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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2016 18:49:34 GMT -5
(note, lex is in mindfang's house with tyler. mindfang and tyler are busy talking outside with the wh0le pirate thingy)
Lex flips through a couple of pages, falling on one.
She then started reading.
~ On the 14th of June ~
The Ganimed poses a caliginous riddle like no other I've met. I am presuming him bothered by jealousy, and it would be sickening if it were not so marvelously amusing. but then, who but royalty could have the finned cheek to show disdain for the manner in which his hateful lover conducts her loving conquests? Less has accelerated meeker than I to homicide, and the violation would hold me aghast, again, if his misgivings did not complement his so endearing arsenal of quant flaws. It is impossible to stifle this grin even now as I write.
He surely understands this as my maritime overlord, a superior while through gritting fangs he would concede the expanse of my plunder makes his seem hardly worthwhile to trouble a map with good ink over. I know he understands. I will take what I want. I expect nothing less from Vesimies, and truly, less would offend me. Is it the crude blood of the suitors from which I have taken enjoyment recently? If his displeasure is with my blithe treatment of the social order then he has either not spent enough time in the warm company of my indifference, or is simply very stupid. I saw the look he gave. He's so secure in knowing I can't feel what's in his mind he forgets the traitorous ways of his own face. His little looks are words to me, interjections in our deliciously bitter repartee. First a look as I summon a slave from the hold, with such ease between my remarks. Why yes, Vesimies, they were the very slaves in your hold until but this hour. Another ship deployed carelessly, languishing in strategic vulnerability. Is this not our routine? Our dance? What is this look, my dear rival? Is it shame? Envy? Contempt for what he knows will follow?
I nod her over. She is fearful and it makes her prettier. He scoffs without a movement or sound. I know there is disgust feeding the shadows in his corner of my block. At least prick her in the light, he surely thinks. Determine what vulgar hue she bleeds before persisting with your abasement, Mindfang. Do try to understand, Ganimed. Not knowing is the point, and if you truly understood this, your crusade against the crew of pirates would not be among our higher up's most uproarious punchlines. (If only one truly needed to be so high to find it amusing!) And knowing of this, I take my sword out. Its color blue with its beautiful glow due to the dust inside of it. I slowly slice part of her ribs open, having her bleed. I look over to Vesimies and grin. I then make a casual remark to Vesimies, continuing our conversation. He does not respond.
I look again at the face of my slave, I slice the other side of her ribs open, red blood dripping to the floor. I imagine I can not feel her conviction that it's not merely a matter of whether she will be put to the irons, but how hot they will be if she fails to please. Poor thing. I make another slice under her cut on the left side with her screaming. I pause to consider. What will her fear become if I choose to show her mercy later? And even, in days, kindness? I pull the sword up from her ribs and sheathe it. A few pirates take her away with her crying, as they went to go fix her wounds.
I remember Vesimies again. My distraction from our banter was momentarily absolute, and I inquire into the shadows. but he is gone.
Then go, my rival. Fume with the indignation I gave you. I can only pray it blackens our bond. I must know such exhibitions agitate him and hence why I bother, otherwise it would be easy to dismiss him before I partook. Let it be a gift of antagonization to you, my dear rival, on which you may brew pitch for me anew. And if it is true envy, a vermilion yearning I can't abide, then though it pains me it will be farewell.
Alas, it may be that I am too good at spurring hate. Too good, at least, for him. I only hope he is not so foolish as to tread a path of less torrid malice.
For if he does........
Lex flips to the next page.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2016 19:27:03 GMT -5
Lex continues reading.
~ On the 16th ~
My suspicions have been confirmed. I'm not grinning anymore, Vesimies.
Our orderly contention has dissolved right before my vision. It was once a handsome black, but now sits like good strong tea sullied and cooled by unwelcome dairy.
Thus my heart was broken twice. I was fond of the slave. There was surely promise in her lovely investment. He had her assassinated.
And so I am visited by a bit of bad luck for a change. It's not possible to evade it forever, I suppose. I will simply have to endure the misfortune of observing his base and artless measures of retaliation.
He's applied his own resources to increase the bounty on my head. I wonder if he intends such a laughably ineffectual gesture as anything more than a formality, a symbol of his intent. If not, my smile. How it threatens to revisit. Almost.
I've broken laws, yes. but what has there been to pay for? If any act I've taken should demand a bounty, it was paid up front. I foot the bill myself with guile and supremacy.
~ On the 20th ~
If only my hoard were as bottomless as his desire to disappoint me. He is set on cowardice, deferring to others to settle his score.
Doesn't he remember what he's confided? It would be easy to give the evidence to Afrodita, and he would be killed quickly for his unthinkable presumption. He's taken a great risk harboring lovely ambitions for an empress who will never even know his name. Not that I'll sink to his tactics.
But then, he feels safety in knowing this. My sources say he is en route.
~ On the 21st ~
I've learned Vesimies has reported to Kauris all the intelligence he has on me and my fleet. It was information he'd guarded closely to protect our once mutually cherished rivalry. He couldn't let it fall into the wrong hands, lest another besiege me more effectively and cause me to wax for the usurper. Not that he'd raised that mast particularly high himself. Ah, the shortcomings I manage to overlook for the sake of a lover.
I would have enjoyed witnessing the entertainment he prepared to please Kauris. His sense of humor was dreadful. It would have been a true miracle if he survived the appointment.
Funny, I always imagined a grander entry in my journal for your demise, Vesimies. But I should have realized you would die as you lived. A joke. One more humorous little sacrifice kindly given to the members of Kauris, and one step closer to the release of the screams they prophesize. I am overjoyed to understand now this was always your destiny.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2016 20:06:34 GMT -5
Lex flips another page.
It's been nearly a week since Vesimies' fitting end and I'd all but forgotten the matter. It seems the members of Kauris were not particularly inspired by his revelations about my affairs. Sources tell me their response was to commission one of the court's newcomer's legislators to conduct the investigation and bring me to justice.
Vekten Waage is reported to be quite talented. I find no reason to doubt this. Still, how can I be caused any unrest to learn their recourse is to send a lone, inexperienced bureaucrat to apprehend me?
I cannot view this as anything other than full concession by the higher up's. They now only seek to maintain the appearance of pursuing me. Maybe they find my exploits amusing? I couldn't possibly disagree. Those rare moments when my superiors show wisdom come perilously close to restoring my faith in the social order.
As for Waage, it would surprise me if I ever heard her name again. If she finds me then I welcome her challenge. But I am so confident she will play no relevant role in my future, I won't even bother peering into my oracle to satisfy my curiosity.
I suppose I'll have to get used to writing with this hand instead.
I now do so in captivity, while I bring my awe to bear on the immensity of Kauris' members high jinx. I took their gesture as plain avowal of my prosecution's futility. With a lone newcomer assigned to the task, how could I view it otherwise? I was sure they'd drawn from the bottom of their deck, not intending to squander more competent mercenaries on one who'd made a show of outclassing them all before. But I discovered too late that Waage was their wild card all along.
How is one allowed to be raised by a creature in this era? Let alone one of such middling blood, the sickly hue of a gutless civil servant. Those of her caste are typically pleased to mount a sluggish Ursa, or some brainless squawking Nevermore during petty expeditions to plaster seizure notices on gamblignant property. by what fluke was this woman granted such a weapon, permitting her to luxuriate in these delusions of righteousness?
Something blocked the light of the unbitten moon, treating the harbor to darkness more grim than what fell this season's apogee. I made the mistake of looking into its eyes, each like a sun concentrated into a small jewel, as two hot garnets searing through a black veil. I shut mine quickly, but the more sensitive of them was burned irreparably. When I regained sight in the other, there was only red. My fleet was in flames. The newcomer was on deck. A new species of a dragon, she mentioned through her ridiculous forced grin. She wanted me to know the name of the beast which was able to consume my crew whole.
My dice were in the hold below, not that my present luck would consent to a favorable roll anyway. I made a move for my blade. She took my arm, which I'm sure she kept as the tiniest of snacks for her ostentatious pet. Maybe she meant to prove she wouldn't need me in irons to have my submission?
Bound or free.
Two, one or none.
I wonder how well she knows it's not what I do with my arms she has to fear?
I await my trial.
Flip.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2016 20:26:42 GMT -5
Much fanfare was made of the trial. More than I would have dared to hope. It seems my luck has been returning of late.
The higher up's surely intended to make a spectacle of my conviction. They filled the courtblock with peasants ravenous for the comeuppance of a pirate. I wasn't about to deny them what they came for.
It was kind of the authorities to supply me with phalanx of such impressionable spectators. The weak wills were nearly as thick in the air as the rust in their veins. Funny how my other senses seem to have piqued since exchanging glances with the dragon. What an extraordinary specimen. How I've come to covet the creature since it ruined my fleet. I know too well the whispers of a dangerous new infatuation when they beckon. But I digress.
It was simple enough to nudge the hostility of the weaklings from one aristocrat to another. The members of Kauris could not have been pleased, but nor could they have been altogether unamused, I would expect. I wonder if this was part of their unfathomable game? I'll never understand their riddles.
I only regret I didn't get to hear the opening statement the newcomer had prepared against me. The case she compiled from all that evidence she burned must have been damning. I bet her remarks would have stung worse than when she severed my arm. She certainly would have shown me greater mercy by taking the other instead!
Alas, I mock to disguise the extent of my regret.
Had my escape not necessitated her demise, she would have made a lovely rival. If she'd only discarded her childish preoccupation with justice, we might have made a striking scourge. Had we inched blacker we'd have torn lovely miles across the land and sea. Unfortunately, the only miles to be found through her bureaucratic calling were those of red tape. When so ensnared, one is eventually bound to be choked.
With the courtblock cleared, all that remained to obstruct my freedom was a huge rare grimm itself.
Upon reflection, Waage showed the foresight of a true huntress in thieving my arm before the trial.
It permitted a fair fight.
Though I was free, I had no fleet. No matter. With the pirate decimated, I'd embraced the turn in fortune and pledged to put my pirate ways behind me temporarily. With any luck, the skies will be my future. My thoughts again returned to that dragon.
But first, I was in need of temporary refuge. I sought it with the expatriate.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2016 9:54:17 GMT -5
He owed me for the years of protection I provided after his brazen defiance of the ones in control. It was perhaps the only such courageous stand ever taken against a superior by one of his supercilious pedigree, and I'd not have bothered sticking my neck out for another. But the admiration he'd won naturally wore thin as he persistently bemoaned his treason and banishment, and I was saddened to find this habit holding "STRONG" even now. I wonder if he still believes she was worth it?
Repairing my arm would go a little further in squaring his debt with me. Even if I came with both intact I might have ripped one off and put him to the task just to halt to his blubbering. Jousimies was always a skilled machinist and the work proved an adequate distraction. So pacified, he listened to what I had to say, about my recent travails with the law, and that dragon, and what I'd come for in truth - the treasure he'd been keeping safe for me.
I cradled the eight ball in my synthetic hand, as if appraising by wait the mystic qualities it still concealed. With my vision seared away, I was as blind to its secrets as the old leader was to its present whereabouts. I'd learned to keep it cloaked from the awareness of the man who once called me his protege, a backhanded term of endearment from a smug manipulator. Locating his so called dark pockets was the only gambit I had in countering his milktongued doublespeak. The expatriate for indiscernible reasons seemed naturally surrounded by such a void in the leader's awareness, and so was uniquely fit to inherit the ball. The leader could not see his treasure, nor I into it.
I considered what to do with it for a while. Should I find the dragon by consulting with the ball, as I'd done so often to steal fortune from my adversaries? I guessed exploiting some technological means of gazing through its surface may have been simple enough, but I hesitated. Every expedient granted by its counsel, though never instantly, came at a price. Knowing his nature, I'm surprised I only now recognize it as yet another instrument of his spurious 8enevolence, dangerous 8y way of selective divulgence. The sense of infalli8ility his oracle 8rought me was superficial, and in hindsight weakened my readiness. Knowing my fate so far in advance, I took Waage's threat lightly. The greatest mistake I have ever made was asking the ball when I would die.
But as I revisited the prophecy surrounding this unfortunate query, something struck me. I thought of the man I would have as a lover centuries from now, who was said to command an army of beasts. The one it called Kreteschen.
If my obsession with the dragon should continue to burn for so long, would he be the one to assist me in taming it? I did not have enough knowledge to ask the right questions when I had the opportunity. Were that the case, I might have asked if it would be his rare abilities of communion that would bring the dragon under control. Would it be on account of my influence? And if so, would I exert this influence by taking his will, or winning his heart? These are details I would have given no second thought in drawing from the ball, my curiosity a force usually too much to quell. But now...
I have thought of Kreteschen often. I have been troubled to know that as one so common in combat, he could not possibly have hatched yet, nor will he wriggle from the caverns for many years. So I must have patience to take up my role in his story of heroism. It is a tale which reads to me as though lifted from a child's story, yet I know I'd be a fool to doubt its veracity entirely. He would rise through the ranks of the White Fang and assume command, having proven the most skilled and fearless of them. He would exhibit a remarkable pupation, the sort only recorded in myth, growing, or perhaps simply revealing, a striking pair of wings. His army thus inspired would spearhead a major rebellion. Surely one at least on the scale of the sectarian revolt crushed by the ones in control, who thereafter forbade its mention, or any invocation of the heretical Kreft at all, even in private journals. Which is why I will stick to the fable of Kreteschen, and not risk another execution with even oblique reference to the compelling tale of Kreft
Resolution to Kreteschen's mutiny is foggy, as I only understand what has been related to me through the brief answers I thought to solicit. Ultimately, the ire of Afrodita would be such that in the settling dust of the conflict, she would banish all from this village, except the young. She would scatter all who reached maturity to sea to fight her wars, I presume to keep them occupied, existing in a less centralized state from which such a coup may arise. This is still an incredible notion for me to consider, and I cannot imagine how she would come to enforce such an upheaval in our civilization. Though I suppose she will have on her side the advantage of an unparalleled lifespan, and the leverage extended by the hideous psychic prongs of her deep undulating monstrosity. That is, until it chooses another little witch to serve. Nevertheless, I take the prediction as truth, and find it amusing that this village dominated by children will be the great Kreteschen's legacy. One of them, at least.
More importantly, and less amusingly, his legacy will be my demise. You see, I first learned his name when I asked who would be the one to kill me.
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