Aldric Holt · human · Alliance · Goldshire
EU · Roleplay PvP
I died this evening. I am writing this tonight, upstairs at the inn in Goldshire, with the candle down to a stub. I write it now, before my head makes a better story of it. I want the true one.
Before the work there was the fire downstairs. A man was leaving in the morning and did not say why. We drank to the ones who did not make it, and then to the ones still walking. There was meat on the table, and I said: take some, pass it along. I said it was not a bad night. At that hour it was true.
Then out. Skins first, then the wood south of the road: spiders bigger than any I had met, and quick. They do not come at you straight. A bear down by the lake. The hide came off slower than I wanted. Thicker, more of it, and my hands did not know the way. That kind of work I like best. I would not say so out loud.
Fargodeep is south of the town, and it is hot inside: rock, bad air, no sky. The kobolds do not stand and fight. They come out of the cracks, first one, then more at once, and shout about candles. We went down for the candles they had taken, and found them. The necklace was not where we looked first.
A priest was with me. Anarhain. He never raised his voice while the rest of us shouted. I remember that better than the fight.
Then the heat, and then nothing. I do not remember dying. I remember the air: iron and wet stone. After that I was standing among graves, and it was cold, and my hands were somebody else's.
I walked back through the forest. Nobody saw me, not even the wolf that crossed the path.
I asked for a sign. I do not ask with words. A wolf is a wolf. Cold is cold. Nothing answered, or nothing I could read.
People have a word for this and a hand over the chest. I have no word. It felt like being late for work.
I went down again the same night. I told myself the job was not finished. That is true. It is also not the whole of it, and I am not writing the rest.
The errands took what was left: the necklace given back, the mine walked through and reported. Then the inn and the fire. The talk there is mostly about the road. Somebody raised a cup, and I said the thing I always say: to the ones who wait for us.
No one waits for me. I drank to them anyway.
Tomorrow the pelts go to the tanner. When I took this room I left the door open a hand's width, the way I always do. Tonight I moved the bed against the far wall. The door is where I can see it. I will blow the candle out and lie down.