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Victario's Writings

Volume 1: Kalisa Maas

I never really understood Bektov's work. Just a mess of trills and squeaky highs to my commoner ears. But that was before Kalisa Maas. From the very first note, her voice reached into my chest and plucked my beating heart from its cage. By the wide, glistening eyes of my fellow punters, I knew that they felt it too.

I've previously stolen a quick nap during the aria that precedes Antionio's disembowelling. Not tonight. The gem at Kalisa's throat sparkled with starlight brilliance as her C sharp shattered every pane of glass in the auditorium. An emergency intermission was called while the stage crew repaired the floods and cans, and a pair of physicians saw to those audience members lacerated by falling splinters.

Now, my suspicion of the Virtue Gems is well-documented. Though general and courtier might fall over each other to have Malachai embed them with these miraculous crystals, it is a travesty of justice that the legionnaires and workers of this Empire should have such mutilations foisted upon them.

Yet, in Kalisa Mass I've seen how these gems may rend apart our mortal bonds and permit our imaginations and souls to truly shine.

I'm adrift in the quandary, no oar in sight. Is Kalisa the artist or the art? Is she the same woman I knew before, the young bundle of talent and timidity I had no choice but to adore?

Is she still, in fact, a woman at all?

- Victario of Sarn

Volume 2: The Blackest Monkey

The Monkey King was enjoying an afternoon amble along the riverbank when, upon looking over his hairy shoulder, he noticed the Blackest Monkey he'd ever seen shambling along behind him.

"Why do you follow me?" the Monkey King demanded of the Blackest Monkey, for he did not appreciate uninvited following, especially on his riverbank amblings.

"So that I might go where you go, be where you be, my King" answered the Blackest Monkey.

"And what if I do not want you to go where I go, be where I be? clamoured the irritated Monkey King with a split and a gibber.

Wanting and having are not the same, my King," answered the Blackest Monkey in a voice as smooth as banana juice.

"I am the Monkey King! I do as I wish!" cried the now furious Monkey King with a shrieking and frothing.

"Wishing and doing are not the same, my King," answered the Blackest Monkey in a voice as silken as butterfly wings.

Too wild to even spit or gibber, to shriek or froth, the Monkey King took to his heels and ran. Along the riverbank he raced, faster than the water, faster than the wind, faster than thought, for he was the Monkey King, and all know that that Monkey King has the fleetest feet in all the land.

He ran to the end of the river, and then to the end of them mountains, and then to the end of the clouds, and then to the End of the World.

And who should be there, waiting at his King's feet at the End of the World, but the blackest Monkey the King had ever seen.

"Why do you follow me?" the Monkey King begged of him.

"Have you ever been to the End of the World before, my King?" asked the Blackest Monkey.

"No, I have not," realised the Monkey King.

"The is my reason to go where you go, be where you be, my King," concluded the Blackest Monkey in a voice as warm and welcoming as death.

- Victario of Sarn

Purity Chronicles

Book 2: Bloody Flowers

High Templar Voll had Victario entreat Thane Rigwald of Ezomyr, knowing that a poet would fare far better than any politician in rousing the romantic Ezomytes to rebellion. Stirred by Victario's impassioned words, Rigward mustered his blood-bound clans and on the 3rd of Fiero of Dirivi 1333 IC, took to the fields of Glarryn in open rebellion against Governor Gaius Sentari.

Such was the colourful splendour of a thousand tartans and banners that the Ezomyte uprising became known as "The Bloody Flowers' Rebellion". Though Sentari's Gemling legionnaires slew three Ezomytes for every one of their own fallen, the Bloody Flowers won the day through sheer fury-driven courage.

Governor Sentari fled to Sarn, only to return in Astrali with reinforcements drawn from the capital, Vastiri and southern garrisons. Little did Sentari know that, by so weakening his forces, he was playing right into Voll's hands.

- Garivaldi, Chronicler of the Empire