Within the swirling Mist (IC) > Biographies

The Journal and Diary of Joachim von Schrötter

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BraveSirRobin:

--- Quote from: First Entry, 28. März 773 ---
First Entry, 28. März 773 BC.

     There is merit, somewhere, to keeping one's thoughts written and confined to a piece of paper that nobody would ever read, or find until he was dead. To take the voice, the internal monologue that you cannot seem to quite silence and give it a body. Something I have overlooked the value of in my years as a simple Farmer back in Falkovnia, where the most troublesome thoughts I harbored were related to feeding animals or harvesting crops. Most of that was utterly and completely automated, the daily habits and routines I went about, not seeing the larger world beyond the farmstead. Born and raised as I was, there was not an inherent fear of what lays beyond, but knowledge that eventually your solace from this life would be death, something ultimately to be welcomed. To many, disease and war brought that to them early; to others it was brought slowly by age. Little room for dissent or free thought and no room for choice. You served because it was what you were born to do, your place in what limited roles society would allow you. You learned duty, albeit grudgingly and you learned discipline. These are the things I can say serve as a constant in my life. Duty. Discipline.

Now I find myself in Dementlieu only a year after escaping the terror that is Falkovnia. A land that I thought far above the murder and tyranny of the KingFürher's men, only to find that it is not whether one is Falkovnian, Dementlieuse, Mordentish, a Blausteiner.. Barovian. Ghastrian? Borcan. It is not the label of which we give upon ourselves as men, that makes us who we are. It is not the brand upon our heads, the color of our eyes, the hue of our flesh. It is the very nature of Humans, of sentient beings to scheme and contrive to win power over one another. This is a constant that transcends nations, ethnicities and even worlds. Humans, if left unchecked are capable of such utter terror and treachery that it truly matters not just where you are from, but what you personally are capable of. I thought the best of this new Country that I call home, I thought of it, the Gendarme to be the utter embodiment of what can be, men, not of war, but of peace, maintaining it. However, given the excuse and freedom, the slack of their leash to let loose their sequestered urges and desires, they are just as much an animal as any Falkovnian at heart. The only true difference between Falkovnia and Dementlieu is that while Dementlieu will attempt to hide what urges these men hold, what these men of Dementlieu - born and held at heart, are capable of - not limited to simply the Gendarme, but the stock from which they are born - that Falkovnia will encourage and reward it. The KingFürher Vlad Drakov recognizes this inevitable truth in a manner I have never given him credit for, and he nurtures it. Grows it - until it reaches a point of perfection, then he unleashes his starved, wild dogs upon the Core to wreak havoc.

In some comparisons, I could attribute what I have heard of the Duc of Ameranthe to be of similar aptitude. What his men, and those who follow his cause are capable of. The murder and defiling of a Husband and his Wife, what their plans for their children would have ever been had we not arrived in due time. When I walked upon that farmstead, I saw what happened to them, as what happened to my own family. My mother, defiled by Talons and murdered. My Sister, a similar fate. My Father? He was given the worst of it. All three of them saw a public impalement, defiled, bloody, mangled. It flashes before my eyes constantly in an endless stream of torment and misery, waking me in the night and distracting me by day. I would see each of those mongrel dogs put to the blade or ended by my bullet. Alas, I am a Falkovnian and whatever words I may have on the subject would fall on deaf ears, even if said ears knew I was right. Even if I could change this place, to make a difference, I am not one who would be granted the honor and opportunity. I am a humble servant of the Republiqué. I am a Soldier, suturing the wounds of the bleeding and dying to sustain the constant bloodshed that forever plagues Dementlieu. I am a man who has loved and lost, over and over again to the point where I can barely recall memories I hold dear, locked away by some mechanism of the human mind to avoid pain.

I yearn for slumber.   
--- End quote ---

BraveSirRobin:

--- Quote from: Second Entry, 28. März 773 ---
Second Entry, 28. März 773 BC.

     Duty. Discipline. Two constants that will never leave my side or my mind, the very essence of who I am engraved into my bones and burned into my soul. But how it is I am to fulfill these, in a land such as this is forever eluding me and bringing me to a darker, less favorable state of mind. I find myself constantly second-guessing what I am doing, disbelieving everything I am told and scrutinizing it for the mollusk of truth burrowed somewhere within. It is becoming an exhausting task, despite what resources I have at my disposal. This is, however, the land I am within; the duties I am given within it leave me emboldened to the following day. But for how long can one constantly drive themselves upon a goal of which cannot be completed without the truth? Perhaps that is something I will never know; something so sacred to those I serve that I will never find myself truly satiated. I must not allow myself to give quarter to these darker thoughts of deception and hatred. I must not succumb to the very nature of the beast itself, lest I fail to slay it where it stands. I will not allow this land to change me in such a way that I forget who I once was. What I believed in, what I would do. With her absence, I feel as though a piece of the future I once saw has escaped through my fingers into the sea, fallen to depths that would crush any man foolish enough to try to retrieve it. Perhaps this is so. Perhaps it is my fate to be crushed by the endless pressure and forces unbeknownst to me in search of the life I pursue. In search of the future that can be, and the taste of progress that lingers on the tip of my tongue.

I must become unwavering and steel myself. I am not unwise, I am not blind, my mind perceives. I know what is happening around me, I just cannot force the feeling in my gut and the logic of my mind to coincide with one-another. I cannot bring harmony to this, but perhaps tranquility and solace in the knowledge that this is my Duty.

"We are all either Kings or Pawns of men. Pieces on a board.
If the man is not the mover, he is the moved."
--- End quote ---

BraveSirRobin:

--- Quote from: Third Entry, 29. März 773 ---
Third Entry, 29. März 773 BC.

     Alas, clarity. I have spent so much time these last few weeks spinning my thoughts and confusion into circles that inevitably stirred the waters around me to the point it was noticeable. It is to my fortune that what I do, is perceived with honesty and merit rather than deception and malice. I feel a mixture of emotions coursing through me on what will be made of the following months. What will be there for me, in the end of it all. I have seen and felt the fire of one life snuffed out in the cold departure of water, splashed over the flames of dreams. Yet, when the moisture left the wood upon which the old fire was set, I was able to ignite it again and once more seek into the darkness that my eyes are not yet able to see within. There is a hope for someone like me, somewhere within this odd web intersecting goals and ambitions. It will just take time for me to train myself to figure out, upon precisely which sticky, alluring and almost invisible strand of the spider's web I must step upon, to proceed to the next, careful not to disturb the spiders that nestle near it's edge.

I will write more on other affairs, later. I have written what comes to mind, and.. While perhaps in my death, someone will read these notes - I won't be here to listen to the critique for how disorganized they are.
--- End quote ---

BraveSirRobin:

--- Quote from: Fourth Entry, 12. April 773 ---Fourth Entry, 12. April 773 BC.

     I must admit to myself that I have experienced a rather difficult time in these last few days wrangling my thoughts into something suitable to write on these pages. Nothing quite seems to make sense anymore in the core. I never thought I could face such impossible circumstances and choices here, nor that I could be so blind to their outcomes. I've never before let my mind slip through so weakly into the Night. What am I? What is this place? What am I doing here? What do I even do now? - Questions I keep asking myself over and over again between bottles of cognac and thick, sweetly wrapped cigarettes. It all went so wrong, so quickly, so easily. It slipped into disrepair, disarray like a babe slips into slumber. Yet, here I am, looking back as though it was all so clear - like I am all so perceptive - but to be entirely honest with myself? If it happened all over again before me, perhaps I would let it fall through my fingers again, just like the first time. Dozens dead, butchered like lambs uninhibited. A child pulled from the womb of a dead woman, still breathing. The death of my colleague in the Gendarmerie just hours after she was detained. All of it unquestioned by me, knowing what they would do. Knowing, how they would deal with me. What I coward, I am.

I have spent a few days now, merely trying to wrap my head around what to do. Whether I should do as my heart yearns so eagerly and damn everyone I serve with just to burst out, shouting it into the skies, releasing the truth from my mind and feeling the weight escape. I would return to my suite, sit down and sip on a bottle of cognac. Yet -- I would taste something metallic -- rather than the aged, fine cognac I would be tasting something... Metallic. It would perplex me, it would confuse me, until I realized, I could no longer swallow. It was the dagger of an assassin, through my throat, and the blood draining into my stomach, not the sweet liquor I so yearned for. Perhaps that thought alone makes me an utter coward who is afraid to do as he believes, because he wants to gain something from it. An utterly mortal, human tale. Those who feel as though their cowardice was a weakness, would call it strength - a purpose beyond such small trivialities as right and wrong, but to do as you must. Those are the words of a man who has spun so many lies around himself that he has become trapped in his own lies, forever cursed to believe them at truths, until.. He has lost his grip upon reality, so dearly, that the world is either mad to him, or he? Is mad to the world.

At the least, I am not the only person here who feels this way. I have more in common with Sieur Jerome de La Salle than I care to say, though his methods can sometimes be unsavory, he bends just when he needs to. He arrives just when he needs to. I see the man as a mentor in many ways, and the way he looks at me with pride fills me with such joy. It is so funny, how something so simple - can make you so happy. For someone to see you as a success, to believe in you - to care, for what you want to become. Between him and Juste Marceaux, I feel as though I have a family in Dementlieu that I could have never hoped to expect when I arrived with Corinne, all those months ago. We are supposed to talk before his Council meeting, exchange some final notes and prepare for some maneuvers in the coming battles. I do not feel so crazy, knowing this event burdens his heart as it does mine.


I must look forward, and stop looking back. What unsavory desires plague me will be the end of me, and I must.. I must, stop thinking of them.

 
--- End quote ---

BraveSirRobin:
[This page appears to have been torn out of the old, worn diary.]

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