I write to mainly shallam, but since i'm no longer one of them, nor have
i been for a while, this is the only forum i can reach the majority of
them.

When I struck out on my own, a youth only 18 years old, hardly even
adult, i joined the Magi guild, a good guild, a guild that promotes
balance(though that in itself is an oxymoron as you will soon see) and
shortly there after, i joined Shallam. Though i was happy for a long
while in that city and guild, an interesting predicament arose: it had
been discovered certain people from ashtan had been selling illegal
enchantments, and of course, the fighters of shallam(mainly members of
the church, a sentinel and one outspoken sentaari) wanted illegals too.

Now, here we come to another oxymoron: members of the church, seekers of
good, and destroyers of evil wanted the Magi to break an oath they had
made with 2 other guilds so that they may fight evil, so they are
wanting the magi to do an evil act so that they may destroy evil. I
defended my guilds decision not to make illegals on the city board, and
while doing that insulted Caled, and in doing so recieved a
citydisfavour from the all knowing Dresden. The emporess called sultan
stroke again, after my disfavouring i had to be quiet or risk being
disfavoured again for the defending the guild i had sworn to protect
above all. So i was caught between a rock and a hard place, and i left
Shallam. Soon finding it hard to be in a guild that city was pressuring
it to do something it refused to, and that internal problems in the
guild were pushing out, i left the magi shortly.

I then moved to Hashan and the Sorcerers, and several years later
Dresden was having 'fun' and raiding hashan before her enemy status took
full affect, while i was in Shallam at the time, visiting some friends i
still had there. Dresden was yelling at everyone to be quiet, and i
yelled back something to the effect of "i believe the city has the right
of free speech unless this isnt the free-ist city in achaea you claim it
to be." and of course, i was quickly city-enemied and required to pay a
2k fine. Dresden cited harassment as the reason but i just think she let
her personal feelings get in the way of her job as she so often did and
does. So i am now enemied to the city i served for half of my life, i
fought for her, defended her, laughed with her citizens, cried with
them. But now i am enemied and so i must fight against them.

But i have a plea, i call to the citizens of Shallam, to open their
eyes, to see their government for what it really is, to revamp it, not
just replace a few people here and there. But get completely new
leadership, and I ask them to turn over dresden and to end this
pointless conflict, i think there has been enough bloodshed, and its
time to heal our wounds, look at what needs to be done, and do it, not
make excuses, not say "they did that so we wont this"

All of achaea seems to be stuck in a constant cycle of violence, i hope
that somehow we can break this cycle and somehow live in peace with each
other.

These might be the last of boyhood dreams, but think of what all this
killing, violence and bloodshed gains us, if in fact it gains anything.
The cycle must be stopped, and I call out to the people of Achaea, to
open there eyes, stop accepting what their leaders say at face value,
but to really look at the reasons behind what they do, and why they do
it. Stop the violence, end this war let us all live in the peace i know
we can achieve.

Now i'm sure those of you who finished reading this whole thing are
tired of my ramblings, so i complete this writing, with a final good
bye, I am not leaving the realms for good but I am leaving, i have many
personal demons yet to conquer and until they are dead, i dont feel i
can offer anyone anything.

Be well Achaea, and my pace soon reign.
Lucas Gorast

Penned by my hand on the 4th of Aeguary, in the year 292 AF.