Darkness. Silence. Confusion. These things overwhelm me. I was mauled. I am bleeding and hungry. I close my eyes to rest, only to wake in this strange, twisted place. Time stretches on, silence overtakes me, and then the weeping begins. As I begin to mourn, I hear the others, and together we revel in our sorrows.

My confusion grows. Pain joins to my mind, my eyes changing, adjusting to this unseemly, harsh light. A strange figure stands before me. Cloaked, obscured, absent. Barely distinguished from the stone. A single word echoes in my mind: "Dig."

I don't know what happened, only that I am covered in blood. A stranger has come. He steps past the corpse. He calls me Doruan. Doruan... yes. That was my name. He offers me rest, he offers me peace. And now I am hunkered down in Ashtan's barracks, left to face the madness. It watches me. Waits for me. Hungers for me.

I do not hunger. I do not thirst. I do not tire. I do not grow weary. I see my wounds, and they do not bleed. They do not heal. Nothing changes. It is all monotony, it is all boredom. I cannot go on. I will not go on. This will be my end. But I do not breathe. I have tried. I cannot. I do not know why.

Perhaps I should have thought this through. How long has it been? Hours? Days? I swing from my neck, able only to think, to wonder, to question.

Why? Why me? Why now? Why there? Just... why?

At last one comes to release me, perhaps a wanderer like myself. My binding shall be broken. Binding? Why does that word intrude so upon my mind? This singular question consumes me, drives me, pushes me forward. I move, I leave the Seat of Chaos behind. I return to the Vashnars, my pickaxe in hand. I will find what secrets lie beneath this mountain.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Summary: A dwarf named Doruan Ironhammer died under mysterious circumstances, only to be brought back to life. After slaying his captor, boredom and disgust drove him to kill himself, at which he failed miserably. He returned to the place he was raised, pickaxe in hand, to seek answers.

Penned by My hand on the 16th of Mayan, in the year 778 AF.