« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2018, 06:05:27 AM »
It was another dark, cold and misty night in the outskirts around Barovia. I was doing my patrol as always. Among my duties as a Crow, I have to do guards and patrols just in order to keep the creatures of the darkness away from places crowded by people. Probably it would have been a quiet night if it had not been for the attack. The disappointment filled my heart again in the moment that I looked around me: I was fighting alone… Now I am definitely tired of this.
The same Vampire of my first encounter decided to bother my guard that night, the same who has been feeded by the halfling four months ago was in front of me now, keeping a security distance using his undead summoned minions as a shield. I just ignored them and decided to charge against him with terrible consequences. Of course, Vampires like him have had the opportunity to mastery their skills of witchcraft through the years, and they still having the opportunity to learn and earn more power if nobody stops them. They had and they still having a whole eternity to do that. For that reason, is especially important to kill them. Maybe this is the first argument that I would use to encourage true adventurers to fight against whatever is happening in this cursed land.
The Vampire had magical protections. He was surrounded by a purple aura which crawled around his body. I was not able even to touch him due to that. I attacked him fiercely, shouting asking for help to the adventurers of Vallaki. A help that took too long to come. And when it came, they just stood looking to what was happening. They let a few of us facing the evil. We were alone… And the adventurers were afraid. Too afraid to do anything. Everything happened in slow-motion: I finally could penetrate the magical protection of his body and slash his flesh making him bleed… Only in that moment, he decided to focus on me and with a movement of his hand, he stopped me. I fell, barely conscient. I remember his words: He recriminated the fact that we enjoyed the night. He recriminated our freedom after the sunset.
But for me, the most important thing was that he bled. They can bleed… They can die.
Now I understand the true cancer of this land. The people have been fearing the evil for so many years that they do not even remember when or why it started. Now it is normalized the idea that at night they are not free. They believe, that the night belongs to the creatures of the darkness because they think that it is not possible to face them. They really think that the evil can't be beaten… And for that reason, more than ever, they are wrong and they need a change. The war that almost erase the existence of my world, Arcadia, took seventy years to be won. And we would not have won had it not been for the coalition of all the races and disciplines: Humans, Elves and Dwarves… No matter if they were warriors, rangers or mages. They called it “The Long War” for a reason. And it is not for how long it took, but for the effort as well. The demons of The Void threatened my world. They wanted to reduce it to the non-existence. And, in the end of all the things, when the entire existence and the future of a whole civilization, of a whole world, depends on the unique effort to work together, then and only then, the evil can be truly faced.
For this reason, I feel disappointed. For this reason, anger is growing in the bottom of my heart. I can barely recognize myself and I am not the man who crossed through the Mist. I am not the young Paladin who once joined in The Crows, full of love and courage. Those days have gone now. My world has had to suffer seventy years of war to understand that the evil can be destroyed only if the people have the will to fight together. Honestly, I do not have any hope to see this happening soon. In my mind I am still thinking that Vallaki does not deserve The Crows. But in the same time, I understand that the change must start to happen in some way. Even feeling angry as I do, Kadar showed me the truth and the good with simple words: "Maybe when they less deserve the support of The Crows, is when more they need it".
I am afraid this land is killing me slowly… But for this same reason, I understand how important is to fight. How important and needed is to bring some Light back.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2018, 06:18:04 AM by Kracius »
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