For the second time in my life, I am once again standing in front of the purple marbled edifice that is the Main Branch of the Scholars Association for the city of Mellawin.

The first time I came here was to sort out my employment but now, the second time, my purposes here are much different.

After walking up the stairs and going through the entryway I briefly interacted with the receptionist to show him my Scholar Association issued identification badge, after which he let me in. From there, I straight away went looking through the bookshelves for what I was here to find.

I had lived almost a decade in what was practically a library, so I was familiar with how they worked here, but even with that experience the sheer amount of books the Main Branch was holding in comparison to my smaller side branch still meant that it took me some time until I got my bearings. I eventually found what I was looking for, situated on the top shelf of a particularly high bookcase which required the use of a particularly shiny ladder.

Atop that ladder, I swept my eyes across an entire row of books, all made out of a recognizable deep dark green cover. When I took out the first in the line to examine it, I could see that it was The Warriorhood Baptismal Technique Compendium Index.

Already familiar with that one I put it back, took in the other 91 volumes left in the compendium, and decided to get to work.

The rest of my day was spent going through these volumes at the Institute Main Branch. I took an alcove for myself and whittled the hours away going up and down that ladder, pulling volumes off the shelf and then putting them back as I went through the extensive scope of different Baptisms available. The Baptisms all varied in their prescribed movements and how they each differently pushed one’s body to the infusion point, but they all had some degree of similarity with each other nevertheless.

I didn’t really have a plan about how to find the one that best suited me but I just kept going through them anyway, perhaps a little deluded that one might just jump out at me, but of course, that didn’t happen. Eventually what did happen was that the sun made its way across the sky until it was time for the Main Branch to close for the night, and I had to leave.

Exiting the Main Branch I discovered that instead of the clarity more information had usually provided me over the years, I found myself more conflicted and unsure than ever.

My problem wasn’t simply how to go about getting the right technique, because I had realised well enough today that that wasn’t possible. I also realised I couldn’t simply just keep reading the volumes. It is standard that you petition the Institute to rent a room within the Main Branch to perform a Baptism when you pick one, but that isn’t going to work for me. I could do it once, but coming back multiple times as I try to figure out what might be the right one will raise suspicions and cause people to start asking questions, and I can’t have that.

No, what had really struck me with doubt and confusion today, and what was really making me feel conflicted was one simple question.

Why was I doing this?

I mean, I didn’t really need to, did I?

For the people of Calzyn, walking down a Path is basically religion. A pilgrimage and a holy quest rolled into one in the attempt to make it to the Source.

But that doesn’t mean shit to me. I’m not from this place and I’m not sure I necessarily believe in the Source anyway. Even if I did, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to go there as a manaless soulless abomination, and therefore wouldn’t be picked up by the holy mana currents that carry all souls to the Source. Plus, the main boon of walking a Path is an extended lifespan and I’ve got that in spades.

The only real advantage is the strength and power it could provide for me, but there are other ways around that. My bow and arrow plan is just a first step and I could maybe even take it further to developing guns and bombs if I really dedicate myself. Besides, mana is the lifeblood of the Warriors and the Sorcerers. Do I really want to risk getting into bed with that lot? A bunch of power hungry and psychotically obsessed zealots.

I… To be honest, I don’t know how I’m feeling.

So troubled I was with my dilemma that I actually stopped in at a tavern on the way home.

I took a table at the back and paid for a good meal. I knew that Kara had the dinner I had made for her from this morning so I didn’t have to worry about her going hungry in my absence.

I ate my meal, ordered a few drinks and spent the rest of the night working through them alongside my thoughts until the tavern shut around midnight.

Leaving said tavern, I found my footsteps had a long unforgettable unfamiliar wobble. However, what was bothering me, despite my best efforts of sorting through my feelings tonight, was that I still hadn’t come to a decision about what I should do.

Should I either try and make something of this unknown and risky new opportunity, or stick to my plan and what I already know?

Tipsy as I was, and walking through the dark streets of Mellawin only guided by the stars and the light of the three moons, I continued pondering over my dilemma, debating the standing points of either option until I finally managed to see the stocky outline of the Side Branch coming into view.

But instead of walking over to it, I paused, as something else took my eye. That something being what was sprawled amidst the background of my home.

The dark decrepit expanse of the slums.

The Side Branch was situated on the edges of the slums, practically a part of it, and ever since I had left the place I had never returned. The memories of Elde are too painful and the shame of how I had wallowed there is always ever present.

But at this moment, weighed with doubt and abuzz with drink, I felt a shade of nostalgia as I looked at the ugliness of it all, now mostly obscured by the darkness of the night. This new feeling of reminiscence emboldened me, and with the drink in my belly I continued past the Side Branch and instead journeyed further out into the dark night, into my old haunt.

Despite the darkness, the light of the moons shone bright enough that I could still make out enough of the details within the dark shapes that surrounded me.

It had been nine years but without any misgivings nor doubts I walked through the outskirts into the deeper bowels within, surer with every step as even now I still knew the path through the labyrinth, the labyrinth of rubbish and rotting crumbling buildings.

Further and further I entered. The night getting colder and stiller. The sound of my footsteps and their accompaniment, a nauseating chorus of the bugs, rats and other vermin that scuttled and crawled throughout the sickness that seeped into this place, filling my ears.

At one point I came across an old and bony body dressed in rags lying against a wall, shivering in the night. The thought to pause and look over him did cross my mind, but I let it float away as I let my feet keep on walking past the man and inwards to the deeper depths of the slums.

I came across more bodies as I walked further inward. Some breathing, some shivering, some still, and some rotting, that quickly cleared of scavengers as they heard me approach. Time passed and the stink grew stronger and though some of the paths and structures had changed, I now knew where I was before, unconsciously, going.

Shifting around a few collapsed walls and climbing over some debris I finally arrived at my destination.

Home.

Or… what was left of it.

Even buildings need regular maintenance and they are generally made out of reliable materials. My loosely assembled pile of rotting garbage I could tell had long fallen apart into an even sadder pile of trash. I only recognised it by the old wall still standing tall and unchanged despite the years it had endured.

Standing in front of it, I just looked. I wasn’t a beggar anymore and I wasn’t going to let myself get any dirtier than I already had by wadding further through this cesspit. So all I did was stand there, in the muck, my eyes pointed into that shadowy mass, while what I was actually looking at flitted along through my mind's eye as the night went on.

BOOM.

Startled, I jerked up to see that storm clouds had made their way over my head while I had been lost in my reveries.

Soon enough to accompany the thunder a cold rain started falling down onto my head. Removed from my recollections, I was now eager to return home.

I took one last look at my old abode before I turned away to begin making my way back to my new one. Whilst I travelled the storm clouds further crossed the sky, and so too did the moons and stars disappear with their swelling expansion, leaving me only with the flashes of lightning to illuminate my way through the dark night and the cold rain.

Quickly I was drenched to the bone, but my feet stayed true as they knew the way out as well as they knew the way in, and only after some unmentionable amount of time did I found myself once again leaving the depths of this horrible place.

As I left however, I noticed something that had changed. The old beggar, the one I had first come across as I walked in, was no longer leaning against the wall as he was before. Now instead he was sprawled out across the ground.

In the dark and with the barest flashes of light, the scene before me stirred within an old and painful memory that even after a hundred years had passed still ripped through my chest.

Unlike before, I now went to the dirty old man as he lay there soaked to the bone, as pitiful and heartbreaking as anything else could ever be. I turned him over to look at his face and see how he was, but I felt it as I touched him, and saw it clearly when his dead and glassy eyes met my own. He was gone.

Once more tonight, I’m enthralled by a familiar yet different sight before my eyes and the memories summoned alongside it. Of Elde, of the boy I once saw and what he had become, and of every other old and wrinkled face I had seen and forgotten as they fell away to time, as I rightfully should have too but had somehow avoided by some twist of fate.

When I came back to myself and saw the old man’s dead eyes still staring up into my own, I raised my hand and closed them for him, putting him to rest at last. I contemplated what to do with his body, weighing the morals against the emotions within me but soon decided to just place him down and leave him where he was. A heartless decision I know, but I had neither the energy nor the love to do what I had done for Elde, for this old man who was just like so many others I had watched fall aside.

With his arms crossed and body laid to rest I soon stood again, and continued onwards as I left him where I found him.

But as I started walking away, the memory of his dead eyes staring at me with the edges of his unhappiness still lingering on his face, did it become clear to me, why the confusion, why all my doubts.

Because, for all my plans, scenarios and fail safes for the future, all of it… was still hopelessness.

For a hundred years I had dwelled in regret and hopelessness. Although I had left it far behind me, this new life I was heading towards, a life of seclusion, a life of hiding, though a definite improvement, what it really was was an endless trudge through time, with no hope of change on the horizon.

An endless endeavor of hopelessness, of nothing really changing, of nothing really mattering.

…No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

NO!

I had lived horribly before but still, all my plans and the way I would have to live all meant nothing if there was no hope, no future, no… growth!

But… if I can find the right Baptism, if I can make it work, then I can change, I can grow.

I don't know what I’ll be or what I’ll become but this is a chance. A chance to do something more and be something more. Something that can exist.

I don’t care what it takes, or how long it takes. Ha! I have all the time in the world.

There’s something for me here, something to use, to seize, and I’m gonna grab it.

Whatever it takes!