I think the most important thing to remember about me is that I’m no one special. I have no exceptional skills, I’m not from a noble family, I’m not a doer of great deeds.

I grew up here in the Citadel. I may have been born here, I don’t know, since I was dropped off at the Cathedral at around one year of age. My mother may have fallen on hard times and been unable to care for me, or she may have found me herself, or I may have been kidnapped from my parents and intended to be sold into slavery but girl children don’t have much value if they’re younger than eight or so. I don’t know, and I don’t know if any investigation was ever done.

I never cared.

All I know is that I believe. At first I believed as children do, in sugar fountains and fairies who grant wishes and anything good and lovely, that the light of Pelor cleanses and saves us all. That was a pure faith, and a simple one, but even then it was identified by priests in the Cathedral as rare. However, a powerful faith in a child is not indicative of a useful faith in an adult, so I was educated and watched carefully.

As I grew, though, it became clear to everyone but me that my faith is special. Not unique, certainly, there are plenty here and elsewhere with a stronger, purer faith than mine, but not common either. To me, though, I am as I have always been. I did not earn my belief in the Light of Pelor, I did not discover it. It has always been with me, and so I don’t think that there’s anything notable about it.

My prayers were answered in small ways. Cuts and scrapes were healed, I could always find anything that had been lost, I never got sick, and my voice was always heard. Again, to me this was life. To others, this was a miracle.

I was trained as a battle priest, to wander the world with no fear of danger and spread the Light as I find darkness. This I have done, to the best of my abilities. I have wandered this island for fifteen years, leading small villages in prayer, crushing small outbreaks of banditry and lawlessness where the military does not reach, putting dead to rest, and sanctifying new temples. Of late, though, my duties have become more varied.

In the last year there have been reports of the dead not staying dead, and of villages found depopulated, with no corpses to be found. Many of these reports are urban legends, rumors spawned by travellers and spread by gossips. Some, though… some were very true.

There was a city not too far from Udkig. Well, “city” is generous, perhaps, but it was a lovely little elven town with a beautiful library. I’d been through several times and found them to be honorable, upstanding people. Not much use for my services, but kind enough to allow me to stay for the night. I’d heard that it had been cursed and that the dead there still wandered the land, so I went there expecting to find another tall tale. Instead I found that the stories were true. There were dead shambling about the village. Some had fallen, but most were still up and moving. There were pretty clearly some sort of survivors, for there are signs of pitched battle in many places in town. It took some doing, but all of the undead were minor, so I was able to lay them to rest without requesting any additional resources from Udkig.

I’ve not heard of an outbreak of undead of this type occurring within my lifetime, so I am returning to the Cathedral to make my report. If there’s more of this kind of thing going on, then they should be aware, and if there’s not, they should know that it happened. I haven’t been back to Udkig for ten years, and that was a short visit before returning to my route. I hope to find everything just as it has always been.

A couple of weeks at home would be nice before I hit the road once more.

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  Verity Orthon

  Level 12 Scion

  Karma Points