Frightful times, but haven't they ever been so?

Every time I wake it is to the criers call of raids that harry the towns.
Small, inconsistent, seemingly random raids.
After the massive attacks I've seen, I should consider these a respite. And yet...I consider them all the more frightening. Either the more powerful beasts are being reserved for some purpose, or some-thing seeks to distract us with the petty attacks.
I do not favor either option.

Though I missed much of the meeting in Branishor, I've heard tid-bits and rumors. I've meant to corner Viv and ask her about some things but I've yet to find a good time to do so. Of any in the Order I know, her I feel the most comfortable in talking to.

From what I hear, opening the doorway and jumping in seems to be a favored notion. Before I left I'd heard some question if there was any other information to be found regarding the era in which those fighters took the 'weapon' into the doorway but I don't think anything is actually known. Pardon me if I sound the coward, but I'd hope we know a bit more before we callously throw lives into Deaths maw.

I've my Royal Crystal back now, thanks to Lucy and 'Tasha, and I oft find myself worrying the crest with my thumb. I'm glad to have my talisman, such as it is, back with me. A reminder, and a promise.

All there is left is to dig; I"m convinced there must be something else in the remaining site. Something to help us gain more insight into how to fight.

Training...a practice that I was never all that fond of doing before my time away. Back then, I'd make a mockery of myself in telling others how lazy and slow I was. I'd laugh as I told them that I wasn't very good at training, that there was no point really in trying. I helped fight where I could and never even cared to think I'd one day be able to do more.

And now, I train so much. But feel as though I get no where. I've spent endless marcs with daggers and blades in the Lair. Certain things come back to me in muscle memory. But in some moves, I hesitate and wait for clarity that will never come. Wait for feedback from vision that isn't what it once was. And those moments of hesitation could be my death. Or another's.

Now I make a joke of it myself again, the lack of training and skill, but behind it is pain and fear. As I watch more and more raids and see tendrils, darkness, and know I am helpless. As I dodge the tendrils from the plateau again and again in my dreams and hear the cry of that volunteer perishing in the dig below.

I have never been much of a "Godly" person. I've seen Gods. Sung for them even. But I was never one for praying to them. And since my time away, I'd mostly pushed them out of mind and hoped that their vision didn't stretch to see my failure and my weakness in leaving, and in the questionable things I did while away. Perhaps that is why my vision never healed; perhaps my shame wasn't punishment enough in their eyes.

I was weak once before, but now I hope to be strong. I hope...and perhaps with some help, I could pray.

Life and Death... Sometimes I believe I think too much. Far too much for a plain rogue who used to be a street rat.

But after advancing through the mountains, taking kicks from centaurs along the way, and getting to the dig - there were too many things, so fast, that now bear some reflection.

I watched volunteers trek through the mountains in a frightened huddle; like a herd of bos. Perhaps unkind of me to think so, but I watched one snap in fear and run off to gods know where. And part of me could not help but feel contempt for the coward, and immediately following, shame for such a thought. I think my heart has perhaps hardened a bit from how I first felt here. I understand that mans fear; but I know there is no room for such in this world, in the things we adventurers face.

I remember trying to get down to the western dig in a violent haze, blades slashing and tendrils slipping along the ground like poisonous vipers. I remember dodging around everyone elses movements, avoiding the tendrils myself. I remember sliding down into the dig, spotting red splashes and thinking nothing of it at first.

And then everything crystallized in a moment of clarity and I saw the emotions flickering across Brou's face. I saw the stark fear in the faces of the remaining diggers as others came down to dispatch the demons. And I saw the torn remains of the body on the ground.

I couldn't think immediately why the body, the sight of that body, evoked a well of sorrow in my heart. It was just a body. How many times had I seen someones remains rain down from the sky when they took an ill planned trip through a cannon? Bodies were torn, and then they came back.

But this one wouldn't.

Whoever that man was, he wouldn't come back. He wouldn't jump up at a monument ready to go. His family wouldn't need to set a place for him at the dinner table anymore. Death had claimed him in an instant, and it was not to be undone.

Which made the translations that Quarrus read out in the other dig site all the more terrible. Death, held at bay by the Seals in the throne room. A weapon, and adventurers failed in detonating it. That dark, metallic hand reaching out ready to claim us all like that poor digger.

Some of us though are so numb to death anymore. Myself included in that. A trip to a monument is a simple inconvenience, not the end of a lifes journey.
Maybe it isn't supposed to be that way though.
Maybe we are the unnatural ones, holding back Death. holding him at bay with childish hands that don't want to face the end.
Maybe the darkness in me, the fear, wants to think so, wants to give up.
Or maybe...I just think too much.

Scraps of stories,
buried treasure?
Deeply hidden past.
How far down,
Whats the measure?
one poor seal to last.
So high above,
feel the zephyr?
Awed by lightening blast.
Keep on digging,
feel the pressure?
Adventurers amassed.