The following is an unmarked letter found in the barracks of the Blackstone Monastery's Knight Quarters. An investigation to determine the letter's recipient was launched, but the trail ran cold when they discovered the carrier had been killed. There was no sign of a struggle, but evidence of magic found on his body has led to the involvement of spellwarriors. To this day, neither they nor the templars have managed to discover who this unknown writer was addressing with such a hasty scrawl and no one else described within has been located.
War came for the entire family when I returned from the Winter Festival. The fog surrounding the "holy" city of Karatal masked the approach of their ship. As it was, we only noticed them floating in our part of the marina just this morning. When I say an enemy ship dropped anchor in our port, you must imagine an army of soldiers who've pledged their lives to some greater cause that somehow involved the Blades' demise. But since you were once a Blade yourself, I shouldn't have to explain the difference between that and the world we live in.
The Northern Lights is what they call themselves. Before you wrack your brains, no you've never heard of them. They were a small time family the last time you visited our world and, since you only stepped in last time to kill Pops, they weren't exactly bound to come up in conversation. But they've been busy in the past decade. They posture as an anti-crime family, which always seemed to mean that they were too clean to do what we do, but too grimy to join the church or just enroll in Hem Academy. We've been running circles around the spellwarriors and the Royal Guard for years, so what's some punk brigade of wannabe vigilantes to us, right? We didn't take them seriously enough.
We came to find out that the Northern Lights was founded by a fucking RAI spy. They had us fooled this whole time, thinking they were some stiff-necked chumps, but their intel gathering only seemed to improve when this rat bastard, Sheldon Hawke, passed on his skills to them. What this guy was doing leaving the Royal Army to hunt gangsters is anyone's guess, but he managed to take down the Krakens, the Demon Dogs, and the Falcons. Three of the five strongest families in Karatal are either pushing daisies or staring at four walls of iron and stone because of these rat bastards and, now, this city is nowhere near what it used to be.
If I think about it, I can almost imagine you'd love to see what the Northern Lights have done with the place. With a bunch of do-gooders running this town, it's getting harder and harder for the Blades to make any money. They even walk around in broad daylight like they own the fucking place. The sheep love these guys and the spellwarriors don't consider their work as worthy of their attention as ours. To the grimy folks like us, these bastards winning the city feels like the fucking apocalypse.
But the Blades have never gone down without a fight. If that's what they've come looking for, that's exactly what they're gonna get. It's been years since we've seen such a blood bath, but no one here is about to back down. Sharpy even came back from Hem to give us a little magical help, so you can imagine we're definitely not fucking around. If this is the last chance I get to write, I should warn you of something. I know the only reason you haven't come after us yourself is your past allegiance with us. There may be no love in your heart for any of the family, but if word were to get out that you used to be a blade, the templars would be done with you.
That is the understanding that kept you out of our business, but it looks like it might be in your best interest to drop by and help us because the Northern Lights know all about you. For the sake of your career and your second family, you have to come help out your first family.. These guys don't give a damn about your redemption and, if they put us down, they'll be coming after you next. If you sit this one out, the whole world's gonna know you're my brother one way or the other.
So I'll see you soon, if not in the city, then we'll meet in the Forge.
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