21st of Lupar, Year 551 A.F.

By: Tilieus Posted on: October 31, 2010

An excerpt from a battered old journal, its pages spattered with a unknown purple dye:

The other day, while garroting a certain visually-impaired and strangely bipedal cat (my habit always of the afternoon), I began to question the moral consequences of causing harm to the weak, the helpless. For example, the cat - I didn't always find the cross-eyed creature so easily outmaneuvered, so pitiably feeble. There was a time when the cat could merely dance over to me and stomp on my foot, and I would consider myself lucky if that alone wasn't enough to send me to Thoth's impartial and apathetic attention. Yet, I learned, and grew, and am stronger now - and the cat cannot do - or, at least, has never done - the same. If my strabismatic and feline victim cannot grow, can he truly be said to be weak? Doesn't the term weakness imply some fault on the part of the weak? Had we not been blessed with the craftsmanship of certain artifacts, a grook could not fault a mhun for drowning, nor an atavian sneer at a horkval for falling, for it is completely out of the mhun's or the horkval's capacity to do otherwise. Can strength still be considered a virtue to one whose very nature forbids him utterly from achieving it? My mind wandered on and around these thoughts as the cross-eyed cat clawed desperately at the floor in a vain attempt to escape the grasp of my whip. Exiting my stony retreat I began to climb through the Magic Mountains southerly towards the Mushroom Forest, setting a course toward the Bastille Tree, its towering, looming majesty so beautiful in its constancy. I stand at its feet a dwarf, stumpy and pugnacious, while the tree stands proud and God-like, expecting rather than demanding my respect - which it wins, easily. But does it deserve my praise? Certainly the tree has done nothing to earn his glory; all this is merely a function of his nature. Like the cat, he has no say in his own strength or weakness - so can he truly be admired? A hundred Tilieuses would hardly outweigh one of his lesser branches, and yet I am no less worthy to share his company for all that. Unlike he, I have paid my due in blood and pain for every bit of experience and every last shred of growth I have ever had. I pulled my dirk from the eye of the mushroom guru in time to see a beam of humming blue fire arc in a blaze across the skies past the tree, the light dappling through the leaves, briefly outshining the sun. The wrath of the Gods given form, its trail slowly fading as it glided just beyond the veil between the planes. It was a beautiful sight, my aesthetic appreciation of it perhaps aided by the sweet smell drifting off the corpse of my edible companion. I picked him up by the foot and dragged him along behind me as I resumed my tour through the woods. With my mind still ablaze with that bright blue fire, my thoughts naturally turned to the nature of worship. Countless houses, cities, clans and whole classes of Sapients, all dedicating themselves to the worship of Gods and their ideals. But what is there to worship? Gods are unchanging, empowered by birthright and not through self-sacrifice or self-realization. I remember now, words I was told years ago, not long after I was cast out of house and city - a time when I was still young enough to listen, occasionally, to the words of others. "The Gods," he said, looking at me steadily with those mismatched eyes of his, "Cannot be other than they are - they are not Sapients, but statues - not men, but marble. They are larger-than life, indestructible, even beautiful - but forever frozen in a single pose." Too true. Regardless of the ideals the Gods purport to hold (and for that matter those who would worship them), the Divine can never truly be a paragon of its own ideals - only a paradigm. A template. Pandemonium cannot even attempt to be anything other than an impassioned advocate of strife, Pandora can never choose to be anything other than a laughing exponent of mischief. Their very nature forbids them from being other than they are. And if they cannot be otherwise, why respect them? Impassioned by my thoughts, I stomped my foot down hard and observed a gooey, feathery mess oozing out from underneath one black wyvernskin boot. I scraped my foot against the ground to clean it of the mess and picked up the limp sailor-suited chickadee, its dreams of joining the Royal Navy hopelessly dashed, wings still twitching as if unaware the better half of their owner had departed this realm. I began to walk along the road to pay a visit to my always-starving and rather hirsute friend who lived north of the Crossroads. As I walked I recited, out loud, one of the seven truths I learned long ago, in the miserable days before I was a rogue, and free: "The spirit may be made stronger by enduring hardships, both self-imposed and externally-imposed." I have always found this to be a philosophical truth, with or without relation to Mhaldor - my erstwhile home - its Gods, and their so-called 'evil.' I have earned the right to walk in Sapience, amongst those of sapience. I bear nothing but admiration for all those who have fought harder and longer for the same purpose. I can neither pity, nor worship, nor degrade those who do not have it in their nature to change, to develop. In a day I have become stronger, I have grown, because I have struggled and suffered and caused suffering. I can be proud of what I have become because I have no crutch. It is in my...

...It is in my nature to change.

Halfway through prying a small bag of gold from the stiff claws of the bloody lion, I stopped suddenly in total despair. If, as weakness is inherent in the denizens of this world and strength inherent in its Gods, so too it is inherent in me, in my nature, to change and to grow - then I cannot be commended for anything I have ever done. I have earned nothing. I sat down amongst the bloody corpses of all that I had slaughtered in Bopalopia that day and let out a cry of desperation as I clawed at the floor of Connie's dwelling. The world is cruel, unappreciative, and unforgiving. I cut a small slice of mushroom from the head of the RammaLamma and ate it. There is really no sense in fighting it, the hopelessness. As the drug took its effect, my sobs gradually turned into laughter. The absurdity of it all! The pointlessness! Why bother, then? I gave Connie a sharp kick to the chest, blood gushing out from under her crimson, matted mane and onto the sole of my boot. I suppose I enjoy the grind.