Lord Ochen Shagari’s War Journal
Nineteenth of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War
A white peace. I would have never believed it. A white peace! Sapphire, indeed all of the jeweled Cities, doesn’t have to pay a single coin in reparations! For the Serene Dominas, that will sell this truce to them in a heartbeat. I don’t expect them to be happy about not getting the profits and future incomes that they wanted. On the other side of that coin is the fact that they won’t lose any more treasure in this endeavor. They get to cut their losses and recover what they can before having to pour good money after bad. More good money I should say, given how much all of this cost.
I do not think that I will enjoy wintering in Fort Westmarch, but it is the only place large enough to hold all of us. And the offer of medical aid is nothing to laugh at either. With over eight hundred wounded to care for, any aid is worth the cost. They are killing us with kindness, yet it is a welcome mercy killing. An end to the staining of my soul with unneeded bloodshed. The breaking of an unquestioned chain of command. I expect the Serene Dominas will listen to their commanders in the field from now on. And if not, they can be made to listen. This is not the first wellspring of dissent to appear, but it is the first one that cannot be capped. There are no voices to be silenced in the dark of night, no ‘unfortunate incidents’ to be swept under the rug, no ‘violent criminals’ to be publicly executed for crimes that they didn’t commit because their real crime was to think for themselves.
I half expect to find assassins waiting for me when I return home, but they will need an army of them to silence every voice. Each and every man in this army will carry the story back on his tongue, and I expect the Guild will be quietly informed as well. Westmarch and Glacierheart traders will carry the word as well. Two new Republics have been born in defiance of the wishes of the Serene Dominas, and there is nothing that the Jeweled Cities can do to silence them. This may be only the first pebbles bouncing down the mountainside, but every avalanche starts with a single stone. The Jeweled Cities are in for interesting times, and it all began here in this valley. It began when men dared to look beyond skin and find common cause with old honorable foes against tyrannical manipulators.
Perhaps I will not go home. Perhaps I can live here instead, if they will have me. I will miss the sea, the wind off the waves, and the salty taste of fresh caught fish. I will dread the winters here, and loath the chill winds that brings on memories of these dark days. But there is something better here that makes all of that worthwhile. There is an unchained desire for self-betterment and the improvement of the community by helping others instead of sucking their economic lifeblood. There is a spark of innovation coupled with a willingness to question the ‘known’ in search of better ways to live. It is a heady brew, one that will lead to heartbreak and triumph in equal measure. And it is backed by steel strong enough, spines stiff enough, and minds brave and cunning enough to defend that spark of innovation, of inventiveness, against all comers. This little urbino, little city-state, will be is the beginning of a new dawn. A spark set to waiting tinder, a torch held aloft in the night for others to follow.
In the dawn, I will go to the Ironbark Outpost in person to surrender my sword and sign the truce that will end this war and usher in a new dawn. It is not the dawn my former masters wished to see, but it is a better dawn despite them.
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Reth Nakima’s Journal
Twentieth of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War
I may yet walk again. The pronouncement of the healers stuns me even now. It will not be easy, it will not be quick, but better than either of those things is one fact: it will come if I am willing to work towards it. It would not have happened without the Westmarchers pitching in to help our own overwhelmed healers, and more than a few burn ointments and recipes given freely by the Glacierheart orcs. A week ago, heck three days ago, I would not have believed it possible. We are at peace as of this afternoon, and the medical aid and food came flooding forward before the ink had even dried. It will be a lean winter for everyone, but no one will starve, and no more will be lost from illness or injury if it can be helped.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Already the stories are floating about. Veterans on both sides swapping battle tales. Civilians commiserating over shared hardships like tax collectors and bad management. I can smell the bread rising in the kitchens, fresh-baked for the first time in a month. I may not be able to head back to Sapphire until I can walk properly, and I may not go even then. I would only face scorn from people who weren’t here, didn’t see what we saw, and didn’t have to do what we did. The tales will only grow in time, and already I can hear the people that think they matter dismissing them as lies and excuses by cowards and weaklings. They wouldn’t last two days on the road to Fort Westmarch.
I’m not sure I will ever be able to forget this war, or the ones who injured me so. But I can understand them, their causes and desires, and in time I hope that I can forgive them as they have forgiven me. This was never anything personal for them, and to my shame it took days laying helpless in a bed staring at the ceiling to understand that. The Westmarchers and Galcierhearters couldn’t afford to face us in battle, nor could they forfeit their homes. So that had to find other ways. They had no way to know that we had moved our gunpowder stores to the outer walls, no way of knowing that the Ruby Siege Engineers hadn’t taken the proper precautions.
Not one soldier in five is going to go home. This war is the bloodiest I know of since the Seminal War itself. And I got to live through it, see it happen. I suppose my journal would be of interest to the chroniclers and history-keepers, and may even fetch a fair bit of coin were I to sell it. But I’ve no desire to paint a target on my own back for the Serene Dominas’ backstabbing ‘silencers.’ I have enough troubles of my own without drawing any more down upon my head from powers on high.
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Shaman Mul the Silent’s Journal
Thirtieth of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War
Final Entry of this volume.
In these waning days of the year, I have come to think again of my plans to wander abroad. Doing so is as inevitable as the onset of the spring thaw. It is not a matter of if or when I leave, but who I tell, and how I tell it. Of what I leave behind.
I have decided to leave this journal, such as it is, behind. I will make only a brief entry in the official Shaman’s Records, noting my leaving and where to find this journal. My full goodbye to Glacierheart and Westmarch I leave here:
It had been a long winter, full of new things and ones older than the stars in the sky. I have learned and lost more than I will ever truly know. I will always call Glacierheart Home, even as I cannot stand to be within her borders any more. Know that I will miss this place, these mountains and valleys, and all who dwell on and within them.
As to those of you who will read this journal in full, as I Know Shaman Koroc the Singer and Shaman Elder Wolfbite Glacierheart surely will, you will inevitably ask yourselves why I did not leave behind a path for others to follow. It already exists in the Logs of Innoch with the Ironbark Mercenary Company. I leave the task of tracing it down and deciphering it in place on purpose: as a safeguard and gatekeeper against any walking the path I walk with eyes closed and ears shut.
Shaman Mul the Silent
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Shaman’s Records
Thirty First of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War
Shaman Mul the Silent recording for the last time.
My Journal is in my old room, underneath the furs of my bed along with my rune-bag. The last entry contains my farewell. Keep it with these Records, and make it available to any Shaman or Initiate who asks about it in all seriousness. It is not that I desire my story to be lost, only that it be kept from casual lips and ears.
Farewell.
She who walks through the Thorns to the Stars,
Mul the Silent.
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Chronicler Vian’s Log
First of January, Seven Hundred and Sixty Nine Seventieth year since the Seminal War
It is a new year. The associated celebrations went off without a hitch, and good faith is blooming among all of the survivors of the Westmarch War. I expect word of the truce has reached Sapphire by now, even with the continued snow storms. Given that we haven’t heard anything back (although I don’t expect to) the Westmarch war is officially over, with only the formal steps of the Army of the Jeweled Cities withdrawing with the thaw yet to occur. Ironbark has quietly put out word that anyone who wants to join up is welcome with almost no questions asked. I expect that Lord General Ochen’s quartermasters are going to be accepting a few more resignations from soldiers who don’t want to go back to the Jeweled Cities as well. Lord General Ochen already plans to resign and move back to Westmarch just about as quietly as he is able to. I half expect that he will simply have his agents sell off his Sapphire holdings without ever returning to Sapphire, even if that means he takes quite a loss on the sale.
Shaman Koroc did ask me if I’d Seen Shaman Mul recently. I told him that I had not, but he didn’t tell me why he is looking for her. Perhaps she just needed some time to herself. I for one have no intention of prying in further. Ironbark needs time to recover, to regrow her formations, and an actual quiet garrison post far from here. With any luck, our contacts in the Guild will be able to find just such a contract.
So ends this section of the Logs of Vian.