Journal #76: The Worry of a Barkeep. by Aniks | World Anvil
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Mon 25th Apr 2022 05:40

Journal #76: The Worry of a Barkeep.

by Aniks Aliforn

How far do the Shard's influences go? How far can they see…
 
Licia claims that a shard made an attempt at her life while she was younger, so why not affect the other champions. What part of their lives could have been affected? Or was it a special case with her, being so closely tied to her goddess? Was Ashlyn’s prolonged life the Everlight’s attempt to hide her future champion…
 
I am circling around the issues here, I haven’t been able to say it out loud, but Silver’s soul…
 
A soul of silver and black, crackling with red lightning.
 
I worry how much I’ve been unintentionally influenced by those long-forgotten gods. I held the Spirit Blade and awakened something, my power according to Silver. A trustworthy source of information, when they themselves implied they had a past before being summoned. “I’m your power’ the sword had said.
 
Is it?
 
As a child, I could hardly summon shadows. Showed no power in the arcane like others in my family. It had only been when I reached inside The Void and touched a Shard. A dead god, technically two before ‘my power’ appeared. The feeling of the blade hadn’t left even as I failed to take the Spirit Blade. But that hadn’t explained the spellbook. A book I took from Celu’s Tower, one that had compelled me to keep it away from Ashlyn. That book had changed, it became mine. A book I had no right to. A book that can only be read by those who were dead or half-dead in my case.
 
Is this my power? Or is it only mine because I wield it.
Was it always there hidden deep within me or had the Shard just warped reality to suit some unknown machination. The arcane magic is just a by produced of touching a broken god.
 
What of the day I had focused on that power, mediated on it. A day that had forced every single arcane caster within Ironfalls to fall asleep…
I have yet to recreate this or try for this matter. I don’t think I want to. I shouldn’t have been able to do that. It was only those touched by the Arcane.
 
That cannot be a coincidence. When the Shards are so closely connected to the creation of the Arcane. The protectors of that magic, who were erased from history by the winners of that war so long ago.
 
I understand my connection to the Spirit Blade, I might have even spoken to that old dragon god. Well been spoken to, but I cannot even say that for sure. It had known me, known the face I was Death’s Champion. During the battle with the Harp. The blade’s color was not red, but orange. None of the Shard gods were red, not even the Devil who is now bound to another goddess.
 
Red
 
I will deliver a prayer personally to Death herself, asking, hoping that it is not them. I wouldn’t know what that means to be connected to them. Nothing good. That much I can imagine. Add on the myriad of other issues about myself and how I am able to speak let alone create a coherent thought is beyond me.
 
What does it mean to have a broken soul, and still be able to walk? Function even, how many people across the planes can say their soul is shattered. Pharasma herself, the oldest goddess and mother of souls said I would have to die completely before I am whole again. What would that mean to be whole again, I don’t feel different, I’ve seen my soul flicker when I had died. But I feel the same as I usually do. Yet people across Istralar had seen me in their bars. An Archdevil even confirmed I had been in hell, yet I have no memory of that. I have no memory of any of those ‘other’ Aniks’. I wonder how many there are, do they share my same thoughts. Do I share any of theirs? What broke our soul in the first place, was it the Entity? Something I saw in the Void when I was ripped from reality? How could a magical drink produce such an effect? I still don’t understand why that happened. I have no memories of that time. Celu hadn’t taken those memories After taking that first sip, I just was. I was there at every bar with them, existing in the background, but not there. I don’t even remember how I got to the cave and appeared in the forest to reunite with the people who would eventually become the Lost Ones.
 
Would being whole again change me? Would I even be Aniks?
 
I just don’t know. The Mother of Souls said my memories protect me from that event, which sundered my soul. By what. What broke my soul.
 
I hope that this event is separate from the shards. While I have wanted things before, never had I wanted more than to hide this want. As if placing even the ink on these pages might make that fear a reality. There is a great hope deep in my mind I have hardly acknowledged, wishing that my broken soul isn’t connected to the shards.
 
Why am I the one this happened to? The others hardly have to deal with this. This slowly growing dread that you can’t trust even yourself at times. That you can’t trust your own memories. How many times has the Entity used me without me knowing? Had it used the other broken fragments of myself.
 
What had I done to earn this strange fate?
 
Regardless of my worry, I will carry on. I might have my issues, by I will hold on till the end. Till this story is finished and the Shards are bound back to fate. All of them. Even if I have to bind another god. What’s one more god matter, I’ll be judged for it all the same. I just want peace, a world free from destruction.
 
I should talk to Celu about this, my worries, she’s a seer. Maybe I can find some comfort in the words she gives. I just need to talk to somebody about this, somebody who will listen.

Continue reading...

  1. Journal #1: Welcome back to the land of the living.
  2. Journal #2: The Gods speak to us, sort of.
  3. Journal #3: Magic is kinda bullshit, stay away from Licia.
  4. Journal #4: The Prince is not a Prick.
  5. Journal #5: Introduction of Celuriel
  6. Journal #6: Everybody loves the bar.
  7. Journal #7: Getting to know the vampire.
  8. Journal #8: The Vetala [Text Roleplay]
  9. Journal #9: Undria
  10. Journal #10: We adopt or kidnap a child, still unclear on this one.
  11. Journal #11: Mirror World
  12. Journal #12: Recovery from the world.
  13. Journal #13: Dancing with Vampire and Political Problems.
  14. Journal #14: About Sir Pennswaggle
  15. Journal #15: This Temple is Odd
  16. Journal #16: The Half Elf Liese
  17. Journal #17: Warning Ashlyn did not help her.
  18. Journal #18: Priestess with the Silver Orbs
  19. Journal #19: Celu is reading romantic books.
  20. Journal #20: Demons, Dungeons, and Dragons OH MY!
  21. Journal #21: Regrets.
  22. Journal #22: Demon's Champion [Text Roleplay]
  23. Journal #23: Homecoming
  24. Journal #24: Castle Umbra and their Bloodwalker.
  25. Journal #23: The Grand Game
  26. Journal #26: All magic comes at a cost.
  27. Journal #27 The capital and asking for diplomatic immunity.
  28. Journal #28: Teaching Celu Undercommon
  29. Journal #29: Pray to Fate
  30. Journal #30: Mistakes we're made, Surprisingly it wasn't my fault this time.
  31. Journal #31: Why am I Orpheus?
  32. Journal #33: The 'safe' return of Eurydice
  33. Journal #32: Back from hell [Text Roleplay]
  34. Journal #35: Fey Friends.
  35. Journal #36: Life before The Lost Ones
  36. Journal #34: Her thoughts on life. [Text Roleplay]
  37. Journal #37: Departure
  38. Journal #39: The Apology [Text Roleplay]
  39. Journal #38: Black Marble floors and apologizes
  40. Journal #40: The Lost's One's Save Christmas; what's Christmas again?
  41. Journal #41: The Elder Sister [Text Roleplay]
  42. Journal #42: Dear Niks
  43. Journal #43: Family Matters
  44. Journal #44: The Samsaran and Her Dreamers [Text Roleplay]
  45. Journal #45: 3 Years well spent.
  46. Journal #46: Emperor Aneirin of Aletheia
  47. Journal #47: Matron Nivinle Alas'thil [Text Roleplay]
  48. Journal #48: Not Alone
  49. Journal #49: The Dark Spire [Text Roleplay]
  50. Journal #50: Death's Champion
  51. Journal #51: Desk Duty of the Spire [Text Roleplay on going]
  52. Journal #52: Longest Four Days of Our Lives
  53. Journal #53: Stolen Book [Text Roleplay]
  54. Journal #54: Basics to Necromancy, why is this even a book.
  55. Journal #55: Soul to Soul Talk [Text Roleplay]
  56. Journal #56: Gold is not what King’s Envy
  57. Journal #57: The Trail of the Sapphire Shrine
  58. Journal #58: The sign says it all
  59. Journal #59: The oldest sister
  60. Journal #60: A bartender once again.
  61. Journal #61: The Dreamcatcher
  62. Journal #62: Discussion and a price that will be payed.
  63. Journal #63: The Five Stages
  64. Journal #64: Ring of Amethyst and Diamond
  65. Journal #65: Clash of Ideals
  66. Journal #66: A Friend and A Story
  67. Journal #67: The Nature of the Shards
  68. Journal #68: Return of Black Marble [Text Roleplay]
  69. Journal #69: Broken and Forgotten Shades
  70. Journal #70: Forging Bonds
  71. Journal #71: The Haunted Fey Mansion
  72. Journal #72: Another Shard
  73. Journal #73: Dancing with Demons in the pale morning light
  74. Journal #74: The Succubus's Ultimatum
  75. Journal #75: The City of Twin Souls
  76. Journal #76: The Worry of a Barkeep.
  77. Journal #77: Have a Little Hope.
  78. Journal #79: Dreamwalker Jinne [Text Roleplay]

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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.009 © 2017-2024 [en] | Anvil Time: 12:22, Apr 26 2024