Note: Game provided by GTP Media and Sever/101XP. Also, this is a re-upload from May 26, 2021.
Welcome or welcome back to my blogthrough of The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante. If you haven’t read the first part yet, I would highly recommend doing so as it explains what I am doing as well as starts off the whole story. I am still doing Jack’s run on Twitch. One thing I have changed from the last part is that I’m breaking this game up into smaller chunks instead trying to go through the entire chapter, so not every part of this series will include a final statistics part like the previous blog did. With all of that out of the way, here is the start of Chapter 2 of The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante.
Life started to move outside of the house once I turned eight. I started being around neighborhoods and the city more and more as I grew older. With this freedom, however, came a question: what am I to the world? In the Arknian Empire, Destiny was determined at birth, so it wasn’t a question many thought about. But Father being a Noble gave me the option to become a Noble while my back had the markings of a Commoner. Or I could follow what Mother wanted out of me and take a more religious route. I may have been a Commoner by definition, but that didn’t mean I had to stay one.
This new freedom of older age also came with more work and responsibilities, mainly with school. Nathan was also getting older, and I enjoyed spending time with him as he started to become educated enough to hold a conversation. I remember one rainy day when I was home working and watching over Nathan while Mother and Father were away. I let him splash around in the creek, but I soon heard him start to cry. I found him on the porch covered in mud, accusing a kid of pushing him and calling him names. He also told the bullies that I would handle them, so I had no option but to deal with the situation myself. Nathan led me to the bullies down the street, which were two other kids around our age. The older kid’s name was Tommas, and he accused Nathan of calling him names. I noticed Tommas was a tough kid who grew up on the streets and probably knew how to fight, so I tried to resolve matters peacefully by asking Tommas and Nathan to apologize to each other. Tommas took my pragmatism as an insult, however, and we were soon throwing punches at each other. We fought until we were too tired to, but a craftsman started yelling at us, prompting the four of us to run. We ran and hid until the coast was clear, and Tommas and I shared a laugh about the ridiculousness of the whole situation. He said the craftsman was his father, and he would likely get flogged for the fight. So with that, the four of us straightened out our story on what took place, and we parted on good terms. That was the day I met my good friend Tommas.
One memory I could never forget was when I was nine. Tommas and I were hanging out and telling silly stories to a group of girls. Among the three was Sophia, with beautiful blue eyes and dark hair. Our conversation was suddenly cut off when her mother from across the street told her to go home. She started to go home, but tripped and fell in the middle of the road. Suddenly, horses bearing the symbol of the province’s archduke came out of nowhere, riding right towards Sophia. Nobles didn’t stop for Commoners, and Sophia was about to be trampled by the cacophony of horses. With no time to spare, I decided to run in and help her. I pushed her out of the way of the horses, which meant sacrificing myself. Under the hooves of the horses, I felt my bones break, my skull crack, and my innards pulverize.
After everything went black, I remember feeling light. A warm glow enveloped me, and the clouds carried me away. I felt like I was something greater than myself, and I started to understand my own existence. The light that enveloped me also made me. It was the light of the Shining Pillar to the North, which carried me to two figures: The Twin Gods. The Elder was closer to me, ready to accept me. He was quiet, wise, kind, and pure. The Younger waited further back. I approached the feet of the Elder, and he kissed my forehead which filled me with bliss. The Gods loved me and would never leave me. I floated on towards the silver tree. As I got closer, I began to lose my lightness. I wanted to stay, but the Elder God told me to continue living without speaking a word. My time hadn’t come yet. As I descend back to Earth, I contemplated the meaning of my death and the Twin God’s Love. Love exists in all aspects of the world and is the origin of everything; and as I floated back down to Earth, I discovered my love was with my family. Not long after, my soul re-entered my body and my flesh and bones weighed me down again.
I found myself in a crypt, alive, with my parents standing over me. We hugged, and they explained how death works. Since I died before I was supposed to, I died a “lesser death,” which I can have three of before succumbing to a true death. These “lesser deaths” also healed all of my old scars, but it did leave a black mark as a reminder of my death from the horses. The next day, I remember all of the neighborhood kids asking me about my experience, which Tommas thankfully saved me from by pushing them away. I remember seeing Sophia that day too, though she was rather shy about the whole ordeal. The death was painful and it certainly took some inner strength to commit to such an act, but I still managed to save Sophia, fully understand the love of the Twin Gods, and have some of the neighborhood kids sing praises about my bravery, so all-in-all it was a worthwhile experience.
One of the interesting things about Magra, the province I lived in, was that all of the soil was turned into ash eons ago as a result of a rebellion against Duke Char Milanidas. Magic scorched the Earth then, and while magic as a whole was mostly gone, the soil remained scorched all those years later. Because of this, few plants took root and the province was prone to scorching winds. To combat this, fertile land was shipped to the province in caravans, and Magra became skilled in mining and digging to pay for all of this. When I was nine, miners started to use a new invention called gunpowder, which created loud explosions every day. Everyone got used to the explosions, but I remember one day roughly a year after the explosions started a black smoke covering all of the houses, forcing everyone to stay indoors, which lasted for around two days. Once the smoke cleared, I met with Tommas, and he told me his mother saw burnt people being taken to the city temple. Many rumors flew around as to what exactly happened, and after a week of waiting for Father to come home from work, he said the smoke resulted from a mining accident. The owner of the mine rushed the excavation process, and a bunch of miners were killed from the incident, some of whom weren’t reborn. The mine’s owner blamed gunpowder, and life went on, though it did get me thinking about just how easy it was to lose a life.
Shortly after the terrible mining incident, I remember Father telling the family that Stephan was visiting along with Grandfather and a guest. I was excited to see Stephan after all of these years, but when he arrived he was a different person altogether as he talked, dressed, and acted differently than when I last saw him. Grandfather was his same self, but the guest - brother to Father’s first wife and uncle to Stephan whose name was Augustin El Borne - was quite kind despite his job superiority over Father. When Stephan started to greet the rest of the family, I could tell Grandfather got to him, as he walked and talked like a Noble as well as outright ignored Gloria’s existence. During dinner, not even Augustin’s niceties could cut through the tension, and it blew over when a servant spilled a drink on Grandfather. The servants stopped serving at this time, which prompted Stephan to make a cruel remark about how the Commoners at the table could instead serve dinner; a remark aimed right at Gloria. Surprisingly, Gloria got up and walked to the kitchen to serve food. The cruelty from Stephan infuriated me, but I wanted to be smart about it, so I decided to leave the table and join Gloria. Mother followed too, and soon the three of us were doing the jobs of the servants, cleaning dishes and serving food. Stephan, Grandfather, and Augustin eventually left, and the three of us embraced each other, knowing we wouldn’t abandon each other. On top of that, my relationship with Gloria grew, and having composure over that moment gave me a lot of the inner strength I desperately needed.
I was 11 years old when I first met an Arknian. They are a different race from humans, which can be seen from their blue skin. They founded the Empire after conquering human kingdoms, and they were a ruling class above humans. I was with Tommas delivering a letter for Father, but had a fair amount of free time so I was just spending time with him in the Anizotte city area. While we were talking, a carriage rolled up with the crest of the Milanidas dynasty. A beautiful woman with blue skin walked out, barking orders at her guards to clear the way to a fountain. From the moment I laid eyes upon her I was in love. As she was cooling her neck off in the fountain, Tommas explained who she was: Octavia Milanidas, daughter to the Archduke. She re-entered her carriage to leave, but dropped her handkerchief right by my feet. Realizing the opportunity presented to me, I picked up the handkerchief and called out to her, trying to give it back. She looked at me with a sneer, and one of the guards smacked me in the face. The guard asked her if she wanted it back, but she said no because a Commoner’s hand soiled it. Despite the poor interaction and the exertion of inner strength to even talk to her, I remember this being the first time I fell in love, and at the very least I think she remembered me.
When I was twelve years old, I started to better understand how the Empire worked. One night, while walking towards my bedroom, I heard Father and Grandfather arguing about Commoners, so I decided to peep my head into the room and listen. It sounded like they were arguing about the mayor, who was Lowborn, trying to get a seat in the Lesser Quorum. As a shock to no one, Grandfather rejected it, while Father supported it. It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn into a jab at Father for marrying Mother and a jab at the rest of us. The sounds of a Lowborn rising in the ranks meant more power for people like me, and anything that made Grandfather angry was always a win in my book.
The more important thing to happen to me at age 12 was that I started schooling at Sir Tibor, a school mixed with Nobles and well-off Commoners like myself. Tommas went to the same school too, so I at least had one friendly face. After the first month of long lessons and tiring homework, I was really nervous about my first exam. I remember studying the night before but with limited time, so I decided to focus on one topic. Father really wanted me to focus on law and history, while Mother wanted me to focus on theology. On top of that choice, Tommas needed help with a fight that night and Nathan needed help with something else. In the end, I pushed all distractions out and focused on law and history. All that studying paid off too, as I got the highest law and history grade in the class, which pleased Father and gave the Brante name a bit of respect around the school halls.
While schooling at Sir Tibor, it became hard to intermingle around Nobles considering they could get away with just about anything and Commoners couldn’t really do much about it. Tommas was often the target of a group of bullies, and at the head of the pack was Diederik. I was mostly ignored by them because of my Father’s standing, so I had to be the level head for Tommas. That only went so far though, and one day he snapped. He tried to attack Diederik, but his friends overwhelmed him. I stepped in to break it up, but an interesting thing happened. Diederik asked why I even hang out with Tommas when I should hang out with my people, and he offered to add me into his friend group. Of course I declined, instead challenging him to a one-on-one fight. He agreed, and we met after class. We agreed that if I won, he would stop picking on Commoners, and if he won, that I wouldn’t stand in their way. Those terms weren’t even needed though because I won the fight easily. I had actual street fighting experience (thanks to Tommas), and Noble kids tended to be all talk but no game. The fight was certainly echoed across the schoolyard because I could tell I had a little more respect among my peers, and I certainly had a little more respect from Tommas.
Life started to move outside of the house once I turned eight. I started being around neighborhoods and the city more and more as I grew older. With this freedom, however, came a question: what am I to the world? In the Arknian Empire, Destiny was determined at birth, so it wasn’t a question many thought about. But Father being a Noble gave me the option to become a Noble while my back had the markings of a Commoner. Or I could follow what Mother wanted out of me and take a more religious route. I may have been a Commoner by definition, but that didn’t mean I had to stay one.
This new freedom of older age also came with more work and responsibilities, mainly with school. Nathan was also getting older, and I enjoyed spending time with him as he started to become educated enough to hold a conversation. I remember one rainy day when I was home working and watching over Nathan while Mother and Father were away. I let him splash around in the creek, but I soon heard him start to cry. I found him on the porch covered in mud, accusing a kid of pushing him and calling him names. He also told the bullies that I would handle them, so I had no option but to deal with the situation myself. Nathan led me to the bullies down the street, which were two other kids around our age. The older kid’s name was Tommas, and he accused Nathan of calling him names. I noticed Tommas was a tough kid who grew up on the streets and probably knew how to fight, so I tried to resolve matters peacefully by asking Tommas and Nathan to apologize to each other. Tommas took my pragmatism as an insult, however, and we were soon throwing punches at each other. We fought until we were too tired to, but a craftsman started yelling at us, prompting the four of us to run. We ran and hid until the coast was clear, and Tommas and I shared a laugh about the ridiculousness of the whole situation. He said the craftsman was his father, and he would likely get flogged for the fight. So with that, the four of us straightened out our story on what took place, and we parted on good terms. That was the day I met my good friend Tommas.
One memory I could never forget was when I was nine. Tommas and I were hanging out and telling silly stories to a group of girls. Among the three was Sophia, with beautiful blue eyes and dark hair. Our conversation was suddenly cut off when her mother from across the street told her to go home. She started to go home, but tripped and fell in the middle of the road. Suddenly, horses bearing the symbol of the province’s archduke came out of nowhere, riding right towards Sophia. Nobles didn’t stop for Commoners, and Sophia was about to be trampled by the cacophony of horses. I stood by the side of the road, frozen and feeling unable to help. It was all over in an instant. The chaotic frenzy of the horses ran right through her like it was nothing, and when the dust settled only little bits of blood, flesh, and bone remained. Something interesting happened though: the remaining bits of her melted in the air until what was left of Sophia was completely gone. I remember going home in complete shock of what happened, recounting the events of the day to Mother. She was saddened by her death, but explained to me that she didn’t truly die, as the Twin Gods offer three lesser deaths to those who meet the Twin Gods prematurely. Surely enough, I spotted her in her front yard a few days later without a single injury on her body. I tried talking to her, but she ignored me and went inside, and the other neighborhood kids kids told me her parents forbid her from leaving the house for having such an early lesser death.
One of the interesting things about Magra, the province I lived in, was that all of the soil was turned into ash eons ago as a result of a rebellion against Duke Char Milanidas. Magic scorched the Earth then, and while magic as a whole was mostly gone, the soil remained scorched all those years later. Because of this, few plants took root and the province was prone to scorching winds. To combat this, fertile land was shipped to the province in caravans, and Magra became skilled in mining and digging to pay for all of this. When I was nine, miners started to use a new invention called gunpowder, which created loud explosions every day. Everyone got used to the explosions, but I remember one day roughly a year after the explosions started a black smoke covering all of the houses, forcing everyone to stay indoors, which lasted for around two days. Once the smoke cleared, I met with Tommas, and he told me his mother saw burnt people being taken to the city temple. Many rumors flew around as to what exactly happened, and after a week of waiting for Father to come home from work, he said the smoke resulted from a mining accident. The owner of the mine rushed the excavation process, and a bunch of miners were killed from the incident, some of whom weren’t reborn. The mine’s owner blamed gunpowder, and life went on, though it did get me thinking about just how easy it was to lose a life.
Shortly after the terrible mining incident, I remember Father telling the family that Stephan was visiting along with Grandfather and a guest. I was excited to see Stephan after all of these years, but when he arrived he was a different person altogether as he talked, dressed, and acted differently than when I last saw him. Grandfather was his same self, but the guest - brother to Father’s first wife and uncle to Stephan whose name was Augustin El Borne - was quite kind despite his job superiority over Father. When Stephan started to greet the rest of the family, I could tell Grandfather got to him, as he walked and talked like a Noble as well as outright ignored Gloria’s existence. During dinner, not even Augustin’s niceties could cut through the tension, and it blew over when a servant spilled a drink on Grandfather. The servants stopped serving at this time, which prompted Stephan to make a cruel remark about how the Commoners at the table could instead serve dinner; a remark aimed right at Gloria. Surprisingly, Gloria got up and walked to the kitchen to serve food. The cruelty from Stephan infuriated me, but I wanted to be smart about it, so I decided to leave the table and join Gloria. Mother followed too, and soon the three of us were doing the jobs of the servants, cleaning dishes and serving food. Stephan, Grandfather, and Augustin eventually left, and the three of us embraced each other, knowing we wouldn’t abandon each other. On top of that, my relationship with Gloria grew, and having composure over that moment gave me a lot of the inner strength I desperately needed.
I was 11 years old when I first met an Arknian. They are a different race from humans, which can be seen from their blue skin. They founded the Empire after conquering human kingdoms, and they were a ruling class above humans. I was with Tommas delivering a letter for Father, but had a fair amount of free time so I was just spending time with him in the Anizotte city area. While we were talking, a carriage rolled up with the crest of the Milanidas dynasty. A beautiful woman with blue skin walked out, barking orders at her guards to clear the way to a fountain. From the moment I laid eyes upon her I was in love. As she was cooling her neck off in the fountain, Tommas explained who she was: Octavia Milanidas, daughter to the Archduke. She re-entered her carriage to leave, but dropped her handkerchief right by my feet. Realizing the opportunity presented to me, I picked up the handkerchief and called out to her, trying to give it back. She looked at me with a sneer, and one of the guards smacked me in the face. The guard asked her if she wanted it back, but she said no because a Commoner’s hand soiled it. Despite the poor interaction and the exertion of inner strength to even talk to her, I remember this being the first time I fell in love, and at the very least I think she remembered me.
When I was twelve years old, I started to better understand how the Empire worked. One night, while walking towards my bedroom, I heard Father and Grandfather arguing about Commoners, so I decided to peep my head into the room and listen. It sounded like they were arguing about the mayor, who was Lowborn, trying to get a seat in the Lesser Quorum. As a shock to no one, Grandfather rejected it, while Father supported it. It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn into a jab at Father for marrying Mother and a jab at the rest of us. The sounds of a Lowborn rising in the ranks meant more power for people like me, and anything that made Grandfather angry was always a win in my book.
The more important thing to happen to me at age 12 was that I started schooling at Sir Tibor, a school mixed with Nobles and well-off Commoners like myself. Tommas went to the same school too, so I at least had one friendly face. After the first month of long lessons and tiring homework, I was really nervous about my first exam. I remember studying the night before but with limited time, so I decided to focus on one topic. Father really wanted me to focus on law and history, while Mother wanted me to focus on theology. On top of that choice, Tommas needed help with a fight that night and Nathan needed help with something else. In the end, I pushed all distractions out and focused on law and history. All that studying paid off too, as I got the highest law and history grade in the class, which pleased Father and gave the Brante name a bit of respect around the school halls.
While schooling at Sir Tibor, it became hard to intermingle around Nobles considering they could get away with just about anything and Commoners couldn’t really do much about it. Tommas was often the target of a group of bullies, and at the head of the pack was Diederik. I was mostly ignored by them because of my Father’s standing, so I had to be the level head for Tommas. That only went so far though, and one day he snapped. He tried to attack Diederik, but his friends overwhelmed him. I stepped in to break it up, but an interesting thing happened. Diederik asked why I even hang out with Tommas when I should hang out with my people, and he offered to add me into his friend group. I thought about his proposal, and I agreed with Diederik. If I wanted any chance at nobility, I should be around other nobility for both mine and the family’s sake. I joined his little clique, which upset Tommas. The group wasn’t so bad once I got to know them, with exception to Diederik, but I always understood my friendship with them was purely for clout. After a few days, I was eventually invited to Diederik’s house, which Father used as a way to make connections with his father. I felt bad about Tommas though, and I tried to make amends with him after a week of him avoiding me. I apologized to him and told him he will always be my friend, and at the very least the bullying stopped. I then talked to him about using the knowledge I now know about Diederik to further make fun of him, which certainly got on Tommas’ good side. While this test on our friendship did harm our relationship a bit, we were still good friends, and my faux friendship helped Father make a new business connection and boost the Brante’s reputation.
Part Three Here.
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