Citizens of the Court of Shadows,

I offer you my heart-felt congratulations. Last month, you won a great victory against the Village of Eleusis: there is no denying it, and I will not attempt to spin it as somehow being the accomplishment of the defeated. The strength and resolve of your army was on full display, and you laid waste to several central rooms, including the village gatehouse, the barracks, and a tomb sacred to the populace. It is a blow that will not soon be forgotten.

Then, your army swept through the treetops, and butchered the defeated. Grenden Blackthorne and Cwincan, the Gaian Knight, were two of the first to fall. Perhaps in the years to come, the bards will sing of their doomed rearguard action; each swing of their blades foreshadowing the bloodshed yet to come.

I will read to you now some of the names of the fallen.

Bryan, Orei, Krelli, fishermen and fisherwomen;

Daestin, Arscot, Celede, Semanthia: merchants, bakers, tavern servers.

Ceredic, Erine, and their little daughter, Nyeli; farmhands, a child.

Many others fell to the knives of the greatest of your soldiers. Together, the Marshal of Darkness, Peaceful Kshavatra Zartosht, and Caliginous Warden, Rakkaro, butchered thirty villagers, granting them the Death promised to them by the Cycle.

Grant your soldiers their Triumph, Hashan!

- Aroan, Epopt of Wintertide

Penned by my hand on the 19th of Phaestian, in the year 888 AF.