Scribbles of Agrifas

[Zambition]

No one else will read this, so no need for a date or a time. Besides, such things were considered anathema in the place I was born. Though it stands no more, I owe it the measly amount of respect it is owed and it was said to be the command of the King in the Mists, and though he is dead, these are yet his rings.

So why do some call upon His name and yet go against all he had writ in his dogma? I am no scholar, but I consider myself a wiser man than most. I came from the Steadings and my father was a farmer. As minutemen, we served Lord Velstra, and now all those red-haired pups are dead and I remain, though the last of my name.

What name that mattered for I know naught, in truth it meant little but the Great Ring is a Ring many dreamt of back in the day, and now I am here but at what cost? Arymathras tells me Ephia's Well is the oldest city in the Disc, and I am inclined to agree with him after seeing what I've seen.

If a mortal man might ever lay eyes on the Hells themselves, I can only imagine that is the visage they took. Burning wraiths of some ill-begotten age, though the land itself not on fire nor in flames of a Wroth known well. Even so if the truth of that Wroth is as he says, then all of it is some witty lie told to children alike fairy tales and grumpkins.

I'm not sure why tonight I decided to write, it is not as if I have anyone or anything to write to, but Oswick spoke of the rings in plural and it made me think of what was before. Is the limit of ambition a purse that weighs down over your own? Then the Sandstone students all with different views, but the one with the rounded hat so tall spoke of how some raise fund to escape the onset of war and I thought that the talk of disgust.

Indeed, I cannot hide it. So many in this city disgust me to my core, and I will enjoy beheading the worst of them when their precious walls come tumbling down. Good gods long abandoned I pray I am not so cruel, but it pleases the soul to write of it. Is there more to it? If I am not content with what this once Great Ring has to offer nor its politics, I do wonder what it is we are living for if not the very same those Ringrunners conceived as I sat a boy in a very large shoe, fields of wheat for the Lord, and the Lord's Lord.

There was said to be more than Baz'eel, and even the numbered prefix given to it I forget. Fifty-five? Fifty-six? Who cares, really. But there is more. Codwick or whatever his name was still writes to this day and now I confirm him to be the coward we always thought he was. Some scholar he was, invested in rumour and lie. A dragon roosts in the King's keep, but if my memory serves right over fifty rings between us and it. What lays in wait, between then? Where is the exit? The escape from uncertainty promised to us as young babes grasping at straws?

We were to be better than this, better than it all. Our people were so proud. Even as dragons burnt those rebels to a crisp, we stood tall. Perhaps not my own, but those we served. Is that a thing to be proud of? Of course it is, for their fruition worked off the sweat of my father and his father. Perhaps in the days of Dorvant their houses were a thing to be feared, but it came to a point where we accepted our lot in life as it were, even if the strength of the nobility waned ever so each and every day. We wouldn't notice, but surely we would have after that very same dragon burnt the ever mad House of Nephezar to its ruin.

Whatever the case, my name is Agrifas Ostori and I am quiet to many, but my mind runs astir with many thoughts that run, like a river that never stops flowing. I ponder of all that a man might achieve in this desolate land, and I ponder of what Ephia's Well has to offer that other cities do not. For one, this alien idea of democracy. It has seemed to uproot even the most vain of men to its high and lofty seats; a man who thinks himself a Dragon. The irony. If anything, this journey will be amusing and keep my mind occupied for the time being. What comes after? Suppose we'll find out, won't we?