It has been so long now since I have unearthed my journal, the last I wrote regarded the reasons I walked away from The House of Midnight, my Warmongering over the town of Bree and how I had seen a poison grow in the eyes of the council, what we had been fighting against for so long had become us, as so many warned me of.
Ignorant of it, the House had grown, its victory was throughout living our enemy and as I had always spoken, Bree does not allow victory to live long before it calls upon another to rip it from those who celebrate it. The House held the trade lanes at mercy, it had every contract in its pocket, its name uttered on lips inside the Prancing Pony. It was the victory we sought after but had taken no time or consideration as to how we would hold it.
It meant little in the end, the council began to fight with themselves, opinions no longer shared and secrets kept. I uncovered a plot to have even me removed from power. Bree had not yet prepared its next victor but instead poisoned its current host in order to weaken them. I walked away in knowledge that this was happening. I ensured the House would not miss my leadership but its absence would fracture it still. I made no effort to announce my disappearance so that no last attempt at me could be made. I had to be sure that I survived the next cycle and emerge at the correct timing.
Though gone, I was never far. My home upon the hill, centre of Pemberth and east of the House of Midnights halls overlooking it in plain sight. I stayed for months unbothered. Dressed as a common man I found a small sense of peace for a short while. I could wonder out and collect supplies unnoticed. I knew a day would come that I would have to put on that blackened armour once more. It unsettled me, as the time grew closer. I had begun to take account for all I have missed, mostly of Ilaru. How she would not know if I was alive even though my house sits directly opposite hers. I would watch for her, for some time she would not be seen but eventually she walked the path through the homesteads. A few times she would do this and more often she looked disheartened. It was difficult for me not to go out to her yet I knew the time was not right. So I waited and watched from my house upon that hill.
Months passed, the long, dark winter nights came and Bree had lit up to celebrate with festive cheer. I knew when those lights would dim, I could emerge. I waited, so long I waited. My mind wondered from plots of regaining a footing within Bree to finding Ilaru for those sought after moments of clarity. I would relive moments of my past, silently in my own mind. The old days when my kind truly ruled over the streets of Bree, how plots and war and control were so thick and ripe that breathe was hard to take in through it all. That coin was thoughtlessly handed out for such a grand quantity of it, the memories that brought a smile upon my face.
Long gone now and yet even through the smiles it brought to me, I was all too aware of the wrongs we committed to get our riches. How we had not served our lands rightfully as men of Bree. That we took coin, lives and ownership that was never ours but it served us to do so when all the time we believed it served Breeland better.
Eventually I observed how Bree faded but another light had made its way through the dark night. The candles inside the House of Midnight had been lit. Time had passed long enough and I decided to could come out from my hiding once again. My restless state called upon my blackened armour which I dressed in without hesitance.
A new era for Bree had come and I have survived another cycle.
