Role

Chapter 10

It is safe to say, dear reader, that events are transpiring in a manner
that is not according to plan.

Oh, its not all bad. Indeed, my personal growth has surpassed even my high
expectations in many respects. I bind those souls that will not serve in my
future empire to me day by day, and even Akkabal has taken notice of my
frenzied harvest.
On the other hand, my political ambitions have stagnated, and in a manner
which leaves limited options open to me for proceeding; the emperor that I
so admired has vanished from the public eye, and the Dreadlord has likewise
seemingly lost the stomach for the work at hand. Thus I languish as a
humble black magician watching those of lesser breeding and ability rise in
their sects to be named so called elites. Vexing, yes. Quite vexing. Either
one of these individuals succumbing to torpor would be a thing that could
only benefit me, but both at once? A problem, and one without an
immediately obvious solution. A curse upon that most disruptive force:
coincidence.

Yet no matter, dear reader, for these matters are small in the grand scheme
of things. My inability to commune with the Holy Overseer is a larger
problem, but that will also resolve in time, of this I am sure.

No. Of far greater concern is a recent development, one not of the waking
world but wrought in a dream turned nightmare. Or at least, so I believed.
I remember walking a barren shore, a riverbank devoid of light or life. A
burning spray upon my face and that dread thundering in my ears. Of course
now, in the clarity of waking, I know this can only be the Phlegethon; that
dread beast which haunts my steps now and forever, and yet in slumber I
walked in the haze of the blissfully unaware. That fog of confusion so
common in dreams and yet here: so dangerous.

For I was so thirsty in that dream, dear reader. A craving as of a man who
has walked long in the desert and at last seen the salvation of an oasis. I
did not care that as I knelt beside the dream wrought Phlegethon and dipped
my face the boiling waters burned my dreaming skin twice over, or that it
was as iron and ash upon the tongue.


I slaked my thirst in the dream and woke suffused with infernal bloodlust,
though I cast no spell that I recall. I am familiar with the feeling by now,
dear reader. That unholy strength, that dreadful lust for battle; and I
can say with certainty that something has changed. My belief was born out
twice over: upon looking in a mirror and upon my next victim's futile
struggles when battle was met.

The question remains, is this blessing or curse: and what does this mean
for my grand ambition?

Time will tell.