Richter's Notes
Jul 2, 2014 20:58:33 GMT -6
Post by Richter Abend on Jul 2, 2014 20:58:33 GMT -6
Before he left for Delphia, Ardus told me that I should start writing a journal. He said writing helped him keep track of his thoughts, that it kept him sane, and said that I could use a good dose of sanity injected into my life to keep me grounded. I just laughed at him. I told him I was plenty grounded, too grounded, and that I didn’t need any of his help keeping my life in order. Looking back on it, it wasn’t the nicest response, but at the time I was pretty pissed off at him. Now, however, I can see that he was probably right. With all that’s going on, I need to turn my thoughts into something concrete, something readable, so that when the world starts burning around me and everything is going to piss, I can look back, get out of my own head, and understand why I did the things I did. I’ll know I’m not going crazy. Or maybe I’ll look at these pages and realize I am. Either way I’ll at least have some certainty.
I’m not much of a writer, so if someone finds this after I’m long gone, understand that I’m far more comfortable with a sword than a quill or a piece of charcoal.
Leaving Ilia
Rambling On & Dismissing Some Rumours
Tragic Reunion
The City of Zealotry
Salvation Point
Armies Gather at the Ostian Pass
The Battle for Ostia
There and Back Again
Even Saints Can Die By the Sword
A Chance in Hell
A Grim Plan
Into the Frozen North
The Great Spire of Edessa
Through the Snow Once Again
Abducted
Behind Enemy Lines
No Salvation
Arms and Arena Adventures Part 1 & Arms and Arena Adventures Part 2
Richter: Round 1
Richter vs Yaen: Round 2
Chaos in the Arena
Bern Under Siege
High Priority Target
A Long Way There
Village in Flames
Siege on the City of Heroes - West: Part 1
Siege on the City of Heroes - East: Part 1
Siege on the City of Heroes - North: Part 2
Siege on the City of Heroes - South: Part 2
I’m not much of a writer, so if someone finds this after I’m long gone, understand that I’m far more comfortable with a sword than a quill or a piece of charcoal.
Leaving Ilia
I don’t remember much of my time right after leaving Ilia. Not the specifics, anyway. I was young, I was depressed, I was angry, I was confused. I had no idea what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to go, just anywhere but home. I traveled a lot of eastern Elibe. I was pretty aimless about it. I only remember a couple of names: Julian was the first man I traveled any significant distance with after leaving. There was another J name, the hardass with the bow in the tavern, and the cloaked guy who jumped me outside. And Darius, was it? Or did Darius come later? I think I met Darius later.
I was constantly trying to pick fights. I was always looking over my shoulder, as if danger was constantly lurking around the corner, and looking back on it now, I don’t know if I actually believed someone was out to get me or if I was just hoping that someone was so that they would come along and put me out of my misery. You wouldn’t have known any of it by how I acted. Or maybe you would have. I don’t know. Big stick up my rear, trying to play everything off as the cool, veteran mercenary when all I had ever really done was serve in a company that had gotten slaughtered in a surprise attack. I was like a child trying to act grown up but instead ended up looking like a fool, and I was an idiot, really. I really was. I’m pretty sure if I met that myself now, I’d give him a fist across the face and swift kick in the junk.
I was constantly trying to pick fights. I was always looking over my shoulder, as if danger was constantly lurking around the corner, and looking back on it now, I don’t know if I actually believed someone was out to get me or if I was just hoping that someone was so that they would come along and put me out of my misery. You wouldn’t have known any of it by how I acted. Or maybe you would have. I don’t know. Big stick up my rear, trying to play everything off as the cool, veteran mercenary when all I had ever really done was serve in a company that had gotten slaughtered in a surprise attack. I was like a child trying to act grown up but instead ended up looking like a fool, and I was an idiot, really. I really was. I’m pretty sure if I met that myself now, I’d give him a fist across the face and swift kick in the junk.
Rambling On & Dismissing Some Rumours
At some point I met a man named Rayl, his friend Crowley, and others they were traveling with. One of them was a dragon boy, Aeros, and one of them was Darius. This was when I met Darius. Don’t really know why his name sticks out to me. He really wasn’t that important. Anyways, when I joined them I thought they were just travelers, and figured I needed people to travel with. I remember telling myself that I was just being practical, that I needed someone to watch my back and that there was safety in numbers, but in reality I was lonely and too afraid to admit it. Well it turned out that while they were travelers, because anyone who is traveling is a traveler, they were traveling to Delphia because they were also insurgents who were looking to sneak into Castle Delphia and assassinate Kraft, the High Inquisitor.
I can’t help but chuckle under my breath as I write this. It was such an incredibly stupid, hamfisted attempt at an assassination. We must have looked like a troop of morons. We snuck into the city disguised as merchants and traders, ones who bought and sold chickens and weapons, but we barely got further than a local pub before the Herald sicked his goons on us. It was bad. At least two people died before we even escaped the city, Crowley being the first.
If I remember correctly, Rayl went off and made a book about him, Crowley, the great hero of the people/ He talked about what a hero he was, about his final stand against the Prophet, and people ate it up. Pretty much ended up using him and his life as propaganda, and I don’t know how real any of it was. If I recall correctly, though, Crowley was just a drunken womanizer with a swollen ego. Didn’t matter. He had charged straight at the Herald and had gotten two swords through the chest as his reward. Guess it doesn’t matter how you live as long as you die well. Makes me wonder how I’ll be remembered. I’ve done more impressive things in my life than Crowley ever did.
I can’t help but chuckle under my breath as I write this. It was such an incredibly stupid, hamfisted attempt at an assassination. We must have looked like a troop of morons. We snuck into the city disguised as merchants and traders, ones who bought and sold chickens and weapons, but we barely got further than a local pub before the Herald sicked his goons on us. It was bad. At least two people died before we even escaped the city, Crowley being the first.
If I remember correctly, Rayl went off and made a book about him, Crowley, the great hero of the people/ He talked about what a hero he was, about his final stand against the Prophet, and people ate it up. Pretty much ended up using him and his life as propaganda, and I don’t know how real any of it was. If I recall correctly, though, Crowley was just a drunken womanizer with a swollen ego. Didn’t matter. He had charged straight at the Herald and had gotten two swords through the chest as his reward. Guess it doesn’t matter how you live as long as you die well. Makes me wonder how I’ll be remembered. I’ve done more impressive things in my life than Crowley ever did.
Tragic Reunion
We fled to the docks after getting chased out of Delphia. I’m amazed we even got that far, much less that I’m still here writing this down. The soldiers pursued us all the way, and we had just gotten into a boat when, well, nothing short of complete absurdity showed up. There was fire, and what I’ve come to understand as the resurrected friends and comrades of Kenshin, and a big black dragon. Battle broke out immediately, absolutely trashing the place, and we barely were able to get the boat off of shore with our lives, thought Rayl stayed behind to help fight.
Etrurians pursued us, but we managed to set their boat ablaze before they burned ours and got away. I remember taking an arrow to the side because I jumped in the line of fire for some guy named Dirk. Again, looking to die. Tried to play it off cool, though. I remember muttering some mumbo jumbo about getting involved in tragedies when the others said they wanted to turn the boat around. In reality I was just scared. I was still overwhelmed from narrowly escaping Delphia, and now we were turning and heading straight back into a battle between heroes? It was too much. I remember feeling so small, and so helpless.
By the time we returned to shore, though, the battle was over. Good guys had won, and the bad guys had lost, and then out of nowhere the Archsage Athos showed up and warped us all to Bern to battle with Hargus. Kenshin was already there, fighting. The others joined in. I stood and watched, a coward, ashamed of my own weakness. It’s kind of weird to think that now I’ve stood blade to blade with Kenshin and lived. Hell, I didn’t just live, I struck him a worse blow than he struck me. Damonzahn has teeth.
It seems weird to write these things so casually, given the fact that at the time it felt like the world was coming down around me, but it’s been years, and writing it down now doesn’t invoke the same emotions I felt then. It was all so long ago, and in truth, unlike the battle at Salvation Point, or the battle with Ariston, I was a bystander. It feels less like I was participating, and more like I had front row seats to the last act of one of Elibe’s greatest epics.
Etrurians pursued us, but we managed to set their boat ablaze before they burned ours and got away. I remember taking an arrow to the side because I jumped in the line of fire for some guy named Dirk. Again, looking to die. Tried to play it off cool, though. I remember muttering some mumbo jumbo about getting involved in tragedies when the others said they wanted to turn the boat around. In reality I was just scared. I was still overwhelmed from narrowly escaping Delphia, and now we were turning and heading straight back into a battle between heroes? It was too much. I remember feeling so small, and so helpless.
By the time we returned to shore, though, the battle was over. Good guys had won, and the bad guys had lost, and then out of nowhere the Archsage Athos showed up and warped us all to Bern to battle with Hargus. Kenshin was already there, fighting. The others joined in. I stood and watched, a coward, ashamed of my own weakness. It’s kind of weird to think that now I’ve stood blade to blade with Kenshin and lived. Hell, I didn’t just live, I struck him a worse blow than he struck me. Damonzahn has teeth.
It seems weird to write these things so casually, given the fact that at the time it felt like the world was coming down around me, but it’s been years, and writing it down now doesn’t invoke the same emotions I felt then. It was all so long ago, and in truth, unlike the battle at Salvation Point, or the battle with Ariston, I was a bystander. It feels less like I was participating, and more like I had front row seats to the last act of one of Elibe’s greatest epics.
The City of Zealotry
Salvation Point
Armies Gather at the Ostian Pass
The Battle for Ostia
There and Back Again
Even Saints Can Die By the Sword
A Chance in Hell
A Grim Plan
Into the Frozen North
The Great Spire of Edessa
Through the Snow Once Again
Abducted
Behind Enemy Lines
No Salvation
Arms and Arena Adventures Part 1 & Arms and Arena Adventures Part 2
Richter: Round 1
Richter vs Yaen: Round 2
Chaos in the Arena
Bern Under Siege
High Priority Target
A Long Way There
Village in Flames
Siege on the City of Heroes - West: Part 1
Siege on the City of Heroes - East: Part 1
Siege on the City of Heroes - North: Part 2
Siege on the City of Heroes - South: Part 2