The Diaries of Archibald
The following is a story titled "The Diaries of Archibald", originally available on the official (now-defunct) 3DO website.
Entry 1
11 June 1165
Free at last! Never again will I take for granted what it means to bend limb and breathe air. But what air do I breathe? What land do I flee across? It is my Enroth, surely, but so much has changed in the ten years I have been my brother’s coat rack-made an insensate stone statue by his pet wizard, Tanir. If it wasn’t for those fool “adventurers” I’d still be there now. Tanir! I promise you I will repay the insult one day. And repay it with usurious interest.
I have started this journal to help me make sense of the chaos of events. I am a hunted man, but have found refuge in the remote estate of my colleague in the necromatic arts, Nimbus. His apprentices tell me that their master has sailed for Erathia. I wish he had not been wise enough to leave them with so few details…all I can derive is that the Necromancer’s Guild has some bold plan for Erathia. Perhaps I should join them?
Both my hated brother, Roland Ironfist, and his loathsome queen Catherine are absent. Roland is, by all accounts, taken by strange demons. Catherine left for Erathia five months ago to attend her father’s funeral and has not been heard from since. Their brat, Nicolai, sits on the throne with the loutish Wilbur Humphrey standing as Regent. Ah, if only I were in a position to take advantage of things here in Enroth! It is like a widowsweep berry ripe for the picking.
But first, I must rebuild. With no nation, it is as if I am once again at the beginning of things. Where are my fellow guild members? I cannot reach them by means mystical or otherwise. If I could only rally them to my cause! The apprentices are no help-they are content to work their crude “exercises.” Amateurs! What endless pride they take in their zombified rats and mice! Bah, the useless things fall apart inside of hours. Pathetic.
I really must have a talk with their master. Surely, he is neglecting his role as a teacher if his students perform so poorly and expect my delight! The other day, I observed one of them fumbling a basic cantrip! One of his, so called, “advanced” initiates! I couldn’t believe it. I am forced to the sad conclusion that either the student or the master was a complete incompetent. I hope for Nimbus’ sake that he has had an unusually bad string of luck in finding quality apprentices.
Entry 37
23 October 1167
I find myself aboard a fast and sturdy ship bound for Erathia. How strange are the events that compel me to leave behind my native land!
Nimbus returned to his estates bringing with him a small party of Necromancers - apparently all of any power that remained in Enroth - he was gathering to take to Deyja in Erathia so that they might serve the lich-king, Nicolas Gryphonheart. Yes, that Gryphonheart! Catherine’s father.
The Erathian guild has made a bold and perhaps foolhardy play for power. The guild leader and king of Deyja, Deathknell, sought to take the Erathian throne by assassinating Gryphonheart and then reanimating him as a lich, bound to his service. Well, he got as far as the reanimation, but the binding did not take. Instead, the lich killed Deathknell. Now Erathia and Deyja have a new king…and the guild has a new leader.
Now Gryphonheart has called the Necromancer Guild to his aid, and I and the Necromancers of Enroth are heeding the call. He fights his daughter, Catherine. That is a cause I can hearken to, indeed! Incidentally, this little mission is now my mission. I took it from Nimbus in the guild Challenge of Dominance. Needless to say, I won. I wasn’t surprised by my success, but rather, at the ease of it. Really, if Nimbus’ powers are any measure of the state of the necromatic arts these days, clearly the guild has lost much of its wherewithal since my day. What we need is a systematic program of research. One which will re-instill in us the vigor of the past. It is hard to believe that this is the same guild of Henden’lal or Neberneith! Those luminaries would never have let things become as they have were they still around. Perhaps it is my destiny to restore our power to its former glory!
Entry 143
5 August 1168
Reversals within reversals within reversals. That is the way it goes for the fortunes of kings and would-be kings these days. Or so it seems.
In her victory speech, as it was reported to me - I was, to be sure, nowhere near - Catherine made much ado about stability. True, the “dark and vile forces who had wronged her father so,” were defeated, AND her father “now lies in the state of natural quietude he deserves,” AND “the people of Erathia can lay down their swords safe in the knowledge that peace reigns instead of terror.”
Oh, let her think all that if she wishes. Let the peasants think it too. That can but help my cause. For as the lich, Gryphonheart, replaced Deathknell, so have I replaced Gryphonheart. Catherine faces a more devious opponent in me. What my predecessors used like a bludgeon, I will use as a tailor’s needle. The Necromancer Guild, under my leadership, will enter a golden age of advance. Even now, our new laboratory of research is producing new knowledge. And as knowledge is power, so will our - and my - power grow.
But all plots must begin somewhere or remain formless. Perhaps my seed of discontent will root in those fertile “disputed lands?” Time will tell, and the telling will be against my brother and his wife! So swear I here!
Archibald Ironfist Guildmaster of Necromancers Rightful King of Enroth