Chapter 14

My role as watcher is coming to a close. While my own destiny has yet to be fulfilled, my role as your guide is no longer of importance. I leave you now with one question:

Is love truly worth the pain?

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But where one departs, someone must take their place, no?

I can answer your former guide’s question for you. Love is most definately worth the pain. Love is all we decrepid souls have in this world of suffering and misery. Sharing a bond with a kindred soul makes the agony of life all the more bearable. Love gives you the strength to break all boundaries and shatter the anguish that is this reality.

We all suffer in this world so that the release we experience once we die is all the more sweet. That is the meaning of life that my own lover taught me. The two of us sought to break this world from its perpeptual wheel of torment.

“Why allow those yet to be born to suffer as we have?” she would tell me as she would stroke my hair as we laid in bed together. “Why allow these misguided souls to believe in their false faiths? Why not rob them of their life so their misery can be forever ended? Is that not the ultimate form of love?”

I believed her then. I still believe in her now. I know that her sweet nothings were just that: nothing. Before I met Mystra, I believed in hope and redemption. Before I became the man feared for a brief moment in history as destroyer of worlds, I believed in this universe. Upon meeting Mystra I realized that this was all a lie. Yet at the same time I realized that she, too, spoke to me in a language of falacy.

The difference was, she knew she spoke in lies.

There is no meaning to this universe. There is no meaning behind the eternal battle between “good” and “evil.” All there is to this world are the beliefs one assumes. I chose to believe Mystra’s lie, because I knew it was a lie. And what a sweet lie it was.

But with her death, something died within me. The lie became a reality. As I fought along her side during the Days of Apathy so many years ago, I could comprehend the difference between lie and tuth. I knew that her love for me and my love for her was nothing but a fabrication to further our goals. But when she died, that love became real. I agonized for her death, despite death being her ultimate goal. I feared being alone, despite knowing that if our goals were to succeed I would be eternally alone within the depths of the Void. I ceased to live the lie and chose to believe the lie.

Somehow, though, I find the lie to be all the more sweet.

So, what about you, Seryph? Do you still know your quest is a lie, or have you too begun to believe the lies of that little girl you so loved?

Alexander Lovecraft and Seryph Gibbons. Two men fighting for a lie they both choose to believe in. How appropriate.

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“She seems like a nice woman. Shame she couldn’t have her wish.” Seryph says as he slouches onto his new leather couch in his newly-redecorated living room, lethargic from the large dinner he and his friends have just enjoyed at the Santa Fe Bar and Grill.

“Yeah. Its not that I don’t love her. I just...” Tanin plops himself down on the matching couch across the room and sighs.

“You just don’t love her in that way.” Seryph says, finishing Tanin’s sentence. “An old friend of mine once said ‘Sometimes it is finding love that breaks the heart rather than losing love. And that heart is the most bitter heart of all.’” Seryph stands up and walks over to one of the bookshelves lining the walls. From the shelf he picks up an old, weathered hardcover book. Despite showing its age, the gold emobssed lettering on the cover still shines as if it were fresh from the printing press.

Its title: The Tao Of The Lone Survivor.

“Neither one of us talks too much about our pasts, do we?” Seryph continues. “From the day I met you I knew you had lived through tough times and seen too many friends die before your eyes. You kept your upbeat charm and unwavering optimism, but you still knew all too well the suffering of others. I could tell you sensed the same thing in me, so we both seemed to come to the same conclusion and allowed our own stories to tell the story of the other.”

“Something like that.” Tanin respondes as he straightens his posture. “That’s probably why we became such fast friends. We didn’t need to share our stories. Even though we didn’t fight the same sorts of evils, we shared a similar fate. Guess that’s the only real perk that comes with being an Avatar. You make friends easily with other Avatars.”

Seryph laughs. “But all of that ended recently. We both recently had those unspoken pasts come back to haunt us. And because of that, I want to give you this book. Like you, I also had to leave behind someone I love. Unlike you, though, the choice wasn’t mine to make. You left your beloved to pursue something you believed in. The writer of this book was the one who left, leaving me behind in the world of the living. Only seven copies of this book were printed. Five of which were destroyed during the War. Until now I owned the last remaining copy and the original manuscript. Now all I need is that manuscript.”

Seryph hands the book to Tanin. With some reluctance, Tanin takes the book. A faint glow appears around the book as Tanin’s hands grasp it. The glow quickly dissipates as Tanin places it in his lap.

“Thank you.” Tanin says with a gasp of surprise. “But what does this mean?”

“Turn to page 49. While most of the stories and poems within this book are merely proverbs, she told me that this one story was a prophecy. She told me that one day these events would come to pass, and that everything our friends and I fought for would soon come to an end and the War would begin anew. You of all people deserve to understand, since you of all people come the closest to understanding what I’ve lived through. Just,” Seryph pauses for a moment, “just don’t hate me for what I’m about to do.”

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This particular beach on the coastline of the Southern Khazanian Ocean is rarely occupied. The pristine white sands and blue-crystal waters would seem to be natural attractions to vacationers and other seeking relaxation, but in a world like Khazan where such small wonders are commonplace, even the most beautiful of landscapes can be forgotten in all of the overstated glory. Tabatha and Eva sit along the shore, letting the tide just barely come up on their bare feet, basking in the shine of the half moon.

“Tonight reminded me of old times.” Tabatha remarks to her long-lost friend. “Just four adventurers enjoying a meal after a long journey has come to an end.”

Eva smiles faintly, the most genuine smile she can remember ever gracing her face in centuries. “I had forgotten what it felt like to be in the company of people who enjoyed my pressence rather than feared it. It was something I hope I can experience many more times.”

“Like hell you’ll be able to experience it!” Tabatha exclaims. “That Seryph guy looks like a decent enough fella, and Tanin’s Tanin. He was able to forgive you for trying to wipe him off the face of reality. You’re among friends now. We can all start anew and live life like we should have all those years ago.”

Eva’s smile broadens. “I think I would like that.”

Tabatha begins to return the smile as the two women hear footsteps slowly approaching. Tabatha and Eva both turn in the direction of the footsteps. Upon seeing who it is, Tabatha sighs with relief.

“Oh, its just you, Seryph.”

Seryph closes his eyes as his hand reaches for his katana.

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Tanin thumbs his way through the book that Seryph has given him, reading a couple of passages before arriving upon the page Seryph noted. The passage lacks the poise, elegance, and wisdom of the previous passages, standing out like a bleak reminder of the brutal nature that reality can so often take.

“The Lone Survivor is truly alone in this world. Each man, woman, and child he befriends becomes yet another victim to the whims of fate. To become the friend of the Lone Survivor is to welcome a death sentence. All except one. There is one friend that the Lone Survivor will spare. This friend will be a similar soul-- a soul locked in a similar fate to the Lone Survivor’s. This friend will be betrayed and left for dead. This friend will be betrayed by someone close to his heart. And the Lone Survivor will betray that friend to vanquish the one that would destroy his friend. While this friend will shout curses upon the Lone Survivor, that friend will not meet his fate. That friend will become the lone survivor amongst the friends of the Lone Survivor. That friend may forever hate the Lone Survivor, but he will have the chance to experience forever.”

“No.” Tanin gasps to himself. “He can’t. He can’t.” And with that Tanin vanishes, teleporting off to stop that brutal reality from happening.

---------- “Forgive me.” Seryph whispers as his hand touches upon his katana.

Seryph’s blade streaks out into the night sky and descends upon the head of Eva Vishta. The crecent arc of his shimmering blade shines in the horizon, creating for a brief moment in time a newly-born moon. As the blade begins to carve into Eva’s skull, Tanin’s blade streaks up from the ground, as if the sun was prematurely rising from the horizon. The sun comes too late to prevent the night from taking its life, as Tanin’s parry narrowly misses Seryph’s blade. Eva’s life bursts forth from her body, drenching both Avatars in a rain of glistening blood. The smile Eva was wearing mere moments before still adorns her face, even as she sees the eyes of her killer staring coldly into her her own eyes.

“I did it, Ling.” Seryph whispers under his breath. “I did it.”