And the World Keeps on Turning

The thing I've found over my hundreds of years of existence is that no matter what happens things move on without you.  No one is super important in the grand scheme of anything.  It seems entirely defeatist to admit, even as someone like myself who directly influencd all kinds of horrible things sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose.  But I know even without me pushing something, or kicking something over, this kind of thing would have resolved itself eventually.  Sure thousands more may have died, but hey lets not pretend thousands don't die because they didn't have proper sanitation or something (I heard about a city like that up north, they claimed it was some poison, I'm betting it was just bad sewers).

All of this to say of course that the lands of the Guard (they need a country name so far thats not happened, or if it has I have not heard it, but then again the Red Hand didn't have a name either, lazy bastards) moved on past the war and things got into routine.  Well to an extent, the lands were broken horribly, the railway lines while getting reparied were subject to bandits and monster attacks (seriously the railways had to hire on mercenaries specifically to counter act both groups and they are STILL LOSING TRAINS!).  And of course I was still in the area causing trouble, well in this case yelling at builders for shoddy worksmanship and being a nuisance.

It would be a few weeks before my shop opened, but of course that was just the first of several problems that immediately propped up.  Including that annoying Captain Therod, who's nick name was "The Red" and it wasn't just because her sword was red, well it was because it was, but it was more that the sword was red with blood.  Ok ok look I'll get more into this tommorrow, naturally, thats my thing.

Captain Therod

"Lorentino?" It was early, the woman in front of me was clearly a member of the Guard (the abysmal powder blue uniform was a big hint).  I was staying in a hotel still, having recently put down too much of my shiny metals to secure some builders (contruction workers are the real criminals after a war, they gouge the crap out of everyone). The woman was tall and broad shouldered though not quite as big as Marian, she had a pistol on her hip (though from the positioning clearly she never used it, way too far back in the holster to be drawn reliably) and a red handled broadsword on her back (the handle was worn the more used weapon), black hair pale complexion, nasty scar running from just under her chin down to her collarbone, like a failed decapitation.

"That's what they call me," Always be polite to people knocking on your door early, especially authority figures who are armed.

"Captain Therod, I'm the leader of the garrison here assigned for city law enforcement."  No hand just a statement.  She had a name tag that said Therod over her left breast, but it looked newly sewn on, as did the marks of captain she wore.

"Pleasure to meet you Captain, just introducing yourself to everyone?"

"You marked on your citizenship papers you consider yourself a powerful magic user." Naturally the guy did warn me I was subject to stricter enforcement.

"Numerically I believe I said five, but to be perfectly honest I don't think thats a fair accounting of my skills." Yeah I was bragging I'll admit.

"I'm here to warn you that magic is strictly forbidden in the offensive terms, if you use it to harm another you are subject to summary execution, understood?" She had tensed, I got the feeling she was prepared for the summary execution part more so than I would have liked.

"Understood Captain, but what if I have to use my magic in self defense are their no provisions for that?"

"Your defense is carried out by the Guard Mr. Lorentino, should you feel threatened we will have a precence in the city."

"Delightful, and will the Guard continue to use military officers to run their law enforcement? Or will you turn that over to civlians at some point?"

"Good day Mr. Lorentino." She, didn't turn to even address my question, which in a way was an answer; clearly a no. That would be the first of several encounters with Captain Therod who did not like me and wanted that to be known immediately, she suspected I was a bad person and only sought to harm everyone I was involved with.  Completely a lie, I only seek to harm half the people I'm involved with and only the half that deserves it!

Finally Legal

"Name?" I was seated at a desk in a large room full of desks and over worked beaurocrats like the one across from me, he was chewing on an unlit cigar and looking bored to be there, in front of him was my paperwork, in a basket next to my paperwork were hundreds like it. You'd be surprised how suddenly immigration spikes after a war, almost like criminals from another country feel its best to move to a new one shortly after no one can verify who they are any more.

"Trezlan Lorentino." I'd been waiting two days to establish my citizenship, I also needed a plot of land to build a store and the corresponding permits for that.  Despite my disdain for government I always follow their rules initially, its only after you become a real citizen do you start ignoring that.  He didn't raise an eyebrow at my name just wrote it down.

"Age?"

"Thirty two." Total lie of course, to be honest I have no idea how old I am anymore.

"Do you possess magical aptitude? And if so how would you rate your ability on a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being little aptitude, 5 being major."

"5."

"You realize by stating you are a 5 this means you are subject to monitoring from the Guard? This is not something to brag about." Again always honest early on, because its better than getting caught in a lie.

"I'm not bragging sir, just disclosing." To be honest though five was entirely too low for my ability. He scribbled down something and then stamped something else next to it, probably a follow up marker.

"I see here you look to start a business, what type of business?"

"Apparel, antinques and fire arms, I'm a licensed Hanlon dealer." There actually wasn't a license for dealing Hanlon weaponry, but if there was I'd totally have one.  At the mention of Hanlon he perked up a little bit, in the Guard territories they knew where their bread was buttered.

"Always can use more gun stores." He stamped something else on the form and then turned the page. There were other questions, some discussion about location (my store would have to be located outside the city proper in a new immigrant section that was currently being constructed, more wood less stone, but it was fine to me I knew how cities worked, and what at one time was land no one wanted would soon be the middle of a new economic hub. 

He finished my paperwork and stood up, "Welcome to the Guard lands Citizen Lorentino, in a few weeks someone will be buy with your citizenship papers." And just like that I was legal all over again.  It occured to me despite living in Ronerawth for centuries I never actually took on citizenship, just kind of assumed I was one. And so did Ronerawth up until my exile.  But here in the new country I was a full citizen with papers on the way.  It felt weird, of course what I'd really done was agree to being put into a ledger somewhere so that years later someone can track me down, but you know at the time I was rather happy to do something actually fully legal. Not that I'd stay that way, but it was nice.

Toll My Toll Tollers

Four of them, the road was pretty rough, but compared to the country side it was a well plowed field (thus making it more difficult to try and escape, not that my overloaded cart could get anywhere very fast).  Two were normal looking ruffians, ripped clothes, hadn't bathed in a while, hair poorly matted. The other two were a reminder of the horrors of the Red Hand, they were Corrupted. Not in the way that they were magic users who had gone insane, no they had magic worked into them to make them more dangerous opponents (harder to kill, body parts twisted into claws or slashing tendrils).  These two had one normal arm and one huge cudgel of twisted broken flesh that looked like a club mixed with a rotten tree branch.  Their guns were all in pretty poor shape, which made sense the men were in bad shape!

"Toll Road." The lead speaker had about five teeth in his head, and of those five they were just about rotten.

"Ahhh yes of course I can see the toll is really going to road maintance well." The road was barely that as I said earlier, it had large gaps of broken terrain and everytime my cart had bumped I feared I'd break an axl or something.

"Its a work in progress sir." He said sir like Suh, but I don't abide by that idiocy in my writing.

"Of course times are tough and you have very little funds to fix it, hence the toll! I totally understand, now which type of currency do you fine gentleman take so that I may pay you and be on my way." I had no intention on paying anyone, but I did misplace my revolver earlier during a bathroom break and I was frantically trying to find it without it being obvious thats what I was doing.  Why not use magic Trezlan? Because, that's why, also embarrasingly I'd kind of extended myself the day earlier burnning random things in my otherwise uneventful journey, look you get bored riding broken trails by yourself, and boredom leads to burning things.

"What?" The leader shifted uncomfortably, apparently he had not thought his otherwise foolproof plan through.

"Currency my good tollers! Coin, precious metals, jewels? Clearly you must take something for your toll! I don't assume the Guard has paper currency yet, and if they do I'm sadly lacking it." I kept looking for that damn revolver but it seemed to have dissappeared, my sword was likewise somewhere else.  I admit my packing is particularly awful.

"Don't be moving too much up there." That was one of the corrupted his words were slurred by what sounded like something deep in his throat, which probably was the truth. I had found my pistol though, so I was able to shift back to the front of my wagon and put my hands up, the revolver nicely concealed in my lap by my robe.

"Sorry I was locating what I was planning on giving you for your toll!" They snickered and then I fired, I'll admit I'd gotten better with a pistol in my time of being with the Followers of Fire (it was the only thing I did consistently aside from bitch that I was stuck with a group of religious zealots).  Three of the shots were through the head, and the last was a throat shot (not on purpose my aim slipped a bit) the corrupted I hit through the throat went wide eyed as blackish blood poured from the wound and then collapsed on the road.  In a way I felt kind of bad, simple bandits didn't exactly deserve death, but who knows who else would run across these vagabonds and if I left them alive I'd be kind of responsible for their deaths, sort of (I have a very vague sense of morality).

Happily these bandits were the only thing I ran across in my otherwise bumpy horrible ride to Rosetia.  I was mildly surprised I didn't run across some creature from a forgotten pit of evil, but as my life would later prove, thats because they were waiting for me to get situated first! Such is the nature of life, your terrors want you to be comfortable before they assault you.

On The Road Again Again

I hate having to travel by carriage. Even more so when that carriage is overloaded with all of my stuff and happened to have been packaged by me (I'm a terrible packer).  So you can picture me leading this horse drawn cart over mostly just rubble strewn roads (remember a war had just been fought in the new lands of the Guard) cursing at the fortune that I had been dealt.  Honestly I had no idea where I was going, it had been literally centuries since I had been an actively living person in the hole that was the country I found myself in, and most of the places I knew about were either destroyed, changed, or destoryanged (its a word).

So of course I found myself gravitating towards Rosetia, at the very least I'd been there before and I kind of knew Valrym even if he hated me (to know Lorentino is to hate him). Though I didn't know how the city had faired in the war, I figured it would be first in line for restoration post war due to it being a trade destination years previous. I was a bit worried though, because it wasn't exactly a short journey, and the War had turned most of the land between the divide and civilization into broken twisted areas filled with creatures best to never have seen the light of day, and bandits hoping to make a quick buck off people hoping to make it rich on the rebuilding (like myself for example).

So picture me in my overloaded carriage on empy broken roads hoping to make it to a city before something bad happened.  Yeah you can probably imagine where the next entry will go, but I'm going to delay it becuase I'm a jerk like that (aren't you lucky?)

Justice Is Blind, Stupid, And Insulting

I mentioned I got exiled, its been one of those things I debated even really talking about other than, "Yes I'm no longer allowed in Ronerawth for the foreseeable future". In the interest of fairness and the fact that I have no sugar coated any of the rest of this boring melodrama (so much boring, so much melodrama). So I'll briefly go over the reasoning behind the more permanent exile that I'm now currently under.

So the war post Black Cliff was a series of losses for the Red Hand leading up to the sacking of the capitol and the fleeing of the surviving councilman (including Morley, I was really sad he didn't end up drawn and quartered like a couple other council people ended up).  I confident the conflict was over reported dutifully to the divide and was promptly arrested again! I tell you I have no idea why I want to go back to Ronerawth I just keep getting arrested (though again my longest actual prison stay is still in the former lands of the Red Hand, so far no long term imprisonment with the Guard despite them not liking magical people and I am one of the worst offenders in all categories).  I figured this was just a formality I'd get back everyone would glad hand me, there would be some back room "don't do this again" and then we'd be all cool.

No, this is not what happened.  Instead I was marched in front of another judge (not given the option to speak this time naturally) and promptly exiled for my supporting of enemies (exiled not executed, because again everyone in Ronerawth benefited from my supporting enemies).  They told me it was for a life time, which had me snickering because maybe their lifetimes, but certainly not mine. My property was sold off (they kept the profits naturally) and all my stuff loaded into crates to be shipped up north. I was given a couple horses and a wagon and a couple weeks to get gone.

So yeah that was my exile from Ronerawth because Toneron Hanlon is a bit of a dick.  To be fair he too got exiled, but Hanlon isn't a real person the way I and possibly you are, so I think his exile is even less important than my own.  Still now you know the whole sordid story.  Exciting right? No? Well than you need to hear more about recent history! Much more fun than all that boring half remembered stuff!

The Massacre At Black Cliff

Decisive actions are normally very brutal.  The idea being you want to crush your enemies in one fell swoop and break their spirits as well as their ability to wage war.  The problem with this strategy is that your enemy is also doing the same damn thing back to you! So generally you have two sides fighting small little battles hoping to catch the other in a devastating maneuver crushing their army, all the while hoping to avoid having the same thing done to them!

Which brings us to the Massacre at Black Cliff.  You can tell from the name of it, that it wasn't exactly a small battle with limited casualties. It was the battle thats noted for "winning the war" but the cost was fairly high for the Guard forces.  Black cliff, is technically a canyon with a gully (so like most things incorrectly named, it should be Black Gully).  There is a river running down the middle of it, and during the rainy season the canyon itself is flooded.  Not exactly a tourist destination, but a good place for merchants to hold up in a storm.  The cliffs themselves are difficult to scale and full of loose rocks for people to slip and fall to their deaths on, which made it not an ideal spot for an ambush, or at least appear not to be one anyway.

Preceeding the massacre the Red Hand had just routed the Guard at a nearby township, or I should they thought they had. Again setting up a crushing victory requires sacrifice and so the Guard came up with the ultimate gambit, they sacrificed a large number of soldiers in a pointless battle to bring the Red Hand running towards Black Cliff (in pursuit).  And while the Guard was suffering casualties the Followers of Fire had not and were ringed around the entire cliff with some of their best sharp shooters ready to rain down death (brought to you by Hanlon's new super accurate rifle) on everyone in the canyon.  On top of that, the river in the canyon had been doused with flammable liquid, that the Red Hand forces were splooshing their way through after the Guard forces (and wouldn't you know it there was a fire magical user nearby to ignite all those freshly dosed people...). 

To call it a massacre is understating things.  The entire Red Hand force was trapped in a canyon of death, and annihilated.  Much of the Guard force in the Canyon also suffered high casualties as well (due to the chaos and the flammable liquid, but they went in there knowing that would happen). Any Red Hand forces attempting to flee were met by a reserve of Guard forces also armed with Hanlon weaponry. Overall this was the battle that won the war.  It took a long time and a lot of dead people, but it was all over.

I was delighted I'd get to go home, unfortunately thats where my troubles began, and how I wound up in the damned Guard terroties subject to ridiculous rules! Its funny how often my life goes from joy to suck!  I'D LAUGH IF I DIDN'T CRY ALL THE TIME!