THE HIGH TABLE

Brother Domyrek,

It was a generous invitation you extended to train your Ox...

...and I thank you for it—both as a Fellow of the Discipline and as one who remembers the long hours you and I shared at the Academy, when theory still felt clean and untested. 

I regret that duty pulled you away before the work was complete, though I can report that much of the rubble of Roland’s soul had already been cleared before your departure. 

What followed was refinement rather than demolition: continued psychic cleansing—sandblasting, pulling, forming, firing in the kiln until the clay learns its final shape. I would show you the C-clamps I used to flatten the useless balls of the Disarmed One, and also the long, curved plug with medication to heighten frustrated arousal.

As you saw, Evryk arrived in high spirits...

 

...fresh from being feted for his latest exploits in Kuluz, and for the train of captive officers he brought us for the upcoming spectacle.

As ever, he later introduced his newest protégé. 

You know his taste: young officer, starry-eyed, earnest, and convinced that proximity to greatness is a substitute for becoming it. 

In turn, I thought it fitting to contribute something of my own—a remnant of the Ox’s former nation, a prince by old reckoning, reputed both for martial arts and for song in the rough tongue of former Kuluz.

Roland observed in silence, the Black Sun’s votive sphere serving its proper function. 

Unable to speak, he was compelled instead to attend...

to witness instruction rendered upon the young bard, whose seed I first harvested into a goblet, as tithe to Oriax, to invite malediction upon it. 

And then, after Evryk had reviled the young enemy,

I purified him, emptying his arsenal bag entirely and sewing it tightly closed like an old coin purse.

As always, The lesson took. Roland’s face became the perfect mask of Despair—stripped of voice and arresting to behold. 

The display further stirred Evryk’s enthusiasm, and he pressed for an additional sacred agon—more wrestling to reenact the fall of Kuluz itself, (as if my efforts had been insufficient, but you know how fond he is of demonstrating his own gifts). 

So Roland was again appointed to stand for the city in all its aspects…

…including the battering ram that smashed through the city gates. He bore the symbolism with an almost admirable literalness.

At the conclusion, Roland was permitted speech. Humbly he thanked his masters, praised the brotherhood of the Holy Soldiers of Oriax—by which, I trust, he meant the three of us—admitted that he had been born to clean his master with his tongue. 

He wept fetchingly as he affirmed his understanding of order, and his dicklessness. Then Cassian—Evryk’s bright blade—was afforded his moment, and justified it. Roland, in turn, granted a final lesson in reverence.

All told, the work progressed well. Your absence was felt, but your influence endured, embedded in the Rule you set in place before departing.

So I celebrate your impending elevation into the Merit of the Blinded Sun, an honor the Oriarch does not grant lightly. 

Let Evryk draw the public roars of adulation. I know your gifts—and how fully this rarer recognition is earned.

In correction and fellowship,

—Oryn of House Vaelkor

Of those who feed the Sun its shadow

Published: 2026-01-02, viewed 79 times.