Alysia's Journal

[Alysia]

05.05.2008
Rhilshen Fortress, Aeshelm
Central Province, Rhilshen

Antonio got several kisses for charity at a Beltane celebration in a grove near Rhydin City. It was most surprising that his wife was not there. I am sure Kinadria would have graciously looked on as most of Rhydin’s female population (and at least one man) lined up and paid for the opportunity to snog her mate. I would not have been so gracious. It was well worth the coin spent.

I have been urged by Javan’s street rats to send more money to the orphanage. They came to me in a group and offered to pool their stipends. I told them I was not inclined to take all of Rhydin’s homeless children under my wing, but I would consider improving their lot in life. I will. Really.

The first week of May in Rhilshen marks the start of Summer and the Festival of Fire. In Aeshelm, the celebration is similar to Rhydin’s Beltane, save there is no dainty little May Queen with her Green Man. Rather, there is a great deal of emphasis on the purification of flame, and hopes for a bountiful harvest. I grew hoarse with singing blessings in the names of the Gods I serve. The evening glowed with bonfires blossoming next to the flowering kirvathayne-branches upon the hills of my city and the courtyards of my fortress.

Of course – the celebration was an attempt to distract from a decision that might prove unpopular with certain nobles still smarting over the results of the Battle of Tacryaspyre. I used the occasion to summon K’Thayne, the Lord of Elemental Fire, and purify the western province named for him with flame. Surprisingly, the firestorm I called burns still, reaching far into the sky. It is even from Mynw.

Chryrie’s influence, perhaps. She did warn me.

[Alysia]

18.05.2008
Wraithspire Chateau
Rhydin

My own worst enemy.

Unguarded thoughts.

Laws of pain.

Who the Hell does he think he is? or who the Hell does he think I am? Some neophyte young to the ways of the damned? There are unspeakable curses that burn to be spoken for his presumption!

More than a year ago, I had told him that his business was his own and did not affect me - save that he had threatened Kitty and I would answer that threat with my own life, if need be. It was then that I struck with him a loosely worded deal, offering a promise of assistance in exchange for the safety of Kitty and a ward of her choosing - Viki, The Seer. That offer of assistance grew in his mind to a one-sided alliance which left him free to menace my consort and my consort's friends.

Apparently he did not appreciate my intolerance of such provocation, and found it necessary to hold me captive to extort my cooperation. Thus I am here - which I must assume is Wraithspire. My gaoler has not been courteous enough to illuminate my whereabouts. Regardless, I find this enforced solitude and imprisonment a resource - at least when I am not overwhelmed with paranoia and anger, or stricken by exhaustion. I have time to review my errors, that I might learn from them and plot the course of my future.

Reflection on recent circumstances brings to mind a long-ago conference with Elvenhone, the King of the Elven Nation. His elves had been clamoring for reassurance that an uneasy truce would hold and they would not be attacked by my liches and vampires in their forest home. Despite misgivings, I agreed to meet with them as a show of good faith. At this meeting, Elvenhone was surrounded by his family, cronies and sycophants. I came alone. Apparently I was more willing to make a gesture of trust than he.

After that conference, our truce held for a short time. But with one voice Elvenhone attempted to fan the fires of discontent and mistrust and with another voice he claimed he pressed for peace. Their king much desired to command me and mine to obedience, and his people tried long and hard to provoke us, voicing foul insinuations and blatantly threatening our kin and allies.

The elf king was a mealy-mouthed, shameful tool, easily manipulated by others like him who cowered behind empty threats, too frightened of consequences involving cold steel and black sorcery to openly speak true intentions. They cringed in their bowers, craving excitement and adventure they'd never dare dirty their own hands with... But the web of deceit and guile the elves tried to weave ultimately entrapped them, and the war which resulted was inevitable. When my vengeance finally came, it was swift and furious. Shava Forest lay a blackened sylvan ruin, decorated by my victorious Venom Alliance with the litter of death.

Yes, even the immortal may be struck by death.

[Alysia]

01.07.2008
Dark Lake Manor
Spire, Rhydin

Twice I have endured captivity in my so-called grandfather’s domain.

There I was taught my name, educated in the ways of battle, instructed in the Arts of his kind and certain Awful Sayings, and schooled in Mabrahoring and the Infernal tongues. And there, in his Courts of Pain, I was locked in demonform with all illusions of comfort stripped away, and then branded with rune scars and mind wounds. Those marks remain upon me no matter what shape I wear, that I might remember my name, what it meant, and the price for power associated with that name.

My name. . . How it came to pass that Veighn Yhaull knew my truename and could wield it against me – that is a mystery to me! It seems impossible that the Wizard could have gained it from his Arts, and even less likely that he garnered such knowledge from the Courts. If he was that highly regarded, his present difficulties would pose no challenge to him whatsoever, and I suspect he would have more fearsome allies than he currently claims.

I am unwilling to believe that Lucien would have given that information to one he loathed, but I must grant there are others he might entrust such knowledge to, others whom I would not trust.

Wraithspire held lessons, though not as obvious as those of my grandfather’s Court: from Veighn, I learned the folly of complacency. The adage of keeping enemies closer than friends would have served me in so many ways. Once I had thought to live a life separate from suspicion and wariness of treachery, but I see now that is not to be.

I have been held imprisoned three times. There will not be a fourth.

[Alysia]

07.07.2008
Dark Lake Manor
Spire, Rhydin

My sense of time is still warped, for I have apparently lost more than a week in my library at Dark Lake, reviewing long-forgotten tomes on protective magicks. For several days, I devoted myself to Fae and Elvish sorceries and found them easier to understand - almost innate (I must assume Chryrie’s influence, or Llehlnia’s perhaps).

Regardless, the time and effort in solitude is not wasted, for I have improved and recast the wards about my domain. More, I have taken measures to ensure that I may not be imprisoned again. I am not so foolish as to commit the details of those measures here.

I suspect I shall have to summon various servitor constructs to clean and maintain the manor, as even the locals are now firmly convinced that my estates are cursed.

I recognize changes within me, a subtle shift to Order that the Guardian would doubtless revel in. I fear what that implies. The thought that I might remain influenced by the Wizard’s tainted elixir - that thought hangs over me.

[Alysia]

25.07.2008
Dark Lake Manor
Spire, Rhydin


A strange blue box stands upon the beach of the Dark Lake.

It appeared from nowhere, surprised the Hell out of me. Although labeled a "police box," it is, according to its owner, called a TARDIS. It seems to be a starship of some sort that is a sort of self-contained rift. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. I suspect it must be prone to quirks or malfunctions, for the owner of this TARDIS, a man who calls himself The Doctor, said he intended to arrive at a place called “Myrfax Four” to observe a supernova and instead he arrived in Rhydin.

The man who calls himself the Doctor (a title, not a name?) appears young and human. He is charming, vivacious, confident, intense and a little bit erratic. He displays an overwhelming amount of intelligent curiosity. I do not think he is human, though.

Something about him makes me feel dizzy.

While I find myself inclined to trust him, he is probably dangerous.

[Alysia]

30.07.2008
Dark Lake Manor
Spire, Rhydin


My release from Wraithspire last month was indeed secured by Lucien.

It would have been better, I think, that I had died a captive. I am not worth that price. The Shaitan's bargain he made for my freedom haunts me.

In a certain way, he is now tied to a creature I despise, a creature I would kill given the barest opportunity for his insults, threats, lies, and goading manipulations. What now might Lucien be compelled to do by that creature? Must I watch every word, every action, wondering who looks out of those eyes, knowing that a weakness might be revealed second-hand to an enemy? Must I hold my own vengeance in abeyance to avoid that enemy collecting on the rest of his contract?

Yet I cannot fault him. And I realize the blame for the situation may be laid entirely at my own feet. I should relinquish him to the care and protection of those who do not bring him into danger and risk his soul.

What a jewel the devil has claimed, now. I fear how he will spend it.

[Alysia]

15.11.2008
Dark Lake Manor
Spire, Rhydin


I heard the cry of gulls from the distant shore. The sound lanced through the muffling snowfall, even through the noise of the city, and it caught at something deep inside me. A heart? if I have one. I begin to think I don't.

And of course, hearing the sea-birds, I thought of him. It was like a compulsion, a memory "of calling shapes, and beck’ning shadows dire." I followed the sound of the gulls' cries to the cliff's edge, and stood there with snow falling upon me. I found nothing except the boundary between earth and sea. The horizon was obscured by storm-tossing clouds.

I laughed at myself then. Searching for the past, looking for auspices and omens in the calls of gulls and turns of weather - the priestess has surely fallen!

I fear to sleep for what dreams may bring.

[Alysia]

19.01.2009
Dark Lake Manor
Spire, Rhydin


In Rhilshen, there is a place I saw only once, but I have been unable to strike its image from my mind. It lay far to the west, past the places familiar to me; past the green river valleys of dawn, past the jagged spines of the Dragon, past even the ashen wastes of the Dead Land. All of those lands branded with my blood and the blood of my family, which I so foolishly called my own. May those that remain hold it more precious than I did.

This place lay beyond my boundaries, an elemental monument forbidden for mortals to look upon. It is a graveyard where the divine go to die and be reborn -- eons later, if that is their fate. There, land is but a memory across the ocean. The skies boil and and the sea stirs under an everliving storm. Vortexes twist, one moment connecting sea and heavens, another moment drifting apart like some fragile, ethereal wisp of shadowsilk. And all the while, there is the screaming roar of surf and storm and the moaning of dying gods and the crying of the gulls.

At the time, I was secure in my own sanctity and immortality. I determined to gaze upon this terrible sight and set my will against the Dead. I looked upon the storm and saw my fate -- and I knew then that I was not immortal and that I would die.

That may have been the beginning of my madness; Mired in despair, I would have given myself to that watery graveyard, had my kin begged me to swear that I would not return to the place and my counselors endeavored to drive the place from my memory.

But it remains, and I cannot forget. I see that I am an icon of the past, a relic of little relevance save to those dead and forgotten. I see the age-lines deep in an old friend's face, and I am reminded that my own days are numbered. Some day soon I will join that storm.