— — — BREAKING NEWS — — —

A residence in Manitou Springs went up in an unexpected blaze early this morning. The hunting lodge deep in the folds of Pikes Peak could have sparked a serious forest fire if not for an anonymous call to the fire department. The owner of the hunting lodge, one Judy Jubrie, who had recently inherited the estate from the late Ulana Trinaday, is nowhere to be found.

A statement from the police tells us that, “No conclusive evidence has been found to indicate the start of the fire. But information on the location of the homeowner would be beneficial to discover the origin of the incident.”

Anyone who has seen this girl is encouraged to call the police’s anonymous tip line to help find her location. The question of what sparked the flames still remains, was this arson or accident?

More at 11.

3rd of Yorn, 128

I was tricked, made a fool. I knew, I must have known, deep down… somewhere. I let it happen.

I let myself believe that what the Gray Wolf wanted was rights, justice, reform. I blinded myself to the truth. It was not a revolution she sought. It was a rebellion. Not rights, but blood.

Her time came and I was cast aside. All of us were cast aside

I thought I was the one playing them, using their movement to force the adventurers guild to break my contract.

That at least was successful, I could feel the restrictions of my contract release a day ago. If it weren't for my current situation, I would celebrate to be out from under the horror of that contract. I doubt it will do much good for me anymore. I am free, but hunted. There will be no joy for me. Not for a while.

I fear what the Ravena Empire will do if I am caught. If the Adventurers Guild was free to lock away a part of my mind out of convenience, what can a greater empire do to me now? I have aided terrorists, I do not want to imagine what they could justify. Will they kill me… or bind me, change me, by contract? I have people who are waiting for me back on Earth, I can not die here. Even more than that, I do not wish to be imprisoned inside of my mind.

What happened? I do not want to think about two days ago…

I cannot think about two days ago.

I let myself be led along for weeks and weeks, months as it would have been counted on Earth. I supported the beastkin, investigated things. Went to places they could not. I thought I had them fooled; I thought they valued me for different reasons, I did not imagine what they would do with the information I brought them.

My status as a traveler was important to them, not because of the knowledge that I brought with me from home. No, I could ask the stupid questions, worm my way into places a beastkin would never be allowed to see. That was what made me important, a spy and nothing else.

I can’t write more, not now.

5th of Yorn, 128

I have been on the run with a stolen carriage, I have been lucky enough to find ways around the roads of Ravena using it. The days of travel and hiding have given me ample time to think and understand what happened at the capital. Today the rain is pouring down outside the cave I shelter in. There is nothing to do but write.

I suppose I could practice magic, but all this weighs too heavily on my mind. Letting it sit there and ignoring it would be… unhealthy. Weaving while distracted would be… ill-advised.

I think I will start with the things I was too angry, too hurt, to write two days ago. Alvetica is dead, as is Tommund, and Leafly; the whole group of beastkin I had been sheltering at the academy are no more.

I blame the Gray Wolf for their deaths, either she is responsible or I am. Can I not escape from bringing misfortune? I sit still at the keep, people die. I try action at the academy, more death. I can’t help but wonder if Jessica and Preston were caught up in my transfer to Elentier. Wonder if they are dead too.

Are my children dead?

This is too painful… I need more time to think before I can write this. I will wait till this rain lets off and continue to flee.

6th of Yorn, 128

The rain continues unabated, The grassy plain beyond this cave has turned to marsh. Were I at any other camp, my carriage would have sunken into the ground. The downpour itself remains strong enough that I dare not risk traveling through it. There is safety in the stony floor of the cave. I cannot help but wonder if the rain is artificial, a weaving to halt me as I run. To pin me down and give the empire time to descend.

There is not to do but wait. Wait and think. Think and write.

The Gray Wolf's plan seemed so innocent, so righteous at first. There was a festival to celebrate the First of Yorn, the time when the magic of the weave had reached its fullest point. A time when magic suffused the air and the strands of the weave are thick and malleable. The nobles and Emperor would convene on that day to greet the height of magic and to perform ceremonies to ensure that this time of Yorn would be long. It was one of the few occasions all the leaders of Ravena gathered together in one place.

The plan was to march on the ceremonial chamber that day. To occupy the square outside and clog the doors with the beastkin of the capital. They would hold the world hostage and force them to listen. They would demand that their voice be heard.

The Gray Wolf said she would engrave that day in history. I wish she had chosen to do it without chiseling so many names onto a headstone.

I had a reason to believe that the day would be peaceful, it was what we had been working towards. At first when I spoke of the civil rights movement from home they listened. To the ideas of Martin Luther King, to why it was important to keep the movement righteous, to what it meant to be a part of a nation. I believe those ideas were even more important here than home, these beastkin had to prove not only were they equal to humans, but also that they were more than monsters.

It was ugly, it was hard, it was brutal. Somehow it was also beautiful. Our worlds, Earth and Elenteir, mirrored each other. Small heroes imprisoned and beaten for the smallest crimes brought to light the beastkins status. People had no choice but to notice, to see. We scaled it up; we went from making martyrs from petty arrests and horrific beatings, to protesting establishments with rallies and protests.

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The most powerful tool we had was one I had never expected, the ENT network. Oh if only the King could have had access to a device in everyone's pocket… how many more people would he have reached? How many more hearts could he have changed? I saw the answer in the barest of slivers here. With the ENT network we could speak, for everyone everywhere, the beastkin would be heard, and they could not be silenced.

I knew it worked, I could see the change happening slowly over the months. As I snuck and talked my way into the noble’s parties and events, spying on them for the beastkin. I could hear them discussing the things we said. I watched and silently cheered as their minds slowly changed. They had gained a respect for the minds and hearts of the beaskin.

I tried to show the Grey Wolf those things, I thought it made greatest case for my methods, proved they really worked. It had all been going so well, the beastkin gained hope as their controversy grew. People were talking. I even still believed that I could break off my contract with the adventures guild peacefully, putting them in an awkward if well-intentioned political situation- forcing them to disavow me.

The Grey Wolf heard none of my words, none of the noise she had helped generate. I suppose she never wanted to listen. She had always had other plans.

I was wrong, so wrong then. My belief that it would all work out so misplaced. I would become no peaceful political dissident that day, no shunned but public figure. I didn’t know it, but the First of Yorn would be the day I became a terrorist.

I am getting angry again, I am going to watch the rain.

7th of Yorn, 128

The rain still has not cleared, I am certain this is unnatural. If the water level rises too much farther it will start to flood the cave. I will have to make a choice of what I fear more, the water or the empire.

While I think I will write. This is the last of what transpired on the First of Yorn.

The day began, and it was no peaceful march. Instead of the grand movement through the streets I had expected, we snuck away. Skulking through the streets like a horde of rats. I had planned to make my position clear, to be clearly seen at the head of the march. When I protested, the Grey Wolf reassured me, she promised we would make more than enough of a stand. More than enough noise once we had gotten to the square. She just wanted to be sure we wouldn’t be stopped before we got there.

That was the first lie.

When we made it to the courtyard it was unguarded, I found that suspicious and let the Wolf know as much. She reassured me that she had bribed the guard to take a little break.

That was the second lie.

She had had them killed before we arrived, she needed to keep me fooled. You see, I was a distraction. She needed me to keep up the front of a peaceful rally, a human on the beastkin’s side, to keep the city guards and humans calm. She needed me to truly believe in what I was doing. So she told me that I should take the lead, reasoning that seeing a human in charge of the rally would be best. She told me that I was finally getting through to her. That she knew now was the time for her to take a back seat.

That was the last lie.

I should have known.

What she really wanted to do was sneak into the ceremonial chamber and kill as many of the humans inside as she and Ulins Swords could before they were stopped. I wonder how many more times she lied to my face, I wonder how many of the beaskin that I trusted were lying to me. I will get no answers.

There is no one left to ask…

So, unaware, I set up. We entrenched ourselves with weave enchanted shields, massive blocks of wood that glued themselves to the ground. I had helped with a few, once the upperclassmen had taught me the pattern. If they wanted to move us, they would have to rip the flagstones out from the square. If that choice was made, I felt that the news and images we could release on the ENT network would be just as impactful as whatever extra time the protest could have lasted.

A woven shield of air, maintained by several of us who went to the academy, was the last defense to set up; we would take turns keeping it going. I never got that chance. Then we were ready. We used weaving to amplify our voices, and the disaster began.

It went well for a time, our voices, our demands rang across the city. The law men came and made some half-hearted attempts to get us to leave. They were woefully unprepared to handle a protest of this size. Soon we had drawn quite a crowd of watchers and listeners. Making it impossible for them to drag us out of the square without running over the human crowd. It was perfectly to plan. There were a few true dissenters, people who hated us gathered there in the press of humanity. But with so many people, I believed no reasonable group would try to incite violence.

I knew I could handle an individual.

Then the private armies arrived; I didn’t hear them at first, not over the sounds of our protest. The only indication were the uniformed men running into the crowd from behind and trying to clear out a path. They were clothed in several different liveries for a few different nobles. I wasn’t too concerned when I saw them. We were planning on keeping their lords and ladies inside the building till our demands were met. At that time, I had even been expecting to see them.

Nothing could have prepared me for what followed.

I would have told you that the events at Greenstone Keep had thoroughly inoculated me to violence. The First of Yorn taught me how much of a fool I was. Now, I believe that no one is ever really ready for true violence. At least, no one should be. There are too many flavors to anticipate it all.

On the First, violence was not the desperate struggle for survival between goblin and human. No, the violence that day was not for survival, it was for fear and hatred. For cruelty.

They arrived in vehicles I can only describe as tanks. But unlike the treaded tanks of home, these hovered, and they were fast. They had no care for the people in the way, if anyone in the crowd hadn’t moved the tanks turned them into a fine paste. Splattering them against our shield as they slammed into the barrier.

One moment we were peacefully protesting, the next moment we were in the midst of a literal bloodbath. To say I was shocked doesn't fit, I can not summon a word for it. In many ways, even days later, I’m still shocked.

People were dead because of me, again.

I froze.

Then the knights hit. They spilled out from the tanks. Anything with ears atop their heads or fur on their bodies was an enemy, and enemies were to be put down without questions. This was no fight, it was a slaughter. I stood stock still in the middle of it all, the screaming around me blending in with the screams still in my head from the keep. The knights ignored me, likely because I was human.

As the knights pushed towards the doors, a few Beastkin revealed single use weave nets. Designed to be thrown, unraveling into a woven spell. Channel the Weave along the strands and unleash the spell, disintegrating the net.

Fire, ice, acid, even vines consumed the square. The beastkin must have known that their spells would have caught the other protestors in front of them, killing whatever beastkin the knights hadn’t yet.

They must not have cared. They had been bent to the Grey Wolf’s revolution, there to buy more time for the macabre task she had set to inside. That time and space must be bought. For whatever price in lives they paid. Worth it or not.

The knights hesitated to push forwards, fearing more weave nets.

I had to move. The still moment brought that thought to me with clarity. I saw Alvetica near me, a deep gash in her shoulder and badly burnt by a tongue of flame. I wanted to save her.

The stillness was broken. Not by me. The doors we had barricaded creaked open. It was Ulin. Holding a severed head. He tossed it into the carnage.

How odd such an impact that small bit of gore could have in the sea of the same.

I do not know who it was, I could not think. I had to leave.

As the knights bellowed in rage, I grabbed Alvetica and made a break for it. In the chaos, one of the tanks had been left unmanned. I don’t know how I made it out of the city. As I tore through the streets, all I can remember are the soft wheezes of Alvetica as she died next to me. I needed to make it out of the city before I could treat her.

I did not make it.

I have lain her to rest deeper into the cave.

I will have to leave her again soon.

I am sorry.