The ale stained journal of Arakes Gatsan

[arakes99]

Staring blankly at the page of a new journal, a few ales already within his gullet as the sun set over the western forest of the Cloakwood, visible from the mid level room he rented from Bentley. After a long pause the grizzled and aging swordsman touches quill to parchment and lets the words flow.

“I have never kept a journal, years ago I jotted down notes from time to time though usually as strange pictures that none would understand, save myself. It would have been dangerous to do otherwise, then, when my arrogance led to greed, my greed to ambition and my ambition to violence. I wish none would ever have known that man, that brutal creature forged in the docks of Athkatla as he stole and scrounged to feed himself as a youngster. A man that learned to fight with broken boards and rusted scraps left from the shipping that came and went, his opponents mostly whelps like himself, fighting for dominance or for a better find that was left unguarded amongst the many alleys of the city. The things that man of his early thirties did, felt justified to do never ceases to put me in a cold sweat when the morning comes and sobriety lingers. The blood of brutes and innocents alike staining the blade I still carry, the face I still wear in a clarity I wish my withering mind did not possess.

My time in the desert was miserable experience, were it not for the wealth I had gathered in my haste to find prominence, I likely would not have survived. Still endless nights spent in hot, dusty mud huts brought reprieve as my drinking increased each day to counter the familiarity my mind developed against its effects. My talents waned, first my spells, painstakingly pushed from within myself, practiced till mastered in my days as a mercenary until not but cantrips remained, the intuition to call upon the weave lost in a drunken maze of darkness and light over the course of a year. My blade work suffered less but still it waned and my voice became hoarse from my deathly diet and the sulfuric drinks of that spoiled land. In the end, I am lucky that bedoiun came to my tavern to spend the night. A simple looking man, wearing exotic hides for protection from the elements and more, likely those of a basilisk thinking back on it now. He carried two curved blades, though much stubbier than my own sword. When I ran into him, knocking his food to the floor and blaming him for it all in my drunken rage, that foolish, arrogant act, likely saved my life……

The man and I tussled for a bit until we found ourselves out side and blades were drawn. I had somehow managed to grab my shield from my pack at the bar despite my rage and drunken thoughts, perhaps such deeply ingrained things need not be thought of. It is there that I learned how swiftness of foot and speed of blade can over come even the stoutest of shields, the best of defenses. That he did not kill me then, after so soundly disarming and defeating me, speaks to his manner. For the man I was then would surely not have returned the favor had the situation been reversed.

Once he felt I was done, as I lay bleeding from a few superficial wounds and a broken nose, he sheathed his blades and began to make off. I made my feet as quickly as I was able. Tossing the shield aside, and sheathing my blade. I begged him then, begged him to teach me. Not only how he fought, but how he lived. I had nothing to offer save coin, but of that I had much and that simple bedouin saw something in me, something he must have liked, though I can’t imagine what that was back then. He took me into the desert with him for the next two years, teaching me the art of two blades, how to dodge almost any blow through swiftness, how to track and hunt, and in the end, how to live again. A strange thing to find in the Anauroch I suppose, but I was never a common man.

It’s been three years since I left the coast, my disgrace all but forgotten, my face covered in a beard and lines that none who had known me before would expect. I came changed, I came looking to make amends, I did not expect what I have come to find for myself……………….”

The entry ends as the man falls asleep, placing his favorite hat over his face, night having fallen and a short moment of peace passing over the Sword Coast.

[arakes99]

After a few tenday, an exhausted looking and befittingly inebriated man wanders into his room at the Friendly Arms and plops down at his writing desk, setting his hat by the window and taking up his quill.

“It has been odd returning to the coast. So many old faces gone but memories of them carved into the stone around me and the folk I speak with. Rokranon is gone, the Fist no longer patrol the southern roads, Nashkel has recovered fully, that bastard Delphinn having taken up with that foul Amnian wench, Shartess, and finishing our efforts to fund the towns revival. Still, it’s good that someone was able to finish the work, although I still spit on that memorial every time I pass the river. Opportunists can never be trusted, it seems.

I have met quite a few amiable people since my return, a surprise to be certain given my circumstance for leaving the coast. Among them I am most fond of Talisen, a jovial man of strange humor and high spirit, the knight Sveta of the Everwatch, who’s gruff nature and skilled swordsman ship I much admire though I am certain in the past we would have been stark rivals and enemies at best. Another knight, Eldarian of Beregost seems quite amiable as well. We have spoken at length many times now and he has never shown sign of judgment or dislike in my common speech and…..unique morality.

Others, while I am drawn to what they do and represent I have not come to an understanding with. Cromis, the Priest as I call him, is a resolute man. Very cold, very stern, I fear that we shall never truly understand each other. Our differences likely exceeding our common view of justice, our shared wish to bring fair judgment where none has been wrought before. I often wonder what he would have thought of that man, the one I left behind in the desert all those years ago. Eleanor is a fine woman and quite friendly, though I think the weight of others shadows often keeps her from her own truth. This I do not fault as my own truth was revealed to be harshly lacking and the shadow of that Bedouin was a weight I much needed to bare. Warren makes me laugh more than most I find, the cranky old wizard who thinks so little of himself and complains endlessly. I suppose age brings these things about in us all, though should I survive to his age I do hope to have a better disposition.

I think I have found a home amongst the hunters though I wonder if I am truly one of them. My skills brought back from the Anauroch are useful to them, providing a few things that the group lacks, yet none of them seem to have sinned such as I. I still wonder if I can ever truly make up for the man I was. Still I must try, failure is preferable to acceptance, I just hope I do not shame those around me or fail them, like I failed most of my life…..”

He sets down the quill, drinking heavily before flinging himself onto the bed, reeking of wine tonight. A man of varied taste, he rarely over endulged on the same drink two nights in a row.