5 A.I.
The broken hearth of my house in the hilly woodlands of southern Halifax crackled for one last time as I snuffed out the embers. Land had changed too much from when I settled here half a millennia ago.
I was stuck here for a long while. I couldn’t even tell you when this place started being able to see the sea. I had had my tea every morning facing south, but I distinctly remember looking at mighty trees while doing so. Or was it a hilltop that I watched for stray deer? Could I even see the sky in the beginning? All had blurred after I stopped my yearly trip across the land ninety odd years ago. I was mostly confined to my corner of the woods since then. What would I even see that I haven’t seen in the past four centuries?
Since the isolation started, I had seen the Great Maltovian Empire fall, a wall of undead form around the Karan desert and had watched animals that astound me roam its sandy dunes. Albeit from quite far away with my enchanted looking-glass. Since then not much changed. People fought, forts swapped hands but most things stayed the same. Until exactly 105 years ago, the gods made a decree. That the seawalls would be lowered, the undead return to their Mass Tombs for their final rest and ice barriers dismantled in a hundred years. The two principalities and the two duchies entered a ceasefire a few dozen years after that. Forward a few years and I had gotten bored of passing through the same cities. When the isolation ended I joined the festivities of course, but then things started getting hairy.
First thing that happened was regarding the emperor. Someone from the old Forctiaen Autarch*’s brother’s bloodline. Apparently was heading the federation council as an unbiased party for a while? Declared his claim to the whole fucking old world? I was more impressed with anyone remembering the Forctiae Empire than the extravagant claim.
The declaration was an implicit announcement of war against all of Vrevia, Stymph, Montofer, whoever is left in the Karan desert and even the eastern isles of Agosia! That very reasonably soured my mood. My body might be sound and young but I was nine centuries old and some change.
These kind of fervours usually brought along the worst of the worst. These times were when infamous slavers were born, head hunters rose and banditry flourished. The first two absolutely being extreme danger to me should they know of my dietary nature. And I hadn’t touched a human in three whole centuries, let alone fed on one. I would either be sold as an exotic slave to some snobby cunt or butchered for some amateur brewer that cannot use proper extraction methods to get more potent reagents so they “need” rare components .
I rushed home and had been in hiding since that day. But as my old home crumbled around me, with me unable to get any new supplies for repair and as I ran out of booze; I was aware I needed to move. Maybe back to Montia where I was born? That was a possibility. I could meet Tiny again. They probably knew more about the current political shit-show than I do. Tramara was a coastal town, how long would it even take to go there on ship? 7 weeks? I was used to the blue depths. When I was in my 30s. Did Tramara even exist anymore? Was it still a small fishery?
I gathered what I would take along. My looking-glass. Enchanted by none other than myself. The “spear” I was gifted by a friend in Vrevia. Enchanted to be a simple walking staff until activated, its tip sharpening and hardening like steel. I pronounced the Words to make sure I still could activate the spear. Then came my cloak. It was not enchanted but it was sturdy. Patched gods know how many times over, but it had been with me through the years.
I then dug up the box of gear I had buried. It had rotten thoroughly and only thing left was my blade that was enchanted against wear. Nothing left of its hilt or sheathe. The tang’s part that used to be under the hilt held the enchantment, two runes etched onto the steel. The blade itself had a fuller decorated in vines. I remembered cleaning it and how the red sank into the vines and leaves. A moment passed in silence, as if the forest was honouring my memories. Then the trill of a raven broke the silence. I shook my head like trying to get a nail loose from a board and wrapped it in my bedsheet before hanging it on my back.
I took the gold and silverware I had stashed away for a similar occasion when I built this shack. I could sell them for some water, maybe get Vineyard fixed up again for use and get a ship to the new world. So I, with my walking stick and humble package left the hill that I had found home on top for so many years. I knew one last look would turn to a few more weeks, and a few more weeks into five more years of hiding.
I marched on, the sun was still down which meant I still had some time to reach the city before having to deal with the sun on the way. I thought feeding, somehow, before moving onto the sea would be a good idea; given I wasn’t sure how Slathan’s attempt at conquest had gone. Luckily either I was sneakier than the brigands that would litter the trade routes, the war died down before it ever reached here or Slathan had some severe patrols stationed around here because I was at the city gates before seeing a single soul. The night watch hollered down to me as I walked under the torchlight.
“Who goes there!”
“A traveller headed to the other side of the pond!”
“Wait down there lad, I am comin’ down”
*It was the sound of a man way into his thirties, gruff with age. His face wasn’t much different from 5 years ago. A salt and pepper beard and stache, their dark skin dried by the salty air and a head of hair that was tied at the back of their neck; puffed up like a mane.
“I expected you to age better”
“And I expected you to grow up, you have not a hair on your face. Are you sure you are not a boy?”
I laughed, a little strained. I hoped I wouldn’t see them too far in the future. When one was afflicted as I was, it stood to reason that you would try to go under the radar. But there was always a few people who were overtly friendly and you would have to hide from in your travels to hide your nature.
“Yes I am pretty sure Edmund, are you sure you are not stockfish? You have more folds than a tome!”
“I sure do Aelric.” My name pronounced with a heavy emphasis as if chastising me... Probably with the intent to do so for using his full name. “Regardless, what got you in a mood to travel now, Al? Did the Duke surrendering to the Empire nark ya? Or is it the new island they found getting you chipper as a monk after the service?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“First I bloody hear of both so no, me... Sorry, my family was apparently from Montia. Wanted to see what my pop was waffling about with the vineyards and the sheep.”
“You could have done the trip in the morning lad, not like there is a shortage of ships going towards the isles. Brigands ain’t nothing to joke about these days. Deserters and soldiers with unpaid dues are a heft of more trouble than the bridge toll you had to pay to the linen clad bandits back in the day.”
“Well isn’t Slathan supposed to deal with that now? I don’t care anyways, leaving as soon as possible.”
“Sure, I know yer not the bad sort so just come in ye weird hermit.”
He moved through the unlocked door, motioning me inside. 2 younger watchmen were waiting by the door and as I walked past they closed it behind me, one staying behind to lock it while he other following me. The halberds they usually carried around the city were absent, a club hanging by their belt each. I followed Edmund up a some stairs and he pointed at 2 sacks.
“Got some things for cheap before my shift, would you be a darling and help me carry it home? Morning shift should be around b’fore the day breaks”
“Got it Ed, also you know where one could get some coin for gold and silver finery? I am not returning for a while, maybe ever, so selling them sounds apt.”
“Aye, a new smith landed on the docks a year or two before. They work gold, or so I’ve heard. I’ll introduce the of you after noon.”
I shouldered one of the sacks. A rectangle of quite hard material hit my back. Linen? A little heavy for that. Maybe leather?.
Well no matter, we left the guardhouse for his homestead. On the way we chatted, about his family and how the last 5 years passed. Apparently Slathan’s forces thoroughly razed all of Karan desert, leaving a singular city intact by now, while the Bequit on the steppes north of the Desert took sides between a certain prince and Slathan. Vrevian and Stymphian forces bounced off the northern defences erected by Montofer guerr, who had thrown their bulk behind Slathan.
While the dukes and the prince, even though spurned by such agression didn’t act, instead solidifying their forces and keeping their ceasefire agreements solid they waited, for either Slathan to stumble or realise he couldn’t take them on, even with help from the Guerr and Bequit peoples. Such a thing didn’t happen, as Edmund told me, Slathan unleashed beasts chained under mages into cities before ever sieging them. The prince and the Duchess of Maltash, even if they were blindsided by such an act, fought back. Several clashes taking place on the hills of the countryside. By the time any force moved onto Halifax territories, so much terror had been dealt upon the other lands that the Duke of Halifax simply surrendered after a single clash. The soldiers whined about how they had won the battle, routing the enemy, but the Duke surrendered nonetheless.”
These beasts he spoke about had already piqued my curiosity a little too much, so his spiel about the internal politics of “The Forctiaen Empire” under Slathan fell on deaf ears.
“Beasts? Like trained Ewesnatchers or Pronghorns or something of the kind?”
“No, more akin to monsters. Creatures that seemingly appear out of thin air and are always carrying themselves with an air of pain. Like a bull with foot rot. They apparently are also soaked; smelling of salt and the sea.”
“Monsters that smell of the sea? Are we sure we are not speaking of some stray Groans some wizard used teleportation magic on?”
“No, not teleportation magic. Like I said, no portals; no nothing. These creatures would simply walk out of the air, onto the ground.”
I pondered, a door to the plane of the gods? Surely not. Not after the Mortal Agreement, the gods decided such acts of intervention would be no longer permissible. Neither would creating monsters be but that carried the assumption of divine origin to the mentioned creatures.
More likely some mage had figured out how to weave a very complex spell of teleportation, using precious breath on making the portal invisible and impossible to see through for some reason. Either case seemed too far fetched.
While I was lost in my own mind, I stumbled into Edmund’s broad back. We were finally at his home, his wife peering through the door as I held the sack on one shoulder.
“Weird, well regardless that isn’t a problem of yours no more, if the Duke has yielded. Also what is the leather for?”
He didn’t answer but his wife, Laura, did. A woman barely a finger shorter than I, and shoulders as wide as her husbands, her auburn hair braided thick and loose framing her face.
“Fur. The fur is for our eldest, he has decided to trade with Vrevian folk up north. Apparently there is some money to be made, what with the war an’ all, and its cold as a whores nipples up there”
And we walked inside, laying the sacks by the door. Our chat going ever longer.
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142 A.I. , second week of the first moon
* The Forctiaen Empire is the name of our nation before Emperor Chronos took the throne and under guidance, led the unification of new and old world. The Autarch is thus the title of the one who rules the old world. Slathan is presumably the Emperor’s father, the chapters following may shed a light.
After writing this, Mr. Leaf has also jotted down the conversations of his day on the page. As these events will be retold by him once more and may not include these, I want to add them here as I write and translate. They will also be edited by yours truly to fit rest of the translations.
The exact date I cannot say, but these excerpts are most probably from his time on the wild island of Beithr, currently plagued by the God of Chaos’s reign:
“How in the 12 hells do these weird trees grow nearly into the ocean?”
We walked past the trunk I was examining and she jumped nearly over my shoulder and her red hands grabbed onto something by the roots that made the border of this forest barely walkable. I didn’t walk closer, my attention grabbed by the roots that sprawled as if grasping towards something in the distance at that point.
“Uh, Leaf, do you know of any carnivorous plants?”
“Oh! Many! The climate here is a tad too harsh for them I am afraid.” I said, not turning my head
“Well I beg your fucking pardon then, why is this damn tree eating a shoat?”
There is no more context here, from the language it seems the baby hog was already dead? As in the tree didn’t kill it. That is as much as I can get from this small excerpt.
The language Sir Leaf writes in is also very, informal to say the least. As its his personal journal, so this piece may also refine our understanding of the Ancient Common as a language.
(cut from here, future Elena)
Leaf is also seemingly writing this journal to share with someone, as he addresses the reader, that wasn’t something I added. This translation may need a few more eyes on it, as it might answer the question as to if Leaf is a singular person or a group of people using the same pseudonym. I shall read ahead a few chapters and some by the end just to learn more before the next chapter.
[Reminder to cut out this section for diary]
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