Original Scope: Transformation of Crestwold pt. 2 >
I feel like there is no way to turn that has success. It makes me think like we are being directly countered – that makes me wonder about our enemies. Of all of them, the only one that had measures of success like we are seeing now is… Anwin.
He’s the only person who knows us and how we fight, how we think like the back of their own hand. There’s only one whose fate is so intertwined that they would be able to see what others cannot discern. Anwin. It took years to track him down in the lonely crags of the Stormfront Fastness. I went there, knowing full well it would mark me as renegade, i will be hunted as a traitor. This isn’t the first time we’ve been called that. Remember, we’re only traitors if we get caught and it blows up in our face. When i returned through Loamwold, i came up the coast of Dwindor, and I was arrested within hours of returning to Dogwood Flats. I had a plan for that – sort of.
Back to Anwin – He’s built quite the keep for himself. Fucker looks younger than he did when he left. Life is good… for him anyway. I did not think our nemesis was him, but I was hoping he had insight on who it might be. Every excuse I got… really boiled down to “I’m retired”. When is a mage ever really retired? Geraldine had everything she could ever want, but retirement was never a word I heard escaping her lips.
He asked for something i was not comfortable with. What was paid, ultimately? In good faith, I gave him the goods of the one decoy caravan we got when we tried to kill him one last time. He’s got more silver and gold than many counts and dukes. And a favor. In return, he said he would “examine my aura” or some nonsense. Mine seemed to take no time, but he said he needed to bo back to the source, where it all started. Tulins Blade was his focus, and he took it. When I next saw him it was a moon cycle later. He looked perplexed. He said there are so many weaves in The Pattern that run through us, entangled in a myriad of ways. He said perhaps it was the weight of this that made it seem like we were no longer moving forward. He did say there is an eye upon us, an ancient eye of discernment that is drawing much unwanted attention, he could not tell who, but surprise, surprise… someone dont like us. The sheer volume of military, political, social and individual enemies The Gallants has made is the factor he cited the most. The counts of East and West River Run, the goddess of Gwinn – Elancil, Umbakian interests in their north, the Witch of Dwindor (a double edged sword), ghosts of Dunstrand Vale, The Lich Lords (via Hareen), some of the nobility in even southern Dunstrand, and lastly the hand of Malek attempts to grasp our threads as well. He really had nothing that i did not already know or suspect. With no specific answers, I cannot go to the Duke. I cannot form an official squad and tell anyone of its existence. All I can do is to remain on the run, until the Earl and Duke are fed up and strip me of my titles and replace me with something more agreeable so that a quorum can be had on Peace with Gwinn at any cost… so thats about it. If i knew that would succeed, i’d sacrifice it all.