An excerpt from the journal of Soizic d'Karak, a Questing Knight-
Dear diary, I am reminded, once again, that the Dame Mathilde is a ranaldite. I confess this feeling to be almost bittersweet at this point, for though I taste bitterness still 'tween clenched teeth for the god of scoundrels, victory is sweet to the tounge. I still believe he is dishonorable in his principals! But I have no complaints about his proximate servant.
Why do I ramble so about this now? The good knight has opened a gambling house! Oswald was the one who mentioned it to me- I had suggested the Goat again for our weekly night off with Francesco (rebuilding those ties we made in Barak Var and the roads where we first marched together, for those between Oswald and Francesco had frayed with the latter's ascension to viceroy and I had grown distant from both with my constant absences), but he told me that there was a new attraction Francesco insisted upon.
And so that night I climbed the central stair in Karag Nar to the fifth level and took a left, then a right again, deep into the center of the Karag. I wore a new dress, this one in the Tilean style that had begun to be sold recently, royal blue over white with a broad neckline and embroidery of gold. I wore the crest of my father, my crest, (a sword vertical, point down through the arch of a bridge, barring invaders from passage) on my back and a fleur de lis above my heart.
The corridor was broad and high- a throughfare of the old dwarves, but I realized I had never travelled it before. Despite it's former importance it had held no role yet in the new Karak, so the sight of the refurbished runelamps brought a sense of almost-dread to me; something large had changed.
The doors at the end were heavy beams bound with iron, broad and wide. But neither open and welcoming nor shut, but rather one side was propped open a sly crack, enough for one at a time to slip through. Inside was a hall in the dwarven sense- a hundred places across and half again as high, with a double-row of pillars holding up a pointed-arch ceiling. Interestingly, several balconies had been built of wood, giving perhaps half the room a homey ceiling a half-dozen paces above one's head, and the rest open to the dimness above- with, I noticed, the occasional sharp-eyed observer looking down on the games, watching impartially for cheating.
A bar stretched across one side, large chalkboards behind it marked up with odds for dozens of events- everything from a careful list of all the caravans who had ventured forth with odds of their return, to the expected successors of a boggling wide variety of titles, to the halfling pie contest. Only one had I seen before- an old one, now carefully gilded and hung in pride of place above the others, which had once hung in the messhall in the days just after the taking of the citadel. On it were the names of the six peaks that had not yet been reclaimed, and the odds on the order in which they would be retaken. Karagril was scratched out and a date scribed, the rest left untouched.
Dear diary I say I knew it because I saw it, but in truth I really remember it for the discipline problems in it's wake: the man who had made the book had declared that no one had placed a bet on the remainder being simultaneous, and so he claimed they all lost. I had to confine six of mine for a week in punishment after they disagreed strenuously enough to break bones, but the bookie was clever enough to have banked his monies elsewhere, and they recovered nothing. Last I heard the bookie had left Eightpeaks to buy a title in Estalia or some such thing. He must have sold his masterpiece to the Dame Magister on his way out.
Opposite the bar was the main door, to the left games of dice and cards, to the right a ring of dirt surrounded by spectators both above on the balconies and below, waiting for the next pair of brawlers to step into the ring. Past the ring on top of a large block of stone near against the wall, overlooking the cross in the center of the ring, sat a statue of a cat made of glossy black glass- shot with veins of dull iron.
Dear diary, I tried, I really did. I found Francesco, and Oswald, and had a round with them as we threw dice idly. But when a cheer went up for the prizefighters I found myself cast back to the night when I last saw bloodsport, when Sir Oskar grasped my heart mere hours before he died. It was...
It brought tears to my cheeks, dear diary, and gulping I had to beg leave of my companions for I could stay no longer. Perhaps one day I shall return, but for now I have no wish for the memories it calls forth.
Also it is a den of scoundrels and ranaldites.
I left on long patrol the next day, seeking again solace in the act of journeying, even a distance as short as the way to Ulrikadrin. The city itself blossoms, and much is new since last I made my way through the long tunnel of the underway. The shipyard had not stopped even through the waaagh marching, and the first hull was almost ready to be launched. Work on new cranes along three pier was frantic- I'm told that they will be used to load canon and the large bulk of the engines after the hull is floated.
Most notable though was the bulk of a temple to Ulric rising above the roofs as we descended, when last it was scarce more than foundations. Walls, battlements, bastions- a proper keep it was, set back from the river in a broad plaza that gave clear sightlines in every direction. Such a sight was quite reassuring, for a solid wall to retreat behind is a nessecity for any real settlement.
I found Hubert there; after the battle at the west gate was won, the Ulricans knights showed up just in time to witness the retreating foes. They were not provisioned for a distance chase but rather to reach the Karak quickly and fight, so in disgust they turned to return to their riverport. Hubert had gone with them as they left, for he has witnessed as much as anyone had and could not be torn away from them once he had begun his tale.
I wonder, dear diary, if it is that husky north empire burr in his baritone voice that makes it so delicious, but I look forward to hearing him spin out his tales to me alone, now that he has had time and repetition to polish them.
And perhaps it will knock him from this untoward grimness he has found himself in. I know somewhat where it comes from, for twas the frown he directed at the letters he read in the sunlight of the temple courtyard that I received the first indication of his mood. He has not told me if the content, but I trust it has nothing to do with himself this time, for when one of the many, many toasts to the heroes of the Karak is called in the evening, he stands tall and raises his glass with pride.
He killed a boss, dear diary, did you know? At the final push by the orcish elites against the gate, where the King of Azul dueled the biggest of the bosses left, Hubert with lightning slew the orc's second and led the counter-charge blade in hand.
So why the distant looks, I wonder? The mood in town certainty isn't helping and may be connected, for I hear more murmurs of the Al-Ulric, in bitter tones again that I had not heard since the early days of the expedition. They feel betrayed, and so they left, is my understanding. But something must still be stirring in the north for those troubles to follow them so far. I care not, in the end, for my duties are here. But I worry that Hubert may feel his loyalties torn, and I wish I could speak to him in a way that made clear what honor demands. I have no family to hold my loyalties through blood, and my oaths to my Lord were broken when he cast me out. I carry only my self-sworn oaths to my Lady, my loyalty to the Viceroy of Karag Nar, and through him to King Belegar. (And though some may scoff at a questing knight who remains in one city year after year, such is the penance I have set myself: I may not sleep twice under the same moon, so either I sleep under mountains as the dwarves do or I do not sleep. Many nights have I stood vigil to watch the moon as the undumgi camped about me.)
So I know not hope even to approach Hubert in this, knowing he has bound himself to family and faith and the colleges of magic and the Karak Eightpeaks. Too many directions to be pulled in, it is, and secretly I am glad he does not speak to me of it.
Oh! Dear diary let me not forget- Hubert half-jokingly, half-proudly told me that the Dame Magister had named them as members of an August Order, a proud symbol of the might of the Empire's wizards working together, and swore to all of them with a wink that this had always been the case. And so, a newly entitled wizard needs new robes! Those ones he wears now are dashing and I am fond of the cut, but the seamstress at Three Thimbles just got in the most vivid blue wool, and I believe a touch of good embroidery to be called for.
A shopping outing. Ah, but one with such potential! Dear diary, wish me luck!
Perhaps the dragons they killed were even stupider.
