To those that have been speaking to me lately and who have noticed my progressively increasing slowdown, this should come as no surprise. I am here before you today to announce my resignation from the position of Master At Arms and my retirement from the Dark Brotherhood as a whole.

I have served the Brotherhood in a number of capacities for an extended amount of time – just over 8 years now to be exact. In that time I’ve served on every level, from battleteam leader to Dark Council member and I cannot say that I regret any of that service. For the most part, even while being expelled for Mutiny when we were under the Emperor’s Hammer, I still enjoyed myself. Being given the chance to serve as Master At Arms and steer this position another direction was a great honor. However, now it has come to an end.

In recent months, specifically since late August and starting into September, my responsibilities in real life have grown exponentially. They have far outstripped what I expected they would and now, I find myself significantly stressed to take care of these daily expectations – let alone the amount of stress that a Master At Arms feels on a day to day basis. This doesn’t even take into account the stress I put on myself to try to make significant substantive changes to the medal and promotional system. As the months of this year advance, I find myself being given more to do everyday. And I have realized that it is no longer fair to either me or to the Brotherhood for me to continue in my role. To be perfectly honest, I have also lost quite a bit of interest in the Brotherhood as a whole. Someone who feels indifferently about the organization should not be entrusted to make major changes to a system that matters so much to his constituents.

I am highly grateful to those that have been supportive of me during my tenure. Obviously, I need to thank Jac for giving me this chance. You must forgive me Jac, for, though I believe we have made much progress, it was not as much progress as I had hoped for. Fortunately, whoever succeeds me will be blessed with a myriad of documents that will help guide them to finishing our projects. I would thank Goat but then I would be soliciting a 20 page Goat-essay. So I’ll pass. To those on the Dark Council who have been supportive and tolerant of my abrasiveness, I thank you. I tip my hat to my two closest associates and assistants who have helped me with the primary part of the job in the last few months, Halc and Kraval. I thank my two Magistrates Derev and Sildrin (both of whom are moving onto better things) for their work in some of the technical aspects of my projects. Much love directed towards Clan Taldryan; the Clan that will remain my home.

I’d like to thank my close circle of friends and associates over the past years. Specifically, Bloodfyre for being obnoxiously arrogant but substantively sound many times; Spears for much the same minus the substantive part; Trev for being way too pretentious by even his standards; Oberst because he is Oberst (for those of you who can’t appreciate that, suck it); Tarax for providing an easy target of ridicule even though he knows I love him; Pyralis for being the biggest pain in the ass in the entire Brotherhood and subsequently retiring so that some truly legitimate work could be achieved; Halc for being a good bitch; Krav for being a good sub-bitch; Chaos for watching football with me; Ziggy for the lube; my other consorts, Erinyes and Cym for being good in bed; Duga for being a good Consul; Ben for his stupid force pushes in JO; all the Tal people for being Tal (Tal pwnz), and Chi for being the greatest man to walk the face of the planet ever. For anyone that I missed, you know you pwn. Unless I don’t like you. In which case you suck.

So thus, I am ending my Brotherhood career. I anticipate being extremely busy for the remainder of the year though I will be placing myself in Dinaari of Taldryan as a regular member. I intend to enjoy myself as a member in the standard social capacity that I have always enjoyed. To whoever succeeds me cough Halc cough - you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into; but have fun. Because when you’re not having fun anymore, you end up like me.

And with that, I bid you adieu.

Dark Side Adept Syn Kaek

Master At Arms