Role

Chapter 8

(Date Unknown)

A Crk'than first came to my summons tonight.

How did I come to arrive at a place where I could call forth such a merciless,
twisted creature without fear or revulsion? Even reading my own words back in
this journal, I do not know. I only am certain that I am proud to be there.

We hunted, this Ccul'gra and I. We ran an elf down and tore him limb from limb
with spell and claw. I could feel that the Crk'than was impressed by the bloody
display of my magic. There was nothing of fear in the black thing, and yet I
could sense that it understood that I had a power worthy of its respect.

What a thing, to be bonded to such a creature! It is a ferocious thing, with
a hundred predatory senses and instincts I have no words for. I could feel its
every unspeakable hunger -- did the tomes and other Scions omit this information
in their accounts as a secret of the initiated, or have I forged some dark tie
to these beings beind their comprehension?

As our hunt concluded and the Ccul'gra returned to the Shadow Plane, a feeling
of disorientation washed over me, something like what the earthbound races call
vertigo. I suddenly understood that I had not only been sharing in the
Crk'than's dark lusts, but that I had also been experiencing a powerful echo
of my own bloodlust, perceived in me by the Crk'than's empathic senses and read
in turn by me through my tie to the creature.

Did it respect not my power but rather a kindred spirit? What have I become?