A Letter to No One - Printable Version +- Chronicles of Eternia (https://chronicles-of-eternia.com/forum) +-- Forum: In-Game (https://chronicles-of-eternia.com/forum/forum-9.html) +--- Forum: Biographies (https://chronicles-of-eternia.com/forum/forum-12.html) +--- Thread: A Letter to No One (/thread-22157.html)

A Letter to No One - ??? - 03-29-2026 They call me dangerous. I know this because I make it my business to know what people say when they think I'm not listening, and I am always listening. In Arcadia they whisper about the banker from Speira who wants to kill their gods. In Myridia, it is questioned whether I'm a friend or foe. Dangerous... It's a funny word. It implies something unpredictable, something feral, something that bites without warning, but I have never bitten anyone without warning. I always warn them, with a smile, a handshake, with very clear terms laid out in very clear language. If they choose not to read the fine print, well... that's literacy. I understand why they say it. A man who stands in the middle of Meranthe and says that gods are unnecessary is not making a philosophical argument, he is a threat to the system . Every temple, every altar, every prayer whispered into clasped hands, every war fought over whose deity is taller, all of it runs on one product alone... Faith. And faith is only valuable as long as no one offers an alternative. I am the alternative. High-Master of Speira... I say the title sometimes when I'm alone just to hear how it sounds in an empty room. It sounds heavier than it looks on paper, it sounds like something that was built for a bigger man with broader shoulders, a louder voice, or something powerful and ancient. Instead it landed on me, a young man in a nice coat with a missing finger and a cat on his shoulder. The pawn that became a king, people like that kind of story. They like the poetry of it, the underdog narrative, the idea that anyone can rise if they're clever and stubborn enough, and also willing to bleed in the right places at the right times. What they don't tell you about the promotion is that the king doesn't get to stop moving. The pawn crosses the board one square at a time, patient, invisible, forgettable... but the king?  He sits in the center of everything, every eye on the board turns to him. I miss being forgettable, I won't pretend otherwise. There is something in my blood that would make all of this easier, I feel it at night when the camp goes quiet and Clause curls up on the desk, when the candle burns low and I'm the last thing still awake on this thing I'm trying to build a nation on. It hums, faintly, like a door vibrating in its frame, waiting for me to reach for the handle But I won't.  I have said this before and I will say it as many times as it takes until the words weigh more than the temptation. The entire point of what I'm building, the reason I exist, is to prove that mankind does not need divine power to stand anymore. If I opened that door, if I reached into whatever was buried inside me, pulled it out, used it against those who oppose me... Then every word I've ever spoken about freedom and self-reliance becomes a performance. A lie told by a man who preached independence while leaning on the very thing he told others to reject. In other words, I would be like them, a hypocrite. Some nights, it weighs me more than usual, I wonder if principle and stubbornness are the same thing, would I have found myself bleeding the beach, facing Aphelion, if I gave in? If I called upon the same power he did? I wonder, and it matters. It has to matter, otherwise what am I doing here? Can I destroy them without it? The people I watch over don't know this about me. They see the smile, the plans, they hear the words I say and believe me because I make it easy to, because that's what I do best. I make difficult things sound easy, and impossible things sound inevitable. But in the gap between words, I am the man who sits alone in his room, wondering if I am building a nation... Or a monument to my own own loneliness. Ce'Acatl fought and lost. I watched her fall with a smile on her face, as if she knew she gave everything and accepted it wasn't enough. I threw myself between her and Seneschal in hopes to save her, but was ultimately defeated, still too green, still not able to contend with the higher powers... But I got back up, because I always get back up. That's not bravery... That's just the only option available to someone who never had anyone to fall back on, man's greatest gift, endurance. The people of Speira, they rely on me now. I have answers for them because I always do, answers are the one currency I've never run out of, but underneath the answers, I find asking myself... Is this enough? Am I enough?  Without the door, without what lays dormant in my blood, without the divinity I refuse to touch... Is the man, just a man, enough to deliver on his promise? I don't know and I'm not sure if I will... But I will keep going because stopping is not something I learned how to do. You don't learn how to stop when there was never anyone to catch you, you keep moving, one square at a time forward... Always forward, the greatest lesson Ilumitar has ever taught me. The candle is low and Clause is asleep, the island is quiet and somewhere across the water, on the mainland, people in temples are praying to gods who will not answer. I am sitting here in the dark, writing to no one about a mission that will probably kill me... But I am at peace with that. I was never supposed to be here, none of this was supposed to happen, the pawn was supposed to be sacrificed three moves into the game and forgotten by move five. And yet here I sit... With the crown I didn't ask for, with a cause I can't put down, and that door I won't open, as well as a past I haven't told anyone about yet. Maybe I will, someday, shen the candle is a little lower and the night is a little longer and I run out of reasons to keep it buried. Another lonely night, if I survive the morrow. - Vendal