08-09-2017, 05:27 PM
It's been almost two months now since I first arrived in Harnburg, and the urge to cast off this charade of collaboration and raze the entire valley to the bedrock has reached new and feverish heights.
Since I exterminated the elvish encampment in the western forests I've spent my days in thorough, fascinated exploration. I've walked the streets and back-alleys of every town and village beholden to Harnburg Castle, observing and interrogating their denizens as they've gone about their various plebeian pursuits. With only minimal prodding, the structure of this place has unfolded beneath my probing crimson gaze: as word of my presence, the Duke's public sanctioning of my activities, and Chatterly's creative embellishment of my deeds has spread, the reticence of the gormless populace has evaporated. They've become positively eager to discuss their ultimately meaningless lives.
I've learned of scrivening, and ironmongery and midwifing (though there are aspects of the last that I find confusing). I know the schedules of the caravans that carry goods between this valley and the neighboring Duchies, and I've listened in taverns as the self-satisfied mammals who drive the wagons told tales of the perils of the road. Thousands of small, sordid (which is a word that positively wallows in its shameful implications) human dramas have made themselves known to me. I've discovered the intricacies of the autocratic political machine which 'His Grace' the Duke William Conrad van Harnburg controls, its aims, participants and methods, and memorized the names and duties of every one of the servants within Harnburg castle; I even know what many of them really think of their masters.
I've discovered more than enough about this land to make its annihilation a destructive masterpiece without equal. I have the power, though my overall potency remains depressingly low. Just picturing it makes my horns crackle with arcs of astral charge, brings a predatory grin - but two factors remain which hold me back, straining against my unfulfilled aesthetic need, neither of which I anticipated when I first set out upon this unprecedented endeavor.
The first is a recurring complication which could strike at any time. The second is a mystery - barely more than a persistent cloying suspicion - that makes me think I may have missed an important piece of context as I've gone about my self-appointed quest to understand (and then to utterly ruin) the Duchy of Harnburg.
Since I exterminated the elvish encampment in the western forests I've spent my days in thorough, fascinated exploration. I've walked the streets and back-alleys of every town and village beholden to Harnburg Castle, observing and interrogating their denizens as they've gone about their various plebeian pursuits. With only minimal prodding, the structure of this place has unfolded beneath my probing crimson gaze: as word of my presence, the Duke's public sanctioning of my activities, and Chatterly's creative embellishment of my deeds has spread, the reticence of the gormless populace has evaporated. They've become positively eager to discuss their ultimately meaningless lives.
I've learned of scrivening, and ironmongery and midwifing (though there are aspects of the last that I find confusing). I know the schedules of the caravans that carry goods between this valley and the neighboring Duchies, and I've listened in taverns as the self-satisfied mammals who drive the wagons told tales of the perils of the road. Thousands of small, sordid (which is a word that positively wallows in its shameful implications) human dramas have made themselves known to me. I've discovered the intricacies of the autocratic political machine which 'His Grace' the Duke William Conrad van Harnburg controls, its aims, participants and methods, and memorized the names and duties of every one of the servants within Harnburg castle; I even know what many of them really think of their masters.
I've discovered more than enough about this land to make its annihilation a destructive masterpiece without equal. I have the power, though my overall potency remains depressingly low. Just picturing it makes my horns crackle with arcs of astral charge, brings a predatory grin - but two factors remain which hold me back, straining against my unfulfilled aesthetic need, neither of which I anticipated when I first set out upon this unprecedented endeavor.
The first is a recurring complication which could strike at any time. The second is a mystery - barely more than a persistent cloying suspicion - that makes me think I may have missed an important piece of context as I've gone about my self-appointed quest to understand (and then to utterly ruin) the Duchy of Harnburg.