The painted colors of a soft pastel sunset gave way to the grays of twilight as the sun sank beneath the horizon. In time, the deeper darkness of true night claimed the sky.
The large silvery moon shone from the heavens with a myriad of stars as companions, and my party saw to the minutiae of our outdoor camp. Most pressing for us was stretching out the lizard hides before they curled and warped. I had no skill in these matters, so I donned my armor once more and offered to patrol around the camp.
Alone, I wandered around the camp, visor up, to take in as much as I could. Guard duty allowed me to have a little time with my thoughts. Occasionally I would toss a knife into a tree trunk. With every practice throw, I would picture an enemy’s face, as some sort of punctuation to my patrol.
What were my goals? For the time being, I needed to get stronger, in all senses of the word, and I needed to move out of Ansan to explore the greater world. I needed to know more of the powers that moved this world, especially of and the great primal force of Entropy.
Comparing my current health points to what they were when I had first arrived here, It was clear to see how significantly stronger I had grown. This led me to think of all of my fights thus far, which in turn brought me back to my encounter with the elves. I shivered as the horrible memories rose to the fore of my mind. Perhaps I had not grown so powerful after all. Shuddering, I swiftly shifted my attention to something closer to the present.
If possible, I would see about hiring our group out to one of the many caravans that braved the trade routes. But in what direction? Choices upon choices upon choices. Decisions that were not true decisions at all. I felt that something, or somethings, were pulling at me to go in a different direction, to do a different thing.
And of my choices, the most extreme were those when I had been forced to kill. I had killed many times now, and not just monsters. To be absolutely honest with myself, I would probably kill them all over again without a second thought.
After all, their deaths gifted me with experience points. Killing had come easily to me, and bearing the cost, it seems, was not to be too great a burden. Also, I had lost one of the first few friends I had made in this new world during our bid for freedom. I had expected a wave of guilt and sadness to hit me at the regurgitated memory, but strangely I felt almost nothing - a strange sort of emptiness, now that every day was no longer simply a struggle to survive. For better or worse, whatever changes were taking in place in me - Stout Durhit the dwarf would not be forgotten.
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I truly began to understand that things such as guilt, remorse, and other modern sensibilities would only be yet another handicap for me here. Only the privileged and those with advantages could afford to enjoy such luxuries. It was probably at this junction in my adventures that, in my deepest heart, the first seeds of my burgeoning desire for power took root. For with greater power came greater freedom to do whatever I wished in this brand-new world.
But with freedom came something else. These days, I felt more that I was without direction, but this also meant I was, for the first time in my life, truly free. It was ironic that it actually took a fantasy world to move me from my otherwise mediocre and railroaded life. The flames of rebellion stirred—my destiny would not be shackled by the divine. Neither the terrible goddess Avaria nor the void beast Entropy would reduce me to being a slave again.
A wafting smell caught my attention and interrupted my thoughts. There was a delicious aroma that brought to mind the scent of cedar wood spit-roasted chicken. The inviting notes played about in the evening air, drawing me back, a willing captive, to the campfire to investigate.
We sat down to enjoy our simple meal and passed the time in companionable silence, which was occasionally broken by a great belch from Kidu, who offered not a word of apology for his lack of table manners. The meal was flavorful, and each chew brought a burst of flavor that melted across my palate. The meat was reminiscent of something a little between chicken and beef, with some kick from the herbs and spices that Elwin had added. The only complaint I had was that our meal consisted only of lizard meat and tough traveler’s bread. Some vegetables to round out the evening spread would have been most welcome.
Once we were finished, we discussed and reviewed our recent actions, and the surprisingly ‘easy’ challenge of dealing with the quasi-alligators. We concluded that solid preparation and planning were still the keys to our success. Even though in the end we didn’t need to use them, we had no regrets that we had prepared a simple line of traps. After collecting our rewards from the Guild, we would find a caravan out of the city as soon as we could. There were also the Broomshead mushrooms that we had collected for the eccentric alchemist. Since we had collected a rather considerable number of them, we could perhaps bargain for a little extra. Fighting the Karilla and the River Lurkers had completely pushed the matter out of my mind.
When it was time for me to continue my voluntary watch, I excused myself from my companions. I patrolled the environs around our camp, just a little outside the blue Zajasite light at the perimeter.
Alone with my thoughts, a memory rose, unbidden. A picture of a woman with golden trinkets in her hair filled the pit of my stomach with the beginnings of a new dread. We could not rely on our relative anonymity to shield us for long.