A Scattered Legacy

Status: Horrendous. Impacts today: 17

(The section below is hastily scribbled)

It's gone. Torn apart like cotton. Their catapults — pure devilry. Blighted fire, bright blue and hazy. A rotting stench. Numbers unknown. Too many. Lead by Vorgoth. He's coming.

Heavy boots. Smashed Caden's skull. Lost below. Sludge and mud. All red. A wave of steel, flooding towards market square. My brothers below — yelling. No way down. Everything is loud — the screams. I cannot bear this. Dear lords.

Please. I'm just a squire. Please don't crush my head

Caden, I'm so sorry

The foot soldiers must be marching to the harbor. Encroaching on the gate, no doubt. I'm blessed to have made it to my hidden attic on time. I can't see from here, but I hear them. Their lord, the Guard of the North, is chanting. Something dark and tainted. The sky outside moves? No, it's the clouds! A misty veil with strips of colored, blue light. What on Earth...

I'm peeking now. I see it. The cobblestones rip open like foul flesh. He's removing his gloves. By the Ancients, his hands. They look frozen and dead. Like preserved, rotten meat. Is he raising something from below...? I can't see. I have to lean a little further

Bastards closed the gates to the inner city. Just left us poor to rot and die!! It won't help. Vorgoth's army will get 'em. I hope they burn. Let Gormander taste copper and steel!

I don't go down easy. I'm hidden, but I still have that blasted sickness from last yearfall. If my body fails me now, if I sneeze, if I yap — with the northlings sauntering 'round outside — these sewers will be my tomb.

I'm shivering. It's not my cold flashes. Something is off. There's... there's a breeze in here. No. There's breathing. In here, and sharp like a blade. Can't see where, or what

It's in me

In my throat, so cold

It's acid. It's worse. Worse than the sewer. Help

The north winds are here

Never thought I'd see a war — nay, a live invasion — in the last of my tired days.

I've buried so many. I confess this comforts me. Guiding people on their final voyage. So many last goodbyes. Today comes mine.

Rimgard is past the gates. We can't seek respite in the castle... Gormander locked all doors and lowered the gates. It will not stop the horde. They will find their way. Ancients preserve us, the Shroud is seeping inside. Something drips from above.

If anyone finds this, if anyone is left

I want to be buried next to my wife and son under the old oak

Leave the headstone blank

I have nothing left to say

Wherever he fled — if at all — Gormander is alone. Or with another courtesan.

The city is drenched. They've crushed our wall early morn and now coat our town with thick, suffocating nebula colored like ostrich feathers. I cower here — alone, for the first time in years. Like a little girl.

My heart flutters like a thrashing, caged canary. I should have run away and chartered a ship. Seized it. I can fence and read a map, after all! Maybe it's not too late.

I could still wake up to ocean blues and feel salt on my skin. See mermaids and sing at the docks, loudly, finally! I want to end in a storm, in a blaze, and not a lonely little tower!

Don't laugh at me. I feel so small