Letters from the Honorable Paladin Latimer Lachland to the Villainous Assassin Ilshadrial, Toril MUD 1996

Message 1

I have been away too long.

The last time I wrote here, a sinister power was growing in Toril. His name was Haemos Sanguine. As best as my limited skills of oration would serve me, I sought to thwart his eloquent attempts to seduce those of you who read these missives. I applaud you who open your minds to the ideas and opinions posted here that you might be ever more informed of the world in which you live. However, Haemos sought to manipulate and pollute by planting the seeds of darkness—hatred, malice, and distrust—in the fertile grounds of your open minds. It was my duty to oppose him.

Haemos’ threat weakened and has all but vanished from here. I did not believe for even an instant that he was gone forever. My duty discharged, I returned to my quiet life of helping those in need. This was years ago, and since that time I have grown older—perhaps wiser—but unfortunately, I have also fallen prey to physical maladies that have stripped me of my once formidable health. I found I could no longer perform the jobs necessary to my station.

The realization crushed me. I saw myself as only a frail, mock presentment of whom I once was. How I despaired! The details of that time I recorded in a journal that may one day become known, perhaps posthumously. But for now, the important facts of that time are these: That I survived, with the aid of my beloved daughter Galera, and that I had found myself a new avenue through which to work for the Ilmatari. I shed my warrior’s garb, sheathed my precious blade, and donated my meager means to the monastery of Ilmater, here in Waterdeep. I joined the monks there, donning their standard robes, taking a simple room and a position as scribe. The gear that had aided me in my term of service to Ilmater for years I passed on to my daughter. I rested, content, my health improving. I would serve quietly until my world-weary frame could no longer carry its burden.

Then today, I read the town postings only to be stunned and enraged. The old warrior in me flared to life in a brilliant burst of resurrected indignation!

Yes, I have been away too long. There is new venom coursing in the veins of Toril, and her name is Ilshadrial!

Latimer

Message 2

Ilshadrial,

I am weak. I have suffered numerous ailments that have left me physically less than what I once was. In this you are correct to say I am weak. And though you did not point your crooked finger directly at me with your insult, any you throw at my brethren I stand first to receive. What you have chosen to attack us with here is a club of truth. Yes! We are weak! Yes, we will always know our places among the people, as their protectors!

You, however, mislabeled us as slaves, implying we are forced into our stations against our wills. Of course, this is a silly notion and is not the case. If I wished I could easily quit my service. Were I free of commitment, I could abandon my faith and turn my back on my god. Had I the mark of malice I could refuse to respond to the pleas of help, the cries of the needy. If the devil of treason had planted his flag on the moors of cowardice in my soul, I could abandon all I’ve fought to build and defend, and flee from the front into the selfish arrogance in which you so happily reside. And what would be the repercussions? What horrible punishment would my “master” inflict up on me?

None. I would be as free from outside punishment as I am free of being lorded over by a master. The shaming of myself would invoke only the disappointment of Ilmater and his revoking of the precious gifts he has granted me. This would all be as nothing compared to the punishment that would rise inside me to become my prosecutor.

You spoke of the failed mission to save the life of King Byron…. I am forced to pause even though I have rewritten this missive several times, each smeared with my tears. It hurts every time I think on it, as if the broken tip of one of your very daggers were lodged in my heart. I was absent from the mission. Illness forced me to bed even as it began. The failure is as much shared by me by reason of my absence as any who were there….

Nay! More so! I am twice cursed! A plague of self-scrutiny rots within me daily. Could I not have forced myself to continue on that day? Would my presence have somehow changed the outcome? Surely I would have fully recognized the scent of trickery through your disguise—the same I sensed when I once loaned an unknown paladin a blade to aid her. Damn my waning old wits! It can be seen I am solely to blame for the death of King Byron.

Oh, Ilmater! How your physical tests of suffering pale in the light of the suffering within!

But, we continue on. We continue to “toil for the weak,” as you say. You laugh at this, call us fools for wasting our time on others. But therein lives our greatest strength, an unassailable unity and trust. We in the paladinhood continue to support each other. You pride yourself on your skill of a single stroke producing death. I put forth that therein lies your greatest weakness. For with that stroke, you are unmasked and at your most vulnerable, exposed, in the light, blade in hand and bloodied with evidence. One may fall, but you are found out and reduced to a broken arrow, fired and forgotten from your master’s bow. Then we have you. And when we do, who will be there to claim the right of vengeance over your corpse? Who will shed tears to mingle with your spilling life, to mix and seal in passion and promise a reckoning?

Ilshadrial! As redemption for my failure in our sacred mission I would defiantly bear my own breast to receive your deadly thrust, that your end might come quickly at the hands of my brethren!

Dare you take my challenge?

Latimer

Message 3

My remaining days in this life have been happily spent in extended periods of fasting and reflection, and once even walking in a dream with Ilmater sharing thoughts and hearing his prophesy. I still hold this flesh-bound tie that is my body, however, and I do stop to hear the gossip and dogma, the boasts and banter of the world’s people.

I’ve long shared discussion with you here, Ilshadrial. But since becoming ill at my age, my ability to take part in our debate has waned. For a short time, I feared my passing would leave open a path for you to spread the contagion of your teaching to the youth of Toril. With a shriveled and palsied hand, I’d daily unsheathe my blessed blade to practice in defiance of mortality for the sake of the innocent. And every day I would note the increasing degrees of betrayal my dying form would score against me, until even the knight’s most powerful act I could no longer perform, and my blade slept in its scabbard.

But now, seeing the news posted here, I am at ease. A vanity I didn’t recognize had made me think I alone stood between you and the evil tide you ride to shore, like a masthead of the blasted succubus devil, cresting arrogantly ahead of the waves of approaching darkness. But such is not the case! Here are my replacements! These young warriors stand proud and defiant against you! I rest more soundly knowing knights such as Aillel and warders such as Jorus are picking up the lanterns and torches we older defenders have set down in mortality, to carry them into those shadows in which you lurk. My heart swells with pride, and for a moment the palsy in my hand ceases. I withdraw my blade one last time to make an oath against you, to be seen through in the spirits of this great young generation!

Perhaps we are not so mortal as you think us, Ilshadrial? Though your goddess grants your body perpetual youth, I ask you, thither travels your soul when one of these young defenders finally relieves you of that youth with a sword stroke? We are remembered and shall continue on through those that come after us. Who will remember you in such a way?

It is too late to trade your false immortality for a truer ever-life after you are dead and can no longer change. As I see by the date of your most recent posting, you yet live. I would leave this plane more willingly with you cleansed. On bended knee and your hand in mine own I would take you with me into an eternity of purity and everlasting happiness.

Latimer.