I, yes, even I have found in the depths of my soul a strange despair. Even in the darkest trials for my cloak, I saw some light hidden in my future. I was able to see my rise to power within my grasp, my right to walk the night with ease and stand in elven society with my chin held high. Were I to know it would lead me here, I might have reconsidered that light, that fleeting hope against the darkness in which I find myself.
Do I blame the dwarves? No, I do not. They are vile in their ways and grubby to boot, but I do not blame their greed. That is what they are, and we have known this. They have shoved me in this hole, trapped me down here in the dark, but this is their habit, their justice in a way.
Similarly, I can not blame myself. I did no wrong in my infiltration, silent as the night air. Coincidence itself aspired to trap me in a set of right choices that led to a wrong end. Trapped in the shining moonlight and locked away, down deep. I blame fate itself, though it feels not my hatred.
Blame will not help me. Really, nothing will. There are no tunnels here, I have no tools, and the black water laps at my feet. That is all it can be, for it feels un-right against my skin. It chills and the heat it takes dies, removed to nowhere. Where it squelches in my boots it never warms, only chilling me more and more.
They have left me to die down here, naked in the dark, trapped in a well filled with treasure I can do nothing with. Had I but a bit of cloth, I could bend it into the cool fabric I know so well, but here I am, stuck. All I really have are the sounds of my enemies that pass my hole and the water slapping the shore.
It makes me wonder, though. Why would they not mine this, bring it up in buckets? Is my death more important than their profit? Somehow, I doubt it. There has to be more. What keeps them at bay from riches beyond belief? My prison is a strange horror. And there across the black expanse walks my answer. How long I have waited before it homes, I do not know. Even in the black of the cavern, against the darkness of the dark fluid itself, it is a shadow. It walks on legs, shifting between three and two and four with bursts of eight or ten or more. It floats, seemingly, for it walks on the surface of the waves. Above me are the hushed voices of dwarves, speaking in their ciphers. Were my throat not parched from fear of shadow sickness I would have called out my fear to it or them, though it would do no good.
It comes close. My limbs are limp with weakness and can stop nothing, so I sit, chilled. With its head, a long nose like a beak sniffs over me. With a hand, it cuts, pulling at my being, tearing through me from my heart to my neck, and my blood freezes to my skin. Somewhere deep inside a scream grows as it does, pulling away two clawed arms where one pierced me. My lungs do not provide the air, and my throat is torn asunder, but my spirit deep within is what lets loose this sound.
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