The endless search

"I've been around."
The smile I shoot at the barkeep is a tired and shallow one. This must be the hundredths-something individual that has suggested that I take my investigation elsewhere. However, even in this lifetime, I'm running out of elsewheres. I've gone to all the popular (at one time, at least) hangouts in the overpopulated settlement-formely-known-as-Freshport, and even the new one "The Sleepy Bastard". Quite a good one to be honest. I've strolled Zarastils streets, spent a month in Wyrmthrone, talked to the Dwarves in Dhil Ahldur, signed endless contracts in Frankonia in exchange for information noone ended up having and tried to enthuse the mages in Sa'resteece for more intel, to no avail.
No one has the information that I need. No one knows what I've spent a lifetime doing.
 
Before the barkeep can launch the kind but ultimately shallow question I see him lining up, I place the coins for my spirit on the desk. "Enjoy the rest of your day" I say, signaling my disinterest in continuing our smalltalk and stand up, letting my gaze wander over the patrons. It's only a few, the ones without an occupation and a penchant for drink that line the roughly cut tables of the inn at this hour in the early noon. They share the same eyes. Eyes of pain, regret, horrors they’d rather have unseen. Shared eyes. Timeless eyes. Of course, that is not something they know. They lead their short but intense lives, they toil, fight, accomplish big things at a rapid pace, but just like a fire constantly battered by the wind, they burn bright and quick. Their fire takes them to be judged in the next phases, left here are only their deeds to speak to who they once were. Even the mighty warrior-king ultimately leaves this world and their soul passes on, no matter how large of a kingdom he might have forged. Even these harrowed souls, deep in their drink, have the time to change the world. Perhaps that is what they drink to forget.
 
If the inn was a tranquil place of sad introspection, the streets of this city are the opposite. No-one stops to consider the world around them. No-one outside of the temples takes the time to recognize the life-spark in the other, the simultaneous promise and futility in each one. A person could spend a lifetime just pondering that. I would know, I’ve spent one.
I lift my eyes and am struck by a sense of recognition. Before me stands a run-down temple, its stony walls invaded by parasitic roots and the plot around it patched with grasses, but the door is intact and well-worn. Someone is still frequenting this sanctuary. The smile reaching my lips this time is genuine. When this town was smaller, several lifetimes ago, a young halfling, full of life and curiosity had landed with a merchant vessel in the old harbor, now an overgrown field. He had wandered over here to thank the principally worshipped god in the settlement for his safe journey across the churning sea. The temple at that time had been the highest among the buildings, a shining beacon of white plaster and bronze details, well visited and cared for.
 
I put my hand on the wooden door. The material is soft and warm to the touch, weathered by centuries of use and warmed by the midday sun. The young halfling had eagerly pushed open the gate those lifetimes ago and entered the lavish building, finding it richly decorated with a large altar hewn from a single block of granite at the far end. There were no statues, no tell-tale sign of the god worshiped there. No symbols of Iomedae as he would have guessed, nor any of Abadar. Instead, the interior was timeless and seemed to effortlessly lead the visitor further into the space, towards the altar, and the singular marble pillar standing behind it. The halfling had found himself spellbound walking towards the altar, and soon stood before it. Unsure of what the code was, he looked around to make sure no-one was in the temple with him to witness his surely complete botching of a ritual and then placed the small pouch of offerings he had brought on the altar. A soft voice had spoken to him.
 
I pushed open the door, stuck in my thoughts and half-remembered dreams as was so often the case. My blue skinned hand contrasted with the dark brown of the door as I entered the temple. Time had taken its toll. The interior was wethered and could not have been cared for since the time of the halfling. The roof had holes, and the pillar looked as if it had been weathered down to half its original size. But the granite altar still beckoned, as massive and flawless as it had been all those years ago. I closed the door behind me and let the smell of stagnant water and rotten wood hit my nostrils. It was the smell of decay, and the inevitable march of time. Inescapable. As I walked towards the altar, my hands sought the benches, their bronze fittings still sturdy underneath my digits.
 
“Mister Mossbrook, you’re just in time” the soft voice had spoken into the halfling's ear. He was startled and looked up and to his left where he’d heard the voice. Noone was there. Turning his head back, he spotted an old hermit with a long, full grey beard emerge from behind the marble pillar. His smile showcased a singular tooth. “I really am sorry, I just placed my offerings here, I don’t know what your traditions are or really where I am at all sir, I just want to give my thanks to the local guardian sir” the halfling had stammered out, but grew silent when the old man just continued to smile. “They have been received, my child. But this is not a shrine of the local guardian, that would be the building of driftwood at the docks for Myrtheris.” The halfling furrowed his brow in confusion and looked down at his offering, but it was nowhere to be found. The granite altar was empty. Mr Mossbrook had tried to formulate a question, when the hermit spoke again. “My friend, this shrine pays respect to something greater. Something that we all are subject to, and which always triumphs. Kings come and go, heroes rise and fall, and all are because of one thing. The relentless march of time.” The hermit once again showcased his single tooth. “But you will know that better than most”.
 
I had reached the altar. Before me stood the pillar, its uppermost part now barely four feet off the ground, as if ground down by an ancient force, a pillar left abandoned in a ruin. I placed an offering on the cold granite surface, an offering I didn’t even know I had carried with me. I knew the contents. A splinter of a ship long since sunk, four copper coins and the hairpin of a lover long gone. Exactly what I placed here several lifetimes ago. This time I knew the voice, and from where he entered. Beside the pillar, there stood a man. Black of hair, a shining smile and a thick, but well groomed beard. The hermit. “Welcome back, miss Mossbrook. You’re right on time.” His voice was just as soft as I remembered it. He stepped forward, coming to a halt on the other side of the altar. I gathered my thoughts and shook my head. “I’ve spent several lifetimes wandering this world, seeking enlightenment. I’ve seen countless wars, several adventures and numerous deaths. I’ve spoken with priests of every religion, some of which was so long ago I’ve forgotten their words, faces and patrons. I’ve been in reclusion on the top of a mountain for centuries, and I’ve never even paid so much as a thought in remembrance of this place.” I straightened my spine and pierced my milky white eyes into his stark blue. “But then, you had to forget a life to end up here again” he said, a knowing smile on his lips.
 
I should have gathered that he knew. This all seemed so familiar. During my first life, before I even knew who, what, I was, he had alluded to it. How could he know then that I was to be the very exception to that very march? Subject, yet still apart? When my mortal coil shriveled up and Mr. Mossbrook was ready to depart this world surrounded by friends and family, a long adventuring life at an end, a new life began. And yet that life would also be me. An oddly blue-skinned child born to two humans in a neighboring village, I was “a blessing” and cherished. Still the memories of my past lingered like dreams in my consciousness. When my former village, where my former friends and family most likely still lived, burned down in the 10th year of my new lifetime, the humans were ecstatic over their new farmland, and could not at all understand my immense sorrow. Neither could I. The realization had taken years. I had left the human village soon after my 16th birthday, never to return.
 
This process had repeated itself several times. The more lives I had lived, the quicker I was picking up on my nature as a child. I found a few of my brethren and we led a multi-generational pursuit of knowledge, roaming the world as it was at that moment, seeing how time, greed and community all affected lives. We thought we had seen it all. Me, Flintsword, Urimenor and Stonebrow all retired to a distant mountain close to a small human village, intending to spend our remaining lifetimes dwelling on what we had seen, dispensing wisdom to those who would seek it and ensure the eventual passing of our own souls from this plane to the next. Until such a time, we would reincarnate among the humans in the village, who would aid us in returning to our meditating form.
 
Stuck in my thoughts again, I was suddenly ripped from them by the soft voice. “That was until you realized who you were again, ten years ago, in another village. Tell me, what did you do in your last lifetime?” The hermit was smiling again. Always smiling. I clenched my jaw. “You tell me. You knew about me last time, when I didn’t. I’d wager you know now, when I don’t.” I said. The smile on the hermit disappeared, and for a split second I could almost see the clouded eyes of the old man shimmer over the bright blue ones. “I do not.” he said, his voice darkening. “Your last lifetime is an anomaly. A black splotch on the ordered continuum.” He paused. “It is wrong.” he said, now almost menacingly staring into my eyes.
 
He was right. It was wrong. I had reincarnated at least 10 times in our mountain village. It was the same procedure each time. I have always known what happened in my last life, no matter if I died in bed or by sword, or by any other matter. I had lived as a drunkard, a knight and a farmer. No matter what, I always knew and drew wisdom from it. My last reincarnation was a complete blank. I know only that substantial time has passed since my last remembered passing until my latest reincarnation when that has never before been the case, and that when I reincarnated I was nowhere near our mountain monastery. I did not even know where that monastery was located.
 
He spoke again. “Time rights itself. It always has and always will. It just needs some convincing, at times. All in due time.” He reached into the pockets of his robe and produced two simple small sacks. He reached out his left hand towards me and gave me the one grasped in that hand. “Keep this on you. Your thread leads you to Vael's rest. Follow it. The sands of time are always flowing.” He placed his left hand on my shoulder. We will meet again.” He once again smiled wide, and in his mouth was only a singular tooth. He turned around and walked to the marble pillar, opened his bag, stuck down his hand and grabbed a handful of the contents and started to slowly filter it over the white stone. Sand flowed out of his fist. “Life is short, and Time demands his due, Miss Mossbrook. Best be on your way” he said, as he visibly started to age.
 
I’m getting too old for this.