Atmospheres of the Third Era
We have decided to inaugurate a new section of our Blog, entitled ‘Atmospheres of the Third Era’. This section will contain short tales and stories coming to us from the Redemption The Third Era‘s world. This will allow you to learn more about the vast world where the Game is set, its main characters, places and all its people lifestyle.
Halloween is coming and we want to start this new section with a story having a little bit macabre sense. Here you can find a taste of it. The rest of the story will be published on Friday, 30th of October, while the end will be on 31th of October, our little way to celebrate with you the horror night!!!
Enjoy!
The Diary (Part I)
1135-10-30-NE
Dear Diary,
… it seems a foolish beginning to me, but I believe this is the most appropriate one…
I never wrote a diary and quite frankly I have always found the idea of keeping one quite ridiculous, but when I opened my back pack to get a food ration and I saw this little notebook and the pencil I couldn’t resist.
Following the expedition inside these caves has been the most wrong decision I ever took. The Master Ivoré of the Fighters was clear about it, she told me not to do it because I wasn’t yet ready, but I wanted to come anyway. The other members of the group were all expert Xintar Hunters, or at least that is what I believed when I decided to follow them and now I don’t even know who has been left alive.
I knew it would have been dangerous, but coming back to Suntears with a precious piece of equipment taken from the scales of a Xintar, would have portrayed myself to the eyes of my Academy companions like a hero, now instead I feel like a perfect jerk.
Everything has happened so quickly that my recollections overlap, despite the fact that just few hours have gone by.
We were in formation and were going through a narrow passage. Alìa was opening the way, the Damas scout, was checking the marks left by those beasts going from one shadow to the other, then came Ernam, my berserk friend, a Salk like me, I was the third one in the column, behind me there were Trag, the enormous Graunt metabolist, Kimbar, the psychokinetic that came from the forests of the Tamiara and closing the line there was Helena, the corruptor Vampire. I felt safe, Ernam had told me about them and about the expedition they were setting towards those ‘damned caves’, they were a group of adventurers very well trained and experienced that have already worked together gaining various successes. I told them I would have liked to join them, it seemed a great way to spend my last weeks of vacation before the last Academy year started. Ernam answered that it wouldn’t have been appropriate, that it would be very dangerous, that I could become an obstacle for the other guys and that I would have had all the time in the world to gain experience and then become a Xintar Hunter for all purposes. I must have preyed to him crying like a child, because he finally accepted. The other welcomed me like some kind of a lucky charm mascot, even the vampire proved to be friendly …in a matter of three days we left and when we sighted an entrance to the Caves I wasn’t any longer scared by her …
At the beginning everything was fine, a handbook expedition. Alìa gave us some weird luminescent sticks, three each, that allowed us to see in the darkness of the underground without drawing the attention of the beasts with a powerful light, she recommended to turn on one and wait until it would be consumed, before using the next one, not to damage them and return them at the exit because once we had gone back to the Chasm she could recharge them.
Everything seemed to be perfect…
We met some tiny Rixeen, … I have never seen anything more frightening, a muddle of fangs, claws, horns, quills and scales as tall as me … and this was one of the smallest Xintar species … The ‘did’ tear it down and I helped them in a ‘valiant’ way, as the Tamiara pointed out laughing. We met some other Rixeen and we have even torn down a Rudurck cub (I confess, My Diary, that when he appeared in front of us, despite having seen it in various study texts, I almost shit in my pants, and that was just a puppy!). When the fight was over my duty was to take out from his entrails the glands that produce venom, it seems they are paid very well on the market, what the books or the Masters do not say is the vile stink that comes out of the bowels of these creatures, I think I didn’t throw up only because Trag, the enormous Graunt, was close to me in order to check that I wouldn’t pierce the glands ruining them. At the end he nodded solemnly saying that I had done a great job, then showed me a heap of rocks behind which I could throw up in privacy.
I began to feel like a ‘real’ Hunter, when everything collapsed …
[To be continued…]
