Part XXI: The Broken City

By Dagoth Nevena, Acolyte of the Sixth House

Milos didn’t want to come here, because he didn’t want me to risk my life trying to save our brethren here in this place, but I realize that he was right in that it wasn’t worth coming. They’re all dead, but something is more wrong even than this. I see the bodies of those who came here, who shocked me with that initial surge, but not of the ones who have continued to silence the voices of the others since that surge and I still feel more dying. I still hear their voices going silent one-by-one as these monsters kill my brothers.

Milos warns that we should leave before we meet whatever it is that is doing this, but I can’t leave. I have to stop this. I just—I have to. Cerebel gave me this gift and I can’t waste it because I’m afraid. I’ve always just—gone with things—because it’s been easier. It’s always been easier to swim with the current and not against it, but this time is different. This time, it’s bigger, but Milos—he doesn’t understand that. He can’t, because how can he feel the pain I feel when he can not hear the voices I hear? I don’t know. He does feel some pain though, some pain that he thinks he can hide from me, but he can’t. I can see it in him, eating at him, and it’s only gotten worse since we got here, so maybe he can feel it. Maybe he can feel the loss I do and maybe I haven’t given him enough credit, but I don’t know—I just know I’m glad that he came with me, because as we walk through these bloodstained halls, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I feel a primal fear that goes deeper than anything I’ve ever felt before, but I can’t stop. I won’t stop.

I will admit though that knowing Milos stands with me, it makes that easier. More than he knows. He really is the best friend I’ve ever had and I am grateful for him more than words can describe, but he stands apart from my house. He wears the amulet and bears the scars of the House, but he stands outside it in his head—I know it. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have fought me so hard about coming here, but that is a problem we will address when whatever is doing this is dead. He must come to realize the error of his ways or he will not be welcomed with me when I kneel before Lord Dagoth and give of myself to him in whole as he has and I can’t let him go. I can’t imagine going to the Red Mountain without him, but he has to submit. He has to accept the teachings of the House as true or he will not join us. He has to. But he won’t. I know it. He thinks himself too as knowing more than Lord Dagoth and I see it in how he talks about the troubles the House faces and I just wish he’d realize that he is only a mortal and Lord Dagoth is a god—to think himself greater is preposterous by any account, but Milos, for all of his brilliance, is not without his blind spots.

I just hope he comes to realize that if we make it out of here—if. It’s a big if and as we make our way through the caverns and I see more bodies of my brethren and none of theirs, I worry more. I am a mere acolyte and Milos is a fallen priest. I have training in the arcane arts and so does he, but I—I have no idea what could do something like this. What could kill so many of our brethren without falling itself? I do not know, but I am afraid. Milos tells me that I don’t need to be—that he will protect me from whatever it is that did this, but I don’t want to lose him to this either. But he will die either way if he does not forego his heresies against Lord Dagoth.

I am troubled.

Lord Dagoth, hear me as I call out to you from these most sacred halls desecrated by horrors unknown, walk with me in spirit as I walk in your name.

Give to me the courage you had to stand up to the Usurpers as they betrayed us all at the Red Mountain.

Cast upon me your protection as a shroud so that I may know I will live again to do your will.

Blessed be your name, Lord Dagoth, and blessed be we who sacrifice in it.

-Dagoth Nevena, Acolyte of the Sixth House