Role

Chapter 8

The following years were difficult for Ixen. The promises of Zurcon within
those dread pages weighed on him; for they resonated more than anything he
had learned from the order. Many of the questions he had sat in solitude
and asked himself found revelation there, after all. Was it wrong to
destroy this impure world? Was it wrong to cull the unworthy and the weak
of conviction? According to Zurcon, no. It was a goal to which all wise men
should strive.

But.

It just all seemed so pointless. There was a hollowness in the dread
promises therein. Like a puzzle half formed but with pieces missing.

Would this be his lot? Ever learning half truths, half promises? Never to
find an answer to those most fundamental questions?

Time passed, and others tended the garden, though without the admittedly
fastidious care that the fire giant had exhibited. Indeed, Ixen would often
pause on the way to his studies and on returning to his bunk and look upon
the gardens. A brief frown would distort his dour features, but he would
then continue on.

He would sit and pour over texts, and stand upon that knife's edge: on one
side the Order with their distant dream and gentle ways, and on the other
the long shadow of a god who wished only for the stillness of total
annihilation.

Perhaps had events not conspired, Ixen would have swayed there for a time
before succumbing to corruption as so many had before him. Perhaps he would
have gone on to wear the three serpents and lightning, and cut down those
of the light in droves in service to that most fell benefactor, always
wondering why the acts felt so drab, and hollow, and devoid of something
vital.

But this time, that is not what happened.