I remember hearing something once, a long time ago, on the surface. A wise man said, that before a battle can be won in the field, it has to be won in the head first. I've been thinking about it and it makes a lot of sense. If I'm going to be the best warrior Sanctuary has to offer, then I gotta be smart, and learn from my mistakes. If I can do that, then nobody will ever beat me twice, and I won't ever be pushed around, because everyone will know that I don't deal with that nonsense.

So here's what I learned lately.

I learned that in a fight, you shouldn't call your shots unless you know you can make them. If you call it and miss, you look stupid, and you get smashed in the face. That's not good.

I learned that in a fight, if you're using supplies, tricks are good, and they work really well, but you have to also have at least as much healing as the other guy has, or else you get smashed in the face. That's not good.

I learned that in a fight, if you have alchemist fire, the sooner you use it the better, because it can make a big difference. The faster you win, the less chance you have of getting smashed in the face. That's good.

I learned that in a fight, the quicker you are, the better. But it takes a lot of practice to get really quick, and I still need to work on that. I saw a guy hit me twice with one weapon in the time it took me to hit him once each with axe. He smashed me in the face, and it wasn't good, but I learned a new trick, and I'm going to use it once I can.

---

I'm on my way, alright.

Lots of fights just a little while ago. I got creamed, but they weren't mean about it, and I learned some things, though I wish I learned more.

I learned that in a fight, when your opponent is swinging a gigantic axe really hard, it doesn't matter how quick you are or how fast you can hurt someone badly, because a hit like that alone is usually enough to get my face smashed in. I'm thinking I would have done a lot better if it were a fight where I could use my magic supplies.

I learned that there are folks out there who, in a fight, can make your muscles lock up and it gets really hard to move. I'll watch out for fistfighters who don't look like brawlers, because someone like that could really smash my face in.

Also: Yesterday, I learned that gigantic cockroach things can completely scramble your brains by looking at you. This isn't so bad sometimes, but when they keep doing it, it's gonna lead to getting your face smashed in. So I bought some potions that should help against that, and I'm gonna remember to use them, and someday I'm going to bring one of those down by myself, and then I'll know how strong I am.

Holy effin' shit.

I'm not sure what the hell lesson I'm supposed to take from this. I won the Trial of the Blade.

But I only won cause the old man who I was matched up against in the end keeled over and nearly died.

I guess the lesson is:

If you enter a tourney and you know you're gonna lose, you'd better hope your final opponent is an old codger with a weak heart, else chances are, you're gonna get your face smashed in.

Seriously though, what the hell?

I'm walking back to Sanctuary from summarily executing an entire community of sub-human monsters and there's a deep lizard munching on some rothe. It had a gash in its side but otherwise was doing alright and it started moving toward me.

I got no intention of being a victim though. Those days're long past, so I get the jump. Make my preparations, and tackle the beast. Blade burning from the wizard piss I'm striking fast and it's blow for blow. before long he's getting the advantage though so I pull back to recoup. A halfer walks by and the beast turns its attention to that one. I'm invisible at this point, but my kill is almost mine, so I dive out and take it. So this is what I learned. In a fight, a good distraction can be the difference between life, getting your face smashed in, and possibly a really freakin' cool entrance. Perhaps to a party of some kind, though that ain't really relevant.

"Sing we of the song of beasts, who smell fear and hunt the weak. Sing we of the song of men, who smell gain and kill their kin." -Grey Druid Song

So which am I?

I rather be a beast than be that sort of man. Maybe I ought seek out the Gray Druids. My offers of aid before seemed to fall on deaf ears. They never did seek me out.

---

I learned to go with my gut. Giant hunting can wait. It's not worth that close a call. I'll make sure I'm better stocked with a proper team, next time I give it a try. (It was an effin' rush though. Tooth and nail all the way.)

Met up with Reev, and it was a disappointment. I expected more from a man who champions strength of arm in combat than a spell-beggar who can't win a fight without the help of his god.

I have nothing but respect for Tempus, for his outlook and the strength his faithful have in combat. But I cannot respect a man who has to stand and pray for three minutes to be of any use in a battle.

He seems to be little more than a politician. This business about not being a "man of words" is crap, because he hardly stopped making excuses at any point in our meeting.

Still, he had good ideas for the arena, and I'm not one to let it suffer because I don't like the guy. I guess I don't so much have to respect him in order to work with him.

I oughta enjoy being Steward of the Arena though.

--- I learned that in a fight, if you're fighting a priest, the best time to hit him is when he's praying with every bit of strength you have. Because if you don't, he'll turn around and smash you in the face with a giant scorching hot sword and the strength of a giant. And I guess that ain't good.

Tournament Plans:

I figure I can go two ways on this. Either make it lavish and extreme, or pretty simple and basic.

Simple:

-Single Elimination Tournament -100 coin entry fee for each contestant, 25 coin for each member of the audience. Would come to between 1000-2000gp. Not much profit. -Champion of the Tourney gets to fight the Sheriff -Maybe see if the Sheriff has something magic for the winner. -Notable members of the Tourney get attention for joining the Watch.

Expanded: An entire day of combat, with several tournaments.

-Single Elimination -Teams -Round Robin -The Melee -No Magic -Bareknuckle

-- The easy plan seems like it wouldn't be very profitable at all. Probably even cost the Watch a good deal. The other could bring in a good chunk of gold, but it'd be extremely difficult to make work, would take a lot of help from the others, and all that.

Could sell Medicinal Herbs to the fighters at a small profit each, but even that wouldn't be terrifically profitable to us. The Tempans will probably attend and be glad to help out with healing and balancing fights out.

Need to figure out how to turn some coin on this thing.

A dog-eared sheet of parchment is set between the pages of the journal

The Corruption of Hammer and Steel

The Lesson of Dunwarren

Give me good filthy hands, grimed with moss and mud. Give me a life of healthsome struggling muck and burbling stream, flowering growth and straining flesh. Give me seeds fighting for space in the depths of the earth, natural creatures clashing with tooth and claw. Give me the messy wild, the brutal living growth that is what is. Give me the natural.

Take away the polished gem, the smooth marbled table, the soft prison of silks. Take away your civilization. Take away your grotesque infants trapped in the bodies of adults. Take away your servants and chains.

Civilization is a corruption. It is a disorder. Take away your elves with skins like charred hides, living hateful lives of deceit and self-loathing. Take away your dwarves grey and sullen, choking on the fumes of their forges and straining muscles to unnatural labor. And take away your gnomes, cursed beyond all measure of understanding.

Life is made of red flesh, hardened bone, or plantish pulp. It is not rigid steel, twisted and devoid of life. Life is created in the joining of male and female, not solitary tinkering in poisonous chambers.

Their tampering, their toys, their little steel men was an offense. It strained the balance, and the balance must be kept. Swing too far in one way, and it will swing back the other. The gnomish tinkerings opened up too many secrets, brought too much disordered unnaturalness to our world. The balance corrected itself.

A Curse of Druids can not be resisted. Little tin-men can not fix it. Secret walls and magics can not lift it.

The balance will be kept.

Expelled from the Watch. Time I left them, anyway. The only one of them left who I know is Sarge. He's not even a Sarge anymore.

To greener pastures, I guess. Not that there's any grass at all down here.

Make do with what you can.

I got an offer to work with the Hoarrans in guarding the streets of Lower, I haven't accepted or turned it down, and I think they're still waiting on word. Day after the offer, I was inducted into the Cave Worms.

It's strange. I'm so used to civilization, I don't know that I can even fit with my new brothers.

Straik, battered and bruised, cloistered away in a dark room of the cave, amidst a drunken daze to take the edge off the pain, draws a bit of blood to pen a new entry in his dusty book. Malar, displeased?

I'm weak. Going to be culled.

My arm!

Faith

I learned the faith when I was young. Never a priest, only the instructor; the wilds taught me the lessons I carried with me always, but never so understood until recent months.

The entire world we live in is governed by one rule. All things revolve, and nothing signifies but this.

[etched in blood into the page with jagged strokes] Only the strongest survive.

The Watch above, those defenders on the wall. They profess their purpose to be noble. I thought so too.

It is more sinister than they could ever be made to believe. They guard their people, true. In the act the people grow weak. Complacent. Docile. Look to politicians to guide their lives, instead of learning to guard their own.

The chaos in the Streets Beneath draws closest comparison to true wilderness. The Ledskirs of the place may be respected as the beasts at the top of their chain, for they are preyed upon by no others internal. The tapeworms, burrowed in the bowels deep of the late Sheriff Walters had no natural predators either.

They'll be shitted out of the place in a bloody mess too.

---

A girl came to me today and said she knows naught but war, and yet does not desire to spill blood. She puzzled over this I told here there is no contradiction. The Deep Lizard does not devour lesser creatures in malice. It devours to live, to survive.

---

There would be no need for goodly saints, if people accepted the faith. Understood what survival means. It is not a matter of hope. Not a matter of giving aid to others, teaching others to give aid in turn.

No, there is no utopia, because always one will come along who does understand the need for strength.

'Good' is not a virtue unless it is championed with strength.

A good man paid alms every day to aid the poor, the weary, the infirm. He did this every day from his youth to his young adulthood. When he did not seek new poor and weary and infirm, he worked to find coin to give on to them. One day, having collected a great sum of coin, certain to give aid to a great many other poor, weary, and sick, he traversed the streets and was accosted. Threatened with steel, the good man did not give up the alms, for there were enough to save many lives. He was weak however, from all his years spent collecting aid and passing it on to others, never the time taken to strengthen arm. He was easily slain. Coin taken; he did not give a copper to the poor, the weary, or infirm again.

Had he the strength of arm to resist he would have gone on to save more lives. Had he the strength of mind to flee, or to pay the thieve's ransom, he would have lived another day to collect alms again, and do more of his 'good'.

---

Strength is not limited to the ability to swing blade and come out the best. The mind too is a weapon. No man is dangerous when stripped of cloth and steel. No claws to cut, nor fangs to tear, to bite. Muscle may destroy bones, but is not in-born. What weapons we have are those forged of mind. There is no disgrace in using wit to survive. No shame in retreat, if one is to live and grow greater. No challenge though, is to be avoided forever. No warrior may be greatest until no challenger remains.

---

There is only one dishonor, which remains outside the realms of strength. The use of missile in combat is only unforgiveable against any foe not readied to return the same. Few beasts of the wild are so equipped. Perhaps against the manticore, such tactic is forgiveable.

Above all, any man fool enough to fire shot at a sacred beast of Malar deserves nothing less than punishment as befits the defiler of any holy shrine.

To slay such a creature is an honor. To be slain, an honor no less a part of the cycle. The only disrespect greater than bowshot is to maim such a beast, and then leave it alive.

---

We are all beasts. All animals. You are indistinguishable from the pig you slay or the dragon who slays you. All that matters is what you gain from your conquest, or what is begat by the one who conquers you. Take what you need in your kill, and use the rest. To kill superfluously is uncouth. Knowledge is as much a gain as the flesh that makes the parchment you write on, the fur that keeps one warm, or the bone from which you make a weapon.

The denizens of this pit Dunwarren will all bleed the same. Die the same deaths, if they do not learn these lessons.

[added, almost as if an afterthought] The consequences otherwise are far more dire than getting smashed in the face.