I still remember the moment. It is etched upon my mind as if branded.
There, between us, was the shadow of a being. Winged, with headdress and decidedly non-human form. Its splash of azoth lifting me whilst turning the corruption strike as easily as the wind turns a feather; the corruption itself whiffing into light smoke that disappeared without so much as reaching the shadow’s nebulous form.
Who was this mysterious saviour? This is the question that will not leave my mind. I cannot yet know if I wish to thank them or throttle them. Why did they save me without any explanation? Do I truly wish to find out?
I woke upon a beach and made my way stiffly to a lookout tower and campfire. Apparently, you need only be a warm body willing to work in Aeternum; a state I happily accepted and initially mistook as an improvement over the world so recently departed.
As the days grow shorter and the air cools with seasonal change, the weight of fighting for survival in this world is heavy; doing so without understanding or any sense of hope or purpose? This must be a test. A sampling across the nations and empires of the world; Job wasn’t good enough! Now, we are the challenged.
Well, that is what I laughingly say when we gather to feast, drink, and pretend we are still the people we were when waving our friends and families goodbye. The fact is, there are none among us willing (capable?) of uniting the companies, let alone the factions.
Least of all, not I.
But in my deepest heart, I hope to be wrong, else no battle or invasion matters! If correct, these are simply diversions to keep us from uniting as beings who are champions of the community of the living, our collective dreams and hopes, and the covenants upon which they stand.
How Iago would laugh at me to read this! But I have learned from the notes found along our journey; I too, will document my travels as did those who came before.
Perhaps, eventually, we will earn the grace, poise, and power of that mysterious savior. Perhaps then, we may enter the peaceful abundance of life in this beautiful land. Perhaps then, we will be wise enough, strong enough, and united enough to free this, our new world, from the shadows of corruption and despair.
~mid autumn, Weaver’s Fen, errant~
from the journal of Yeshes, the scribe