I write this, shaken. Perhaps it is visible in
the handwriting, the fine trembling I can feel in my limbs. Not a
weakness, or rather, not a physical ailment, but from experience. Many
things have scared me over the years; practical things like avalanches,
enemies that were far greater than I, but through it all I have never
felt scared of myself, until now.
Delving into the barrow was a
mistake. It had already been plundered of some bodies, desecrated yet
with nothing for me to set to rights, the bodies gone. But worse, the
foes we met were what I have now come to know were willo the wisps; evil
undead orbs of lightning that lured and tricked and then decimated us.
We were not ready for foes such as them, ones we failed to hit, time
after time. It is hard to hit creatures that largely have no body,
although I managed at least once. But not as many times as they got me.
I
fell unconscious three times, only to be brought back from that brink
by one of the group, only to fall again instantly as the glowing evils
targeted me, and then later some sort of shadow stalker that played with
us when Idris found the sword he wanted. It seemed determined to take
me down with it.
Death has become a very familiar line on which I
have tread with this group, but none so close, so constant, as in that
barrow. That, in itself, does not scare me. No, it is what I feel
myself becoming that does.
It feels like I brought some of that
death along with me as we left that barrow. I can feel the ability to
grip and pull the line between living and dying closer from the border,
surround myself with it. The knowledge is there, the understanding and
access easier than ever. Whether imagination or not, it feels like
every breath I take draws in a little of that power, that I am no longer
quite as alive as I was before entering that place.
I miss the
mountains. I miss the simplicity of my call back then, before all
this. I miss breathing the crisp air and feeling alive. Will I ever
feel like that again? The power yearns to be called to hand, and I have
my doubts.