Day Three

[Strazio Rockwell]

My rage had carried my wretched body for several miles before I finally collapsed against a tree. The anger in my chest still burned, but my broken body was near its limits. Black and sick-green bruises had swollen my busted arm and I was sure that gangrene or infection was starting to set in from the lack of proper medical care. Most of my burns and cuts had either scabbed over or started to harbor nasty infections themselves. Despite having eaten several hours earlier my stomach grumbled at me, the physical exertion forced my body into overdrive and even the MRE hadn’t been enough to fill me.

“I’ll rest... Just... Just for a moment” my voice was strained and breathing came hard. Laboriously I knelt to the ground and used the plank of wood to brace myself. There couldn’t be any more than ten contestants at this point, and most of them would kill themselves going for that supply drop I thought to myself. My inner fire was beginning to flicker out, even my anger had begun to prostrate itself before exhaustion. Even the Avatar of Rage had limits, especially when he was subdued by this damn collar.

“How sad...” I groaned to myself, Dmitri must be watching me right now. My legs trembled as I forced them to hold my weight. “Dmitri, Rumford. If you guys are watching this...” I started stumbling forward, slurring my speech slightly “I just want you to know, that I’m sorry... If I don’t...” Pain flared through my body and my heart skipped a beat. I’ve died before, but it wasn’t lingering it was a sudden snap and my heart stopped. Feverishly I started to panic, how could I die like this? I've come so far, how could I just die now? I'm... I'm scared I started to rub my cold, pallid body with my good hand, trying to feel something - anything. My heart skipped another beat and I fell into the underbrush. Slowly the forest melted away and I started to drift into the darkness.

Eight years prior

“Come on, Straz get up! Get up!” Mara cried my name as she cradled my head in her lap. My body was frigid and pale and my lips had turned a sickly blue. I was dead, a thaumaturge had stopped my heart with a wicked spell. In my universe accepting the rite of the magus marks your soul. A mage’s soul is barred from entering the afterlife, this was the price of magistry.

I found myself floating in a white void, not unlike the nexus. My body entered a white room, with four walls and a ceiling. On each wall was the sigil used in the rite of magick. Before I could even move, my body and the room was torn away, until only my mind remained. Still lucid and terrified I called out, but my mind could not speak nor could it take any action beyond thinking. This realm housed knowledge in its ethereal form, everything that was ever known or ever will be known existed in this purgatory. I was ravaged by this boundless knowledge. Information bombarded my brain, filling me with foreign thoughts.

But the human mind is like a glass of water, it can only take so much until it begins to overflow. Desperately I fought to keep my sanity, my name slipped away as did Mara’s. Without a name and without a purpose I was unable to do anything but exist. This was the price of magistry, power at the expense of potency. Knowledge, without purpose.

Time functioned differently in that hellish place of knowledge, I was trapped there for an eternity. The only scrap of knowledge that was not washed away. The only piece of information that I held onto vehemently was Damien. My anger was strong enough, deep-seated enough that no matter what I forgot I did not forget Damien. For an eternity I held my grudge against the man, even when I was unable to remember my own name. Eventually I was ripped from that realm and my mind as replaced with the knowledge it had prior to death.

“Why are you crying?” I asked Mara, who did not answer but rather pulled me close to her chest. She had removed her magebane armor and covered my body in it, breaking the spell that the thaumaturge had cast on me. She saved my life, but in my stupor I could hardly remember being killed. “Please, don’t ever die again” she said, choking through tears.

“I won’t, I promise that as long as we’re friends I won’t leave you behind.”

Present Time - - The Abyss

The forest started to come back into focus. My breathing evened out and my body started to feel warm again. I had passed out in a nest of bramblebushes and pin stickers. Their pins had turned my body into a pinchusion and I groaned from the obnoxious pain. “Not yet... I’m not ready yet” I spoke. My bones creaked and my muscles threatened to tear themselves apart as I pushed myself back to my feet. The fire in my chest was more of a cinder than a raging inferno, but it was still burning. There was no way I would let this damn abyss consume me. After all, I did have a promise to keep.