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Message: <blockquote data-quote="master arminas" data-source="post: 629063" data-attributes="member: 9287">So it came to pass that in the summer of my sixteenth year, I found myself buried within the choking company of the monastery atop the crown of Brekkan Hill, learning new skills and hardening my body to match my heart.  Few there understood me, or my dark ambitions.  Only Master Tierion, the head of the monastery, and as the years passed, my primary instructor in the arts of logic, rhetoric, history, and weapons.  Only he, of all the brothers of the order, understood the unfathomable smoldering need within my heart, the call for vengeance upon those who slew my kith and kin.   Under his tutelage I soon excelled, surpassing those who entered the Order at the same time I did, and being accepted into the Order as a full initiate.  It seems now, from this reference point in time and space, that Tierion banked and stoked my inner fires, added to the desolation in which I found my soul abandoned; but at the time, he seemed my only true remaining friend.   It was Tierion who brought me completely and without reservation to the worship of Hextor, the god of tyranny, as well as of retribution. <o<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />></o<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />>Slowly, over the years which I spent learning the skills and arts of my brothers-in-arms among the monastery, I found myself more and more alone.  My belief in, and worship of, Hextor was not highly regarded among my fellow initiates or among the monks who taught us.  Most of those who studied or lived in the monastery worshiped other deities, be they the older gods of the Flan, or those beings whom our Sueloise ancestors bade to stay their wrath through sacrifices and ritual flattery.  Associated with many of the Dukes of Hell, Hextor was one of the new, modern, deities brought to the Flaness by the Oeridains several score of centuries ago.  As such, he was opposed by many of his fellow gods, and most of the peoples of the world, but here, in the lands of the Pale, through a quirk of fate, he had become the Lord who replaced the Suel pantheon during the many long years in which our people, correctly or incorrectly, placed the blame for the collapse of the ancient Imperium.  As one of his worshipers, I found myself disassociated from many of my so-called brothers, colleagues, and fellows among the monks. <o<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />></o<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />>Yet, late that summer, after I was fully initiated into the order and received my vestments and robes as an initiate monk, doom came riding upon swift hooves for those the monastery housed.  Over the past few years since I secluded myself from the world, the power of the church, and the theocrats, had grown immeasurably.   One fine early evening, with the sun low to the western horizon, a group of men approached the monastery along the High Road, connecting the mining township of Ogburg a few miles to the east with the capital of Wintershaven, nearly three hard days ride to the north and west.  This was not an uncommon occurrence, riders, wagons, and caravans oft passed beneath the walls of our monastery, but upon this eve, the riders drew upon our gates and rode into the courtyard.  Fourteen there were, all tall, powerful men, arrayed in finely wrought suits of strong chain hauberks, with helms atop their heads and heavy steel shields, bearing the iron fist of Hextor, squeezing the world and bound to it by chains of fire and gold, upon their faces.  Pennons flew overhead of three of the riders, one bearing the standard of the church, Hextor’s iron fist rendered upon a field of red, trimmed in sable, one bearing the standard of the Pale, a blue wyrm, with wings deepening to the shade of midnight, his belly lighter in color, encircling a golden crown over a crossed sword and rod, all upon a field of green, trimmed in a border of gold, and the last bearing the standard of Bishop Stannis, a golden rod clutched in an iron fist, upon a field of white, bordered in red.  Watching the entourage from where I was caring for the steeds that we maintained here at the monastery, I was struck by their poise and attitude.  Not even my father, in the days he still breathed, walked with the air of nobility and purpose that these young lords exhibited to all with eyes to see.  Yet, it was their leader, black beard dark on the pale face of the Suel, blue eyes as brilliant as winter ice along the river, his helm adorned with the six pointed black iron crown the church used to denote a warrior-priest, the purple raiment worn under his mail showing his rank as a Bishop.  As cold as ice, were those eyes, still, I remember warmth when they saw me, standing across the courtyard.  Warmth in those cold, dead eyes, and a slight smile, as he turned to be greeted by High Master Corden, the head of our order, and my friend, Master Tierion.  Little then, did I realize, how wrong I was, and what tragedy and disaster would arise from that misconception, for many of my people, not least of whom among them were numbered both myself, and His Grace, Stannis, Bishop of Hexter, Warlord of the Fist.</blockquote>

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