Enderal:The Life of Torgan Whispertongue, Volume 3

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  • Airship, Interior
  • Fortress Rockwatch
  • Priest Tolgan's House
  • Residential Barrack, Ash Head
  • Sun Temple - Chronicum - Archive
  • Sun Temple, Emporium
  • Vyn - Enderal (-11, 10) @ Z: 479.298615
  • Vyn - Enderal (-20, 5) @ Z: 3015.363525
  • Vyn - Enderal (-32, 1) @ Z: 920.535767
  • Zorkban's Cellar
Chapter 3
The Abyss

What being pathless entails cannot be known by those who have never experienced it for themselves. Contrary to expectations you don't feel the joy of being freed from your chains, as one might have assumed in my case. It means fear. It means a constant dread. It means a feeling of forsakenness, which can be eased neither by love nor friendship. Nobody can survive pathless, and if someone claims the opposite they are the biggest liar in all of Vyn.

My mother died of her illness and I lost Maressa as I used most of my time to consume drogae. No sane woman loves such a man who is lost in those. Due to my addiction, the taxmen took my parents' house into their custody. My money ran through my hands like sand. Without any means of payment, there was no place for me in the Uppercity anymore.

The Blood Moon Lodge slowly perished due to its ideals. Its members shared my fate: In becoming pathless they had lost their meaning inlife. Quindros Aslodar and some of the remaining members ventured into recklessness — painting curses onto the Temple's walls — and were hung for it.

The muck of Leorans soon stuck to the soles of my shoes as an unremovable companion. Stench and rot plagued my body. My teeth became brittle, and the skin peeled off my bones. I drowned my worries and hopelessness in alcohol. The final remnants of my self-esteem dwindled. The urge to leave my Path had spelled my ruin. Now I suddenly realized that the restrictions of the Path were nothing in comparison to the restrictions of utter freedom. The latter was vastly more overwhelming even though you won't be able to understand it, as you have never felt the same freedom as I have. Bare, merciless freedom can't be tamed. Especially if you are the same weakling as I was and am. If I would have at least had a Path, a firm purpose which I could have adhered to, this avalanche of mischief most likely would never have been set off.

There aren't many happy memories remaining from that time. My daily routine while being Pathless was waking up, taking drogae so I could while away the day, eating any rubbish I could find from the Undercity's streets, and boozing in the evening so that I could sleep. All semblance of organization disappeared from my life. Malphas' pointing and reprimanding hand didn't watch over me anymore. In the Undercity one can't distinguish between night and day, as there is neither sun nor fresh wind. Hence I couldn't say which month or time of day it was as I walked around without rest or aim, as I often did. I was struggling along, holding onto the walls of houses so that I didn't keel over. A band of muggers — no rare phenomena — caught sight of this easy prey and seized their chance. They beat the living daylights out of me only to realize that all they could take off of me was a pouch of Glimmercapdust. Guffawing, they left me lying in a muddy puddle, wounded and bleeding. My limbs hurt, but I managed to crawl forward. Near me a bard was belting out the song of the “Pathless Wanderer.” Scraps of the song accompanied me as I went crawling through the mud. I drug myself into an old masonry which had been forsaken long ago, and was a hidden entrance to the Undercity's catacombs. Rats were gnawing at my body.

Then I saw it in front of me clearly: a pitch-black figure without any discernible facial features. It was slim and had wiry limbs. Dark, smoldering clouds of smoke were flowing around its feet, obscuring them. Death had visited me in the form of the Black Guardian. I was closer to the Sun Fire than ever before. It just stood there staring at me, until it reached out one of its hands. It was waiting till the last breath of life would leave my body. It was certainly enticing to agree to its offer of ending this tragedy. But the last spark of will within me clung to my sorry life in this world. The Black Guardian had to go away empty-handed, and I continued on with my horrible destiny, knowing full well that I had merely delayed the hour of my final judgment.