I feel torn all the time now, there's a war in my head worse than any we're stumbling into. Two people are there, fighting their way free. One is this blustery soul, speaking with might and conviction. Speaking the way Falahara or Dante would speak, bastions of strength. It's hard for me...really hard. But there's that other person inside me, the one I believe I am. Small, scared. I'm not ready for any of this, I'm not the sort of person that fulfills a prophecy. Why does everyone believe in this of me? I haven't done anything noble, nothing worthy of the songs, I've just saved my own skin time and time again. And not even done that myself, but ridden the coattails of elven protectorates, sent to show me my own inability to survive on my own. No, that's not true, they've been far too good to me for my own weak knees, done far too much for a cause that their stake in started as nothing but bad dreams. Do people deserve to die for having bad dreams about me? If they do, I want out. There's too much dying around me, too many lives at the brink, too much pain and suffering of people who I want to believe are my friends. They've proven themselves, but time after time, I worry that they are here for the prophecy, and when it is fulfilled and my broken body falls (for, any prophecy like this surely means I'm going to end up a smear on someone's floor, even if successful), will they really feel any of this was worth it all?

I must try to keep blustering. They don't want to hear these things, and even in my own head it sounds trite and bitter. Falahara and Annu have put up with me long enough, I can be strong for them, they're not here to protect a weak child, but a prophecy, so I must force myself to live up to it, to be what they expect and what they probably desire me to be. But what am I going to do, they are my thoughts, weak as they seem. Maybe it doesn't help that I have the incessant chatter of Hammy, my guinea pig, now burrowing through my skull. These shadow-blighted lands have been hard on him too.

"How come I can't see? I'm hungry."
"I told you fifty times before, we're in the shadow plane."
"Why are we here?"
(pause) "Because fate hates me."
"Well, maybe you're not feeding fate well enough. Like me. Feed me!"
"I fed you an hour ago. Do you really want to get plump? I don't want you not being able to dance."
"Not like we've done that any time recently. Just because it's dark out here doesn't mean we shouldn't sing! I want to sing and squeal!"
"I want to sing too...it's too quiet in this place. But we're already a beacon to whatever lives here, I'd rather not do worse. Why don't we play a game, poke your head out just a bit, and we'll play the counting game."
"The counting game, weeeep! There's enough light right here for that, weeeeep!"
"Okay, first, why don't we try to count the amount of trees we pass by."
"Okay, weeep! There's something like an oak, 1, and there's a good tree for burrowing under, 2, and there's..."

And so on and so forth. He's quiet and morose at times too, I think he senses it in me, but it never lasts for long.

Singing. Maybe that would help. But I'm afraid to. Who is that lady who watches me? There's something...just not right about someone you can only see when you don't look directly at them. And, for all that I've seen in this world already, how can someone(something?) be so beautiful and frightening at the same time? But I am mortal and half-elven, she is probably not yet something I am ready to understand.

I never thought I would be particularly good with a lute, although bless my mother's heart she encouraged the heck out of me on it. Maybe all that time in wizard's school trying to avoid professors gave me a good hand in it. I want a mentor, someone to show me how this should be done, but I think any mentor would tell him I'm making fun of him now, since celestials take notice when it's a good day for me. But, play as I might, I don't understand the nature of my songs, my words bind, but they don't have lasting meaning. Maybe 100 years from now, someone will remember my tunes, but they won't be the same words, I am sure of that. Xon has a way with words, for whatever the slappings are worth, maybe he can help me find the words that would bind the songs together, that would really pass on stories of our travels, and our age.

Maybe that's why I'm writing now. Sort my thoughts out, allow me to get our travels into a song that we can spread, that will last past our lives, to be remembered in some small way by some few people. Assuming I live long enough to do even that. For these shadow planes, I know where they lead, who they lead to. And, for all my noise about having a few more amulets in my hands...I'm not ready for this. I'm strengthening, I can feel it, but this fight will be more than me alone. Bless my friends, bless these people who have thrown their lot in with me, whether compulsion or kindness. Bless them.

...

I'm still sick. How utterly disgusting it was.

We've come to the lighted towers, and the beginning of the end for our fight. A tenday across the shadow planes already, and 10 more to plan for whatever death we may bring unto ourselves.

This city is by far, the most regular, the most lawful city I would have ever imagined. Challengers at the gates greeted respectfully? Names taken, and preparations made over a tenday? Everything is so regulated, so crisply and cleanly noted, and marked. These sigils are going to bode ill for us, I’m sure, before it is all over.

I find my heart lifts a bit to be in a well-lit place, to feel the presence of other real people around us, even when there are so many...non-people. At least, my heart did lift, until I understood these lights. Bless all the gods, why? WHY? What horrible magic makes the lights work like that? How can someone take the dead, probably the families of people here, and...I'm going to be sick again.

...

As bad as that is, at least it's an attempt to protect us from whatever else is in the city. I'm not fully convinced the lord of the city didn't send those things down on us, he's showed himself to be capable of most anything. But, we've done what he has asked, even someone evil that runs a city so lawful, I am hard-pressed to believe would try to spite us, even now, so close to where he will taste victory himself.

The creatures that attacked us are almost as bad as the lighting system. These shadows are too strong, I feel uncomfortable with them, even as I learn to weave them myself. I do not understand how I gather them yet, all I know is that I reach out and they come into my hands, and shape into things both known and unknown to me. Sometimes I just have an idea, and the shadows can do it for me. But why these other shadows, these shades had the power to suppress that other light, I don't know. We handled them handily enough, although Dante...ugh, the stale taste in my mouth to even think of it, shoving one into the lights, the sickly glow that I see come from it. Why? Why would they do these things to their dead?

No, I must stop thinking about this. It is of no benefit to me, not now. I will stay in the light, I will just ignore it as best I can.

We've been summoned to see the lord, and have not yet been able to consult with those whom I would hope could give us a pointer or two on how this must be done. I'm afraid we will be taken advantage of in the terms, moreso than we already are by being here. I must get Xon's help, he is the best of the negotiators of us.

My friends, save yourselves. Don't throw your lives away for me, or for whatever prophecy that sits atop my head. You all have lives worth living. Live them for me. Don't fall with me.

So, this is what it's like to be dead.

I'm...

bored.

So unfathomably bored. Annu left about 10 minutes after I got here for heaven knows why, maybe this whole celestial thing means she gets to pull this stunt at will. If so, maybe someone else could use a little help too! I mean, at least she's done this thing before, she could have told me that it's a huge nothingness of nothing. I didn't really get the chance to ask her much about it, she seemed distracted for some reason.

So bored.

Doesn't this place have anything to do? Picture a dark room. Now, picture a black hole inside this dark room. That's what it's like here. It stretches on forever, but there's nothing here. I think I see a pinpoint of light in the distance, maybe there's a plane there where something actually happens, because it definitely is not here.

How in Mystra's name did I get here, anyway? Let's try to figure this out.

Okay. We had that guide lead us onto the castle grounds. I thought the lighting system, however sickening, was at least excellent at providing something for my tired eyes. But in here, it's blinding. It took me a while to adjust, even after having been in the lit city. But it wasn't all that long, was it? No, not long at all until more of those Sahagwyn appeared. At least, I think they were Sahagwyn. They looked...mopier, and darker somehow. I thought the other fish people looked aggressive. My word, these things didn't even consider not killing us. I remember wondering if that kraken might have some small relation to this. He is god of the sea, right? ...okay, nope, didn't die there, I remember, we dispatched them handily.

...We talked to the lord of the city, that's right. Mamano.

What a PRICK. I mean, wow, he takes pompous ass right on to the next level. For one, he already changed the rules we were supposed to have, like the ten-day to execute this challenge within, dropped it to a single day. So unfair. Sure, he tells us the kraken wants us dead, but does that give him the right to break tradition? I had half a mind to turn back there and go to the inn and wait for him to show up. The other half of my mind was trying to be brave while simultaneously making sure I didn't wet myself. We made a few plaintive whines that I guess we could call "demands", but besides getting the device to lead us to him (I thought it was rather clever), we went like sheep to the slaughter. But no...I'm pretty sure not there.

Ugh, what a headache. Are you supposed to get a headache when you're dead? I don't want to go the afterlife with a headache, I'll be all cross and won't make friends well.

So we start following our light pointer, and we end up in an open room, with all these people just sort of standing there. Until Xon decides, in that way that only Xon can, to surround himself with all these people. Well, these people turn out to be a big lot of spellcasters. They were whipping out things I didn't have the slightest clue of. But, it went suprisingly painlessly at first. I was really starting to get the hang of that new bow, too. Okay, granted, the bow offers me a little help, but I'm still getting the knack for it. Oh, but how that battle ended. I don't think we've ever met a cleric this tough. At least, not one trying to kill us. But, get enough people surrounding and beating, and anyone will succumb. But he went back on his word! He told us no one would be in our way! And here we thought that, even if a prick, he runs a city that's more lawful than any I can remember having been to. Can't ever believe evil...

I'm still alive here. No, not alive. But not...dead, as I imagined it would be. I'm sure of it. Just because this place is so...so...well, not...doesn't mean I don't remember a thing or two about how different life felt. Life tingles. It tingles all over. I don't know if I'll ever be able to put words around just what that tingle is. Maybe my lute can. It's much more well-spoken than I. And definitely more coherent.

Then there were those walls. What was with those walls? Walls don't move! Except that these ones did. Painfully. Oh so painfully. Stone walls are just slightly more firm than my bones. And the rat guy. I've seen a few hobos and scuzzies, but this guy really does take the cake. Rats aren't troublesome, we know rats. We do rats. But I don't do walls anymore. I'm seriously considering living in a force bubble.

Then the doors. I think all of my problems are related to small spaces. Maybe our good evil friend is on the far side of that door, we thought. So we slam open the first door. There's a second one. So Annu blasts a hole through the second one. Brick wall. Walls fail us again. So this tiny room, we're supposed to go into, and close this door, and I'm sure then we would be sent to eternal doom. Or teleported somewhere. I wanted no part of this. So I did what any sane person would do. I climbed inside the bag of holding, and let someone else do the work. Oddly, it was similar to here and now. Except with more swords and stuff. And Xon. Xon made the place a bit more cramped ("get off my face!" "no, you get off my knee!"), but I think it worked out. But I have no idea what happened until we were let out of the bag. It's probably better that way...no, it's always better that way.

Then there were those monks. Dante's cool and all, but I don't think I like monks as a whole. But even scarier than the monks is the thing I'm going to call "whirling wooden dervish of doom". Training must be very painful in Dante's world. Hell, training was painful in my schooling. It's hard to forget taking your first magic missile in class. That wizard never did like me, it's not like I did anything terrible to him. Maybe I had some trouble paying attention in class, but we weren't even on that lesson yet!

Speaking of magic missiles, there were all those wizards. But, for once, after the first barrage, we didn't have to run in and eat forty more before we could do something about it. This older man actually apologized to us! To us! I can't remember the last time it wasn't our fault, whatever it was. We have a tendency of being, well, full of fault for the ordeal. Maybe not without reason, but still. Bless that old man, whomever he is.

But you know, I do remember all this pretty clearly. And I'm starting to get closer, I think, to where I am now...

This is it. This is the room with our lordly fiend. And it's lit, it really is. But not for long. We expected this, we knew it would happen. But I don't think any of us were quite ready for the eviscerating he gave Chicaseu. Sweet Mystra, that was just hideous. She held on somehow. I have no idea. Let's see, Dante somehow managed to put him on the ground. Bless that monk, however he learned how to take the legs out from under things, he's good. Then we all clustered around in our favorite formation "crush the bad guy's face in". And then...

...he grabbed from underneath his clothing, something. And he smashed it against his chest. Burning. So much burning. Hot fire everywhere, pain unending.

Until now.

There's no more pain here. Well, nothing really worth mentioning in that regard. If it just weren't so boring...

Someone's calling me. It sounds familiar. I like this voice. I want to follow it. I will follow it. Whatever it's leading me to has got to be better than this, I'm sure of that...

I don't want to open my eyes. I'm so weak, and tired. Just let me sleep for a bit.