There wasn't much there, aside from the silence. Pravus shifted uneasily, the stark white of his robes a contrast to the dark stone of the Hall. He watched the man, standing a few steps ahead of the Throne, staring at it, maybe staring through it. The reports were clear enough, even as they heard of the devastation on Nicht Ka. The good news always seemed to be tempered by the bad.

It was the way of things, it seemed.

He turned slowly from the throne, the shark eyes of the Grand Master gliding past him toward the door. it opened suddenly, the Hapani stepping into the throne room as if on cue. Pravus adjusted himself as the Hapani bowed briefly, never letting his eyes drop from the Grand Master's disconcerting gaze. Telaris straightened his back, stepping forward, the final clack of his boot on stone muted by the rug of the throne room.

He smiled, producing a small box and presenting it to him. After long days and painful duties on Begeren, he had accomplished his objective. The objective well beyond what was understood, what was even suspected. Pravus turned his head so slightly as the thought passed from him to the Lion. Ashen's gaze flickered, seeing a glimmer of his old mentor behind the steel of his eyes.

He knows.

The blade came from nowhere, the fine point of the silvered metal shearing through thought and fabric, skin and blood. The smell struck Mav before the pain did, the burnt cupric of his blood as it charred beneath powers older than the temple in which they stood. It stung his nose even as the song of fire rang out through his senses, the chorus of a thousand discordant nerves setting his mind on edge.

The movements were quick, precise, the pain delectable. Telaris fell to a knee as the blood scorched his chest, trickling from wounds too shallow to kill. It took all of his willpower to resist the ingrained reaction, the reprisal that burned in his heart, in his throat. He fell inside himself, burying the reaction as his fingernails dug into palms wet from sweat. He tried to cool the burning nerves with a cool mind, analyzing, occupying itself as his psyche knew the worst was coming. The strokes were too precise, too exacting. it was too much effort. He would learn nothing, gain nothing from this. The Grand Master would never waste that effort...it was like playing with food.

The blade flashed upward, the weapon's tip coated in his own blood, mixing with the ichor that coated the rest of the weapon.

His stomach roiled at the sight. Black and viscous, he didn't recognize the toxin, and his mind went rampant, speeding through the possibilities that he could. They spun him around, the burn at his chest mixing with the endorphins as they seethed into his bloodstream. He could feel something pooling at the base of his skull, deep in the lizardbrain, in the primordial rage. He flexed a muscle, trying to will himself to rise, but found himself frozen to the floor. He looked up with barely restrained panic at first.

He wouldn't give in, not like this.

Mav saw past the blade, to the man in white. The strange expression he wore. He knew, he had to know. He knew what he had uncovered, what he had discovered. Adjusted accordingly, he had been outplayed. The rite that bore through his heart would expose the lie, unless...

The blade came down, archaic steel singing through the air.

Telaris couldn't even blink.

The blade stopped at his shoulder, sliding sideways, the flat of the weapon touching the flesh that quivered beneath the runes that the Lion had carved into his flesh. The blade pulled away from him, evaporating into the dark of the hall. This was not the end after all.

Muz nodded at him, and Telaris wondered if he had said that thought aloud. He found his way to his feet, staggering and off-balance like a weeks worth of drink had been consumed in a moment. The blood fell from him in sheets, the wounds sealing to fine scars, the symbols burnt into his spirit more than his flesh.

It was not the end.

It was the beginning.

There are a few milestones in the Brotherhood. It starts with something simple, joining the club because you found something cool that convinced you to join up. Eventually, we all strive for more and take the club seriously, focusing on our trials and seeing them through to Knighthood. For many, that is enough. For some, it is not. Those few push on, taking on additional responsibilities, leading members through war and peace, through their own trials. And for some, that is enough. Fewer still push beyond, changing the club in great ways, driving our Brotherhood ever deeper into the future, to greater depths. These Elders often find their spirits sated by such accomplishment.

And then there are a prize few. Those who never give in to malaise, who recover quickly from discouragement, from stagnation, and look at our world with fresh eyes, with renewed vigor. Those few who strive further are the Lords of our Brotherhood.

Such is Telaris Cantor, a Lord of the Sith.

Here's where I normally brag on and on about projects that are getting worked on in earnest: about possessions that is finally getting incrementally (and incredibly) coded. About some of the really cool changes/additions/edits to the ACC/Character sheets, the cool guides that will be coming out to explain even cooler additions to how we build our characters in the club, or even about the planning stuff for the GJW (still January).

Rather than do that today, I wanted to shine a light on two of our newest Knights:

Egregious in Tarentum is what we sometimes call a Boomerang member. This is to say that they had come to us, and kicked a lot of tail, but got dragged away by real life, by school, by work, by wine women and song (hopefully the last), but he came back and finished his knight trials. It's hard enough to plow through the trials, but it seems a lot harder to come back and get right back into the swing of things, push forward through the cobwebs and the very rapidly changing environment of the club and get that lightsaber.

Thank you, Egregious. I hope you enjoyed it enough to hang around and keep pushing forward.

Catmatui is another example of a member's path. With great resolve and follow-through, Catmatui's participation record has been outstanding and humbling. 35 competitions later (and five placements), this member has more than earned their right to carry a saber. There are few members in this club that can boast that high of an activity record in such a short time. It is truly impressive, and I thank you for that. It takes hard work and dedication, and that is why we often call Knighthood the biggest milestone in the Brotherhood...the one that the clans are really and truly judged on.

So, why am I talking about these knights instead of the programs I know that you all normally tune in for?

One word: Perspective.

It is of course awesome that we have so many things going on up top, often behind closed doors as we try to work out the details, the bugs, and foresee the problems before they arise... but we must not ever forget the reason that we are doing all of this.

It's for our new members.

We do this to engage them, to inspire them, to brighten their imaginations, to draw them into our mythology. Without new members, without those who would become knights, the Brotherhood would falter, would fall in a few short years, and everything that we had all worked so very hard for would be lost to the sands of time, relegated to an old archive on the web somewhere, a memory. So, while it is so very easy to get lost in the minutiae of whatever project that we have in front of us, we need to make sure that we remember why we do this.

For every Legendary Member, for every Sith Lord, we have to have a dozen or more Knights. It's easy to lose sight of that, to insulate yourself from the average member, to forget that the real reason we are here isn't to glorify ourselves, our own stories, but to keep the story moving, to bring new legends to the front, to let others write their own chapters in this book that we all love.

Thank you,