Recollections of Paulus Aurelianus


 * Found in the hidden vault, refer to trophy Bloody roots

Description
An old and carefully handwritten parchment
 * To any of my Legates - or any clever stranger - who would one day decipher the code
 * leading to this parchment: this was not written for you but for me. As the founder of the
 * Brotherhood of Saint Paul's Stole, I had many names and too long a story. These few
 * lines are meant to help me remember who I was, what choices I made, and why I did
 * what I choose to do: to never cease to enquire about immortals, and firmly banish any of
 * them who would prove evil.
 * Through the centuries of my long life. I've been given many names and many titles, but I
 * remember being born on the beautiful island of Albion. I forgot the precise date, but I
 * was told it was during the summer of the first quarter of the fifth century after the birth of
 * the Christian messiah. I vaguely remember my mother's voice as sweet as fresh honey
 * when she sang to my older brother and me. She named me Pawl and my brother,
 * Emrys. My father was a strong knight of the kingdom of Penychen. I think I had a happy
 * childhood: I learned to read and I was taught by wise men. Then the Saxons came and
 * all was lost.
 * The invaders came from the East and took the land. That was before the false prophet
 * now known as the Horned Trickster presented himself in front of king Guorthigirn to
 * foresee the fight of the red and white dragons, and the defeat of our people. His
 * words were so powerful that the king made him his adviser. As soldiers, as warriors, my
 * father and my brother had no choice but to stand by their king and fight. As a priest, I
 * was free to choose another path. After the death of our mother, I led the exile of my
 * people. I led them across the sea: the young, the old, and the sick, to the islands of
 * Ushant and Batz. To the city of Ocsimor where we had to learn new languages. And in all
 * these places I went, I spoke the truth and the true faith, and I spoke about the devil and
 * his crooked horns. With the years, I almost forgot about the face of my mother and
 * forests of my youth, about the fall of our land and the death of my relatives. I had so
 * much to accomplish. I was a bishop, and I had a flock to guide. My eyes looked into the
 * future. I forgot how to remember my previous life.
 * I was old, and at peace, when my brother Emrys found me, many years after his tomb
 * has been sealed. I saw his dead flesh walk toward me in the dim light of the evning,
 * and his rotten mouth spoke ill of me. He called me a traitor, for I had fled the land of our
 * ancestors while he remained to fight. The Trickster was his master, now: he had granted
 * him unnatural and prolonged life. I called my own brother the son of the dragon, and a
 * dragon himself, for that was what he had become, but he refused to listen. He wanted
 * me to join him and help him to protect Albion, to unite our people again in the next
 * battle to come. To achieve victory, he offered me everlasting life. As I refused, he
 * attacked me, and his fangs and claws went deep into my flesh. Finally, I managed to
 * bind him with my stole and the power of God stuck him. Then I sent him away, back to
 * the sea and to the shadows, forbidden to ever to come back.
 * This is the true story of my brother and of my Stole. This is how we were both defeated,
 * for my words did not convince him, and his bite corrupted me. Soon I died, and I rose
 * from my grave to forever walk under the clouded moon. I drank the blood. I changed
 * my face.
 * For the crime I had committed upon my own kin, I swore to go back to Albion. There, I
 * would watch and protect the land my own way, strengthened by my faith but blinded by
 * the sun. Of my weakness, I would make strength, a ray of hope in the darkness of the
 * centuries to come, under many disguises among the livings, bound to my oath to protect
 * the living from the threat of the dragons, and ready to ban any of them who would prove
 * evil.
 * would watch and protect the land my own way, strengthened by my faith but blinded by
 * the sun. Of my weakness, I would make strength, a ray of hope in the darkness of the
 * centuries to come, under many disguises among the livings, bound to my oath to protect
 * the living from the threat of the dragons, and ready to ban any of them who would prove
 * evil.