Through the maze of the dark corridors which mar the Underdark like a hive, I wandered, lost. This place used to be my home, yet everything is now so unfamiliar. Perhaps it is my own depression which fogs my senses, blanketing the familiar in obscurity, regardless I wind my way onward.
My wounds have healed slowly, the draining affects finally dwindling. Yet, I feel detached from it all, the purpose of anything anymore is beyond me now. I haven't eaten in what must be days, and the meager water I have been able to find had an unappetizing scent about it, the sulfurous rotten egg smell that curdles the stomach. I must be a fright to behold, caked in blood and mud, assorted scrapes and scuffs marring my skin, rancorous odor, heavy sleep-deprived eyes festering in my drawn face. I had occassion to suprise a goblin once as I happened about a dark turn. The mere sight of me sent the disgusting creature screaming back down the way it had come.
Perhaps it is for the best, for I haven't really got the spirit within me to fight or go on much farther now anyway. I move of a force beyond anything I can relate to. I seem drawn in this direction, though I know not why. It doesn't really matter. I'm nothing more than a living zombie, reanimated to some unknown purpose, a drone mindlessly trodding onward.
I don't know how long I walked the caverns, it all seems to bleed together in the end. I found myself at a climbing precipise. My fingers bled as the sharp rocks dug into flesh, the handholds barely supporting my weight as I ascended. I mused the result of falling from the rocky cliff, but decided not to bother, and continued to climb. Higher and higher I went, reaching the rocky supports.
Feeling about I found nothing but sharp rock and glistening trails of water. I inched across the crevice, feeling above me as I went, until finally I came to what felt to be a deep jagged scar running through the ceiling. I inched forward, squeezing through the hole and into a cave.
The darkness is not nearly so pervasive here, perhaps this cave has an outlet to the surface. Curiously, the scent of extinguished candles and incense assail my nose, drawing me onward. My feet are leaded, dragging behind me. I am so tired, so broken, so... I turn a corner, lose my balance and fall roughly to the gravel, scraping up my face. The warm trickle of newly drawn blood courses down my nose. I am too weak to even rise anymore. The thought occurs to me that this place is as good a place to die as any, and I close my eyes, and wait.
Time moves on, who knows how long. I think I hear the sound of boots walking across stone, though in my delirium I cannot be certain. "What have we here?" a gruff voice demands. "Indeed, it appears we have an intruder to deal with.", answers a second. The ring of steel leaving scabbard rings down upon me, the footsteps begin a measured advance toward me. "So this is how it ends.", I think to myself, the darkening grip of loss of consciousness stealing into the sides of my awareness once again.
I think I hear a third voice, was it a woman's?, cry "Seneschals, Hold!" But the darkness takes hold, death is near, death is welcome.
Posted by Zayne at November 18, 2003 03:07 PM