Conversations

[gathera]

It was a grey dreary day, one that had slipped into a rain-slicked eve. The kind of day that delivers a certain bone-numbing cold which only damp weather can truly bring. The cold grey mud sucked greedily at my ragged boots as well as my dwindling warmth. The damp weather even threatened my miniscule dry spot stationed precariously beneath the old oak. Few others had ventured out in the dreary weather. Still there were the sounds of another nearby. Yes, nodding to myself, it was Arician back once more in the village. I could imagine him striding down the road in his cerulean finery so splendidly untouched by the roads viscous mud. Leisurely Arician sauntered over to me.

“Need a hand to your place of prayer?”

I smiled and nodded to Arician with a silent grateful thank you. “Well not my place of prayer that is a rather far journey from here. My fire will do quite nicely.”

I felt Arician grip gently tugging me up. Stiff from the cold and damp I wearily rose muttering a silent prayer of thanks to the gods for his help. I paused for a moment as heard the light hesitant steps of another coming down the road. A brittle thin voice barely more than a whisper called out. While I could not see him there was no mistaking the weave that was spun around him. I could sense the tendrils of magic entwined about him, supporting nurturing even sustaining him.

“Arician it’s been a long time! It seems the years have treated you kindly.”

“It has Ren, a long time, a long time indeed. Although I've had plenty that say otherwise about time my friend. You, I must say look no worse the wear for the times passage.”

“I am surprised you remember me Arician.”

“I forget very little Ren. I'd be a poor wizard otherwise.”

“I have been mostly resting but any luck on that cure friend?” I could sense the under tones of worry in pooling in Ren’s voice.

“Well you left before I could test much. So I am afraid not.”

Arician could sense my puzzlement and curiosity about Ren. Arician bent lower whispering, “Sera Rem is ill, his body is in a state of impressive degeneration. Though not yet lethal, the condition leaves him far from healthy,”

I gave Arician a slight nod of understanding as my shoulders sagged slightly. I began to feel the lingering tickling caress of Ren’s magic about me. My ruined hand clenched tightly around the staff. The wood felt cold and dead next to the shimmering aura that was Ren. The damp and my lingering frustrations cast a dark fugue over the day. I was lost in thought until Ren’s whispering took on an impassioned tone snapping me out of my daydreaming.

“Health yes but the weave can be much more!”

“May you never lose the craft then, ”With a hesitant pause I turned towards Arician leaning on him heavily for support. I knew he felt my exhaustion.

“Where to?”

“Just the fire Arician.”

Arician gently took his arm in mine and with a measured limping step and Arician’s steady arm I reached the camp fire that was home. His ever-steady arm guided me down to my well-worn stump.

“You are improving at least.”

With a curt shake of my head no, “just anger stirs me Arician. It is amazing what a bit cold-rage can do”

“Getting tired of your state?”

Agitated I slapped my walking staff down hard to the ground. “Between cursing and weeping yes, yes quite tired. Sorry I shouldn’t snap at you so.”

Arician took my outburst in the same patience manner he took everything in. ”You have done naught to me my friend and your anger is hardly surprising.”

I sat quietly admonished at least in my own mind for my outburst and croaked out a half whispered ”Sorry.” I managed to settle my frayed nerves with a deep breath. ”It, the weave I … I miss it. Just miss it. The craft bubbles up inside me, a welling fountain that has no release. I am chained to this broken body Arician. Straining to reach out, to touch the magic, magic always just out of reach beckoning luring and tempting me. This was my choice, my choice but … pain, blind they are ... nothing, nothing compared to the loss.” Forlorn I managed barely to raise my head as a multitude of dark thoughts coursed through my mind. My choice made on that cold night, was it really the right one? I slumped down my hands falling limply into my lap.

Arician after a moment broke the silence, “there are ways you know. I lost the weave once, had it burnt form my very being. It took me years to learn a new way A new path to what I once had. Heh, what I knew was Power, Power useless and destructive.”

I snapped around shaking my head and gave Arician a disbelieving look. It was hard to fathom anyone reduced to this state, let alone Arician. “For me there is no other way Arician. Well yes there is one but not one I wish to take.”

“No? The weave has many strands one can pull. To assume we can only reach one in our lives is folly.”

“Power is not destructive Arician, it is seductive. The power is a rainbow of shimmering colours more lustrous than the finest pallet, sounds that echo beyond those of mortal hearing. Even its merest caress is more heady than the riches wines.”

“You speak of power's truth. I speak of power's folly.”

“But Arician its touch oh its touch ...” I felt myself shivering from half remembered ecstasies recalling the flow of magic coursing through me. Even my gifts now gone for months, the touch of the arcane flooded my mind overwhelming me with memories. My heart felt near to bursting with the longing. I felt Arician hand squeezing mine. Slowly a warm trickle of burning radiance crept up my arm. I thought I could almost see the arcane light spring forth from Arician’s hand. A shimmering nimbus of silver light surrounded his hand with tendrils of the lights-aura creeping up my arm.
“Please no Arician. I know you mean well but this is more than I can bear.” Futility I sought to slip my hand out of Arician grasp, but I was betrayed by my longing desire to experience the magic’s touch once more. My hand twitched as cold shivers coursed through my body in response to the aura touch. “I can feel it, your touch. It is a craving, a hunger that never leaves. Please I want that, I need that, I feel it, I can even taste what you are doing.”

“You mistake my meaning, this is not charity. That hunger is the curse of feeding on that which is not true. Then listen and try a different road you already paid you debt.”

“Every little strand, each touch brings a fiery ecstasy.” Feebly I managed to shake my head no, my body lost to the auras sensations.

“That is because it is stolen away from its source. There is only one goddess of magic, Mystra.

“Arician this is the payment. What I am, what I have become is the payment. This … this” With tears of rage I tugged at the bandages wrapping my face. My clawed hands scrabbled over my face unable to even grasp my tattered wrappings. I slumped forward in defeat angrily clenching my hands in front of me “These”

“At least learn what Mystra feels like. Must I force my palm to have you even see?”

“I know what you do Arician, I feel the magic. But it is like I am chained to a wall and set before me is a bountiful succulent feast of wonders. What you do only strengthens my cravings. This only makes the longing worse.”

“You do not fathom what I hold and cannot less you reach out for it.”

“It is what she wanted Arician. What she wants me to do.” Tears stained my bandages as I collapsed into a fit of weeping. All’s that I could manage now was an endless rocking back and forth repeating in dirge like fashion the same litany over and over.

“I don’t want to I don’t want to I don’t want to… “

After a time Arician clear query broke me out of my state. “Why?”

“The path Arician, the path a different choice will take me, that path!”

“And stronger you could survive it. So let me show you what true strength is. You don’t understand. Please, let me show you what I did. You fear the darkness on your road the twisted thing at the end of power. I know full well your fears.”

“I don’t fear survival Arician. No that never that.” My voice diminished down to a mouse-like whisper, “I fear I would embrace it.” With that I collapsed weeping silently “Alone I simply wish to be ... alone.” Even the rains started again keeping time with the tears streaming down my cheeks.

Arician looked over small wet red stains on the bandages about my face tenderly brushing away the tears from my cheek. “You're stubborn you know that.”

I closed my eyes by body exhausted by the emotional turmoil swirling inside me yet thankful Arician had stayed. Slumping forward I slowly slipped into a fretful sleep indifferent to the soft patter of the cold winter rains.

Because for conversations deserve to be told. Based on in-game logs. I would like to thank hellscream123 and spellblazer for their permission to use the dialog from that night

[gathera]

It was another day same as the last, same as the day before it, my endless cycle. Each day bled into the next until it was all one big haze. This one was at least a bit better. Marister had brought me fruit. I always try to save a little but that never works. I remember telling Marister how once I would only eat things red in hue. Those day are long gone now, aren’t they. Now a piece of mouldy bread, a bit rotting fruit, whatever I can scrounge, I eat. I all tastes the same to me anyway, bland flavourless, like dust. Well thank the gods for that small kindness. I wrinkled my nose in disgust as a sudden putrid odor wafted through the village square.

“Oh no, the fruit is spoiled already. ”

These days that was enough to bring me to curses and tears. It was not fair, the fruit was just a day old and now and it already stank of rot and decay. Resigned I stuffed in the last bits in my mouth before the taint spread further. Odd I though the odor still lingered on the air. There was a small rustling quickly followed by the pungent aroma of tobacco smoke. At least the smoke masked the miasma of whatever was putrefying near here.

A small hacking cough followed the smoke, “You look like you've had a rough time.”

I lifted up my head for a moment wiping away the juices from my lips with the back of a dirt-caked weather worn sleeve. “Ah yes miss It has been a hard winter and a winter not yet over either.”

Once more the spicy scent of tobacco filled the air around me. “Ah, my dearest apologies... It certainly has been rough, but why are you... sitting there?”

“Really quite simple miss it hurts to stand for any time. It is hard to walk any distance and many pass through the village square. Sometimes those passing by help out with a bit of food a coin or two.”

The strange woman seemed curious, “The… hmm… your legs are the issue? What happened to you my dear?” I could sense her hovering over top me. Then a soft and strangely sticky touch. It was a gentle touch but just odd. Her hands felt a puzzling combination of rough soft wet and dry all mixed as one. “Are you blind, too? My my, what visitations you have received.”

“You have such a gentle touch miss. As for my conditions I owed a debt, a payment was required. I have my life. The debt was paid but...Now I just … Exist” my voice faltered for a moment hanging on the last word.

“But... now you just sit and accept this? A terrible state of being. There's so much potential, wasting.”

“No miss not going to ... accept. Not anymore.” I hesitated for a moment. Then the words just poured out of my mouth, tumbling in an uncontrolled jumble. “May I ask you a question?”

“Of course you may. I'd rather be better speaking to the tree if I wanted no response.”

Undaunted I pressed on before my nerves faltered. “It is .. a simple question with a difficult answer and I have asked the tree the fire and the air. They didn’t answer. So will you?” I licked my lips for a moment “Is it ... is it wrong. Is it wrong to take another … someone’s life to… to save your own?”

I felt myself blushing before the final words had even slipped out. “Sorry I probably shouldn’t have asked you. Just that that question makes many … well uncomfortable.” I knew she felt my discomfort with the asking.

The strange woman said nothing only inhaled sharply on her cigarette and settled down beside me. “No no, you should have. What are we if not creatures of curiosity and wonder? When life has so much to offer, one must consider many things.”

“Yes” as I quickly turned my head to face the stranger my face lit with rapt attention. ”Yes exactly that, curiosity and wonder” my head slumped crestfallen. “Once.” In frustration I rapped the back of my claw-like hands hard against the dirt. I blinked away a few tears at my silly futile frustrations. I did sense the stranger understood at least a little of my feelings. There was neither outcry nor mocking taunts. Instead after a discrete moment she continued on.

“Not only do I accept that taking another’s wellbeing and life in order to improve your own is a method many consider valid, but rather, I would even encourage it. We are all animals.. and this is our jungle, as it were. And in this habitat, the strong survive, and the weak perish. You follow? Ah, not all wonders are good, hm? Some things are better left unexplored? My philosophy, my dear cripple, in this world, all things waste, and rot away. To survive, one must embrace the struggle, and the desperation to survive, one more day, one more breath.”

I was more than a little shocked at the woman’s brutally blunt honesty. “It is her way, my Queens ... a bit at least ... More than a bit. Waste and rot Yes.” My blood was up as my anger kindled by her worse ignited. “Yes that is all I do!” I could taste the bile of my rage spilling in my mouth as months of pent-up frustrations exploded.
“I silently sit in my alcove until I stir myself to wander out for scraps then back again, one day bleeding into the next. I am sick to death with this sick to death.”

“Never accept what you have, always grasp for greater.. and if there are people in your way, push them aside. They have no such illusions of kindness for you. For myself... your eyes do not see the beauty of my form, but you must be able to smell it?” The stranger rose in a swirl of smoke and miasma.

I was stammering angry confused my mind clouded by her words and faint from hunger. “But …”

“Ah, do go on...”

“I cannot ... It is wrong ... But is it? I don’t know, everything is upside down now.”

“Your eyes, and your mind are so very clouded hmm?”

“It is all a muddle. What you say makes sense but then it doesn’t. I ... just don’t know and time runs short. The glass is near empty. I cannot do this”, plucking at my strained ragged robes, “I cannot do this anymore.”

“but.. I cannot do what is needed either.” My head slumped down as unbidden tears trickled down my cheeks.

“Each to their own.. but I found my salvation through my pains and afflictions... You.. My dear, you find yours a prison. Trapped in your frail form, stripped of all that made you strong. Your mind is as dark as your eyes. You need.. to wake up.” With that the stranger inhaled sharply on the cigarette then with a practiced motion dropped to the ground crushing it beneath her heel.

I rubbed at the bandages with the palm of my hands, my head was swirling with a myriad of thoughts swirling in my mind. “Do I? Do ..I. “ I drew in a long slow breath as I came to the inescapable conclusion. My mind clarified, all my disjointed thought crystalized with what the stranger had said. She was right. “Your right.” And she knew it.

“In the embrace of great afflictions I hold, I am no longer afraid, for with her pestilential favour I have become that which I once feared: Death. And through that, I fear nothing.. You have your own struggles and choice.. but my dear, seeing you wasting..”

“You are ..right.” a touch of awe crept into my voice.

“It is an insult to many.. This life is a gift, and you should not leave it, as a whisper.. but with a roar. Even if you should fail, and whatever suffering and doom awaits... it's better than this.”

“Better… Yes better than this. You ..you are right.”

“She sent you. Didn’t she. The Queen.” I managed only a forlorn shake of my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“My mother sent me. Maybe they are one and the same.. it's not for me to know. It doesn't matter.“ The stranger’s voice positively rang with pleasure.

I trembling I slipped to my knees prostrating myself, pressing my face into the dirt I spoke the lilting musical language that was ancient when Corymr was a primal trackless forest.

“Jl Cueem oq bye miryb Oq Aih amk Kahpmeww I soje deqohe lou. I assetb. Ib wyagg de kome. Fyab lou fiw.”


I lifted my head from the dirt. Twin tracks of mud stained my face from the rivets of tears streaming down my cheeks.

“There will be a storm soon.”


A big thank you to Creasus for permission to use the in-game conversation in writing this story also a shout out of thanks to Animayhem for a host of fun ongoing interactions as well