Notes to Demon-Hunters:
· Never underestimate the zeal of a clergyman.
· Where there is poison, there should be antidote.
· Splitting up is a bad idea.
· Healers are a wonderful kind of people. Bring some.
· The mages go in back, except when the back is the front.
· Bone is harder than bread.
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And so the Hunt has come and gone, and I am once again at work. I have learned a few things from this, that all future expeditions should take under consideration. Above all else: Be prepared for poison. If we had antivenom on hand, much would have gone differently, and we would not have had to retreat so soon. Venice Craven's field manual is a valuable resource, but it fails to provide detailed information on several species. "Volume One." I should have kept that in mind. Perhaps I will end up writing the second volume.
Despite the wounds suffered by our party, I would have called the whole affair a success, had the Temple Guard in our company not thrown himself at the horde with such energy, and end up splitting our group in two. No doubt energized by battle and the strong performance he had already shown, the man ended up getting smashed by a creature no one saw arrive. If only he had stayed back in the first place, we never would have been split up, and...
No. I should not blame him -- I am the one that gave the order to follow, and for others to stay. Foolishness. He would have returned if we had stayed together. Next time, things shall be different. There will be rules.
But it will be hard, getting others to agree to a next time, after the last.
Posted by Aanson at 10:39 PM | Comments (0)
I had forgotten about this book. I'm not sure what caused it, really -- whether I'd simply put it into the back of my mind, if I believed it stolen, or lost the memory in the fog of the far shores I spent so long upon. In the end, it does not matter; now I have it again.
I found it behind a loaf of bread, in the very back of my cupboard. I don't have any recollection of putting it there. It's strange. Probably got shoved back there by whoever decided looting the dead man's house was a good idea. The people in Wyndham were too superstitious to do something like that. I miss them.
But ye gods, the bread! It isn't a loaf so much as a slab. I have half a mind to hand it over to some alchemist. No doubt if he could find a way to make stone as hard, the city's walls would be impenetrable. It's quite a lovely shade of green, where it sits under the cupboard. It must have spent months sitting back there.
I always was absentminded when it came to things like eating. And sleeping, for that matter. Dana always said I wouldn't do either if I didn't have a servant putting out the food and turning down the sheets, and quite often she is proved only too right.
But. Now is not the time for me to be writing about moldy bread and older days. Were I truly wise, I'd be writing down my last will and testament, or perhaps an autobiography. I lack the energy for these things, and tomorrow I'll need energy aplenty -- I am, after all, going off to certain doom.
Well. It is far from certain, I possess a tendency towards the melodramatic. Nonetheless the thought of hunting demons does not put me at ease. On the morrow, I and as many as ten people will journey past the West Gate into the godforsaken forests there, and throw ourselves at the outskirts of the horde. Any reasonable man would see it as foolishness.
Fortunately, I am far from reasonable. I think my associations with the then-young Lady Mao are more than adequate to prove that point to anyone. Divine will is not a thing to be trifled with. Yet trifle I did, and here I am taking the more responsible and pious road only when it is the most dangerous.
I remember the sands
[There is a rather large ink stain at the top of the next page, obscuring some three paragraphs.]
I agreed. And thus this is my duty. My "destiny," perhaps, if I wanted to present myself with a certain degree of mystery and madness. I wonder if I shall tell Aerilae the tale, when she sits down to write my story. Perhaps. Better it's only known if I succeed.
But I must succeed. Ever since that great disaster that weighs upon everyone, it seems the only thing we've done is lose, and lose yet more. It is time for that trend to change. The people must be motivated, for if we despair, we can do nothing. And so I shall go, weak as I am, and fight.
I think I'll take the bread along. If I throw it hard enough, it's bound to break something.
Posted by Aanson at 01:14 AM | Comments (1)