortune he had befall him/it in order for it to be reversed.

[Badelaire]

Indifference

The two most heard phrases I've ever come across are "Don't you know who I work for?" and "Don't you know who I am?". In my line of work where you have been has nothing to do with where you are now. Your current situation will be defined by your current actions, not those you have done in the past in or what reputation dictates. Men who have fought literal demons among others blustering and strutting along only to be felled by the most child's play of mind spells. Lofty mages with powers I'll never aquire taken down low by a pack of hungry wolves uncaring of intellect and education. You can avoid most trouble if you keep moving, if you take no great interest, if you keep your head down and tell yourself "This has nothing to do with me."

When learning the sword I was told killing wasn't a foul thing unless you took enjoyment in it. I'll be the first to say I enjoy the fighting but not so the killing. I'm beginning to wonder, however, that perhaps indifference is just as bad as enjoyment? I walk along blood stained roads with the bodies of the dead trailing behind me without so much as a second glance to what were once people with hopes and dreams of their won regardless of their ambition. I fight and kill men and even beasts with families and loved ones who are often forced into what they have to do by cirumstance without thought to who they may leave behind. When you're out there, it doesn't matter what stars fated you into this life. You draw steel and there are no more rules to adhere to but the ones you try to set yourself each day.

But again I'll ask, what's worse? Enjoying the killing because you can't help yourself or simply not caring because you've done it for so long it's as easy as drawing breath? I don't walk that path alone, but I can't help thinking it leads to the same place in the end...

[Badelaire]

Perspective

The way I have viewed my life was always about sight, a matter of perspective. Lies are simple truths spun from an opposing field of view and in this unseen world far from the eyes of normal society the act of percieving causes shifts in your environment. In order to see with clarity one must change their vantage point in response or risk only ever seeing the blank wall ahead of them and not what awaits on the other side.

However, one cannot change this when trapped by the gravity of guilt. Many people will ponder that sentiment and how "sin" is defined. The actions of your heart or the whim of a vain god? Philosophers query "How can we know the world around us if our sense of it is so imperfect?", I ask "How can we know ourselves if we don't know our purpose or why we do what we do? And if the truth of that is revealed then will we accept it?"

If so then the truth will never threaten to overwhlem you, you see the barbs and the thorns in life as teachings. Lonliness, abuse, anguish are all as blessed gifts as company, care, hope. Having known the feel ofall these things you become hardened, tempered against what the world has to throw at you. One thing must always be remembered above it all, something you should never think highly of: The deeming of your own significance. That way lies only hubris. If all you have ever known and expect is joy and happiness then you are quickly consumed by others, if all you have ever known is spite and malice then you will be quickly consumed by yourself. A balance of both is necessary to not only survive here but also to live. One thing remains above all else:

People who can't kill will always be subject to those who can...

[Badelaire]

Vagrant Soul

Despondant and wounded inside, though I'd never show it, I wander like an errant cloud blown by the winds. What was so important in the past has no bearing in the present and even less so for the future because even a House man can become a vagabond. I try to fill my days as best I can with books and notes and the work I'm employed to do but I still find myself sat in solitude in some abandoned old home, the hopes and dreams of those who dwelt within as thick and cloying as the dust that has settled over the years. I hear the moonwolves bay outside and shrieks no human throat could ever utter. I don't feel fear in the sense that whatever is out there might find me because I welcome the fighting, the release of this pent up frustration, aggression and rage I've been conditioned to keep in check.

I only put on all those airs and graces because I don't want to admit to anyone I enjoy the fighting but deep inside there's still that void whenever I'm left to my own devices. Too often I've looked at the edge of Imbroglio and wondered to myself if I forced it along my throat would I wake up back in Westgate and be free of this waking nightmare? But even nightmares have times where the sun breaks through for just that brief period, making those intimate moments seem all the more important and blissful when everything else around you is so despairing.

However, I never seem able to say the right thing and more often than not words intended to guide end up causing hurt and further pushing the only thing I've ever really cared for away from me. Still there but miles distant. I've never really been that good with people, I'll be the first to admit that, I avoided them as best I could when I wasn't on duty in that other life I had. I run out of small talk and shared none of those aspirations the others used to talk about, family was an alien concept. In truth I always expected to die and prepared myself for that eventuality as best I could manage, it's how my parent's trained my mind to think and sadly what I've been doing to others when they don't deserve it.

I only ever see patches, never the whole picture, watching the past in one eye and the present in the other. I feel like I'm watching a dream I'll never wake up from but I'm scared that maybe I will and won't like what I wake up to. It's hard to keep the pretence up, the stern hand and forced smile. I just want to live as we did in those first days in the comfort and assurance of each other's company. I don't know how long any of us really have here but it entered my mind that perhaps I wasn't brought here to die, that I was brought here to find out if I'm really alive at all.

My head hurts, my eyes ache. This place pushes its way inside both and the sounds of the horrors are getting closer, my blood and life like a beacon in the night so once more I draw Imbroglio and ready spellfire to offer my rebuke again. To go down fighting instead of on my knees begging. In the end the who, what, why, where and when of my imprisonment here aren't important anymore. What's important is what I do in the times to come and to ensure I don't enact the one thing that enters my mind and clouds it with fear.

I don't want to die alone.

[Badelaire]

Companion in the Light

It's been a very long time still since I plucked the courage to open this book and stain its pages with ink once more. To reveal my thoughts in ways that I'd never speak of out loud. So much has happened and yet so little of it is truly understood by me. Ambition, the webs I spun and the traps I set are but faded memories of a life I tried to hang onto. A life of imbroglio, of power and struggle, ascension in the ranks and favour from the patriarch.

I am still the man I was and yet not. If I met Tredow Setzahl Folquin as he was little over two years prior I'd know in my heart I'd despise him and his haughty arrogance. His cocksure attitude that he would always come out on top in any situation because he always held the cards tight. That didn't do him so well when the Proven came to clean up their business, to wipe those ambitious few Chosen away to protect their lofty positions. Even the thought of it brings the taste of blue salt poison to my mouth. An acrid, metallic thing created from the spines of the urchins in the Sea of Fallen Stars.

Sworn, Chosen, Proven, Favoured, Honoured, Exhalted men. All but empty titles defining a man's worth in the eyes of the House patriarchs. Westhavens, those of us who come from the city of perpetual night called Westgate, strove to outdo one another. We trusted few and loved even fewer and chose our comrades carefully. That is still true even now. Even more so in this dark demi-plane the notes scattered in and about the Village refer to.

What I remember of the stories of my father's land of Unther, I hold onto like so many other things I regret in my life. I am not consumed by those regrets though. I keep my angst buried deep where I need it. It's what keeps me sharp, able to react in an instant while everyone else stands in shock. I am not a great man as great men go but I am a son of Westgate. That counts for something even if no one knows of what I speak.

Heart is always close, her touch felt for the briefest moments out of the shadows and yet speaks more volume than any fancy speech or declaration of love could ever do. We spend long days and longer nights sat in silence with nothing but the proximity of one another as our language. Small gestures, expressions relaying our feelings and understood empathically by one another.

I taught her to read and continue to read to her the books I find, regardless of subject, to sooth the worries and concerns that often plague her. I know when to leave her be to her devices or when to pursue a line of thought almost instinctively we are that intrinsically linked. It is for this reason I did not attempt to stop her this time around. I saw the clarity in her eyes when she spoke and the assuredness that this was something she needed to seek for herself. She was no puppet on strings but her own true self.

I do not know what she is though, this Other we found down there. I felt sadness, lingering solitude, sorrow and despair buried deep in those vaults. Now she is a part of my Heart and yet not like the Old Shadow I named from those tales I heard from far off lands in the Moonshae. Skeith.

A silly thing on my part to name him so but after speaking with him, seeing him rise from the corner of a dark room behind my Heart and hearing his words I know he is not to be feared though others will do so because of what he is. They will not understand what I know by sight. WithSkeith and the Other Laila has told me she is one step closer to understanding this strange and yet wonderous ability of hers and I believe that. She's not only appeased the shadows, she's become almost one of them, accepted in her words. A step closer to a shade.

When I look to her at night, her new eyes reflect the shadow from which she was born. They unnerve me because of the drastic change but behind them is still that young woman I met in that old cabin so many moons ago. My Heart in the old Untheric meaning. Wife. I keep the light she gave up to understand more about this path she wishes to tread. I, her Companion in the Light.

[Badelaire]

Invocation

[This page features various invocations of appeasement, thanks or pleas to several gods. Shar for concealment in the shadows, at night and to protect Laila; Shaundakul for safe travels and exploration; Tempus for prowess in battle; Talona to ward off sickness that could cripple him; Ilmater to ease the pain of healing wounds; Lathander for seeing a new day; Gond for mastery in artifice; Hoar for past and future vengeances; Tymora for luck and her sister Beshaba to be merciful with her misfortunes; Valkur to protect the ships he often travels on and Umberlee not to sink them; Helm to gaurd his friends; Kelemvor to be merciful to those who pass on; Mielikki for times spent in the wilds and Chauntea for bountiful finds, Malar for a productive hunt; Mystra for the gift of the weave and Azuth for using it with temperance; Oghma for attaining knowledge and lore; Waukeen for profit; The Red Knight for sound planning and Auriel for not freezing him to death in winter...]

Just in case they are listening...