My soul went dark.

((The handwriting is slanted and shaky. Some words are smeared, and there are splotches of ink where the quill has rested on the paper a second too long.))

Location: Stormwind City
Lunar Phase: Waxing Crescent [small sketch]

My soul went dark with the coming of the new moon. I've never felt so much pain in all of my life. Considering all that's happened, this is noteworthy. Physical pain can be dulled with the alcohol, the drugs... pain of the soul is the most piercing thing I have ever felt. I was convinced that through the ordeal, a very piece of myself was being both ripped away and incinerated at the same time.

Such is the experience of the rite of exorcism. I've seen this ritual performed numerous times, by paladins stinging the vestiges of an undead soul and burning their bodies. By priests forcing a demonic presence out of a mortal's body. I had never expected it to happen to me.

I saw things within my mind's eye. I saw my husband. Urien, bless his soul, continues to care for me despite his condition, despite the terrible things I've done and said. I feel that dying may have been the best thing that had happened to him. Being removed of will and memory for these challenging ten years since Lordaeron... he is innocent, in a way. He observes everything with a fresh gaze, a different perspective. He doesn't rely on smoke or drink to make it through the day.

He was always my moral compass. He still tries to be. Despite the Light leaving him, despite it now being harmful to him, he still believes in it.

[The following paragraph is written frantically, some parts smeared.]

My thoughts become manic. Out of control. I want to kill, I want to seek revenge for the hurt that I feel. Cut Ludovick's back up with my dagger, whip the remaining flesh, feel the blood spattering on my face. Watch him scream in horror as his Light leaves him and while I harvest his new whore's soul and feed it to him so that I would be the only woman in his life again. The other... left outside to the fleshbeasts and infernal rains of the valley. We would make love on the stone slab in my laboratory, just us again-- [The rest of this sentence is completely scribbled out].





Urien would frown upon this. What am I thinking?


--F.P.

Exorcism, Pt. 2

Location: Mage Quarter, Stormwind City
Lunar Phase: Waning Crescent [small illustration of the sliver of light on the moon]

Journal,

It seems that my problem is worse than I had initially thought. I can hardly stand, and I've noticed that I've lost more weight lately. I must be truly a horror to look at. I continue to cough up dead blood, and I'm not sure how much I have left in my body. The rune flickers on my chest with each cough.

Urien has informed me that it is not necromantic in nature, but rather, demonic. I am tainted by fel magics, and he cannot fix it. It seems my only options are a purging with the Light, or seek the aid of one Radok Nighteye. I know the name, but I'm not particularly inclined to trust it.

I've sent a letter to the Fairdale boy. Chadley. He is gifted, and the only paladin I trust to perform the rite.

I hope I do not frighten him with any whimpers or screams. Perhaps I should ask someone to hold me down.

[The following is scribbled out...] Ludovick would perform this gleefully. But I don't want to give him the satisfaction of bringing another wretched soul to his Light's so-called grace.

Exorcism

Location: Ledgermain Lounge, Dalaran
Lunar Phase: Waning Crescent

Journal, journal.

Strange things have happened since I have last written. I had made the decision to go through with the dissolution of my marriage to Ludovick von Diehl. I simply cannot bear to have the last name of a traitorous coward.

I'd decided this one evening while I was at the Cathedral. I've taken to my vices a great deal more than previously, and one Ghodfrey Valorsworn had caught me having a smoke in the back. I'd thought I'd been reasonably concealed behind the stonework, but I suppose the sweet smell of cloves travels far. He was a dear and helped me to my apartment in Dalaran.

It was after that evening that I had decided to go to confession (Ludovick would love that, I'm sure). An older member of the clergy took me in, and I told him everything. About Lordaeron, about Zeal, about Miss Dray… and the most curious thing happened! He offered his hand to me in marriage, to ensure that I do not continue down this "dark path."

I laughed at him. Laughed right in his face, he sounded so much like Ludovick there, I could just ring his little high-collared neck.

Here is where things get particularly interesting, journal. Many of the events thereafter are fuzzy. I know that it was one day later, I was riding my horse from the Dwarven District when another man came to me with a letter. He dropped a small glass orb onto the ground and I vaguely remember following.

What happened thereafter is really only bits and pieces. The stonework of my memories looks perhaps dwarves. Very dark, covered in ages of soot. The experience was strangely both sensual and terrifying. I remember a knife in my neck, and blood pouring from my body. Despite the warm room we were in, I felt very cold.

Journal, I'm pretty sure that I died. I don't know how else to explain what little I remember, and then the scars… there is a Y-shaped scar on my chest that is commonly used with autopsies. I woke in the Burning Steppes, and managed to muster enough energy to teleport.

Mister Garhelm found me-- he's a nice man, possibly the second Risen I could ever like-- and speculated that the flickering rune on my chest is necromantic in nature. It makes a reasonable amount of sense, considering my death theory, and how much Light magic hurts, rather than helps.

I think I'm afflicted with some sort of curse that mimics the undead? Necromancy is not my forte. I truly have little to go on.

But I think I need an exorcist, and someone to sift through my jumbled memories. The only mind readers I know of are that elven buffoon Marius, Ludovick and Senkha. At this point, the girl is the least of such three evils…

I need a drink, and I'm almost out of scotch. Light damn it all.

--F.P.