Today was an almost unmitigated disaster.

I spent my morning like I have spent most mornings recently, studying underneath the older dungeon. At around noon when I was done for the day I became aware of the fact that some of my trees were burning.

I wasn’t too worried about this, it happened sometimes and my trees are fire-resistant enough that even a tree in full blaze isn’t enough to start an actual forest fire. The wood simply doesn’t burn hot enough to spread.

But then my trees warned me that they were under attack, which I still wasn’t terribly worried about. We could deal with most threats with ease, especially this deep into my forest. It didn’t occur to me then that the fact that my forest was being attacked this deep inside was cause for concern.

I wasn’t concerned until I arrived on the scene and saw a small army of flying angelics lighting parts of my forest on fire, but even then it was something I could deal with. Putting the fires out was simple enough, but dealing with them was troublesome. Reaching up that high with plants isn’t impossible, but it is annoying and slower than I would have liked. I probably should have realized then that the area they were attacking had nothing of value beyond my forest. The enemy knows where our cities are, they wouldn’t attack blindly. But I was still distracted by what I had learned that day and wasn’t thinking everything through.

It did strike me as odd that no one else had arrived to support me in fending off these angelic soldiers, but I was enough to deal with them even if it took a while so that didn’t concern me.

I was not truly worried until I received word from Par that our capital was under attack, the telepathic communication was hazy and indistinct. So I tried to teleport back, but some other magic stopped it, it felt very similar to what happened with the plant destroying enchantment.

That was when what had happened dawned on me. This small Warband was nothing more than a way to distract me from the real threat, an actual full-sized army attacking our heart. They show up, light a few fires to tick me off, and keep me stuck there long enough for me to not be a threat. They couldn’t beat me, so they weren’t tying. Instead, all they cared about was slowing me down and preventing me from interfering.

I could have disabled their enchantments with the simple enchantment killer I know, but the process of building that is slow and waiting for it to have an effect that high up in the sky would be much slower. I did try nonetheless, but I was banking mostly on other means of escape.

I tried boosting my walking speed to extremes, but they were able to somehow sense that and put up a wall blocking me, I didn’t have the reflexes to dodge it. Not my proudest moment. Going any slower than my fastest wasn’t enough either, they had a very durable speedster that I couldn’t really take out or distract.

I only managed to get out of there in time to actually make a difference because of the soul buffs I was taught. Changing those out as needed helped a lot, though it wasn’t until I destroyed their corpses and everything on them that I was able to escape.

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I killed them, and I know I should be regretful about that. But I just can’t bring myself to feel appalled about killing an enemy anymore, especially not one that was actively invading my home.

When I got to the capital I say it was on fire, being destroyed again. The civilians had already been evacuated and the soldiers were actively fighting off the enemy hoard.

What must have been the entire angelic council was there, burning everything they could and trying to kill our elites. My paladins were holding off four of them, and as I watched managed to kill one with help from Par. The lich was there, his undead army clashing with Azrezel’s, the adventurer we sent to die at his hands leading the charge. Azrezel was performing admirably, but the other necromancer had simply been around for a lot longer and has had more experience.

Tiddol was injured, though recovering thanks to a healing potion she drank. She wasn’t as durable as the rest, nor was she able to hurt one of them in a straight fight, but she still managed to decapitate one with a poisoned wire, I found out later that he had some powerful regenerative abilities.

And Willow, my eldest child Willow. She was the one causing most of the fires. With a type of power that should be beyond her means by several years at least, if not decades, she struck out with her lightning and her storms with a kind of fury that confused me. What could have made her so angry?

In hindsight, I realize that I was somehow partially cut off from my hivemind until the moment I managed to escape from the distraction. Which is how they distorted communications and prevented my teleportation. Reconnecting with it I felt pure, unbridled rage and fear surge through me, compounded by my own personal rage and fear from seeing so much of what I love hurt and damaged, and seeing Willow work with the enemy so openly. It’s one thing to hear about it, it’s another to see it.

I do not remember what happened after that, only that when I awoke everything was ash and fire and I was severely wounded, poisoned with something that slows healing, something strong.

I was told afterward that most of the civilians just went limp, I had taken everything that they didn’t need to keep themselves alive. I apparently caused a lot of damage. Thousands of enemy soldiers died in the initial surge, and again I can’t bring myself to care. I forced Solar Energy into the bodies of our enemies, with the expected results. According to Azrezel, I ripped the soul of the lich out with my bare hands after failing to kill him in other ways. And so many other things.

And the worst part? Someone recorded it with something Tiddol made. I watched everything from beginning to end. It was brutal and made me sick, despite an empty stomach I wanted to throw up, I still want to, thinking about it. I still don’t believe that the girl with the insane expression wielding plants was me, that thing did so many horrible things to so many people that I refuse to believe that we are the same person. Is this what it’s like, being a berserker with an uncontrollable rage? I understand better now what Thes must have been going through.

I hate this, I hate this so much. Even if the anger isn’t mine I hate losing myself to it. I need to figure out a way to fix this, if I can’t remove the anger and other emotions then I need to at least figure out how to control it. But how?

I know that parts of the soul are dedicated to emotion, perhaps the solution is in there somewhere. I doubt the various emotion affecting plants I have would be helpful here, they would only affect my own emotions. I might be able to do it with soul energy, but any solution there will take months if not years.

I can and will think this over more tomorrow, but for now, I am tired, anxious, and a little scared. I was to cuddle with Azrezel for a bit and maybe fall asleep in his inviting, cold arms.

Anyway, Good Night Diary.