\--==Official Submission==-- FROM: General Debinani Rahl RE: Chronicle One - Day One! Day One! We have done it! I can't believe it, but we have. The Sackcloth Rose will terrorize Sosaria no more, and I can finally commit these words to script instead of whispering them among my confidants. Let me backtrack a few weeks and perhaps that will give the reader a little insight into what glorious things we have accomplished. My name is Kironius Mengst, myself and several hundred others were conscripted into the Rose to replace losses when the Children of the Guardian rose up and met them in battle. Lord Spirit may have been the finest General that Kishara had to field, but Warlord Kerchev was better. But that is a story for the Children to tell, not me. We had heard that the Five Armies had marched from Tablenhelm, the word had spread across the countryside like wildfire that the Five Ringbearers of Kishara had finally summoned the strength to bring forth the dreaded Age of Destruction. They wanted their million souls. To be completely honest, no one really believed that Tablenhelm could field such a devastating force, after all, the dreaded City of the Widowmaker was seated on an island, well away from land. The armies of Lord Altair waited at the coasts for their ships to arrive, firmly believing that he could easily ward off an amphibious assault. He was wrong. All five armies appeared out of thin air, using Kishara's dreaded magicks to transport them instantly from the Isle of the Stranglers to the swamps in the southern tip of the continent. Two thousand soldiers lost their souls to Kishara that day; the Great Tallies swelled before their bindings of human flesh were hardened. Cyan Marinetta's Army of Water was given the dubious honor of moving further south and utterly decimating Lord Altair's city of Penshin and establish a home for Kishara on the mainland. The four remaining armies moved North to conquer...and to kill. Nearly four hundred years later with the entire southernmost reaches of the continent serving Kishara and four of the five armies recalled to Tablenhelm, my people in the city of Harrowburg felt safe. It had been generations since word of a massacre had reached our ears and it seemed that the cult of Kishara was happy to possess half of the known world. We were, of course, dreadfully wrong. Soulblighter...Lord Spirit....had not heeded the call to return to Tablenhelm. He seemed to believe his army could take the rest of the continent single-handedly, bringing on the Age of Destruction and winning the favor of his goddess. Harrowburg never knew he was coming till his armies were less than a week away. As the Captain of the militia of this major city, it was my duty to defend her from the Stranglers that were about to accost it. I couldn't have failed more. Even weakened from the constant battles with the Children of the Guardian, the Sackcloth Rose marched right through our defenses and right into town, slaughtering hundreds of men in hours and securing the city in an unprecedented display of ferocity and efficiency. As it turned out, Harrowburg's greatest strength became its death-cry. Spirit was uninterested in securing the city and its inhabitants, our major source of trade were crafted metals and woods, which were of no interest to Spirit and his war effort. Spirit was interested in the souls. He was interested in the souls of several thousand of the followers of Aluviel, his goddess' arch-enemy. I suppose we were some sort of added bonus...not only collect the souls but defeat the people of a rival. To this day it makes me sick. All the men of the city who would be any use to the war effort were herded into corrals within the Rose's encampment. The soldiers were given free reign to do what they pleased to the remaining inhabitants, primarily the women of course, for a period of three days. My wife and my five children were among them. At the end of that time, Spirit and his High-Stranglers moved through the city and collected souls. All of the souls. I sat in the mud and filth within those corrals for a total of ten days listening to the screams coming from our families in the valley below. I vowed to never be powerless again. My silent, dirty vigil came to an abrupt end when some of the Rose's soldiers kicked me out of a fitful sleep. I was dragged to the river, washed and given simple but clean clothes, and brought before the Soulblighter himself. He was a disturbing presence to say the least. Lord Spirit lounged in a chair within his tents, sipping idly at a beverage served to him by a local farmgirl with downcast eyes. He looked insane, but I had been told that was just the way the five look when they're possessing a body. This particular incarnation of Spirit was a tall, lanky man with long dark hair and a tight beard. All in all, I was intimidated to the point of soiling myself. This story grows long and I don't have much time so I'll attempt to be brief. Spirit asked me to preside as a Sergeant over the locals who had been conscripted, give them a familiar face to lead them. Our unit was designated the 21st Outriders, a new unit in the Rose's ranks designed to act as scouts and woodsmen. Since Harrowburg's militia didn't make good soldiers it was the only practical choice. To keep us in line, a detachment of cavalry from the dreaded 1st Avengers, led by Master Sergeant Serbochev was assigned to watch over and train us until we became adjusted to life in the Sackcloth Rose. I accepted my burden with feigned humility, for at that moment I began to formulate my plans. I have always believed that mankind's greatest achievements come when he is united, and our victory here at Westergard is a testament to that. For nearly four years we marched across the lands, killing thousands in Spirit's fanatical quest to win the favor of Kishara and bring about the Age of Destruction. All that time the survivors of Harrowburg and hundreds of other conscripts from other villages formed an extensive secret society, quietly worshiping the Goddess Aluviel and praying for her to use us as her sword of Justice to bring town the tyranny of the Rose. Every once in a while Spirit and his higher-ups would hear about and root out one of our little cells, brutally torturing the traitors in an attempt to glean the identities of their accomplices. But when I originally formed this little coup, I saw to it that the cells were set up properly. I may not be the greatest general that ever lived, but I do know how to get things done. When we marched on Westergard I knew our time had come. Our numbers totaled roughly one-quarter of the entire Sackcloth Rose, and the Outriders were made up entirely of Aluviel's supporters. I had been free of the scrutiny of my 1st Avenger guardians for nearly six months at that point due to my unwavering service and my ability to tell Spirit exactly enough to feed his ego. The time had finally come, and all of us wanted to wash the senseless murders off of our hands by striking against the Rose. Several days before arriving in Westergard, I sent a runner to inform the occupants of the city of my plans. To be completely honest, I didn't expect it to work. The city's defenders however had heard rumors of dissension within the Rose, and they agreed. When we arrived and the camps began to form, the Outriders were sent as always to scout out the terrain. I distributed my men into the usual foraging and scouting parties and over the course of the evening we all rode through Westergard's eager gates. I don't think I'll ever be blessed with hearing about the look on Spirit's face when he found out an entire division had defected to the enemy, but I sure would like to. In a fit of rage Spirit sent his troops against the walls the next morning without the normal preparations for a siege. They were repelled easily. Serbochev must have gotten through to Spirit after that because they spent the next week preparing their siege engines and all the other minor details involved. During that time I had some of the remaining members of the rebellion sabotage things as best they could. A few of the cooks who were loyal to Aluviel managed to poison the food for half the army, delaying their attacks even further. During this week a strange thing happened. A group of my most trusted confidants came to me in the middle of the night and dragged me to Westergard's town center, where practically every surviving member of the rebellion who could be taken off the walls waited. My right-hand man, Devin, appeared to preside over the gathering. "Sir," he began quietly, "There are more armies out there... four more. Even if we defeat the Rose, Kishara's stranglers will still be doing their work. I don't know about you, but most of us don't' much like that idea." "Been a soldier all my life sir," said Willie, one of the Sergeants in Harrowburg, "don't much know how to do anything else." I asked them to get to the point. They wanted to form a company. An organization of soldiers fighting for Aluviel's Justice, helping to wipe out Kishara's presence from the mainland. All in all, I thought it was an idealistic fantasy. I told them to get back to their posts and we'd discuss it if we weren't all dead after a fortnight. When Spirit's forces were ready, they struck. As they assaulted the walls and the gates with rams I saw the Avengers in formation at a distance...waiting...waiting for the gates to fall. I could spend the rest of my life chronicling the week of constant battle, but for the purposes of this discourse I will just outline the final deciding moments. In the end it was our faith and unity that won out. As the gates buckled after the week-long barrage, many things happened simultaneously. First, my only spy within the Avengers sacrificed his life to slay Serbochev, causing them a moment of hesitation necessary for us to field our small army through the breach in the city's defenses before the cavalry division could rush through and break our ranks. Second, Spirit himself joined the battle. He strode afoot through the fray and none could touch him. He whirled in a deadly dance that rivaled those of the greatest SwordMasters and every man that engaged him in battle found death. I stood in the courtyard behind the city walls waiting for him, for I knew in my heart it was I that he came for. I expected at any time for him to unleash his deadly Kishara-bestowed magics upon myself and my army, but they never came. His face was a visage of calm, almost amusement, but his eyes shone with rage. That was when I knew. Spirit had lost his grace, Kishara was no longer smiling on his quest for vengeance. He had given up her holy quest and taken one of his own. And at that moment, Lord Spirit, immortal daemon of Kishara, was little more than a man. And then we met in battle. For a few brief moments, I was the sword of Aluviel, her fire burned through my veins and I met Spirit blow for blow. We bloodied each other several times in our battle, but my flesh began to weaken first. Seeing his victory, Spirit rained blow after deadly blow upon my defenses until finally my blade shattered against his hell-wrought blade. He smiled as he brought the killing blow down upon me but it never came. His blow fell short, and Spirit collapsed to his knees, revealing a woman standing behind him with a bloodied dagger. She was a vision, I hope the spirit of my wife forgives me when I say she was by far the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. I thought for a moment that she was Aluviel herself sent to save me, but then I noticed the ring on the woman's finger, its sea-blue gem sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. She kneeled down and removed Spirit's ring, whispered something in his ear which caused his dying eyes to open wide in surprise and despair, and then put her dagger thought he man's neck. She glided over to me, her blue and white skirts barely touching the bloodied earth and kneeled down in front of me. "Take this," she said, pressing the ring into my hand, "Bury it and the body in the crypts here and seal them." She graced me with a slight smile and straightened. "May Aluviel always guide your sword as she did today, Mengst." And then she turned and walked through the raging battle, never to be seen by my eyes again. With the Avengers broken and Spirit felled, the battle was swiftly won. Spirit's men, few of them true followers of Kishara, lost the will to fight when fear of retribution was gone. When all was said and done the broken army of the Sackcloth rose scattered to the four winds, most heading to the homes they left behind. An army of a thousand seasoned warriors stayed in Westergard under a banner I didn't know I had. They paraded through town, marching to the cheers of the citizenry, holding a white banner on high marked with a black rose pierced with Aluviel's sword of Justice. I was herded into the town square and found myself face to face with Devin again. Devin in a black cloak and white tunic, polished armor underneath. My old friend Willie behind him, holding the standard, his stance was tall and proud. An army of a thousand stood behind him. "It's been two weeks," whispered Devin with a fiendish grin, "and we're still alive." "Kironius Mengst," he shouted for all to hear, "I present you with The Black Rose Society, a Free Company dedicated to the alleviation of Kishara and the pursuit of Aluviel's virtues." And that's how it started. Word spread like wildfire that The Black Rose Society had crushed the Sackcloth Rose, and the other armies were next. I became their Captain, Devin and Willie my Lieutenants. The people of Westergard provided food and uniforms and arms for our men until we could provide our own. They called it payment for our services to their city. We graciously accepted. I formed a new cavalry unit within the Society, known as the 1st Warders, the antithesis of the Avengers, and they soon became one of the most elite fighting forces in the realm. I'm about to go finish the seals on Spirit's grave, and I intend to place this tome in the earth with him along with the Rose's Great Tally so that the people of the future will remember what transpired here in Westergard. As for The Black Rose Society, I don't know how long we'll last, or if we'll just be a passing fancy inspired by a single victory, but I have seven-hundred thousand, five hundred and thirty-two deaths to atone for, and the followers of Kishara are going to help me balance the debt. Respectfully- Captain Kironius Mengst The Black Rose Society