Stories Thread

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

Madness..... (or as I like to call it, finally introducing Patrokles melancholy and warmongering personality traits! and Trying to get some other rebels to step up to the plate lead us)

Patrokles stared long and hard at the wall of Antioch, his minds eye looking back to all the times he had entered the city in friendship... now here he stood at the head of a army, poised to conquer one of the strongest cities in the arche. He had known his path would take him here from the beginning, his kingdom would have never been able to sit back and let Sarpedon properly muster his forces, in that kind of war the rebels would have given up their one advantage, Local superiority, they had to seize the initiative, and what better way to do that than march on the heart of the west? Patrokles looked behind him to the 1st Babylonian, to the men who had been with him from the beginning... he smiled, they didn't doubt him, they had no regrets about their actions, unlike Patrokles himself. he would admit it to no one, but Patrokles was starting to regret his actions, to him the rebellion had seemed a goal, a thought exercise, but in his frenzy of planning he had never once thought his motivations less than pure.

now he knew better, yet there was no going back, no returning to how things once were. Patrokles would either live a hero in the peoples mind or die a villain. He didn't dislike Sarpedon, he even respected the man more now he was no longer under his yoke, but they were still enemies, and if it came down to him or Sarpedon, he would kill the other man with just a thought.

The person he once was had died, and so a new Patrokles had arisen. before all of this he wished only for the arche to prosper, to perhaps retire to some palace and live out his days in peace. now he wanted only to be cut down in battle, besides the men he knew so well... he thought back to his vision of governing Babylon and discarded it, there was no place in his new self for such peace... he had others able to rule in his stead. Eprikrates was good man, he would manage their new home. he would rule the council and all else while Patrokles was off on campaign, and when Patrokles finally died (not so distant a thought Patrokles mused!).
He looked up at the city wall, they were lined with poorly armed soldiers, people who would be butchered in the coming battle, the old Patrokles would have questioned why it had to be that way, the new Patrokles simply shrugged. He almost tried to compare himself to Sarpedon in those moments, but stopped, a usurper like himself had no reason to do so. and so Patrokles planned his next action carefully, mostly for the sake not of Morality but of Practicality.

That thought almost shook Patrokles, but once again he simply shrugged, and thought back to his brother. wondering what he might say if he saw Patrokles now.... Patrokles sighed much more deeply, If he came out of this alive he would have to rely on Liatus as his compass, it was obvious his own Ideas of right and wrong was gone forever.... Him and Hyllos would have to be his Morality, because Patrokles was losing his own.... it was something about sending men to die, he mused, that let a man discard his convictions, his hopes, and his dreams... He roused himself from these thoughts, it was no use thinking off the unchangeable, and mounted his horse. he galloped around the defenses yelling for the defenders to simply surrender, to not force him to kill more than he needed.
Sarpedon would either end this war, or Patrokles would make sure he regretted it.
Liatus would not be pleased.... and at that moment he was one of the few people whom's opinion actually mattered to Patrokles,