Rolled 4, 3, 4 = 11 (3d6)
>>6011520>>6009644" I was once a mountain. You are correct. I am somewhat surprised, also, because I would not think anyone would even remember the small spate of duties done.
Mountains are proud things. But the wind always wins.
Benign Invective - what you called a Jackal-Class - was my armor and my shield and my sword and my friend. And we rallied to war, on the orders of masters of high and low. The Senate held a vote. The Empyreal Theurgic Council assured us the Eye itself demanded this action. Clarity of purpose.
Nuance is a human concern. Do you think, Lucilla, that an avalanche from a mountain much cares for the particulars of shades of grey? Rock falls. People die. And so it is and so it went - with a frightful determined clarity and speed of action.
I wa a mountain once, but before I was a mountain, I was a woman, assignd to a posting in the deserts of the far south, serving with a curmudgeon officer called Veldspar. Rigid, unflinching, boring as the ore that is his namesake and, for all that, that lump of ore had still not been hammered into shape by the world. I hated his guts. I wanted to move up in the world. I didn't want my first posting to be with a rear officer in a noname station checking over travellers and cleaning up wrackbloom. And Veldspar didn't care. He'd ended up there, in that station, simply by continual staunch refusal to do the right thing. Or so the demerits on the walls of his office said.
He told me - taught me, I suppose - that there is perhaps such a thing as the Right thing. But in the heat of the moment, most people will confuse Might for it, because the ability to enforce your will on those around you parades righteousness like a puppet. That action and will are the things that hammer the world into shape, but what if ore simply wants to be ore? You've bent it all to your purpose, and you've called it right, but maybe all knives secretly dream of being spoons.
I didn't understand then. I didn't understand years later. There are times today I don't understand.
And then, during the last little campaign out west, the Theurgic Flamespeaker attachment to my battlegroup told me to advance into a hamlet held by no more than sixty scared militia types. I was given Markwind cannisters to draw the attention of scuttling, curious things hammered out of the shadowy dark at night. People surrendered. I was informed they were partisans and to disregard clear attempts at manipulation.
The Accorded Regulations on Uncivil Affairs Between Entities Civil tell you to respect all attempts at parlay. What hope can there be in the world if one cannot put down the sword and beseech peace?
So, I was a mountain, yes, and I was mighty, and every day, the wind abraded me down until I was a little marble plaything rolled across a map of the world by stargazing madmen intent on destruction. "
