Why, Lord? Of all of us, Pelor, why did you have to take Nikko? How does that make any kind of sense? What kind of twisted, insane reasoning led you to that conclusion? Was it because we needed him? Was it because I needed him? Why not Marqes? He is taken by madness and everyone would feel a bit relieved if you took him. Why not the hateful thief? He believes in nothing but his own welfare and comfort. I would see him dead a thousand times to have Nikko back. 

Why not me? I may just be a boy, but I serve no particular purpose here, as Sly has pointed out endlessly. My sisters can rule, if my father is dead. He must be, right, else he would have broke the world, having us back? I am young, but I have perhaps sixty years before me. Nikko had a thousand. What a rich harvest you have reaped, Pelor. How your basket must overflow! I am so glad that he now wanders your halls. It is not as we needed anyone extraordinary here, for our purposes. We’re just trying to rescue the world from enslavement. Don’t let us disturb your lofty ruminations.

Forgive me, Lord. I do not hate you, though I must sound as if I do. In your wisdom, you must understand how desperate I am to blame someone for this terrible thing. I never really believed that, someday, he would be gone. He was bigger than this small world. He was eternal. Things that I can barely grasp the concept of, he knew in their most intimate and finite detail. In this hour of our greatest need, it was especially cruel to have such a good man ripped from our grasp. What bard could help but spit to have to recount this tale?

Aye, we must carry on, for the sake of the world if not our own. My mouth is full of ashes and my heart, lead. I no longer care for my own life or anyone elses’. I go on because I must. It is my duty to my father, my Kingdom and to you, my God to continue until my time here is through. I will do my duty because I will not bring shame to my family’s name. I will not have it be known that a son of Keilrand gave up because of the pitiless meaness of life. If I must, I will embrace cruelty myself, and cast pity aside. If my only friend must die, who then deserves to live? Who then is worthy of mercy? Of forgiveness? I see none.

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Hi, Reneel again. No, I’m afraid Nikko isn’t any better yet and I will have to continue to add to the journal myself. I am sure that Echi would be glad to do it instead, and I find his writing to be entertaining, but without Nikko’s cooperation, that can’t happen either. I guess you’re stuck with me for the time being.

With Arliss’ daily allowance of divine magic nearly depleated, we were forced to retreat back out of the Drow lair without finishing our exploration. As far as we knew, we’d killed them all and could have finished this exploratory venture with a few more minute’s effort and return back to the dragon’s lair to rest, but it was too dangerous so we left. Nikko used a wall of stone to wall-in the door where it has been sealed before by the Ancient Order of Stonewalkers.

We settled down in that room and began our usual post-battle rituals of tending to the wounds that remained, preparing food and drink to give our bodies the energy needed to aid in the healing process, and passing around the spoils of the battle so everyone could test the heft and feel of any items. An item that caught my eye, or rather two items, where the twin scimitars that one of the Drow heroes had used. I am untrained in the art of two-weapon fighting, but the weapons were extremely well-maid and felt good in my hands. I passed the blades on to Marqes, who was sprawled on the stone floor with this head resting on his bedroll and composing limericks about Saint Cuthbert. He took the swords, glanced at them for half a second, then passed them on to Sly. The thief was squatting on the floor in his favorite posture, arms resting on his knees and gaze focused somewhere far away.

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My name is Reneel, son of Keilrand, King of Mythgar. Yes, my dad is a king, but don’t worry about me looking down my nose. I have six brother and sisters, all older than me. The odds of me ever having the throne are remote, and I’m okay with that. I would be content to be the Monarch’s Spear, and lead his or her armies into battle. Someday, I might be a pretty good fighter. Father says that a leader has to keep his head about him and let the soldiers do most of the fighting, but first he has to gain the troops’ respect. That means being able to do any job that you order them to do, and proving it now and then.

But enough about me. I am, by far, the least interesting of all of the people I am questing with. I am writing this because my friend Nikko is not feeling well and can’t find the will to continue his journal. But the journal is more than just his reflections on what is happening in his life. It is also the chronical of this quest, and a way to make sense of all of the brutality and loss that we must live through to fulfill the prophesy. Nikko is a big believer in the prophesy, though lately he is reluctant to discuss it.

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I am succumbing to the despair of this place.

It is no longer a vague fear that haunts me. It is a fact. Each day I feel myself slip further and further into the darkness of my own thoughts and there is nothing that I can do to prevent it. Another month, perhaps two, and I will be a different person altogether, and probably not worthy of returning with the rest of them, should we manage to fulfill the prophesy.

I could blame Echi, and I often do, but it is something far more subtle and insideous that stalks me. Back when the world was sane, I’d spend days cloistered away in my long-lost academy in the great wood, studying and experimenting. But I could walk out any time and see the brilliant sun shining down on the world, feel her warmth, and smell the rich smells of the forest. There is no relief here. There is no weak and diffused ray of daylight that finds its way through a crack into this place. It is dark and stony and unforgiving. There is no hope here. I brought hope with me, but have lost it.

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 We slogged out of the mess that I’d created in the intersection. We’d avoided the inconvenience of being riddled with hundreds of darts, probably poisoned, but my companions were more upset about the gritty mud sticking to their pretty clothes than the pain and death that I had deprived them of.

Left, right or straight ahead. We went left, which was fine by me. FINE. Sly led, as he is prone to do. It wasn’t that long ago that he might as well have walked backward, so blunt were his skills of perception and stealth, but he had come a lone way in a short time. He was almost as quiet as an elf when he walked now, and little escaped his probing eyes. The corridor went a short distance and then cornered to the right. There was a door of iron another twenty feet up.

"Door," Sly whispered back. It was a relief when he identified what had plainly baffled me before he named it. So that was what a door looked like. Read the rest of this entry »

 The muck once again threatened to rip Magrus’ boot from his leg and swallow it.  Even for a thick and strong Dwarf, the Evernight swamp was a treacherous and difficult mixture of sticky mud and poisonous critters hidden in the black goo.  Evernight got its well deserved name from the curiously constant canopy of ominous grey clouds that prevented all but the most minuet traces of light from the shrouded sun somewhere above.  At night it was said that the darkness was similar to being under-ground without any source of light.  Magrus had no desire to find out the truth of that, night vision or no.

His ability to see in the dark had kicked in shortly after he and his three friends entered the swamp some six hours ago.  They had heard of the ruins and the hidden treasures there located to north and east, supposedly in the dead center of the cursed mire.  Adrenaline and greed had fueled them as they suffered the thick mud grabbing their feet at every step.  It was slow and tiring travel and the main reason they were unable to avoid the blood hunter.  They first spotted the cloaked figure off in the distance.  He was just sitting there upon his black steed watching, seemingly disinterested in the four adventurers.  He watched them for nearly and hour as they slowly made their way north.  Then without so much as a flick of the wrist, his mysterious black horse leaped forward and charged across the mud as if running on dry fields. Read the rest of this entry »