When I left the village of my youth, oblivion called to me with its dulcimer promise, a seductive counterpoint to the piercing wails of the dead that had been burned into my heart and mind by the tragedy of my village. Much of what I experienced at this time is a blur and a cacophony of inner turmoil. I wanted nothing more than to silence the voices that haunted my dreams, but my will to live was far too strong and the discipline I’d been taught was too deeply ingrained to allow me to turn to the simplest of solutions. Having walked in the Grey with my father and witnessed the many spirits there, even pained as I was, I knew deep down that I would need to find peace within myself before I died, lest my anguish forever torment my soul in dissolution. I believe this is what eventually caused my metaphorical stumbling and flailing about in the dark to lead me to the Errellorus, but there were many missteps along the way that cannot be erased or forgotten.

At first I wanted nothing more than to erase myself so that I might forget and become someone else - a person with no past and a future that stretched no further than the next horizon. I sought to escape during my waking hours, seeking a simple life and simple pleasures as far from the world of dwarves as I could…

I encountered the Water Hunters while surviving off the land in a scrub valley south of the Smoking Crown. After sensing my alignment with their way of life and subjecting me to a number of tests of character, I was accepted by the elves as a hunter and honorary member of the tribe. But, my membership ended abruptly when the staunch traditionalist Lismuuk was chosen by the water spirits to lead the tribe. I took the expulsion without complaint though, wandering west through the settled lands that surround Urik.

Despite all my best efforts, my dreams were still haunted by the tragedies of the past. They all felt personal, though many were not in fact my own. I tried to not sleep much, but even a mul needs sleep, and as the days went on, I began to wake to discover new vistas tied to the torments of the night, new sites pregnant with the remains of the dead and the ruins of the past. These places are everywhere across our world, some fresh, but many ancient. Their stories linger about them in the essences left behind, bleeding into the world of the living from the Gray. I am ashamed now to admit it, but I destroyed irreplaceable relics in my rage and desire to find silence.

I encountered her on the western doorstep of the Mastyrial Mountains, not far from Break Shore: a recently-risen wailing spirit, less than five years deceased (I know this because I later spoke to a surviving member of her family in a village just outside of Raam). A unique example of torment, and one that cut to the heart of my own agony, she carried the tattered and still weakly-crying body of her infant son in her arms. Unlike many banshees, she was silent much of the time, rarely keening unless violently confronted. She was known to approach encampments in the area, only to quickly turn on the frightened and disgusted bystanders with deadly fury when they would not take her ghoulish child from her arms. I stumbled upon evidence of this in an abandoned encampment shortly before I encountered her: a young woman lay dead on the ground, blood slowly leaking from her ears and her eyes wide in a frozen state of fear. I will never forget the scenes that flashed through my mind when I laid my hand on the body to check for signs of life. I will not describe them here, lest I feed more unnecessary suffering into the world, but what I must convey is the rage that boiled up inside me as I saw that ghoulish creature approach me - wandering back toward the scene of the crime.

It overtook me and I tore into her, screaming on the outside but completely still and silent within - an eternal moment that still lingers with me to this day. I saw myself through her eyes, a furious spirit of death ripping her limb from limb before wresting the infant from her arms and running off into the night.

When I came to, I found myself covered in dirty scrapes and bruises, hunched over a mound of dirt; I knew then that I had buried the remains of the infant where his father had fallen and died. I still don’t know how I was able to do what I did to that poor banshee woman, but I do know that I silenced her forever. I couldn’t help but feel like she had longed for that fate - to surrender her own fury and torment to another and find release. Perhaps in that moment, as our minds connected, she knew that I would carry her focus for her and lay it to rest…

I no longer run from the wailing, but instead seek it out, hoping to understand it, bring meaning back to suffering and peace to torment. I have carried the silence within me since that day, and it has only grown stronger through the years.