Ser Aerek,

I have read your words, gilded as they are in self-righteous prose, and I find in them a contradiction as bold as your claims to Honour.

You speak of scoundrels and serpents, of dishonour incarnate, and yet you waste precious ink on their faults while declaring yourself above them. Curious, then, that your measured resolve cannot bear silence when goaded by men you claim unworthy. Tell me, Arbiter, how many quills have snapped in your grip as you scrawled rebuttals to their provocations? How often does the Catarine Defender double as the Pen of Petty Vendettas?

Your grievances with Kinilan Demaxx and Draqoom van Helsing are your own burdens to bear, and perhaps they serve as convenient effigies for your parade of perceived villainy. These are merely men standing upon the hem of my robes, and you know this. Yet in your veiled tirade against the Overseer of Ashtan -myself, though you dare not speak my name- you reveal your true purpose. You are no champion of Honour, but a craven hiding behind lofty words, dishonouring yourself by disingenuously lumping me in with the disgraced. I am no fallen knight for you speak down to, no cautionary tale to justify your indulgent hand-wringing.

You claim those who see the cracks in your alabaster mask demand your attention as if entitled to it, and I tell you plainly: we are. You take the stage to propose your truths, to push your ideologies upon us, to claim to hold the authority to decree what is the righteous path, and to persuade the world that you are worthy of notice. You crave an audience for your philosophies, yet when we grant you the notice you so desperately court, you scowl at the scrutiny and bristle at the questions. Is this the hallmark of a man certain of his worth? You demand to be heard, Arbiter, but seem ill-prepared to answer when others question whether you are worthy of consideration at all.

If you wish to stand among the ranks of leaders who shape our world, you must first grasp this truth: you do not have the privilege of looking down your nose at those who tower above you. To diminish them is not a mark of your own stature but a measure of your insecurity. Earn your place through deeds, rising to those who challenge you, not by casting shadows on the luminaries whose brilliance you cannot eclipse.

"Ah, but he is a heretic! His disdain for precious Chivalry is obvious I tell you!"

No, Ser Aerek, it is not disdain, but clarity. Honour, as you demonstrate, is no sacred flame carried unbroken from the days of Seleucar. It is a tool, wielded as any other. Your sacred Codes, your lofty principles, they are no less constructs of mortal hands than the fortresses in which men hide. Tools are to be used when needed, and otherwise cast aside. If this troubles you, I suggest it is not the world's indifference but your idolatry that stings.

You ask how the dishonourable might weep were Lord Kephry's hand to guide yours. But I ask, instead, how he might weep for you - so preoccupied with defending your name that you forget to uphold it.

You speak with the authority of Seleucar's ghost, invoking legends and Codes, yet your defence of these principles seems precariously balanced on shifting sands. You champion open intention and fair contest, yet the Guild you revere governs itself with veiled caution, each order hesitating to cast judgment lest it invite retaliation. Is this the bold resolve of Knights? Or is it the guarded pragmatism of politicians? You lament that Sapience demands simple answers, yet your own words weave a tapestry of ambiguity, offering no clarity to the tangled web of oaths and ideals you uphold.

You speak of Erisian hues and the complexity of reality, but let us call it plainly: your Chivalry is no monolith, as you admit, but neither is it the beacon you claim. It is a construct, fractured by the interpretations of its keepers, strained by the weight of its contradictions. A Knight may serve brutality in Mhaldor or mercy in Cyrene, yet both are to be hailed as paragons of the same ideal? Honour bends, it seems, to the creed of the land, much as a branch bends to the wind. Yet for all your words, the picture remains incomplete - an ideal you claim to uphold but cannot fully define.

And so, Arbiter, I decline your challenge to take up your Oath. Not for lack of respect, but for clarity of purpose. To join your Guild would be to don a mantle woven from frayed threads, to walk a path where the weight of ideals must always yield to the pressures of compromise. I do not seek to lead you by example, for I have no desire to share your burden of reconciling irreconcilable truths.

Instead, I offer this: Let your Knights continue to strive and falter, to stumble in the footsteps of Kephry and Shea. Let them wrestle with the tension between Honour and Duty, Creed and Chivalry. But do not mistake the striving for perfection, nor the faltering for progress. For every step forward, your path is shadowed by the question: Does Chivalry guide you, or do you guide Chivalry?

When you are ready to answer that question, I will gladly listen. Until then, I leave you to polish your Codes and parade your creeds, basking in the glow of legends whose shadows grow longer with each lamentation.

May your light burn bright enough to outshine the hypocrisy it reveals.

~II

[X] Overseer Grandue Xeh'ria, Keeper of the Iron Crown

[A small octagon encircles a raised "II" here, inscribed in thick, amethyst ink]


Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Glacian, in the year 966 AF.