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| Book Information Khafdeed's Journal |
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| Collection | Dungeon Delver Documents | ||
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| Found in the following locations: | |||
Silence is a weapon and a shield. This is the lesson taught to every Hel Netu child. Silence sharpens the mind. Knowing when to speak and when to hold your voice. Knowing how much to say and what to keep confined to your thoughts. Knowing the power in letting others guess your intentions. My parents told me to pursue the quiet and learn its shadows. Breaking the silence to utter these lessons itself, was a lesson.
Breaking the silence is my greatest weapon. The others of the Hel Netu see our ways as set in stone. They cannot divorce the teachings of our ancestors, before the Ancestor Moth Priests joined us on our island, from the possibility for new lessons. I am not a silent man. As the sea is not constant against the shore, so am I inconsistent in my silence. I am underestimated. I am powerful.
Mentor Huzbedad says that I am brash and loud, but he does so with a knowing smile. I suspect he knows what my goal is, to turn the very idea of the shield of silence on those who seek to stifle me. He smiles because we both know how I am deflecting the blows of my parent's demands with my own voice. Is that not the summit of our ideals? To use our speed, strength, power, and silence to turn the blades of our enemies on themselves? If our art lies within the practices of everyday life, then by not practicing brashness my ancestors have closed themselves off from learning all that Anu has to offer us.
I practice my sword forms loudly and quietly. I stomp my feet in the sand and tread carefully on stone. My punches ring out in the training areas and go unnoticed in the dead of night. I refuse to confine myself to the ideal of silence when so much else exists to explore.
Perhaps that is really what the ancestors meant when they said to learn silence. The Hel Netu were meant not to live quiet lives of study, but to study life in all ranges of hearing. You cannot truly study silence without learning to make noise.