I can feel myself lying prone, the right side of my face pressed to the dirt. My right arm pinned, numb under my body.
My mouth is dry and I taste soil and ash as I try to draw a breath. Why do I have dirt in my mouth, I ask myself? Through a fat and swollen tongue, mixed with the ash, I can taste…blood?
Confusion seeps into my mind as I try to take a deep breath and gasp at the sharp stabbing pain in my side. The smell of…ash fills my nose and I cough at the pain in my side. As I try and lift myself with my one good arm, the smell of tanned leather and oiled metal as if I were in a blacksmiths shop comes to mind.
Tilting my head to the side on my way up from the dirt floor to my knees, I close my eyes to the pain and groan. I can hear the trees respond with a moaning sound of their own, an orchestra, as if they understood my pain. I can hear the wind blow around my drawn hood as it whips my blood matted hair into my face.
It’s dusk, or is it dawn? All I see is the faint glow of the sun on the horizon. Focusing back to my hand I notice that my hand is coated in blood and dirt. I notice the fog rolling in on the horizon as if it were a comforting blanket. As my one good eye focuses, I can only see about a foot in front of my face. Something blocks my vision. I’ll try and push myself up so I can get a better view.
Looking to my swollen hand…why is there burnt component residue on my palm and under my finger nails? That only happens if I attempt to overreach my casting ability or I exhaust all my…
Revelation
Pushing myself to my knees and finally raising my head to the level of the horizon, realization strikes me like lightning. My body stiffens at the jolt of memories flooding into my head. Grinding my teeth and casting back my head against the physical and emotional pain flooding into my mind it is over as fast as it came. My vision clears with understanding.
Here I am, amongst a field of flattened grassland and wild flowers, trampled low by boot, hoof and wheel I gaze upon a field of bodies and bonfires.
The fog of earlier, nothing more than a blanket of smoke caused by burning ballista, catapults and wounded.
The smell was of burnt flesh and the remnants of the armor and weapons carried by brave souls.
My mind playing games on me, the sound of the moaning trees was nothing more than brothers, fathers and friends dying next to each other on the field of battle.
Looking to my numb arm I see a festering gash, my first wound. Memory forcing itself into my head, I remember weaving myself through the field of battle, my goal, an unholy priest.
Clearing the battle field with my chain lightning spell, orcs drop like rotten fruit, my casting hand burns and swells from the force but it buys me some much needed time to close the distance to my target so that my summoned creatures can close in without overreaching the spells range.
Nearing my target and starting a casting myself to put down the unholy vicar, he looks over his shoulder, straight me. Finishing his summons I hear a name and a command as I am still in the throes of my own spell.
In a gravelly voice, “Razeal, finish him!”
Right then an abyssal demon materialized in front of me bubbling up from the soft earth, reaching its diseased claw out to cut the life from me. As I am in the last syllables of my spell, I was unable to avoid its evil embrace and it gouges my arm. I withstood the gouge of the demon to almost finish my spell, but then I felt a searing pain in my side as I look back to see an orc smiling in elation at the successful crossbow hit into my side, causing my spell to die upon my lips.
As Razeal and the Orc howl in ecstasy at the now easy target, I fall to the dirt in blinding pain. Last thing I notice is the Orc impaled upon a Knight of Furondy’s sword, Razeal and the Priest of Iuz surrounded by Green Jerkin Rangers.
