Terrified and tortured: mad scribblings from Darien's journa

[DoS Archive]

From: baffied@aol.com (BaffIed)
Date: 02 Oct 1998 18:42:03 EDT


:::The journal is leather bound and tattered -- worn by time and circumstance. Sitting at his desk before it, the feeble flame of a tallow candle providing the broken man with weak illumination, Darien furiously scribbles with an ancient and hardly-functional fountain pen:::

Entry 3186:

Saw Dalamar today. He was untainted. I could tell. There were many many people. It was a grand field (note: investigate bizarre resemblance to field of Jjalla in sixth circle) filled with nobles and commonfolk alike. Strange...I thought today would be more momentous for me. Thought there would be many familiar faces to greet me -- to welcome me back.

:::He sighs slightly and looks up at the flame of the candle for a moment. His eyes are wide and slightly watery. Suddenly he is overtaken by a fit of coughing which lasts some minutes. He takes a sip of tea from a clay mug on the desk and continues to write:::

There weren't. So many are dead and gone. Funny that I'm not. I, banished into...

:::he shudders:::

I, banished for so long, who dealt with such unimaginable adversity am one of the only ones left. They said Ulath was dead. Athlstan too.

::he sighs::

I still haven't seen Valmion or Alaisia. Probably dead too. Or maybe something...

::shakes his head::

No...not those two. They could never be tempted by anything as base as C...

:::The pen runs dry. He laughs raspily to himself knowing *that* name could never be written. Carefully, he crosses out the scratched and illegible name::

They are not of that ilk that they could be entranced by His kind. Wonder about Arlingond. It seems that death has been hanging over this place. Hope that he did not fall to it. The manor is still there...perhaps all is well with them.

::sighs and looks out of the window...then turns back to the journal:::

Cannot overcome a sense of disappointment. Dalamar did not seem happy. Nay, he seemed completely dispassionate about my survival. No one else remembered me. He was with a woman. She seemed good but there is darkness and pain in her near future...it is written. I wonder why he was so cold. It's been one score years since we laid eyes on each other. Does he know what a relief it was to see his face? To hear his voice? To watch him act? Does he know
how his face was among the small number of memories which kept me sane these years?

:::pauses and chuckles to himself at the irony...would he know it if he were insane?:::

Does he not know how much he meant to me? That I would die for him?

:::He hangs his head momentarily...a single tear falls upon the parchment, blurring the word "me." He sits motionless, lost in thought, for some moments before he resumes writing:::

Maybe he never wanted me around. I don't know. I don't know much about people anymore. It's been so long. It was quite strange to see so many real people today.

My memory must be failing me. I don't remember what the place used to look like. Some stranger told me that the Red Dragon Inn has become some sort of slum. He was dirty and I think he would have taken my money if I hadn't paid him for his time. He is the kind loved by Them.

Them...

:::he stops and looks at the flame again, his face transfixed in a gaze of nostalgic terror:::

They are here too. I've seen it in the dirt and the water and the fire. Their influence extends even to here. And They are searching for me. I know They are. Not acceptable for someone who knows to live and not agree; none breathing may cross that threshhold and return unconverted. I did. I will not be found though. I will not. They cannot find me. I've lived this long -- foiled Their darkly divine stratagems for twenty-five years.

:::his eyes are wide as he pens these words with furious passion:::

I will not be killed now! Now that I've finally come home! Not before I've seen all who remember me! Not before I've had a chance to finally say "goodbye" -- that chance that They stole from me decades ago. I shant be denied this right. I will see them all.

:::he pauses and his eyes well up again slightly as he looks at the page and then out the window...quietly and calmly, he writes:::

But will they care to see me now?

:::he sighs sadly:::

Dal didn't.

:::Sadly he closes the book and places it on a shelf next to twenty-five similar tomes. He shuffles carefully around his house, wheezing horribly, and places wards over possible means of ingress. He looks nervously out hisully, he lies down to sleep on his simple bed. Late into the night, however, the wide whites of his eyes can be seen reflecting moonlight into the room. Sporadically, he is plagued by coughing fits and by moments of mute and
horrible terror of the night and its hidden secrets. After many hours, the fear-wracked and broken man drifts into a fitful sleep plagued by dreams of unimaginable horrors too terrible to exist -- the dark denizens of the realms which man was not meant to know of or to understand...the same realms which stole Darien's faith and held him captive and beset by mind-bending, sanity-scarring trial for the past twenty-five years:::