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Player's Guide Places People History Beliefs

 
 


Mortification
The burden of knowledge...
I did not want to see it. How could I, in such a circumstance? How could I ever be asked to do such a thing, if I am reading myself correctly?

How am I supposed to sacrifice my own queen? How am I to be expected to draw blood from she who saved our people, and the entire world beside? If everything that has been revealed to me is true, this is what I must do, yet how can fate be so cruel? I could not.... Perhaps, if it meant the world's existence (and it does), I could allow someone else to do it; Horus perhaps, or even Anwar. But alas! it was given to me, and this is the price I pay for the knowledge I have won. Better that my blood should paint the palaces of all the world than that I should be the cause of one drop of hers being spilled.

And if I were to be so devoid of loyalty and feeling that I should be able to do it, how could I ever convince my fellows, insane or not, that our course of action lies in bleeding one of our own? How could I ever expect to go home, to face any of my Elven brethren again? I would be worse than a pariah. I would be worse than criminal. I would be regicide and deicide. I might as well have taken up that sword from the spectre and bound my fate to this cursed land, should I do this of which I am plagued in dreams.

Not all the knowledge across all the worlds in all the planes of existence is worth this.

Yet, if I did not ask for this knowledge, if I had not claimed the wish for the ultimate goal of all our long wanderings, who would have? Who would have worn that mantle? Nyran could not have been trusted with it, then or now. Arilyn would never have consented to such a burden, nor would she have known what to do with it. Anwar...perhaps, before, but I think it would be too much for her, even if I'd no cause to doubt. Elana herself? She might have taken it, if she'd thought of it, but what would she then have done? Sacrificed herself? Kept it from the rest of us? Bah. I was the only one, and I know it. That hurts worst of all: I cannot pass this dish on to someone else. I must suffer its cold, bitter fare myself.

If this...if this is what must be done, then it must be done. But if it must fall that Elana must bleed, and I must cut, I shall burn Jerick's divine ears from his head for choosing me, whether late or early, and I will erase from Aram's mind any hope or memory of mercy. The very suffering of the entire world will not equal his agony.

The sky grows light; sleep will have to wait, for we leave town today. I am reluctant to be gone. I have much still to study in this grimoire, and I dread now the completion of our quest. For all the valuables and aid we have found here, my heart is empty. The snows of Argusund fill my veins, and the icy mountain airs are my breath. Before we find this last crystal, and make our way to Aram, I will have to find a way to tell the group. They will need to know what we shall be about when the moment comes.

Even to allow for the bounty we received in the tomb, the fates are fickle. Arilyn has taken herself to be bound to the land of Lochlainn with that fool blade, I have now material to study for months, and the prizes we took overflowed our coffers, but the fates are fickle.

Associated Regions: Lochlainn
From the journal of Islan Diemyn

Contributor: Chris Schuettpelz