3. A lonely bards journal; Too Many Years

A lonely bards journal; Too Many Years


  • _Suddenly
    I'm not half the man I used to be
    There's a shadow hanging over me
    Oh, yesterday
    Came suddenly

    I’m getting old. Bitterness and frustration fill my heart and mind. Happy memories of the past send me into a daze for minutes at a time, and idiocy from those younger around me try my patience quicker then a tindertwig’s flame burns out.

    And the worst part of it all is I’m still trapped in this twenty-something’s body.

    I used to think it a blessing. To live forever, unaging, unslowed, unmoved. To be carefree and at the top of my skills till the time I finally passed from this land. Perhaps that fact is what kept me such a free spirit for a hundred and fifty years, much longer then a human has any right to be.

    But age catches up with everyone eventually. It began happening since the incident with Gildor and myself, I know that much. I can look back and pin point it to that instance. Koreth’s hand finally being played was the next. The loss of the orb by the phoenix is what drove it home.

    It feels like the weight of those decades have all been dropped upon me at once. I listen to those around the country speak of things in such a naïve way and it drives me crazy; but at night I wonder if it drives me crazy because they are so naïve, or that I no longer have the capacity to be that way. Part of me thinks neither, that it is a third option that causes my blood to boil when I hear them…that mistakes of naivety were made so much in the past, and every time have came to bite the people of this country deep within their ass, and yet instead of learning from those past histories they laugh it off and continue on their way. Perhaps it is the only way they will truly learn, much like we had to learn, but how many people will have to perish in the wake of their lesson.

    So quick are so many in this land to just give anyone with a smile, or breasts, or a gift the benefit of the doubt. So quick to overlook what god one may follow…whether it is one who relishes in killing folks at sea, or inflicting torturous pain upon others…what acts they perform…whether it be conspiring with pure evil, or manipulating everyone around simply for their own greed and power. Yet, at the same time, it is now thought almost virtuous in Narfell to look upon those that sacrifice themselves, that try to do things for the betterment of good, and that try to do what is right and goodly in this land as if they are inferior, as if THEY were those that are evil, as if they are scum.

    They lecture that people should leave things of magic up to mages, things of the divine up to the clerics, yet no one remembers the core principle that every good bard learns from his first day in a college…The past repeats itself. They never stop to think if there is some instance of the past that can be useful, that can apply to this.

    Even now, they seek to make a woman that tried to hold the lives of dozens of people in her hand due to her arrogance and a necromancer who only turns from his god because the faith is so weak in this land that he has no one to watch his conniving back heroes. And at the same time, they do nothing but throw barb after barb at a man that, yes perhaps arrogant as well, was at least actually using his best judgment to heal not only him and others and was actually CORRECT. They spread and tell lies about him and the incident simply to not just soil his name, but soil the name of anyone highly religious and actually…gods forbid…striving for GOOD instead of dull moral grayness.

    Never do they think to ask history, especially when it injures their tiny little worldview. The camp underwent not one, but numerous hallowing rituals during the time it was retaken from the vile demon gnolls. So much so that it would likely take an act of a god, not the bones of some minor lich, to unhallow…let alone doing it without anyone in the entire camp, nor the paladins and clerics, from feeling the shift. But no, they can’t acknowledge that history, because that history…which the cleric knew…would have made him correct. It would have made the former banites words rather useless or at the least trivial, and would have made the crazed veiled woman nothing more than a hindrance and threat to their lives. They could not have that, it would ruin their little world view.

    So instead they will blame the clerics and palainds. They will blame those that are good. They will extol the values of Umberlans and cowards and question anyone that DARE actually look at the world as if actions and choices have consequences.

    Perhaps I am now an old man, despite my young shell. A bitter cynic, frustrated at the ways of those around me. However, I did not just wake up one morning and become this way. It was those around me, and the world around me, that has aged me so. For every person that wrote Koreth off as someone to just wait on, for every person that would sit and listen to some evil self loathing wretch play devil’s advocate and stall a necessary act that ends up costing lives, for every person that claims allowing a power hungry evil wizardress to become an even MORE powerful and evil wizardress as a success, and for every attempt at reason that get show down as the rantings of a crazy old bard…the cynic inside me grows and the patience weakens.

    My fear is that one day such will be pushed to far. That I finally become so angry and frustrated with those who are simply naïve, but have good intentions, that I forsake them completely. That I become more of a fool and idiot then they now are. And that my ability to do good in this land is so handicapped by it that I am of no longer useful, but a hindrance. Thus why I begin this journal, something I had neglected to keep for many years now. So that perhaps those things that grind at my old soul can be laid bare, lest they build to greatly within me.

    How alike I feel I have become to Adam, not just in spirit but now in thought. I remember one of the first times I met him, questioning his cynical ways. Now I understand it, and also understand why so many seemed to hate the man that I saw do so much good. It is far easier to hate those that point out potential mistakes or flaws in hopes of fixing things, than it is to be grateful for those that truly try and do good in this land.

    Perhaps I should find some gray dye…_