A Red Journal

[WriterX]

A red tome, a journal, kept upon the person of Marcellus. A glimpse into his thoughts. The very first entry upon this journal:

Tesrin Hray 20th, IY 7788

I have began feeling incensed, more so than I ever was before. I recall how I felt in a similar manner many months ago, when I was drawn off my seat for the first time. The chaos, the fighting, and now it happens again.

Back then I felt conflicted, I could hear some distant thoughts of mine telling me how my life's work was being undone, yet I fought them back. I knew that for as long as I remained I could still, somehow, steer these things back, and for now, everything was going in the right direction.

Today however, I watch the city, what the Accord is doing with it, and I am slowly being filled with rage. They have remained here for longer than I, some, like Colmes, Rosseau, have been almost as long as I. Yet they behave as if the City was their own playground. They do not serve the interest of the city, its people, but their own.

Filth that crawled out from the Old City and settled here, festering and boiling over. They will undo all the work I put into this city, trying to maintain its peace, its stability. As a Legate I am forced to welcome them into my office, smile to them, shake their hands, but over the past two months I felt that these fools will lead this city to ruin. We are nearing that moment, that explosion, when their actions will affect not just them, but everybody around.

The Leagues, the Accords, all infested by goals and desires that rip us apart. Instead of being united, we are devided. Instead of fighting our enemy together, we fight one another. Had I the power to do so I would cast them all out, exile them into the desert, let them suffer the pain and helplesness of those people who are forced to endure beyond our walls.

They say I have grown stagnant, but I see that they have grown fat, and lazy. They do not remember about the suffering of the people they once were. Of people forced to flee their home, to arrive to the Well on their first day, with barely a dinar to their name.

And I ponder on this as I look to Banafsi. My campaign there. My desire to see them overturn the Archon, to end the war. I extended my hand to the Accord, hoping it would birth cooperation between them, to coordinate, but I was a fool.

A fool who believed these people could be reasoned with, could be tamed, could be steered.

No. There are individuals with promise, but their organizations as a whole are failing. Even internally there are cracks, divisions. The Janissaries perhaps least so, but Colmes has disappointed me, and he will continue to disappoint me.

Banafsi, my campaign, my war, will be won by my hands, by my hard labor. The Accords will not be given the satisfaction of participating in it, of reaping the rewards they do not deserve. 

The people wish the city to focus upon the Orcs? Then I shall not strip their limited resources, and that will be my explanation. You have your war to win, I have mine. The people do not wish to give a single dinar toward Banafsi? Then I shall gather every single dinar myself.

As a Legate much work I had to do myself. If I did not do something myself it would not be done at all. Even asking others to aid would not always work unless I personally was involved in it.

If the city burns, because of the incompetence of those in power, so be it. I cannot stop a firestorm once it has began, but I will be there, when the ashes settle, to rebuild, as I have always been, as I have always done.

As Izdu instructs, to build wonders, and as Agaslakku says, what is broken shall be reforged.

My own League, now a corpse, lifeless, abandoned. The people there not knowing what they desired
 themselves. I grow tired of it all. Eventually there will be a chance to rebuild, to return.

For now however, a singular purpose.

War, and Victory.