The Journal of Virgil Thorpe, the Year of our Lord 2018 AE
He would always defend a lady;
He would only speak the truth;
He would be loyal to his lord;
He would be devoted to the Church;
He would be charitable and defend the poor and helpless;
He would be brave;
He would remove his arms and armor only while sleeping when carrying out a quest;
He would never avoid dangerous paths out of fear;
He would be on time for any engagement of arms, battles or tournaments;
He would tell of his escapades upon returning to his home or Lord’s court after his ventures.
Backstory:[]
It has been a long year of training since joining the Knighthood. Every day I read the tenets of the order and try to better myself, to be worthy of being accepted. However, I still struggle with the final tenet. It smacks of vanity, yet Sir Rodrick tells me that we must be symbols of hope to those around us and that the retelling of our deeds helps foster that. “He would tell of his escapades upon returning to his home or Lord’s court after his ventures”. What of the ventures within his home or at court? What of those before? I have traveled far and spilled blood in many lands, both in search of memories and in memory itself. I have seen my own death in lives past a handful of times, some pleasant, some terrible. I suppose it is because of that, that I have found myself amongst the Knighthood. If for no other reason than the fulfillment of oaths taken, I will recount my tale.
My early years are somewhat of a jumble. It is difficult to sort through which are memories of this life and which are fragments of another. I am told that my people are called Samsaran, yet having never met another, I cannot speak to whether or not this phenomenon of recollection is unique to myself or all of our kind. What I do remember is growing up hungry and alone for a long time. It appears that the curse of the long lived is to also come to maturity much later as well. I spent much of my childhood as a vagabond, stealing and scavenging what food I could. I was a poor woodsman. I spent many a day with a tummy ache from forgetting which berries were safe to eat and which were not. Cities and villages were much easier for a child to move about unremarked. Occasionally I would catch glimpses into the past that would give me insight on how best to pocket things unseen or how to charm the clasp of a lock. I do not think I was a very good person in some of my lives. Unfortunately, I was never the best about moving entirely unseen. I can’t count the number of times I had my ears boxed or was clouted about the head for being where I had no business being.
It was one such time that I found myself both trapped and afraid. It had been the smell that attracted me to the little wagon. I had never seen its like, so the temptation was twofold. My curiosity always did get the better of me. It looked as though a small cottage had been made to fit on a wagon bed. The smell of sweets and cinnamon escaped from a small chimney on its roof and I began to salivate at the thought of being able to gorge myself upon fresh sweet buns like those from a bakery I had once pilfered.
The wagon was at the edge of town, tucked away in a corner with all the other traders’ wagons. There was nobody around to disturb me and I could see through the slits in the windows that it was unoccupied. It took a lot longer than I would normally have spent to undo the lock on the door but I pressed on, the thought of sweets and a full belly spurring me to continue. I opened the door to find a place crammed not with sweets and bread, but with books, paper, bottles, jars, and other instruments I had never before seen. My disappointment was staggering. I would have cried and abandoned it had I not spotted a beautiful golden drop fall into a small bottle mounted over a small candle flame, poured from some contraption whose purpose I would not understand for many years to come.
The liquid in the vial captivated me. A brilliant gold, not unlike honey but with glittering whorls roiling through it as it was heated by the candle. As I moved closer to inspect it, my nose confirmed that it was also the source of the delicious smell that had attracted me there. I was able to lift it from the flame with only burning myself a little from touching the glass too near the candle. Suffice to say, I wasted no time in quaffing my ill gotten gains. It was wonderful. Far better than honey could ever hope to be. Moments later I felt the wagon begin to spin around me and I struggled to maintain balance before finding myself on the floor. It was so comfy there. My lids and limbs were heavy. Resting seemed like the best and only choice for me at that moment now that the brief flash of alarm had left me. So I slept. Not that I had had any choice in the matter.
When I awoke, it was to a foul and bitter taste in my mouth on a small bed tucked into the side of the wagon that I had missed earlier. Likely it had been covered in papers and books, previously. A weathered old human was leaning over me and did not seem pleased, to judge him by the look on his face. My heart hammered and I tried to flee but my limbs disobeyed me, only rewarding me with feeble twitches for my efforts.
“Thought you’d sneak in and have a nip at my sweetdream, eh? Well, you’re lucky I came back when I did or your little pea brain would be more addled than it is already, boy. And quit kicking around or you’ll only end up hurting yourself. You’ll be able to move again within the hour. My name’s Bernard. When you can move again without killing yourself you can stay for dinner before I take you back to your parents. And you’d best eat it all too or your stomach is going to hate itself after that antidote I gave you.”
Bernard was middle aged then, when I met him. He seemed like a nice enough man, even though he was cross with me. True to his word, he fed me supper and we ate together with him keeping a wary eye on me. When the time came for him to take me home, I told him I had no home or parents to go home to.
“I thought not,” he grumbled before pulling a pair of optics out of his pocket to get a better look at me, “Your kind usually don’t.” As we stood outside his wagon, he scratched at his salt and pepper beard and gazed back into the city for a long while. I was about to bolt for the hills when he spoke again.
“If you got past the lock on my door, you’d probably make a decent assistant. I can promise you a bed to sleep on and a full stomach every day. The time we spend on the road will largely be yours, but your evenings would be mine. Any time we stop in a town, you’ll be at my beck and call. Does that sound good to you, boy?”
I thought about running still. I was ready to. I think he knew it, too. He sweetened the pot a bit.
“I could teach you your letters and how to write, too, if you like. We could share the wagon when it rains and it’s warm in the winter. Think about it, boy. What does this place have to offer you?”
It was enough to win me over. Bernard was true to his word. We spent a long time traveling together. He was part of a trade caravan. He was employed to keep the other traders and the guards in good health and in very rare circumstances to even help in battle should the caravan come under attack. I not only learned to read and write from Bernard, but I also learned a number of other things from the guards much to Bernard’s chagrin, like cards and how to hold a sword properly. Every now and then some of the merchants or their wives would corner me and see me off with new clothes or teach me about the finer points of negotiating or trade, none of which I was very gifted with. It was a good life. I had never had a family, at least not in this life and I felt as though a piece of me that had been missing had been filled in by their welcoming me in among them. I think Bernard needed it too. I wouldn’t learn until I was older that he had lost his wife and child some years before his taking me in. He also gave me my name. Virgil for the son he never had, Thorpe for the village he found me in.
My duties under Bernard were not too difficult to begin with. At first it was mostly fetching things for him and keeping the wagon tidy. After I was proficient in reading, I was promoted to going into town to purchase ingredients. Later, he began to teach me herbs and their medicinal uses. How to prevent and cure diseases or other maladies. He taught me to heal with only my hands and with what nature provided. We’d often end our evenings reading scripture, which I did not take to heart. Then one day he showed me the art of Alchemy.
“Don’t confuse what I’ve been teaching you with true Alchemy. True Alchemy is something else. It’s the art of transformation. To make something magnificent from something mundane. It toes the line between science and magic and if you’re to learn what I have to teach you, you’ll be doing so at great risk to yourself. I think you’ve got what it takes, but do YOU think you’ve got the heart for it?”
He had rarely used his arts except in the most dire of emergencies and I had been eager to learn. My curiosity would not allow otherwise. I wholehearted accepted his offer.
We traveled for decades together and though I grew from child to the prime of my youth, Bernard only aged and withered over the years. We were there when Minus was attacked, all of us, all those years ago. We fled east to escape, harried all the while by horrors I could never have conceived of even in the most depraved of nightmares. I watched so many die trying to defend our flight from the hoards that spilled out after the city fell. I even took part in the fighting myself. I had never killed anything more daunting than wild game before and it shook me, deeply. Bernard and I tended to the wounded as we could but even with my growing strength in Alchemy it was not enough. Slowly our number dwindled until one morning we awoke after a night blessedly absent of screams. Bernard did not, however. He had been racked by a cough for weeks and the flight from Minus had worn him down. I examined him and found an abscess, at the heart of which was a poisoned sliver. Through the time of our ordeal, he had never stopped to address himself. I spent many sleepless nights and days trying to purge the venom from him to no avail. My skills were not equal to the task.
I buried him alone on the morning of his death. There were none left of our caravan when he died. I was the last and I was alone in a throng of terrified strangers. I tried to speak the words of prayer over his grave but I could not remember them and so I wept. Tears of sadness, regret, but mostly of anger and disgust at myself. After all our years spent together, after his time spent trying to teach me his faith, I could not even give him a proper funeral rite. It was a dark time for me.
The next few years are a blur. I spent much of them hunting down demons as sightings and reports of them came in after their crushing defeat from the retaking of Minus, sometimes stopping to undo a bit of the damage they had done. I learned much in the ways of Alchemy and its practical application in battle, notably, how to turn poisons against those who used them. It was during one such excursion that I met Sir Rodrick. He was a gruff man and saw something in me. I think he had taken pity on me as Bernard had. And I let him. He seemed a man grounded in the world and his faith and it was something I needed desperately to cling to.
We returned to Minus where I was introduced to some members of the Panacea. It was a cautious relationship at first. Many of their number were versed in the ways of Alchemy, so I found it easy to relate to them on a professional level at the very least. We exchanged notes and discoveries with one another. I like to think that after a few years I’m an informal member. Rodrick and I remained close through all of this. I became more dedicated in finding my faith, truly taking to heart the teachings of the One True God. Last year he requested that I accompany him into an investigation about some cultists of Thanatos. I had run into them a few times during my travels, never coming away from these encounters unscathed. It was a harrowing experience but at its close he extended an invitation to sponsor my induction into the Knights of Raynor. I did not refuse.
My choice in repurposing some of the cultists’ armor for my own use has vexed some. While the plague doctor mask has become something to be reviled, it is no less a tool than a hammer. You can build a ship or house with a hammer as easily as break bones. It is the intent and purpose behind it that makes all the difference in the world. No more will I seek empty hearted vengeance, nor to kill for killing’s sake. I will fill this life by taking strides in the face of evil, the virulent, the plagued. I will cleanse their touch upon the land and I will drive them out. I no longer do so from a place of anger, but from one of hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope for days filled with sunshine and joy. If I must be one to shoulder such a burden so be it, for it won’t be alone. I will see the tools of evil used against them with conviction, side by side with those of similar heart.
It seems as though I write of not one, but two beginnings. Perhaps Rodrick was right about this retelling of events all along. I pray for their swift and safe return. Virgil Thorpe