The Nightblood

In-Game Book Text
Some of my students are less inclined to take their research seriously. What follows is an example of the most poorly written report I have ever seen in my years as an instructor. Miss Mellosius is not only a half-elf but evidently a half-wit. Please consider this more of a paper on how not to write an in-depth study.

"The Nightblood," by Trinni Mellosius. My teacher told me to write a research paper about Nightbloods, as if I've ever seen one! Anyway, this is my research into the nightblood.

Nightbloods are really very unfortunate and misunderstood. A lot of people think they are manifestations of evil and get very scared thinking about them, but I like to think of your average nightblood as a big, overgrown bull. That kind of breathes flames, but not really. There! Doesn't that make you think of them differently all ready?

Well, all right, maybe that was a bit much. Nightbloods are pretty creepy. They aren't from our world at all, so that makes them doubly creepy! It's as if somewhere, there's a something that we can't see, but the nightbloods can and they are taking advantage of this to travel around. If that doesn't give you the creeps, I don't know what will!

The first confirmed sighting of a nightblood was only about fifty or three hundred years ago or so, give or take. These paladins were locked in battle with some kind of elemental when suddenly, poof! Right out of the air came these big, broad-shouldered beasts with horns curving around the tops of their heads. It must have been a pretty scary sight!

Anyway, so one paladin turns to one of the others and says, "Lo! Run to Lord Bayle and tell him of this fell beast we have awoken from its foul sleep!" I guess they talked like that a lot back then. The other paladins didn't want to run, they wanted to stay and fight! They could feel what the only survivor later said was something like waves of heat and evil from this creature.

These paladins had with them a squire, or a knight, or something else and so they told him to get away and tell Lord Bayle while they stayed to fight this thing. So the squire or whatever took off running. He stopped at the top of a hill, or the end of a bridge (depending on where you've heard the story), only to see the beast totally wipe out the paladins with a pretty awesome incantation.

The squire ran and ran back to Qeynos and did not stop till he got to tell his story directly to Lord Bayle. In fact, this kind of long distance run turned into a big annual event across Karana to commemorate this event, so that means this had to have happened a very long time ago. Anyway, Lord Bayle sent out fifty of his bravest warriors, who found the beast and slew it before it could regain its strength and cast anymore spells.

If you ask me, that's putting a lot of weight to that one story, but that's what I learned as the origin of the nightblood. Only it's not really about the nightblood, is it? Let me see, I'm sure there's more. Oh! Did I mention it's evil?

Since that first nightblood however many years ago, there have certainly been a lot more of them in Norrath. No one knows if this is because of all the unrest after the Shattering that made more of these hidden paths that the nightbloods travel through, or if there is something else that's stirring them up. These things apparently aren't afraid of anything and will attack whatever they find in their way.

If you are unfortunate enough to get close to one, listen to its voice. It has a really odd way of speaking, almost as though it doesn't know how to talk at all. Now, that means to me that it's stupid, but my teacher says that it means instead that we simply do not know what language it is using. Whatever. In any case, some of these things do learn to speak properly and carry on a good conversation before they rip the person they're speaking with to shreds.

So, that's all there is to know about nightbloods. I guess the main thing to remember is, you don't want to meet up with one! If you see one, don't stop to talk with it! Run! The End. -- Teacher's note: Trinni, come see me immediately about this paper!