Abbil

I haven’t heard anything from home. I guess that means…
 
Well. I wanted there to be somewhere I could write down what happened to me. To us. I have nobody else to write to, everyone I know now is here. They already know what we did today.
So, I thought, why not write a journal? I always used to see Mama scribbling away in her little books. All I have at the moment are these few pieces of paper I found in The Mannered Bear. Well, I found them next to Erik. I stole them from Erik. He won’t mind, though. I’ll have to get myself a proper book when we’re back in town.
 
I guess I could write to Erik, but…it makes more sense to keep things between us simple, for now. Writing to each other feels more intimate than I think I want us to be. He’s such a great guy, such a good teller of stories, but I don’t want to drag him into something he’s not going to want to be a part of. I’m not doing that again.
 
So, journal, you’ll have to be what I write in, for now. What shall I call you? I can’t call you “journal”. How about…Abbil? Yes. Hello, Abbil.
 
Abbil, we fucked up a little bit. There was this Slaughter Lord, Kardar, we were supposed to kill, you see, and it was all going so swimmingly outside, but then when we got underneath, Sabali ran in to a fight he couldn’t possibly win, after he tripped a trap he couldn’t possibly fail to disarm and right after that the Slaughter Lord was going to pound him into the ground. It wasn’t good at all. Anyway, we got him out.
 
Arin and Raphael got him out. I…well, I left. Along with the rest of us, I might add, but…I didn’t do anything. I ran furthest first. Just like I did back then.
 
But the thing is, how do you know when to run? How do you know when defeat is enough? Ceri was adamant that there was no shame in defeat, that we were outmatched on the battlefield and we should be proud of trying. Sabali’s pride was hurt, I think, but he seemed much more inclined to believe that our failure was unacceptable. When I think back to that day in Xhorhas, that’s exactly how I feel. That what happened, both what I did and what happened to us, was unacceptable.
 
I didn’t want to stay. I couldn’t have beaten that orc. If it even was an orc. It seemed more than an orc, somehow. I’ve not seen such devotion and fear on followers of something so plainly malevolent before. This was no ordinary raiding party, I’m sure of it. I need to ask someone about this, because I’ve heard about Ravagers far too often in the short time I’ve been in Westruun for it to be nothing. Something more is happening here.
 
Defeat is enough for me, right now. It’s enough that we’re all still together. That I still have my family. Arin and I might disagree on a lot of things, his blind faith in the banished gods for one, but he is a good man. One of the best of us. Let me tell you a bit about us, Abbil. Arin is a man of his god, certain in his truth and definite in his actions. He tries to do the right thing. Much like Ceri. I really like Ceri, Abbil – she’s confident, just as righteous as Arin but somehow…more forgiving. She is friends with Wind after all and that Tiefling is about as far across the spectrum from Ceri as you can get. Fucking funny, though. Sabali plays the fool, but he’s the bravest cat I know apart from my dear Ussi. Zeni is still a bit of a mystery to me. She’s a wizard, or sorceress, or witch or something. I’m not sure. Orlando is the servant of a demon, but I’m not one to judge. He seems nice enough and whilst I know he doesn’t approve of everything I do, he’s always nice about it. Always tipping his hat in that funny way. Lord Raphael, he’s a curious one. My instincts tell me not to trust him. But somehow that doesn’t matter, because he trusts me. And I like him. He reminds me of Razz a little bit. I like him.
 
I like them all. They’re my family. We’re the Unbroken. We’re called that because of a door, by the way, but we don’t tell people that. We’re called it now because there isn’t anything that can break us. We wouldn’t have left Sabali behind, no matter how stupid he was to rush in. Although it was brave. I do have to give him that.
I told myself, Abbil darling, that I didn’t want to run away any more. I don’t like the feeling. I keep thinking back to the cave we found under that stronghold, wondering if there was anything else we could have done. I can almost see us all laid out, as if we were on a map. I can see in slow motion Sabali falling, Raphael reacting quickest to dispel the spike growth that had appeared, even as Arin proffered his shield to heal our friend. I can see the options ahead of us and how they would play out, and I couldn’t see a scenario where we won.
Raphael wanted to take them outside the entrance. Surprise them and take them down. I can see the plan for that in my head too and I think it could have worked. Part of me wishes we’d tried it. But a larger part of me says it was safer for us to withdraw. I can see us winning that fight, but not all of us.
And I need all of us. I need my family.
 
So, at the moment I need to elevate Zeni up from Cousin Alfo to something more like a Decrar. My brother.
 
No. I will not lose any more family. I need to pull them all close. I’ll try and talk to Zeni a bit more this week, as we head back to Westruun. We need to pull together, not let this and the issues in Westruun divide us.
 
So, you want to know who’s next, Abbil? Zeni’s next.
 
I’m not sure why I said that, it seems like a rather strange and challenging thing to say about someone I want to get to know, but I’ve written it now. I don’t have any fantasy white out to make any edits here. There’s already so many scribblings out for spolling mistakes.
 
They’re all asleep now. I can hear Raphael snoring. Shit, I can almost feel it, never mind hear it.
 
One thing I know. I’m going to put an arrow through Kardar’s head one day. The smile on his face as he struck down my friend will stay with me. I won’t tell the others that. But one day, that orc will die by my hand. Nobody pushes my family around. Not any more. I clearly won’t have any help from the useless banished relics behind that gate so I’ll do it myself.
 
And as for pushing us around…whoever thinks they can manipulate the Unbroken is in for a shock. Whatever Raphael and Zeni think about escaping potential harm, I want to know who is trying to worm our way into their lives and I want to make sure we chew them up and shit them out.