Death Becomes Me

[Vaelek]

Death.

I've heard it described in a number of ways.

One hears it spoken primarily as a description of an ending.
I've been taught to see it as a junction in a longer road.

What I see it as, is my long pending.. Beginning.

Undeath.

I've heard it described in a number of ways, too.

My comrades refer to it as a crime.
The commoners surrounding me speak of it as an evil.
Those I hunt sing it's worth as scientific extension.

Such ignorance.
I've seen what lays beyond this passing reality, heard the voice of the one awaiting beyond it.
To cling to this life so desperately as they do, it is a passing bemusement to I, who knows the truth.

To rob and belittle those who have passed onto the greater next step, however, boils my blood.
Ignorance can never be forgiven, when it leads to the crime and evil of denying what must be.

That nothing is eternal is my greatest solace.
My struggles, their idiocy, these places..
To know there will one day be reprieve from all of this, is bliss.

Knowing that I can vent my hatred, the fuel of my existence on those who disrespect the dead without recourse.. Is ecstasy.
Kelemvor is perfect.

Each time the whisper of his divine breath reaches my spirit, my spine tingles. My jaw goes slack, and knees fail me. The hair on my neck pricks upwards as I feel the pleasant arousal of my body to the call.
And he asks so little.

To speak of him is the greatest joy.
To watch and comfort those preparing to meet him, is the greatest envy.
To return those lost to his kingdom, is my greatest pastime.

My only hindrance, my terrible regret.. Is that he does not allow me to join him. To be taught that life must be respected, that I must endure the years until my ultimate service can be rendered.. Is agony.

Every battle I face, the thrill, burst of adrenaline and terrible fear overtake me. Knowing every move, jab, slash and lunge could prove to be the fatal mistake that ends me, is both exhilarating and overpowering.
How many times have I fallen, at the brink of his kingdom, only to find it was still not my time?
How many times have I passed on, my body still warm, to find that those with "good intentions" force me back?

Agony..

Yet I endure.
I continue, unable to end it for betraying his will.
And unable to stop the confrontations that whet my passion, for fear of losing his favor.

Someone once asked me, what right I had to end the ambitions of intelligent undead. Vampires.
I laugh at it now.

If only they knew.. What they were missing.

If only they knew ... the truth.

They will. I will show them.

I will bring their lives, their beings, their existance - to nothing ...

and I will show them everything.

[Vaelek]

How did it come to this?

Cirion's lifeless eyes gazed back at me as I withdrew the blade from his side.
Confusion was the only expression written out over that blood stained face, before his body fell limp to the ground.

What brought me, to a breaking such as.. This?

Syran the Heretic's inane gurgle of laughter boiled up over the cries of agony from the fleeing town's people,
fire consuming every one of them that caught his attention.
It was only the clean up, now.
He had already killed the other clerics and prospective Doomguides, as they had trusted me to lead the offensive.

And I betrayed them.

Disbelief swelled in my gut as the field of dead I sat alone turned to silence,
the vampire's frenzied feeding stealing him further and further away.
Cirion was the only one I had dealt with personally.
The others, I had left to the undead.

I couldn't look at them in their last moments.
Acolytes I had taught myself, former brothers of the Eternal Order I had drilled every morning for the past countless months.
Even Brimlor.
Friend, brother, rival.
His smaller Dwarfish figure stuck out on the road of fallen defenders, his cuirass obliterated by the force of Syran's killing strike.

Had I not wanted this, when I swore myself to Myrkul?
Had this not been the ending I sought?

..Was killing these, my friends, worth my revenge on Kelemvor?
The faces of the newly fallen gave me no answers.

Instantly, panic struck. I had to save them, while there was still time.
Before I could understand my own decision, my voice had erupted into a scream,
my feet leading me into the depths of the burning temple.
Kerejiah and Tristan were the first ones out, as I called to them to save those outside, and flee the yard.
I was just behind them.

No coherent thought stayed with me as I waited, watching in hopelessness as Kerejiah fumbled around the dead.
All that was there was my own painfully loud heartbeat, and the crushing guilt.

As wounds were mended, prayers said and the figures of both Cirion and Brimlor stirred again, the panic finally subsided.
Only to be replaced with the new realization.
I had given Brimlor up in the fight, and dealt Cirion his final blow myself.

What could I do, other then run?
Stepping between the bodies of those I had betrayed, I fled from the confused cries of former brothers and friends.
There was only one place to run to now.

[Vaelek]

I calmed myself in the relative safety of the Necropolis.
It was here, after all, that I had realized the depth of Kelemvor's falsehoods, and sworn myself to Myrkul.

..Yes, it was here I spat on every action I had ever taken until that point.

The few priests that maintained the lichyard's guardians stared back at me with either confusion or open malice.
I could not blame them.
How many of them had I killed in this very same place?
How were they to accept the Doomguide that haunted their steps as one of their own?

I collapsed within the great hall of the Necropolis, sprawled out before the stairs that led to the overlooking throne.
It was that throne, oddly enough, that had led me to the Lord of Bones..


My mind wandered back to the start of it all..


The Judicator Solerena was not an unattractive woman, nor was she particularly alluring.
While infinitely more charming than the Brother Kerejiah, or any of her male counterparts in the service, it was impossible to consider her beyond a professional sense.
Her eyes hinted at the deep kindness she often displayed, combined with the stern severity of her high station.

I had never, until this point, felt so much as a shred of disrespect or anger towards her person.
Things were different, now.

"What do you mean, we're not pursuing Katria's case?"
Katria. The vampiric daughter of Hadavi.
I had met her before, when I was a guest in their estate, privy to the touching hospitality of vampires.
It had also been my personal quest to finish both her and her mother since that time.
"Katria is under the Legion's care, and we have our own suspicions as to her nature."
A pause ensued as I held my breath, the Judicator no doubt sensing my disbelief and frustration.
"You have your orders, Brother Mathell."
Those stern, severe eyes betrayed no remorse at protecting a vampire.
"Katria is, and I will repeat this, not to be harmed or hunted."

Orders?

"I obey Kelemvor's will, Leleca. Not your charmed endearment for a vampire,"
A second pause, just short enough to have the severe glow of her face swallow the entirety of her expression.
"And I will deliver the Judge's sentence on the vampiress."

Before I had time to turn with my defiance, spout another disagreement or prepare for the finale, she had her final blow spoken.
"Your place as a Doomguide does not put you above fault or error, Mathell!
Do not presume to place your own desires in Kelemvor's word!"



The memories faded in a burst of light and screaming.

The Necropolis doors were flung open, and immediately the great hall was in chaos.
Other followers of the Reaper had gathered around me as I laid there, and the Kelemvorites had followed me after them.

Brimlor was leading them.

[Vaelek]

The battle was a hopeless cause.

My former brother had spared no time to question me.
Several Dwarves rushed us at the far end of the hall in the blink of an eye,
a Hand of Mundus tearing down the hasty wards we stammered to erect.
Before I could understand the gravity of the situation, I was face to face with Brimlor.
Doomguide fought Doomguide, our swords clashed with the latent energy of their enchanted runes.
Twin blades, forged for the sole purpose of annihilating undead, brought to clash with one another in a fury.

His eyes spoke only the accusation I had feared, the depth of the hurt my betrayal meant.
It was a fleeting exchange.
I couldn't stay in the face of that accusation.
The truth that haunted me still, and the pain of the deaths I had wrought.

Again, I ran.

Sacrificing the priests that had entered the hall after me, I ran from my 'haven', out unto the lichyard bathed in moon light.
More deaths of the ones I swore myself to stand beside.
Kelemvorites, Myrkulites, it didn't seem to matter who stood beside me.
Their fate would be the same, the moment they depended on me.
When had death become such a terrible thing to me?
When had the fate I so wished for caused me such pain to see, brought by my actions or otherwise?

As I ran and ran, the memories came back to me again in startling reality, replaying the steps that had brought us to this..



"I warn you, Red Blade. I am powerful."
The last confrontation with Katria.
I had not expected to find her so easily.
It made the insult all the worse when I did, to find her idly enjoying the Exigo Post.

They had even accompanied her with a Red Blade as her bodyguard.
Onlookers swarmed the site with their protests.
I was instantly made the villain, for fulfilling my duty.
For saving them from a vampire.

"I don't care what you are, no one touches this woman while I'm escorting her."
The Blade could be forgiven for simply fulfilling her duty, I decided.
She may not even know Katria's true nature, a simple guard without the full story.
The man that came next could not be.
"If it isn't the legionnaire that protects undead abominations."
Peridan had arrived at the scene, quick as a flash as I readied my spells, he was set to protect her.

"If it isn't the Kelemvorite that disobeys his own council."

What was his problem?
This was a vampire we were discussing, not one of his brigand outlaws.
The necessity to end her should have been evident to all.
Especially a friend.

No other words could mark that brief, fleeting exchange between us.
He had chosen a vampire, and he had forever distanced himself from me for it.
Could I bring myself to fight Peridan, a Blade and the vampiress at once?
I wasn't in the slightest in doubt of my own competence.
But Peridan?
How many times had we fought together?
How many times had we met as brothers in arms, trusting the other with our lives?

I couldn't bring myself to fight him.
Not yet.




Brimlor's shouts woke me from my vivid recollections, his party rounding off my escape.
A final struggle ensued as I called for the lichyard's wardens to protect me..
And we were again defeated.
The words that announced my surrender were bitter and lingering.
I was bound and dragged to the Sundren prison.

[Vaelek]

Do we always see the truth, when it stares us in the face?

Will we always know what is right, and what is wrong?
Which path to take, at what time.

I certainly did not know.

As I stand here, flanked by the necromancers I have spent all my life hunting, guarded and revered by their necromantic abominations..

I ask myself, anew, did I make the right choice?



My time in the Sundren prison was short and unproductive.
Brimlor's equivalent of a questioning was a thorough beating and a great deal of one sided shouting.
I hardly took notice of the latter.

Within a day, I was transferred to the Corps de Grace jail, in Sestra.
The villagers were restless as the troop that led me in chains passed through the town.
Confusion was the primary expression shared between them.
I idly wondered how long it would take them to realize what the militia hadn't told them.
I was instantly thankful I wouldn't be in public when they did.


I had many visitors, in the Corps de Grace headquarters.
Triadic Knights, Hands of Mundus, disbelieving former comrades and curious adventurers alike.
Thinking back on my with them now, I have to admit, I find it amusing.
My most heinous crime, the unforgivable wrong doing, was turning to the Lord of Bones.
A deity they knew nothing of, beyond rumors and time worn prejudices.
The same people that had accepted Kaizen the Stormlord as a trustworthy ally in battle, now spat the words traitor and abomination at me.

The bitterness that grew in captivity did not waver easily.
Obviously, I eventually escaped.
After satisfying the curiosity of my captors, the time inevitably came when the Myrkulites saw fit to rescue their powerful convert.
And so I have been hunted since.


A shortened version.
But there's little more I could care to share, on that time.
Were I willing to detail the grief Luther expressed at my 'falling', or the loathing and disdain the Kelemvorites cast at me..
It would still mean nothing.
Because the reason for what is, and what I've become, no longer means anything to the people of Sundren.
Only what I am.
No Kelemvorite has ever stood against my faith and lived in Sundren since I left them.
A revenge of it's own, knowing them to be crippled without me.


Though..
The question remains.
Did I make the right choice, in choosing Myrkul as my new sovereign?
I do not regret leaving Kelemvor.
I stood for over twenty years with the truth in front of me, and did not see it.
That I never knew the god I served, that I never truly knew the cause I fought for.


After Peridan had protected Katria from me, I ran from ally to ally.
Some offered their sympathies, other their arguments to his cause.
Sympathies.
I ran to my comrades, and found lofty words to express a passing discomfort.
Had I anywhere else to run to?

I could not make my way to Katria without fighting my friends, and could not destroy her without disobeying my own temple's command.
So, I did what I knew how to do, where I could.

The Necropolis has proven a challenge to many in the past.
It was an every day excursion to me.
The Myrkulite priests fought with their typical fervor, their minions with their typical inefficiency.
Unsatisfying slaughter in place of a more pressing need.

Before my mind had settled on where my feet were taking me, I had placed myself on the Bone Throne in the Great Hall, and instantly the walls around me disappeared.
And then, there he was.

A tall, dark robed figure with scythe in hand.
A Greater Death of the Reaper, and a being I had met only in feverish nightmare.
We spoke to such lengths, he and I.
When combat was made evident to be nothing more than foolish, we spoke, yes.
He shared with me the teachings and principles of his god, and I shared with him mine.
It was in the hours we spent together, unraveling the deeper meanings of the dogma and all my accumulated crusades, that I was confronted with my misunderstandings.
The depth of my ignorance on Kelemvor's true teachings, the full force of the inconsistent, bloated mortal representatives he chose to bless above my station.

The faith that sustained me through all trials of pain and anguish broke.
To anyone not a man of the cloth, you may never understand.
The deepest, otherwise untouchable trust we place in our god.
A love that transcends imagination and reason, an irrational leap into the will of the deity we serve.

And in that moment, it was forever severed.

It was as though I had for the first time seen the true face of a lover, after countless years side by side.
An unveiling of truths that shook me to my core.
It was not that Kelemvor was evil and Myrkul was not.
It was not that Kelemvor was wrong, and Myrkul was right.

It was that I no longer could claim to know the god I had so dearly loved.
A Doomguide no more, and never again.
There was no simple solution, not now, to mend my error.
I had lied to myself, as much as Kelemvor, in my devotion and blind fervor.

What could I do, in the face of a truth I had never seen?
Where could I go, in that vulnerable, outcast moment?

A hand was extended, and in grief and despair, the longing for a place to belong extended mine in return.

And now, I pay the price for it every day.

There is nowhere for me to go.
I have slain former brothers and comrades alike, turned my back on the morals I once held so high.
I have become as they.
Even should I come to know Kelemvor again, there is no place at his side.
And no other god would take this broken priest of the dead.
Even the vampires I pursued have stood by my side.
The cause that had me become as I am mocks me daily, awaiting a time when I break under their strain.
So I run all the harder to escape it.

I have become, by choice, a herald of the darkest death..
And a greater evil that lays beyond.