It took many years to find what I was looking for, owing partly to my obligations to my family and my duty as Palon’s Keeper of Lore, or resident historian, if you prefer. That was not to say that my quest was unimportant, but information was scarce and I feared that dedicating all of my time to finding it would consume the life I had built. I marshaled resources where I could and looked into any perishable lead I came across. Nearly a decade after breaking free of Samson, I learned that my quarry could be found in Galeon, the democratic nation located to the south of Resta.
When I finally found this crucial piece of information, Bellarose exhausted every effort to ensure that I would not go alone. She offered to accompany me, but we could not both leave the children. She offered to send for help from my brothers, but they had more important duties. She threatened to speak with my parents before I was forced to point out what could happen to me if another spellwarrior, and especially a templar, should discover what I was looking for. In the end, she reluctantly agreed that there was no one who could go with me. This was to be my final solitary journey.
I left early in the morning, chartering a flight to the Galean city of Rashara. It was there that I discovered a fascinating and diverse culture so unlike my own. Although I traveled under the pretense of visiting the local museums to enhance my understanding of the time before Resta’s founding, I had little time to absorb any such knowledge. I checked into an inn and hastily left the city’s boundaries.
In the hills of Galeon, I was haunted by two visions. Shortly before midday, I saw the halls of Hem Academy once more. My friends were with me, cheerfully talking as we were once known to do. Would I tutor Giselle so that she may finally master the cognitive enhancement spell? I thought I forgotten that name. Even since I returned to Bellarose, I had not spoken with her again. I agreed, only to be assailed by another request. I owed Jarek a favor and his mail was covered in blood. I suddenly noticed that I was already holding a damp cloth with which to clean it. Although the atmosphere was jovial, there was something wrong. Bellarose was clearly upset and never spoke, choosing instead to follow the rest of the group at a distance. And Miles…
Miles was pale, not as I remembered him in our days at the Academy, but as he had been after I made the fateful decision to allow Samson to turn him into a blood thrall. When I looked at him, he glared hauntingly. I tried to argue that his death had been certain had I not made the choice I had, but Jarek said that I should have tried harder to save him. Giselle piped in that the two of us had backup. I looked toward Bellarose, but she remained mute. I claimed that the three of us combined still lacked the power to defy Samson and Jarek called me a coward. Giselle shook her head sadly and said that I had the power to defeat him all along. Had I known that sooner, I could have spared my soul so much darkness. Still, Miles glared and Bellarose looked away.
I turned toward Bellarose and understood what I was seeing. Giselle and Jarek had gone their own way, unaffected by my choices, but Bellarose and Miles were not so lucky. I had condemned one to life as an aberration and the other to sharing the memory and burden of my misdeeds. It was then that I came to an epiphany. By choosing to run away from my friends instead of trusting them, I had fulfilled my original fear of tearing my group apart.
The vision ended then and I once again found myself in the Galean countryside. I appeared to have made some progress, as I had never stopped walking. An hour later, I witnessed my second vision. I stood before Samson once more in the fated inn, but felt an inexplicable compulsion to kneel. I pointedly refused, but that only caused my former mentor to laugh. He knew I was going to kneel, no matter how much I told myself I would not. His smugness angered me deeply for some reason, but as I considered striking him, I was suddenly overcome with terror. I could not help myself from giving in to my compulsion.
When I knelt before the hated man, the walls rapidly erupted in a burst of flames and a roar of primal rage shook the planks of every surface. Although this was far more objectively terrifying than anything I had ever felt for Samson, I oddly found myself emboldened and defiant. The flames surrounded me and I felt an agony that I can only imagine as comparable to the suffering I’d inflicted. With every shock of pain, I remembered every death that I had ever caused. My Hem Academy nemeses, and the templars who attempted to assist them came to mind as I recalled the sensation of being cut by Ethan’s sword. But the sensation was repeated in many places.
The flames, ever a sign of Chaos, signified that I was finally experiencing retribution for the blood on my hands. But as soon as I came to terms with this revelation, my heart was overtaken by a tranquil feeling. The words I heard then, spoken in an ethereal feminine voice, “It isn’t fair,” brought tears to my eyes. I forced myself to stand once more, but as soon as I did, my relief subsided. The flames continued to rip at me once more, but this time I recalled images of the people I hurt not as Garanda, but in my rebellious studies with Samson. The blood mage stepped out of the flames just then, wearing a deviant grin.
I continued to suffer my comeuppance for the blood I chose to spill. As I did, I began to get the sense that I felt exactly what I had done to them or caused to have done. When Miles came to mind, he appeared before me and watched as I continued to suffer. This time, there was no respite from the pain. This made the meaning of what I was experiencing quite clear. I deserved the Gods’ understanding and protection for anything I did as Garanda, but my own crimes as a blood mage could not be so easily forgiven.
When I finally felt the pain of my final victim, a harsh, masculine voice barked, “Never forget that there is no power greater than mine. You will forever carry the memory of your crimes and are doomed to keep them secret, lest the mortal kind you once hoped to champion turn on you.”
I know what you must be thinking, but I am being honest. To be directly spoken to by Gods is very rare, but not unheard of. I felt like I was owed this sort of contact from the beginning, but it was far different from what I expected. It was obvious to me that I had felt the wrath of Chaos himself, but for some reason, he chose to spare my life. For what, I couldn’t say at the time, but I was determined to learn from the experience. When I finally renounced Samson’s teachings entirely, I found myself once again in Galeon, standing outside a blood-streaked cave. I knew at once that I had found the place I was looking for and so, with a great deal of dread, I ventured inside.
The cave was not very deep, and was only inhabited by a single man whose back was turned to me. When I turned him around, I gasped to find a stranger with blood trailing from his neck. He recoiled at the sight of me and slumped to the ground. Faintly, he asked who I was. When I explained that I am a traveling historian, he seemed satisfied with my answer and deigned to tell me about himself.
He was a member of HDL, Galeon’s domestic security force. He was tracking a wicked man who had been attacking people in outlying villages and draining them of their blood. As a result, many of his victims had gone on to do the same, always claiming that they needed to replenish their lost life force. It seemed that I had finally found who I was looking for. When I asked where the man in question had gone, he shrugged and coughed.
He was dying, I realized after he had told me everything he could. He wasn’t yet doomed to be a blood thrall, so I knew that it would be a simple matter to save him from that fate with my blood magic. But as I prepared to do so, I recalled my vow to Chaos. Even to save another man’s life, I was determined to never use blood magic again. So I was forced to kill a man for the last time. In my defense, he had begged me not to let him become like the others, but his death was still another unfortunate result of my own actions.
To this day, Miles continues to elude me and my efforts to stop him from harming anyone else. Therein lies my greatest regret: I have unleashed a monster onto this world that has defied any attempt to slay him. How many people he has harmed, and how many more will suffer at his hands remain a mystery to me. Although I have not yet given up on taking out my old friend, I fear that when I do, I will be overcome with the memory of the splendid man he had been before I submitted to the blood mages. So, here stands my confession; at least, as much of it as I care to remember. But this is not where my story ends.
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