Words from a Traveller

Over the years much has happened. In the beginning I would never had thought I would encounter so many people and go through so many ordeals and see so much. I never would have dared to dream of it.

And now I’m not certain that I would have, even if I someone would have offered me the opportunity. It’s not what you expect when you are in the middle of it. Afterwards you look back and you see how things turned out and how it slowly changed you to something different, someone different.

Back when it all begun I wouldn’t have wanted that even though I now wouldn’t had wanted anything else. But if I were me as I am now when it begun, wouldn’t it have turned out completely different? Wouldn’t all the choices I was faced with have been different? Wouldn’t I change again, from this to something else entirely again?

Nobody knows, nobody can know. Even seers or prophets or witches or oracles can really answer that question. Maybe the Creator could have answered, but the Gods could not. I find some comfort in that, after all that has happened. To know that even if you are as powerful as the Master Archmage Ian Mine you still cannot know for certain how things could or will turn out for sure. That gives me hope that we have some freedom in life, even if we are trapped by our choices.

But back then, when I was only a clerk for The Guild, I would never have concerned myself with questions such as these. The career was the only thing that was on my mind. The politics, the bribery, the treachery and my own advancement. Now when I think about it I’m disgusted by parts of my old self. How could I accept the corruption and not fight it rather use it to my advantage? Didn’t I see how people suffered? I guess I didn’t.

But as the first person I encountered after being freed from the cells said; there is never only two sides to a single coin. There are always hidden sides and sides that we yet cannot se. I realize now how true that is. It doesn’t matter on which side I’m on or what I do; I will always fail to understand all sides and completely miss other sides as long as I am on anyone’s side.

Like later, when I was once again captured by villagers, how they could defy their lord like that. Later I realized that the Lord had abandoned his duty to the people, but it was first months after I killed him together with the mercenaries that I learned that he hadn’t known what he was doing since someone was manipulating him with false reports. When I found that the mayor, who had captured me to begin with, was guilty of this crime I almost killed him too. Only sparing him since he had brought the villagers what they wanted, what they needed and made the sin somebody else’s.

I really thought I could bring justice to people only because of my power back then. Thinking it was my place to decide if someone were to live or die. I guess the power really got to me there in the beginning. It was not like I’ve had asked for that. It just descended upon me, strangely as it seemed. A vampire told me once that my power seemed pure to him. And for vampires pure is bad. Even so we got along just fine, until he betrayed me. Vampires are like that, you can’t trust them. But that’s another story.

The power however turned out to be a living thing. Evolving and merging with my mind. That’s most likely why I was so overwhelmed by it in the beginning. It was so alien and wild back then. I could barely control it to do anything else other than to punish and kill. But it wasn’t a tool of destruction. I realized that when the power stopped working there after I killed that village in rage. They shouldn’t have made fun of me… but maybe I should have controlled my emotions better. But I was young back then, you don’t control your emotions when you’re young. That’s the beauty of youth, emotion is a strange beast giving any youngster a third personality or maybe a fourth if you happened to be a woman.

Yeah, I imagine that the power back then must have seemed similar to what women experience when they menstruate. Like that impulsive aggressive young redhead I met in the ruins when I got lost in the mountains. I travelled with her for maybe a year or two and even with my power I wished I could have hidden under a rock every time she menstruated. She was even more unpredictable then, not that she was even close to predictable otherwise.

I wonder where she is now? Maybe she finally realized her dream? Or maybe she got caught. I don’t know what happened after the Tech Knights forced us to split in order to escape at South Cape. Those technical soldiers weren’t easy to get away from without killing them, and knowing how the balance must be upheld for my power to work that was not an option. But at least I managed to get on that barge.

I think this was the first time I left Katia, even if it was unintended at that time. I still had my issues with the ones who forced me out of The Guild left to take care of. But I guess I learned much being in a foreign country for a while. I think that without my new insights and the new way to use my power I wouldn’t have managed to seek them out. They were a strange bunch those Long Men. I never seen anything like them before and I certainly hope that they found a way to cure their race. I at least achieved to open up that castle of theirs, too bad that the only survivor of that catastrophe died in the attempt. But by the looks of him he had just managed to counteract some of the effects, but not all of them.

I also think that if I hadn’t been with the Long Men I would have killed my fellow Guild Men when I returned. Not even trying to understand why they did what they did to me. Maybe fate had a finger in that too, wouldn’t surprise me after what I learned when speaking to that old man by the campfire some years later.

I think it was soon after this I realized what needed to be done. My power was still growing and after seeing so much I had to find out where the power really came from. In the beginning I thought it was just a gift, maybe from the gods, but as that man told me; nothing happens without reason. A gift such as mine comes from something or someone or someplace and in order to understand I need to realize from where.

I travelled the counties and even taught at the Institute for a while. I tried to get into Stream City’s Chamber of Knowledge, but failed. I could have succeeded if I had used my power, but I couldn’t do that before I knew what really happened when I used it. So I decided to continue my search. I later realized that what I sought probably wasn’t even in Katia so I left the country.

Some of those who I have shared my story with thinks that my travel was the most important part of my search while others think that it was only the end of my journey that mattered. I would think that I would never have reached the end without my journey or rather what happened during the journey. I think it took me about twelve years before I found the Sage in question. And it was only thanks to all I’ve been through that I was able to pass his test. The starvation I suffered while in Sancho hardened me enough to survive for his twelve days without water and food and the time I spent in the Lower World kept me sane surviving the darkness. And every person on my journey contributed to my knowledge that helped me answer all of the Sages questions in a satisfactory manner. And I think that without the pain of loosing and feeling so helpless when I saw Hinera burn to the ground with all its people I would probably not have survived the endless pit either. No, it’s the sum of everything that happened that brought me through it all.

And in the end, I already knew the answer. The Sage didn’t really tell me. He only helped me remember. Since the power is a part of me and I a part if it we both know each other. It was so obvious that I should have realized it from the beginning. Only that I needed that journey to be able to understand it. I needed to change to be able to apprehend and be worthy of the full potential of my power. You cannot get anything without the journey, the struggle, the hardships of life. Not even as a God. And this was what I needed to realize.

Now, as I sit here on my mountain looking down on the people down below I wonder if I don’t belong with them. I was one of them, one of the lower of them before one event after another pushed me into this direction. I see now that it was I myself that did all of this. I caused this, not with the power, no… I did it with my behaviour, seeking unconsciously for a reason. Making it all happen.

Anyone can do what I did. I didn’t do anything special. I am not special in any way. When the Creator gives a creature a soul you are able to change and exceed what is normal. But in order to do that, you must realize what it is to be alive. Like the mountain told me; You humanoids do not know what you have until you’ve lost it and then it’s too late. You should listen more to your soul before it cracks and becomes gravel. If you only open your eyes and your hearts anything is possible for anyone or anything.

This is what I have learned.

Remember this.