I have learned nothing more of Shadow of the
Pride, other than my own lack of skill by comparison. The trials in
this land exceed those I have faced before to such a great extent that I
felt impotent in the face of my ineptitude. She is said to have faced a
green dragon and chased it off, to have lived through whole forests of
plants coming alive, and all that before her main story began in
Barovia.
I have not been to either of those locations near
Phandalin, and perhaps never will. I came here to retrace her footsteps
while forging my own, only to find myself lacking in almost every
aspect. I think it would shame my clan to learn of how poorly I was
able to conduct myself over the last few days. It angers me how poorly I
have fared. Some of it was the result of circumstances set by others,
some of it by chaotic magic, but by far the most harsh were those of my
own failures. Never before have I felt so utterly like a kitten in
skill when faced by any situation, even when I was one.
Yet much
can be learned, I think. I still live despite having found myself on
the cusp of death, clinging onto that side of the divide. Twice in the
dwarven temple I fell, only to be pulled from that brink, once from
combat, the other from having a temple fall down upon me. Then in the
gnome outpost I was brought to the brink of death twice, barely able to
stand, to breathe, yet somehow I managed to cling on to consciousness.
It
is a progression, I tell myself, that I was able to grasp life with a
slightly firmer hand, even if it was only by the thinnest of threads.
The experience left me with a better understanding of the power on that
cusp between life and death, and I was able to grasp how to call more
powerful spells in the aftermath. I survived and in some ways I was
rewarded for it.
I look upon that mountain we were at the
foothills of though, and I worry. No matter what I have gained in these
last days, both in the gravity of the dangers, and in the knowledge
learned, I feel no pull to where there must be many dead upon the
Icespire Peaks nearby. The only time that has happened in the past is
if I am not ready, or not prepared enough, to survive my task there.
Have I joined the correct group? Is it this mountain I should be
setting my sights on? The dragon we have seen in close quarters now is
not something I feel I can travel undetected from, and each foray into
the land around will only bring more deaths that I will have to put to
rest.
Is it then to be my life's work? Or is it a warning to move onwards with the next caravan?
I
think my worries have been getting to me, making me short tempered and
almost irrational after the personal failures of the journey. I found
myself outraged at a town guard today, my usual ambivalence towards
people gone in the wake of his disregard for his own death in time. I
spend my life laying the dead to rest, and his attitude found me
outraged and antagonistic in the extreme. I will not stay at the inn
tonight, the press of people is too much to let me settle. Better for
everyone that I make my own camp in an unused patch of town. Most of
the people in Phandalin have the proper respect for death, especially
with such a potent harbinger as a dragon. I should not judge an entire
town by the attitude of one misguided fool.
Anger is an unfamiliar emotion for me. It is uncomfortable.