[Original] Shaman's notes, Part 1 - Bakarne and Rurik

[The following content belongs to a new built IP by YogurP (Artist) and Astopotrotsky (Writer) and we will be progressively adding more characters reveal and content along other new IPs by the name Zizagrib. Stay tuned as we will put exclusive content in Patreon along regular rewards!]

I am unsure if I am sleeping into the maw of a monster or the belly of the beast, I just know that I am somewhere close to hell. Infiltrating the 17th Division has been one hazardous adventure. They are a puzzle I can’t quite put together just yet and I am soon to be part of the fabric that composes them. In a group like this, there are not many badges of honour. This is a rogue outfit that only hands out accolades for sins.

    I’ve seen behind the curtain, this whole show was a CIA experiment gone wrong, a brainchild of unconventional, asymmetrical warfare with rogue, deniable elements to fight back against an overwhelming enemy in a global conflict that has gone on too long. 

    The world was already on the brink of madness and I threatened to push it over entirely. These operations are not ones that happen in broad daylight, we’re all fighting in the dark. It is the only way to fight the enemy of the world, we have to lurk in the darkness of the worst battlefields of the largest frontline in human history.

    Ha, the West. We once thought we could all stand tall, on the pedestal of morality, pretending that no one else noticed we didn’t uphold the values of justice and righteousness as well as our propaganda claimed to. Maybe we did at one time, in another world, another reality. But right now, we have been forced to descend into the mire, to get our hands really dirty in a way that you can never feel clean again.

This is not some conventional soldier work, we don’t stand for a cause, we’re not even psychos with a manifesto. We’re ghosts running along in the shadows, unseen, unheard. Waging the battles the world can’t know about, the fights that no one but us can understand. My life has become an endless stream of deadlines, hushed whispers and coded messages. 

    He who fights a monster, is at risk of becoming one themself. At the heart of this man-made unit from hell are Rurik and Bakarne. At least, they are one of the many hearts of this monster unique to my unit. They hold the keys to unraveling this twisted knot and hoping everything stays moored to the right shore. The right side, the right pier.

    These two are just one of the many in the 17th, but they are on my list to get closer to, to earn their trust… the whole job has just been one tightrope act with every step and it's beginning to get hard to balance just who I am in all of this.

    I have a hunch they are closer than they let on, there’s a bond there that goes beyond just the camaraderie of conflict and survival. I guess when you see the worst of the world together, it's hard not to get closer. Maybe those kinds of unique bonds between people in the 17th are among its greatest strengths, the sort of things that really keep this rogue outfit together, despite the difference in ideologies, ethnicities, origins, motivations, pay grades… I don’t think some of these people even get paid.

    The deeper I look into all of this, the higher the stakes become. But I’m driven, I’ve trained for this. I’m motivated to fight a much larger monster at the cost of becoming a fiend myself. 

    In this war fought in the shadows, knowledge isn’t just power – it is survival.

Next reveal: Late June/Early July.