Journal of Trent Lormain

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

* A newer journal that was left in the hands of the Monks of the Grey Hand*

One thousand years have passed since I broke free of the Shadowvar, what they did to me I have no idea. They had bought me as a slave from a woman I once believed to be my best friend. I spent thirty years under their torture, dark magics and experiments. I even learned their foul tongue well enough to speak and write it. The last thing they did was try to infuse a shade with my soul. I woke in a cell almost two days later according to other slaves, and there was going to be a break out. I was one of the stronger fighters and I was tasked with holding the front during the break out. The escape didn't go well for most of us. Many caught, many killed. As things started to fall apart it became every man for himself and I bolted for it. I took at least several magical hits but kept moving refusing to go back to slavery. I would die first.

It was hours before I dared to stop running, I was heavily breathing and badly wounded before I finally collapsed. I awoke to find myself in a mans house bandaged and treated. He told me I had been found on the side of the road near dead and he had carried me on his back to his home. Here he had dressed the wounds and kept me safe unsure what had actually occurred. I told him the whole truth, never really sure why I did but I felt safe with him. My recovery took a full year to gain back the weight I had lost as a slave and all the injuries my body had sustained to stabilize enough to work again. Over the period of two years he taught me about Hoar and vengeance and why they were so needed. Then one night he became seriously ill. I stayed at his side doing what I could to return the favor and keep him comfortable. Sadly there was little I could do for him. With the last of his strength he slipped off his pendent and slipped it around my neck making me promise to never remove it, and never hide it in shame. That Hoar would always be with me no matter what. I swore on my name from that moment on, I would never willingly hide or remove the pendent. He died less then five minutes after my promise.

As I said, it has been one thousand years since that day that I escaped. I don't know exactly what the Shadowvar did to me, but I do not age, not a day since then. I still look twenty five. How does someone explain to people that you are older then most elves? Does that make me wise? Does it make me powerful? Does it make me anything greater then the average man? Honestly...no. I squandered the years wandering around. I have seen many things, made friends who in time either died or back stabbed me or even worse. Does this make me immortal? I don't think so. I can still feel life ebbing from me when I am seriously wounded. I just don't age.

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

Horus has told me to keep a journal of my nightmares, that maybe they will explain some of my past to me. So here goes then.

Nightmare 1:

I am in a room, a medical bed in front of me, there are straps on the bed meant to hold you down on it. The bed, the cuffs and the floor are stained with blood. As I look around the room I see cells holding people who scream, beg and cry. They are in rags, dirty and bloody. Around the room are various tools of torture. None of them seeming over pleasant, a whipping post, the rack, some kinda pit, many other things as well that I cannot describe.

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

Nightmare 2:

This time I am on the table, I am strapped down and I can hear the people in the cells screaming, I feel intense pain from cuts made all over as I try to struggle. Some man in black robes stands over me talking in some strange language I believe I knew at the time, but cannot remember now. He drifts in and out of my vision, it is very strange, he says and does something and everything gets very cold before I black out.

I lost the nightmare when I smashed my hand into the ground breaking my hand in the process which is now healed.

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

Nightmare 3:

In this nightmare I was running away from where ever I was being kept, around me other prisoners were running as well, many of them being caught or killed as they ran. My mind kept screaming that they would not catch me again, that I would not go back. I felt myself being hit several times with magical energies but refused to surrender.

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

Nightmare 4:

I am with a woman and two children, they are holding her tight as I stand in full plate armor speaking with a woman I am clearly familiar with and trust deeply. She speaks to me, telling me her son is in trouble. I promise the woman and children that I will be back soon and rush off to help the woman trusting her completely. As I arrive I spot the boy talking with two men in black robes. This seems to unnerve me as he does not look to be in trouble. The two robed figures turn to regard me as the woman says that I am the one promised. They toss her a bag of coin and before I can ask what is going on I am struck by a spell that paralyzes my body entirely. I am then chained and gagged and lead off, my armor stripped away and stained with some kind of blood and given to the woman. She and her boy leave and I am dragged away in chains to some form of hell. Dressed into rags I am quickly interrogated using pain to ensure truthful answers. I do not hear all the questions and answers, but the pain I feel entirely. From there it goes black once more.

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

Nightmare 5:

Undead all around me, these people in black robes controlling them all, tearing apart women and children to raise more in their numbers, gruesome experiments done on people using the undead. I feel them grabbing at me, biting at me, I fight them off in the small arena they have used to make us some kinda gladiators for sport. Again and again I fight, day after day, no seeming end to their sick amusement at the "sport". My hatred for them is unmatched by anything other then the sickness I feel even knowing the undead exist. I see something confined to a small magical cell. They tell me I will get to know the creature much more personally very soon. I fear what they plan for me next.

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

Nightmare 6:

I was in a cell, two men came to the cell and dragged me out, I was in shackles and chains, a tight collar around my neck. I was dragged infront of a throne with a man in black armor, he barked something at me and when I could not respond, the crack of a lash struck again and again and again, this lasted for what I could only see as hours until blood stained the floor. Eventually I was dragged back to a cell and left there. Some hours later one of their priests came in to check on me. He cast a very weak healing spell enough to shut the wounds and ensure I would survive. Then a guard dropped a platter of rotten food and a small canteen of water and left me again shivering in the cell.

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

Nightmare 7:

Death, it surrounds me, haunts me. A strange holy symbol sits around my neck, the call for vengeance against all those who have done me wrong. It feels right, this call for vengeance. An old man sitting dying on his cot lays this symbol around my neck bidding me to never remove it, and never be ashamed of it. He speaks the deities name, but I cannot hear it. The vision shifts to a battle field, I stand beside a number of men and woman calling upon me to make judgement against a man at my feet. His crimes are vicious and brutal torture of young women. I order him chained down and tortured yet leave him alive to relive his punishment over and over and perhaps learn from the lesson.

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

Nightmare 8:

I stand in a room, surrounded by dead people all around me. I look around viewing the various murdered women and children as I note no actual men among their bodies. A gruesome and dishonorable murder. A soft sob comes from my right and I turn quickly going to check on it finding a young girl coated in her mothers and baby brothers blood trying to hide herself among them. The girl is barely alive, having lost much blood and I find myself with no way to treat her and no way to get her out alive. All I can do is mercifully put an end to her suffering, my blade cuts through her like warm butter and her soft cries go silent forever. My only care from that point on is getting vengeance against those that did this...

Newbie Joined: Jul 11, 2015 Posts: 22

The writing is slow and shaken as if unnerved by something

Today I went to speak to my brothers and sisters, I told them of the constant nightmares I am having and showed them this journal. For several minutes they read and whispered among themselves before uttering two words. "Its time". I didn't understand what they meant as I was brought to the elders room where he pulled out a book before telling me the answers to my nightmares and my past lie within. That I should go home, light incense and read the book. I asked them where it came from and to my shock they told me when I first arrived at the Temple and sought to join, I had been told I had to make a confession of my past to them and had written it out in this book as it was too long to explain in one sitting. I went home as told and after tucking the boys in to bed for the night sat down and read the book. I am no longer sure if Ana is the only one who needs an institution...