Did it reach your ears? The slow, determined clap that trickled from my
window as I read your post? I hope so. It made me chuckle, you should at
least have some reward for your jestering services.

You've outdone yourself it seems. I can imagine you now, strutting
around Targossas with your chin held high, high-fiving yourself as you
turn the corner saying, "Aodfionn rules!" low enough that no one save
yourself hears it.

A sordid harlot sent you a transcript from a meeting discussing the
minutiae of ruling a city, a conversation city leaders had after a
successful campaign against your city where they are debating the best
way to handle this troupe of combatants they've plucked from you. Do we
induct them and let the citizens go along with the ruse we've left
behind in Targossas for a little while in order to let it brew or do we
just tell them the truth that they've only been spying for us for a
handful of years and just scrap the fun but insulting little piece of
propaganda we left in your city council chambers after we stole your
Minister of War, Minister of Development, and the second in command of
the Dawnblade.

And you consider your procurance of this letter a victory?

I know that in our last discourse the ass whipping I gave you was a bit
humiliating. That whole bit with us converting those who were long time
Ministers, that was rough I know. I even gave you a few years notice
that we were taking them. I carried the belt across your thighs and
lower back, the welts still show it seems.

I am curious. Did the whore trim up the letter or did you do so after
receiving it? I mean, surely she didn't stop listening before any kind
of decision was made, odd that it stops there don't you think?. Perhaps
the parts before and after didn't quite aide your cause? A little
deceitful, no? I like to think maybe she did it without your knowledge.
It would be so unbecoming for a city who claims to be so pure and
truthful to knowingly distort reality to further their goal.

I am slightly disappointed you didn't allow us to properly
celebrate our victory. I understand, after such a humiliating
blow such a desperate response was expected. You tasted the back of our
hand and I suppose that when you're saturated with such humiliation and
defeat that you cling to the first little piece of information that
could possibly be considered a way to strike back. Too bad it was just a
boring log of leaders discussing how to finalize their victory over you.

We'll allow you a couple months to lick your wounds. We plucked four
from your hand. We're working on more. Your city is crumbling beneath
your feet. You can't keep a city leader in his seat for more than a
couple years, he ends up being a disgrace or stops showing his face out
of boredom. You lose citizens every day, they can't keep up the charade
any longer. They watch as their own Minister of War and other leaders
abandon them after coming to the realization that your claims of
accomplishing this task of stopping the inevitable is completely
unfounded, and they look around wondering why they are still sticking
around. Drama plagues you, claims of corruption and gossip spreads like
a wildfire through your streets while you scrub the soil off your
pristine whites and say that you've no skeletons and everything
is in the light... you're not even fooling your own bloody citizens and
you think to fool the rest of the world?

I once had a pet lion and people all the time asked me how I'm going to
defend the lion. How am I going to protect the lion? Can I properly
shield the lion from those who seek to harm him? Do you want to know how
you defend a lion? You let it out of the god damned cage. The lion will
defend itself. You sent letters through the slits in the cage hoping to
harm the lion? You fool.

Allow me to introduce you to the lion in the North. Allow us to bring
you the dawn. We'll bring it to you from the land in the form of
destroyed homes and streets, we'll bring it to you as we expose your
foolishness and enlighten your citizens, we'll bring it to you as the
cold abyss creeps over the railing of your battered and beaten ships,
you'll spend every waking hour swinging your mace at gnolls in an
attempt to replace the shrines of your gods as they're shattered into
dust across the continent. You will not be able to fool your citizens
any longer, we will slice the strings holding up the marionnettes. Free
them from the enslavement of their minds or we'll rain down death and
destruction upon your swampy islands until you scream and beg for the
mercy we'll never show you.

Citizens of Targossas, we will provide you shelter from Targossas' wrath
just as we provided amnesty for your previous Ministers and leaders.
Throw off their chains, open your eyes to what is going on around you,
abandon the sinking ship while you still can.

I warned you of what was coming.

It is time.

With open eyes,
[x] Grandue Bloodthroat, the Ascendant

[a small octagon has been inscribed here]


Penned by my hand on the 14th of Chronos, in the year 706 AF.