Letters From the Story Keeper

Softly, softly! Let's be silent!
    graves are growing here.
They were sown by our tormentors,
    green they grow fair.
Toward Ponary run roads aplenty,
    from Ponary not one.
Father's disappeared,
    and with him all our joy is gone.
             -Anonymous writer, found on the hills outside Barlon


    To help set background for our story we must first give background for our many characters.  These Bridgeburners that we will be following around came from horrific backgrounds themselves.  Each has a story that we will not go into today that started well before they knew each other or fought together.  The story I would like to tell is the story of their fist mission together.  Before they were know as Whiskey Jack's crew and before they tore the shifter citadel of Lep'hist down from the inside out they were sent to a small town along the northern shore of Lake Still named Barlon.
    The crashing of the waves, the glaring sun reflecting off the lake, the smell and taste of iron in the air, and the burning scent that can only be created form the mixing of bile, smoke, and smouldering flesh.  Whiskey Jack and his crew step down the hills that slope down to Lake Sill and Barlon.  Each man has seen his fair share of dead soldiers and blood stained battlefields but nothing compares with the sight of innocent blood spread by an out of control warren.  The power that came down upon this place still pulsates and gives headaches to them as they approach.  Men and woman's bodes have been crushed in on top of themselves.  Whatever happened here should never have been seen by mortal eyes.  The finger print of arcane power is clearly seen by the groves and scorch marks that where cut into the ground all about the fishing village.  But that was all after the attack.  The shifters that came in here did their job first, before one of them lost control.  Woman lay in the street.  Most of them raped and then strangled to death by the internals of the men gutted beside them.  Children and babies were strung up with large fishing hooks through the back of the head and left to hang and die on the sides of homes.  As they step into the streets of the town the power that the ground is till giving off tastes like sulfur and cinnamon in some sort of sick blend.  It burns the eyes and mouth.  Men have their skulls bashed in and women's faces are torn off by shifter claws.  The waves splash in red puddles along the shore.  War is nothing like it was supposed to be.  Few ever said that a man releases his bows when he dies.  Or that woman’s faces would still look of terror and screams even hours after death.  Nothing looks peaceful in slaughter.
    Up ahead is a man.  He is nailed to a wall by his hands, arms, feet, and knees.  He has no eyes, no tongue, no genitals, and no lower jaw.  Blood oozes from his wounds and his face is nothing but hanging bits of flesh.  Still he draws shallow breaths.  There is nothing you can do for him.  None of you can bring yourself to even kill him.  At times it is better to let a man just hang there and die in his own time.
    The center of town is covered in ash.  This is where the wizard lost control of his warren.   Even the ground has been burnt up here.  Rocks have been liked up by flames.  Hood's cursed breath smiles down on this place.  This is where he resides.  In the red waves.  This is the face of war in this wicked and godless world.  The worst part about it for each of them is that it is all to horrible to bring tears to their eyes or a desire for revenge.  They just wish it would all stop.


                                                                                                       -The Story Keeper