Author Topic: The Swordsman's Tale:  (Read 15458 times)

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #150 on: January 15, 2018, 08:51:29 PM »
It's not a test of dedication, show of penance or act of humility.
The church really feels I did not deserve the title of light carrier and that Father Allek and Father Ilu before him must have made some terrible mistake to consider me for baptism.
They say I cannot be unbaptized but I did have to give back my orange robe and official temple guard armor. I still wear the colors on my lay armor though. Brother Barris was wrong to scream at me I did not deserve to. Holding my mop in one hand and bucket in another it certainly feels as though I have been unbaptized.

Mother Kali would wonder sometimes if perhaps light carrier was the wrong path for me. She foretold me back then I might never advance past lay person. She said Kaine you might spend your whole life doing good deeds and still be judged unworthy. I won't give up my spear though. I went through too much to pretend I never held the position.
Some people say being the temple janitor seems a terrible misapplication of a fine young warrior.
They should tell that to the Bishop. Or perhaps to Brother Barris who thinks me little better than an unprincipled thug, told me I was hopeless and well, the rest of what had happened between us.

My best *was not* good enough.

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #151 on: January 15, 2018, 11:28:20 PM »
I don't want to wear the white robe of an initiate over again.
I already went through incredibly grueling mental conditioning that felt unlike anything I had even received during Bootcamp at the military academy.
The actual combat training which there was going to be got dangled in front of me then taken away.
Hmm. Try not to be bitter Kaine.
Like Simona said coming to hate the people you are trying to help is no good.

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #152 on: January 15, 2018, 11:34:33 PM »
Should I wear different armor colors? Hmm. Perhaps replacing the bright red with a darker shade. For the lighter one I've considered Mithril dye. I do like that sort of peachy amber color for leather though but need to consider cloth colors.
Maybe Tinu can help me in that regard.

Miss DuPont says she is fond of me as a friend as far as humans go. Perhaps she might have some insights. I'm sure going back to looking like a beginner and then never advancing would please some of my elder/superiors in the church but have I not *earned* the right to at least somewhat wear the colors and wield the spear from the things I have endured and passing my trials?
What in the nine hells, 22 layers of the Abyss and the Khyber is this meant to prove?
You work incredibly hard just to beaten down and have people try to take everything and one away from you???
That's a messed up lesson. I'd like very much to continue rejecting it and resist that.
Bad things happen to me but I was not going to let Claude take my bride from me.
You can torture me, humiliate me, drag my reputation through the mud, tell me to go do only the most brainless of menial tasks if that pleases you. Am I stubborn? Yes. It's not arrogance though I think but determination.

Lately that drive has felt rather flat.
It's not... Being utilized properly.
Taking on mercenary work again just felt sort of right.
It's measurable and concrete. You bring in the sought after artifact or the bandit chief's head and people thank you for it in the form of pay.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 11:36:58 PM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #153 on: January 15, 2018, 11:42:18 PM »
These people they don't like you for it, no. The exchange of goods and services for commerce is simpler and less misinterpretable than this nebulous divine and arcane stuff.
I'd hold more respect towards the priests if they'd actually help like how Mother Kali did.
Spent time talking to Mishandra, she and I realized I had a lot of anger about these things and the vampire. Maybe punching down 2-3 yew trees barehanded again was the first clue...

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #154 on: January 16, 2018, 04:49:01 AM »
Tinu dumped me.
I am a broken man and feel that I have truly nothing left.
Without her and without the church I've...
What the hells is the gods damned point to anything!?
Nobody likes or wants me.

This is the second time somebody said they played along with loving me back but didn't want to go deeper. She was what kept me coming back from the brink of death. I didn't want to leave her to have to deal with all this horrible shit alone.

Nobody needs me. I've got nothing left.
With nobody to care about and no higher cause to serve it feels worse.
Those were what kept me from being more reckless.
I wonder if she thinks dumping me will make Claude leave us alone.
It won't.
I'm hurting and have nobody to turn to, as usual.
Beatrice suggested to me it was bad I kept coming to Degannwy too.
If I was truly evil I would have let Claude into the settlement right then.
I feel so... Just used and thrown away.
She (Tinu) said there would be more freedom this way.
I feel way more cut off from everyone.
This is like when the bishop said it would be a good thing for me to become the temple janitor.
Nothing... No hope left.

Who can I talk to about it?
Things are still as dangerous as ever.
She doesn't want me anymore.
I don't think anyone ever really did.

If I die this time there's nothing to make me want to keep from crossing over this time around.
No warm smile, no cutting remark to throw you off balance followed by a wink or a kiss to show she doesn't really mean it.
[Also] No warm dawn's embrace for me.
Just harsh coldness and everybody distancing themselves from you then muttering, spreading nasty rumors.
That's how it always is and I hate it.

I should sell my groom's outfit. There isn't going to be any wedding.
Not sure how we're going to break that one to the guests.
I wish I could just crawl into a hole and die.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2018, 08:05:58 PM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #155 on: January 16, 2018, 04:59:38 AM »
Crawled into a beetle pit and found a dead Brother Lee and Newell the swashbuckler.
Damn... That wasn't quite what I had in mind.
What I'd wanted to do was sit there and let the fire beetles slowly munch me to death.

What's the point to anything?
Legos is the name of that guy. Mishandra said he was this famous elven smith who used to reside in Degannwy.
God I hate having all the things you work so hard for to advance yourself and others ripped away from you in an instant.

Yeah I'm sure to Tinu and Beatrice they think this will make me go relate to my fellow humans better and is for my own good but what they don't get is *nobody* likes me.
Searching for some f*cks to give. Nope.
No f*cks found.

When I see him I think I'll confront him about ruining my life.
It probably isn't even his fault though.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 05:05:32 AM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #156 on: January 16, 2018, 05:09:14 AM »
I'm having flashbacks of the reptile war and of when Reveka dumped me.
There is no succor. Not for me nope. I've got the bodies of Lee and his friend Newell. The unnatural heat of the cave seems to have them preserved. Odd considering the moisture. One can't live in a giant fire beetle nest though.
I'd better get them to the temple.
Each sure had a lot of money on them.
Hmm, that or I'm just poor and stuff.

I gave Tinu 20,000 fangs and some very nice equipment over the course of our excuse for a relationship which stupidly felt real, very real, more real than anything else I had experienced up to that point to me.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 05:15:00 AM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #157 on: January 16, 2018, 05:11:33 AM »
Hey dead Lee? Hey dead Newell? SHE DOESNT WANT TO MARRY ME ANYMORE. HOO HOO HAHAHAHAHAHA... *Sob.*
Tear stains have drenched the rest of the entry along with something red. It appears to be blood from scraping knuckles against the page and repeatedly punching the table.

CANT BE TOGETHER BECAUSE THEY CARE ABOUT YOU?! What sort of stupid bollocks is that?

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #158 on: January 16, 2018, 05:33:14 AM »
I wish something *would* kill me in such a way as to make all this hurting on the inside stop.
It won't though.

Why do I care about people?
All they ever do is blunderingly confuse themselves into thinking that hurting you is the right thing.
With antagonists at least it's a tad more honest.
They want to hurt you because you have something they like and want or a relationship they believe you to have with which they are jealous.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 05:37:37 AM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #159 on: January 16, 2018, 05:42:36 AM »
I filled a hole she thought no man could fill Dead Lee and Dead Newell!
What the bloody f*ck is that supposed to mean?
She said she couldn't love me the way I loved her.
I asked her what the devil that was supposed to mean and she said giving me her soul because I give mine to her. I found very much flawed and inaccurate with this way of thinking.
Tinu you stupid elf, that isn't what it's about at all.
I just wanted somebody to spend some time with and to be able to make happy.
Go find some human woman to do that with? That doesn't sound like you dear confuséd girl.
That sounds like some thing somebody else told you to say and you rehearsed. She kept crying the whole time too.

Also nobody wants me my own race or any other. You were this strange miraculous exception seemingly. Thanks for throwing that down the privy in the sewer with the rat feces.

Stench? Lee and Newell are starting to get a bit ripe. I'd better haul them to the temple. How long is it? I've lost track of time. How many days has it been?
Everything feels meaningless with no church to serve and no lady love.

Also it's hard to denote the passage of time down here.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 05:45:55 AM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #160 on: January 16, 2018, 05:49:04 AM »
I must be hallucinating in the cave.
Begun affectionately nicknaming the fire beetle grubs.
They nip at my heels, perhaps playfully.
The hell am I saying... This is aggression.
First foresaken by the church and then by the elves.
This really hurts.
Not the stinging burns from the bites. I'm talking about emotional pain.

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #161 on: January 16, 2018, 05:50:56 AM »
I wonder if Tinu was a figment of my imagination.
If she never really existed then this pushing me away was a you should snap back to reality by my own mind.
No, that's too simple and the fumes from these chambers and all the bug guts are starting to get to me.

I feel like Mishandra would tell me to pick myself up and stop feeling sorry for myself. Possibly in elven.

What's the use though?
Beatrice was mad at me for making Tinu cry.
Perhaps they love each other.  Glad she could find happiness somehow. Sorry I couldn't provide it to her.

My mind and heart are destroyed.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 05:54:51 AM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #162 on: January 16, 2018, 01:54:23 PM »
I have nothing else left to lose.
Now Banites seem mad at me.
I'll show them, I'll show them what happens when you decide to pick on a guy without his church, without his bride, with no friends left. I'll duck into the woods and go to the foot of Mt. Baratak to piss off an ancient dire bear. Then I'll let it chase me back. Merde!
They can see through invisibility. I'll have to work quickly!
« Last Edit: January 17, 2018, 02:27:50 AM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale
« Reply #163 on: January 16, 2018, 06:06:17 PM »
Lance corporal Savu tamed the ancient dire bear before it could lay a finger on the Banites and had it attack me instead. When he caught and cuffed me I came willingly. I did run for a bit because having a giant bear attack you is very scary.
I'm going to be executed.
I asked him to please kill me.

I'm losing what little bit of my mind I had left, it feels like.
Nobody got hurt by the bear except me.

What Tinu did really hurt me.
Some people said they think it was so Claude Maluette the storyteller would go away but I think it had been building for awhile anyway. My female friends said she was crying because I was an idiot and she did still love me but it sure didn't feel that way.
It does not matter. My only friend now is a rat in the corner of the cell*. I am in
Spoiler: show
 Cell XI
. Sister Simona came and asked me to tell her my story and about what had happened to me I guess so at least if someone asks at the church (not sure anyone would but in the off chance the topic does come up!) they'd be able to find out about it.

I feel foresaken by everyone and like I haven't any friends left.
Things were already at a very low point and I made the mistake of assuming they could not possibly get worse.

*Charlie the rat was a hallucination Broken Kaine was having because he was lonely.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2018, 08:05:04 PM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #164 on: January 27, 2018, 05:36:35 PM »
Epilogue:
Pain, anguish and torment swirl.
I have no succor. I do not get surcrease.

Consistent punishment is no way to train a mercenary.
For both doing the right and the wrong thing.
The idea when you are a drill master is supposed to be punish the recruit less when he does the right thing, not punish him even more than when he is doing the wrong thing.

Mine is a lonely path but was ever thus.
I have been hunted, criminalized, shunned in Vallaki and all for what?
The number of people who ever actually got hurt from any of my actions is quite small.
The number of people who were offended or as we say in Brelend, chuffed, however, is quite large.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2018, 05:11:35 PM by Kaine »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Swordsman's Tale:
« Reply #165 on: January 30, 2018, 10:27:25 AM »
Conclusion:
Spoiler: show
 Kaine wanted badly to be loved by someone and to have some sort of a cause to serve. That he was shunned to death and hounded shows that even those of stout heart can be consumed by the mists.
In the end he was maddened by grief and loneliness.