Of Pity and Tragedy
As Pierce rested his head gently against the straw pillow, a testament to the inn swallowed by the poverty-stricken slums outside, his mind drifted back to the events and thoughts shared tonight. He sat up suddenly in the bed he rented for the night, it creaking and scuffing the grizzled veteran beneath its legs. In a few moments he had a quill, its blackened feather emitting a sheen from the candlelight, an inkwell, and a blank book he had recent purchased. "I do not wish to forget these thoughts…" he whispered to himself, as if the walls might be prying over his shoulders to see what it is he was writing.
He writes "I spoke of death and undeath at length tonight though in such a disconnected manner." Pierce nibbles at the tip of the blackened feather as he considers how the topic sprung up. His eyes suddenly glint as he recalls Nill, though he had not asked for her name. He continues writing. "The short mademoiselle, short with reddish hair, and I met on the road from Krofburg. I had found the Southern Forest particularly peaceful this last evening, but the mademoiselle seemed genuinely unconvinced. I asked her why she disagreed, and her response was one I believe many share… a story of clinging to the fine threads of life as they unravel before you and the tree you are hiding behind. The land of mists has much to offer as far as horrors are concerned, afterall. She spoke of her early days of being "newly misted" as the outlander phrase goes, hiding behind trees as the wolves prowled the forest after nightfall."
He plunges the quill back into the inkwell but does not retrieve it; his eyes shut slowly as he considers the rest of the night's events. Ah yes, that's right! Snatching the quill back, he fervently records his thoughts of his discussion with Khalida and Aeric, the clergyman of Kelmevor.
He continues writing. "I was awaiting dawn with my pack ox in the outskirts when I overheard Aeric and another figure speaking of how she was fooled by a vampire with a vendetta against Barovians. This flew me down a deep well of thoughts regarding not only this particular vampire but others as well…
What led them to the moment they were turned? Did they willingly choose undeath? If so, what drove them to that point? Was it grief, despair, tragedy, or hatred? What unfortunate event brought them to undeath if it wasn't willingness?
...so many questions stampeded my mind in such a fleeting time that I cannot even recall them all. It is these unanswered questions, however, that led me to admit I find them to be the most tragic of the undead beings here. From my encounters they are sentient and calculating and not just mindless hunters. I believe I used the phrase 'not just bones and flesh scraping the floors of old crypts' or some such. Aeric seemed to disagree with me, thinking vampires have the choice to step into sunlight to end their cursed existence. I had recalled a disease that wracked the Village of Barovia years ago and armed my next rebuttal with such. I asked him whether he would hand a knife to a victim of such a disease and suggest they end their life before spreading the disease further. That point was made clear, and he backed away from his hard stance. Concerned though that my words may be misunderstood, I made it clear that I have no love for the undead. The sentient live miserably cursed lives and feaster pain amongst the living."
Once again, Pierce slides the quill back into the inkwell and closes his eyes. There was something more that had his mind reeling: Something he could not yet reconcile with. He, once more, sets quill to paper.
"My home, this world, is full of death gods. The Voodan, people of my home, pay appeasement to a loa named The Lord of the Dead. Some clergy of Gundark worshipped (and I wager some still do) a death god named Nerull. It is not often one hears of a death god whose edicts demand its clergy to destroy undead. The undead are tools to most, I believe. If it were not so, then why would the Akiri people not rid their temples of the undead that so often infest them? I have seen the inside of those temples. No… the undead here are tools, but it is not so for this Kelmevor, this deity of another realm worshipped by Aeric. I shall have to learn more, in time, of what makes this one so different from the rest."
At last he dries his quill with a wipe on a dark cloth, seals his inkwell tightly, and slides his book to the middle of a small table to allow the ink to dry. As he lays, his head nestled into the straw pillow, strange and haunting dreams, some as memories of his own past, creep nearer. Before sleep sequesters him from reality, he speaks a final thought aloud…
"Death is beautiful and yet tragic. It makes my heart flutter and weep all at once. I do not und- un-..."