Death is not a mystery. Not exactly. The people of Innistrad welcomed its inevitability, the idea of a freedom and reprieve. But yet they feared that fall, that curtain keeping them apart as the rest drew close.

And who can blame them dear listener? It is not I who would proclaim to have no fear of what lies in my eternal slumber, be it dream or nightmare. But that realm must be peaceful, lest the geists not try so hard to grasp onto it, and those even whose bodies are raised by ghoul callers don’t even see need to always return.

The demons and angels play with the hearts and souls of the people. But we know better. We know how to be kind. We know how to be vicious How to work for a life. How to earn our death. That’s why mortality and morality falls to us. I can only hope we are fit for it. And dear listener, I can only hope you and our adventurers deserve it.
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Excerpt from the Writings of Cathar Dragomir:

“This is it. This is the end.

Death was… Welcome. It felt wrong to view it as so. But that sleep we are promised, a peace unknown to the living was never so beloved until I had it. And now… The Hold is in ruins. The people gone or fallen. My glorious angel, slain sometime in my negligent rest. No life could I sacrifice to right the wrongs that have happened.
So I shall give it my death.

The Lord was the first of us. Furious. A rancor unlike that I had ever seen. Seething in silence, a menace that I could not put to words. When I woke with a start I knew where I must go, clawing and scrabbling from my dirt and wooden bed. It was undignified. We were undignified. But we were here. My brothers, ready to serve again. We were filled with that anger, brought back by loyalty and love. But loathe am I to say it, I am not certain that this anger is righteous.
It seems fighting back the war of time is almost as hard as the vampire. We lose more every day. And I too feel my memories and hopes fade, and my weariness emerge. That anger has become something else. Seeping, sinister. I have faith in my lord. I hope he can end the madness of that Fiend Maurer. But selfishly I hope it is soon.

For I am so very tired.

And as it stands, this stalemate… This is the end of hope.”
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Rest was a luxury. It wasn’t something you idly did, a section of day carved out to doing very little. In the towns the workers drank themselves to nothing to forget the rest of their worries. On the road it was a time of paranoia and focus, a fitful attempt to regain one’s strength. But in Heron’s Light Hold it was a different matter. Rest was omnipresent, but just out of reach. The careful watchers in their ragged armor and gaunt faces stayed resolute, but stoic. Surrounded by decay, languishing in valor. Rest would not be there. And they were so very tired.
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It was tiring waiting that long. Strephan Maurer ponderously set his chin in his hands on another tired day. Progress was stilted. The land remained clutched in his elegant grasp, the fools in the towns wary but feeling their trivial safety. A hiss of dismissal poured from his pursed lips. And yet they stood in his way. His fingers tapped against his pale skin, feeling the beat through his jaw and gleaming teeth. Tatyana was still there. And there was no easy way to collect her with elegance. The town needed to remain, shepherds need their sheep. And that crazed Inquisitor wouldn’t simply relinquish the town. And even more still were that would be group of hunters, stomping through the forest like a frightened boar. Their lack of subtlety was adorable, but could prove troublesome. So perhaps… Yes.

Standing to his full height, he held out a hand as parchment and quill traveled loyally to his grip caught in invisible eddies. Across the room Rahadin, clad in black fur with his deep skin eyed his lord carefully, but didn’t speak. The rapid scratching of the feather on paper wasn’t something he’d disturb. Minutes later as the flurry of strokes ended and the wax seal was set to envelope, he finally felt the space to clear his throat subtly from the edge of the candlelit room. Maurer held the envelope out, looking his loyal servant in the eye. “Deliver this to Inghild.” he said in meticulous deep words. His face was placid for but a moment more, his mouth splitting into a sharp humorless grin. “It’s time we followed through on our plans.”

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Sitting in his decrepit shack, Bluto pondered his life’s direction. He plucked a silvery fish scale desiccated with time from his beard, staring at it as if it would lead him to an answer. It was little secret that over the last couple of years things had only gotten worse. The land didn’t have much kindness in it, but here it felt as if even the waters he had known since childhood were deciding to spite him. The other fishermen had given up, hunting or farming showing better results, and eventually the only results at all. The lake seemed so placid with it’s gray green surface.

But no matter how far his body or eyes traveled from it’s seemingly empty waters, he could feel his mind floating and still in the grasp of the lake. But perhaps it was time. Time to leave like the rest. He stood up from the rickety gray wood of his hovel, and went out to pull in the nets for the last time. It was this day he would find the gray surface of the water torn open, ripped to unveil a creature of a size he never could’ve imagined. And as the beast sunk beneath the still frothing wake, Bluto knew a chance was being offered. The waters had more to give to the loyal.

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