NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="soanso" data-source="post: 6268062" data-attributes="member: 6684655">Interlude“It is not from Vudra I have traveled, Sivoulette, but from the Kingdom of the Impossible, Jalmeray; my heart was never meant to study in the fabled monasteries there. We have an obsession with perfection,” Caramour said as he leaned into the fire, crackling it with his breath, causing flames to again jump into the night.  “My journey is one of wonder, ironically impossible if you may. From a young age I knew that my fate was to never stay too long in one place. I was destined to always be on the move. Why Varisia, you ask? Thassilon,” the cleric answered, puffing from his pipe. “Ancient civilizations intrigue me. There is so much to be learned from the past. I am sure you feel the same.”  “Aye,” I said. “But I never intended for this. I didn’t choose this,” I said, refilling my wine. “I never dreamed to find my mother. Shades, I never meant to find a sister- my Shaiira. I meant to live the life of my people, my family. Out on the Storval Plateau…” I trailed off, watching the flames leap into the air.  “That’s it, isn’t it? We don’t choose. Are we chosen? I cannot say,” C said softly.  “To whom do you pray? I see your symbol but I do not recognize it,” I asked, bolstered by the wine.  Caramour studied the fire for a moment. “You could say it is the ideas of goodness, of compassion, love, strength, and justice. Freedom, wind, waves, liberty. Growth, health, retribution. Consciousness. We Vudrans have a different path to enlightenment than you do here. There is not one force, but many that I pray to in meditation.”    I nodded. We sat silently by the fire for a while; the trumpeting flatulence from Mundin’s bedroll announced his turn at watch. C smiled and pressed his hand to my shoulder.  “We are neither chosen nor called, we just are.” The cleric headed to his blanket under the stars.  Mundin coughed and stretched his frame as he came to the fire. “Miss anything?"  “No, friend. ‘Tis a quiet night, save the cicadas.”  He tilted his head. “First thing we’ve heard besides the screaming sage now aye?” He let out a chortling laugh. I smiled. Poor Vohoi had been tormented by the haunts inside the manor- I myself had seen more than I wished to ever recollect.  He took to sharpening his axe blades, then turned to me. “You best turn in, lass. You’ll need your strength tomorrow.”  “I’m not tired,” I said.   “Need ye be petulant still?” He paused his work, and laid eyes to me.  “She was a revenant,” I said after much pause.  “So she was murdered,” he said. “Have ye not seen now what foul things face us? Aye, you’ve met tragedy. I’m not a cold stone, but still stone must face the wind, for the wind never abates. Siv, we need ye lass, at your best.”  Tears rolled down my cheeks. I was never not in control, until now. Mundin was silent as I composed myself.  “There is time for sorrow, Siv. There is also time to rest. This ain’t one of your grand tales to tell, where everyone walks away fine, a good lesson learned. These are the dark times,” he said. I felt the grave in his voice. “You need to sleep.”  I wiped my eyes as the dwarf’s words sunk in. I looked at him, and saw the pain he had, that he carried every day. In sorrow I was not alone; the dwarf’s tale needed telling. We carry with us the stones of legacy. “We fight our ghosts,” Mundin said. “Not by choice, but because we must. Because our past defines us. It will, in time, embrace you, too, child.”  “I see your burden, friend. And you see mine.” I rose from the log and bid him goodnight.  He was right. There are tales to be told, true, but there is also a tale to be lived. Never has the Farateldi caravan been waylaid until now. Never has the clan suffered the injustice of silence. I am the clan, now. And I have a family, Shaiira being first. Mundin, Caramour, Vohoi, Noria are all here. Grandy Vin and PopPop are gone. Mother is gone. Now the yoke is mine, and I stepped to it, bolstered by the words of my brother, Mundin.   “When I sing our tale in my gray hair, good sir,” I said.   “I shall be there to raise a mug in spirit,” he replied. Such is a Varisian exchange, always a promise on both ends.  I was glad to have company by firelight. I retired to my blankets just outside the campfire’s reach. With the weight of the wine I felt sleep swiftly approach, and soon fell to it.</blockquote>

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