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Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with a great story from xerxesv, entitled The Private Life of Philippe Marienburg, Part 1. Background music “Imminent Threat”, by Matthew Pablo, at www.matthewpablo.com

Here is the text:

I always try to be calm and keep a tight rein on my emotions, but something was making me angry. The land was clearly in the grip of a metaphysical evil, yet everywhere I turned I saw complacent, indecisive men and women, running up and down the road of Owl’s Head doing nothing, their conversations filled with mundane gossip about how to acquire various magical and/or non-magical goods–as if the acquisition of mere wealth was the reason we were called to be in this world.

The only one who agreed to accompany me to the gates of old Ravensmoor was someone named “Caramella la Sorce.” This was a woman with dead, cynical eyes, but also, I told myself, an evil charisma and an energetic way of brandishing her axe that made her a useful temporary ally against the legions of undead.

When we got there, the skeletons were so powerful as to be a match for even my considerable swordsmanship. No matter which way we hewed, they kept bashing at us with short swords, morningstars, even bows. Even their archers were so tough that they would keep shooting at us when we approached them in melee until we were pierced with arrows on all sides, like (I imagine) the glorious martyrs of old.

The cynical woman quickly tired of hardship and glory, and departed to resume whatever sordid activities she engaged in normally–probably spreading more of her feel-good, optimistic lies, with their undercurrent of psychic death, back at the tavern in Owl’s Head that everyone is always going to instead of purifying body and soul in endless spiritual combat.

If I let myself think about all that stuff again, it would make me angry, but at that point it didn’t matter. I thought about how the nickname for this place was the “Throne of Bone.” I thought of how awesome and sweet it would be to sit on the bones of a man bleached pure and clean by the harsh and pitiless passage of time, of history. It is pretty awesome how history scours away all the vagueness and ambiguity of individual experience, the weakness of individual souls, and leaves you with just the purity of the act.