Vexing Visions
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Three months on the road. Three months since fleeing Impiltur. Three months since the Boys left me for dead. Gods only know where they are now. I suppose if they're smart, they've split up too.
The dreams have started again. I know I don't really "sleep", as it were, but Derwyn called them dreams and I don't see any reason to contradict the old bastard on this. Besides, what else would I call them? Every synonym I can think of makes them sound all spooky and epic and gods know I don't need that in my life. At least they could've let me get my feet set in a new town before starting again, but apparently my mind is a right royal bastard. Also I'm in Narfell now, and spooky magical shit is already too prevalent around here. So dreams they remain.
So this one was a new one that I haven't seen before: I'm a boy, just a young elf. I'm with an older one - my father, maybe - and he's teaching me to shoot a bow. He was wearing a symbol too - one that I recognized. Solonor Thelandira. A bit on the nose, I guess, but when have elves ever not been?
I liked this one though. Archery was one of the first things I learned to pick up after the Boys found me. Guess if Derwyn's theory was right, it's always been a part of me. Whatever "me" is.
The worst part of the dream, the absolute worst part, is the language. He kept saying things in elvish that just made no sense. It's all gobbledygook. You'd think if something like archery was so ingrained in who I was, that the language would be too. But no. Stuck here speaking shitty Common and shitty Chondathan. The hin almost caught me with my phrasebook the other day, too.
Speaking of the hin, it's nice to at least have some semblance of camaraderie again. Especially when that camaraderie doesn't come with committing crimes of increasing severity. Of course, I suppose I should give them longer than a tenday or two in this city before I go making those sorts of judgments, or I'll end up like I did when the Boys found me.
I'm always bad at ending these entries. I think I always will be.
-Vex
-
It was four years ago almost to the day that they found me. Derwyn, the mage. Boggs, the warrior. Myriah, the minstrel. Riordan, the priest. Poe, the thief.
Myriah wouldn't survive the encounter.
I probably should have died today. Several times over, if we're being honest.
Our "lions" - me, Biam, and Amanda - went into the crypts with an angry dwarf and some gnome I'd not met before. Almost from the start, things went awry. I took a wound. An infection came with it, some magical thing spread by the ghouls down there. I felt my body weakening with each step. That queasiness burned in my gut like I was about to shit out two tendays' worth of dwarven food all at once. I was slipping. Not physically, but metaphorically. Whatever was eating away at me, I'm sure would've finished the job eventually.
And there they were - Vick, and Meadow. They got me back up on my feet, at least, even if the others didn't seem to have any interest in whatever help they were offering. I'll owe them for this one, I can tell you that right now, journal.
But then, just as quick as they'd shown up, they were gone. And we'd once again gotten in over our heads. The gnome and I wound up on the ground, bleeding out. Only some very timely healing kept me from wasting the life those two had just given back to me. But the damnedest thing is, I had another dream. While I was on the ground there.
I know that I was only down for moments. The fight was still going on when I got back up. But it felt like I'd been down for hours.
I know I didn't talk much after I went down. Truth be told, I've been kind of lost in thought since it happened.
I was on a table. A burning pain on my arm. A light tap-tap-tapping wouldn't stop, and the smell of brimstone was all around me. I couldn't move. Couldn't even turn my head. But I was aware. And I was being spoken to. Told that I was being prepared. Prepared for what? I can't say. The room I was in was dark, and what little I could make out from darting my eyes this way and that gave me little clue as to what was happening.
And then, they lifted me up. Carried me. I wanted to try and fight them off, and escape, but my limbs just wouldn't accept what my mind told them to do. I was a captive within my own body.
Just as I was being taken to my cell, just as the door to it opened up, I was healed. Not in the dream, but in truth. And with no time to reflect on what I'd seen, I simply rejoined the fight.
Now that I have time to sit and reflect on these things, I'm left to wonder at what I missed. I'm not sad to have lived, of course, but if I could have just stayed in that scene a few moments longer, enough to maybe get a look at who I was with, I feel like I might feel more satisfied with it in some way.
Perhaps another time.
