Interlude: The Tale of Noraan

A note from Aleorn: I it seems was not the only Ashen to record his life, to apply meaning where he was permitted none, to grant depth to his shallow life through the solace of words. On that day of pain and sorrow, I found this among the ruin. Perhaps I can do his memory justice by binding into my own musings. When I discovered his manuscript, the ink had blurred and charred, consumed by the Blighted Flame that was his undoing; what I have written here is scribed in third person, as with my accounts of Or'do's travels. May he rest forevermore in the peace he has fought long to earn.

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Noraan strode across the rugged stones he had crossed a thousand times before. To his hand had the Lords fallen many times over, yet neither peace nor respite did his trials yield; his slavery was eternal, and upon each triumphant Link of the Flame, he was simply born again on yet another plane, forced to fight again those all too familiar foes, to live again through their curses and spite, to slay again those who refused their place in this Cycle. There were uncountable planes, and the Lords of each differed if only slightly; this plane was a mirror of the Primary, one of many worlds to which the realm's denizens could flee if the Void returned; yet their similarity meant that in spite of so many sacrifices, the Flame would be untended in nigh all of them. With each breath another plane was born, and upon it waited fresh misery, fresh boredom! 

Noraan had wearied of the hopelessness long ago, and now it drove him perilously near madness. The tedium of it all haunted him. There was a capacity, a peak all Ashen could reach, when their captured souls brimmed on the verge of overflowing, and no more could be devoured. Now all that waited was tedium, for he hadn't greater strength to seek nor greater conquests to which he could aspire. 

Now as often he did, Noraan wondered if other Ashen felt this mind sapping boredom, felt the anguish of helplessness, of bondage to an eternal cycle, of dominion unbreakable that their own greed had forged. They had tried and failed to link the Flame once, and now it beckoned again, true they would be accepted as Lords when their palm brushed the Coiled Sword, yet it mattered not. To rule over a thousand planes meant nothing when peace would never be found. He missed his home with a keenness that often surprised as much as unnerved him. It was somewhere he belonged, where he need not weep nor scream, for he had no reason to. But that was lost as was so much else. He was alone in this journey of misery, in this quest of anguish. Boredom was his greatest foe, and the only he could not conquer.