Days of prayer since my encounter in the temple with the Doombringer have led me to this. The hope that a truthful confession of my life's wrongdoing may earn me some freedom from the guilt that now drives me forward. There can be no redemption for me; this I know. The chapters of my life draw to a close, and I wish only for quietude and peace, and yes; perhaps even some happiness as I grow older.

I, like many, was born to a poor family in a small villiage in the outskirts of the kingdom of Cormyr. My life's path seemed to have been laid out before me, an arrow flying unerringly to it's target without hope of a breeze strong enough to throw it from it's course. I was groomed to be a Blacksmith by my Uncle, my father having died a pikeman in one of Cormyr's many wars. My Uncle would always say to me "be grateful for a life of simplicity child, many men cannot hope for happiness such as this". I'd scoff at his words, thinking him old and foolish, always dreaming of adventure over the rise. Always hoping for more.

Had it not been for a woman, I imagine I would have eventually found myself a soldier, or a mercenary, or at the very least a vagabond, wandering the wilds, living on my wits. It was not to be though, a woman there was. Rebecca Meros. We met at the Spring Fair, she the daughter of a merchant that my Uncle would buy ores to smelt from, myself now the man that would soon take over the smithy from my aging uncle. It was magic. We danced, we laughed, and we sang long into the night together. Our friendship grew, and grew.

I remember the day we became betrothed, asking her father for her hand. For all my bluster and bravado, I could not say those simple words to him. Gods, how scared I was! He looked at me, stammering and stuttering, trying to ask his blessings, and a smile began to spread across his face. He cut me off, and said "Son, tend to your wife, there is much to plan" and embraced me as my father. We were wed that fall, beneath the falling leaves of the great oaks outside of the villiage, a soft wind blowing from the west causing her curls to dance as we spoke our vows.

We began to plan a family, but life being what it is, we began to quarrel over things that we really had no control over. The smithy was failing, what meagre money I made more often than not going to the many debtors I had engaged in an attempt to keep the fires burning. I became distant from her, and from my home. I took advantage of her trust and love, and spent longer and longer hours away. I couldnt bare the shame of speaking to her, when everytime I looked in her eyes, all I could see was the failure I was becoming as her husband.

A small dot of ink, as though the pen was laid to rest at the end of this page for another day.

The smithy now a total failure, unable to compete with the dwarves in the nearby Stormhorns, I began to travel. I had a small, portable forge and a mule and cart. I trudged from town to town, shoeing horses and making nails. I thought of her often in those days, about how I was trying to make a better life for us both by doing what I was. I thought about how all it would take was that one large job for the son of a noble for Rebecca and I to be set. I could return home, and she and I would enjoy the happiness we once had. We could finally start our family.

That one job never came. I spent more and more time away, ranging farther and farther looking for our windfall that would never come, until it did.

I met a man on the road, his horse had thrown its shoe, and he was walking it as best he could, but the horse was already nearing lame from the rough road. He was obviously a soldier, and when we spoke, he told me that he was a Lancelord in service of the Purple Dragons. He hired me to reshoe his steed, which I easily did. In conversation with him, and in light of the quick and excellent work I had done, he offered me a posting as a Blacksmith at one of the Garrisons near to my villiage. I couldnt believe it. I'd have a business that would persist for as long as Cormyr and the Dragons did, a contract that would see food on my table for as long as I would live, apprentices. I would have everything.

I was elated. He handed me a set of orders I was to give to the duty captain at the garrison, and we parted ways.

I immediately departed for home, the news I had was too good to bear alone. I had to tell Rebecca.

Another small dot, the pen again being rested at the end of the page, ink dripping and drying where the quilltip was laid.

The road home was long, but the miles passed by in a blur. All I could think of was the family we were going to start, the things I could get for her, the happiness that I was bearing back with me. Days passed, and soon I found myself looking upon the familiar vistas of my county, after that my town. I was home.

I remember well walking up the hill to the door of our hovel, the attached Smithy now fallen into disrepair. I remember how I saw smoke issuing from the chimney, carrying with it the smell of the stews Rebecca would always make that I loved so. I also remember stopping for a moment at the realisation that there was a horse tethered outside of the house that was not my own.

The moments that passed beyond this happened in a blur. I had caught them in the throes of acts too tender to be shared outside of a room with blinds drawn. I think I attacked him, briefly at least, before Rebecca calmed me, sending him away. She tried to explain that she was lonely, that he had needed a friend. She tried to tell me that all the money in the world wouldnt have been enough to assuage the feelings of aloneness she had felt. She turned me away. She still loved me, but she would not leave her other.

I fled into the night. I wept, gods how I wept at the injustice of it all. I felt jilted, cheated, as though my life until that point had been a wasteful irony, and that the very gods themselves were laughing at me. I felt hollow. All I had worked for now seemed meaningless in light of a life without her. I was gripped with a great, burning sensation at the core of myself, and I wanted to lash out.

I dont know what terrible purpose had taken a hold of me, but I was beyond rationale. I was a being of action at that moment. If she would not be mine, she would not belong to anyone.

The page, ink running in several small places, is laid aside for another day.

This will easily be the hardest page I have ever written.

I was seized by a madness I cannot now fathom. Gone were logic and rationale. All I had left was emotion. I was akin to an injured beast, lashing out at any that got close to my maw.

I poisoned them both.

Four words that meant the change to all that I was, and would ever be. I skulked into my now deserted smithy where several reagents used in smelting and forging were stored, and poured them into our small well. I fled into the hills, intending to hide until such time as they were both dead, then return with a false act of shock and surprise to the deaths of my wife and her lover.

A week passed, and I returned. As expected, both she and he were dead, I found them around the table, the rotting remains of the meal that had ended them both still in the bowls before them, and around their feet on the floors. I felt a quiet peace settle upon me knowing that the matter was done. I felt detached, as though gazing upon the scene was somehow tragic, but of little consequence to me, like the funeral of the relative of a friend.

I walked into the town, to report their deaths to the Justiciars of the Hoaran temple there, making certain that I appeared suitably emotional as I did.

As I walked onto the main street of town, I was struck by how quiet everything was. Gone were the children playing in the streets, the merchants, the common-folk. It was a ghost town.

I didnt meet another human soul until I reached the temple. A Hoaran Justiciar named Lakes. What she told me chilled me to the bone.

The few remaining people within the temple were all that remained. The entire town was dead.

The handwriting, which began neat albeit crude, becomes more and more difficult to read as the page goes on, until the last sentence. The last words look almost forced.

I tried to remain calm, though my heart and mind were swirling with the probability that my misguided revenge had gone so terribly wrong. How could it have happened? Surely it wasnt my fault? The Justiciar told me that all that had died, had died in a similar manner to Rebecca and her lover. Justiciar Lakes went on to say that the dying didnt stop until someone noted animals near the stream were dying as well. There could be no doubt. Somehow, in poisoning the small well near our cottage, I had also poisoned the town's water.

I listened to her explain all of this in a numb shock. I had known all of these people throughout my life. Laughed with them, celebrated marriages with them, cheered at the births of children, and cried alongside them at the funerals of those loved and respected by the town. Now I had slain them all.

I began to weep, and somewhere deep within the Justiciar, I could see her emotions moving as well. She seemed to want to say something to comfort me, but all that came out was that those responsible, if indeed anyone was, would be found and punished.

"Butcher" I cried as I wept. "A curse on the damned butcher that did this!"

The quill is set in it's inkwell for another day.

I turned and fled back to the hills. I could no longer face the town I had once lived in. All I had known were dead by my hand, and I was certain that it was only a matter of time before I would be found out. Justiciar Lakes seemed to try to say something to me as I ran, but it was lost in my tears and grief.

I ran far into the plains beyond, accidentally finding myself following the path of the very stream I had poisoned. I passed farmhouses, once alive with joy and sorrow, now dead. My sin did not end at my own town. Downstream it went, killing any who drank from its befouled waters. Farmstead after farmstead it went. Soon enough, the people I met werent dead, but terribly sick, as though a plague had ravaged the area. Many had turned to the worship of the disease gods in a vain hope to stem the spread of what they felt to be a blight from the gods.

And still I walked, saying nothing. Shaking my head at the misfortune of it all when I would speak to the sick. Cursing the fickle gods alongside them for their misfortune.

The quill is once again laid aside at the end of the page, a fine dusting of sand spread over the ink to encourage it to dry.

Weeks passed, and I degenerated into some sort of non-life. I found myself in a city whose name I dont even know. I begged for coin, and immediately spent it on liquor in a purile attempt at trying to make the dreams of cold-eyed children go away. Trying to make the guilt of my actions lessen.

I woke up more times than I can recall reeking of alcohol, lying in some alley, some gutter. I suffered beatings at the hands of ruffians whenever I found myself in an area too public for the liking of the watchmen.

In short, I wanted to die, but I was too cowardly to do it myself.

I dont know how long I languished like that. But one day, everything changed. For the longest time afterwards, I cursed that day as being among the most ill-fortuned days of my life. I see now that this day was the day that saved my life, and maybe even my soul.

The day that Justiciar Lakes found me.

The book is closed, and put away for another day.

I awoke to the familiar feeling of a hard pair of boots in my side. Someone was kicking me, and in my half-soused state, I wasnt exactly certain how I was going to stop them, or even if I wanted to try. I forced my eyes to open to the brightness of sunshine from the east, and peered up at my assailant, expecting it to be the city guard, or at worst a press gang or a band of rakes. It was neither.

I recognized the copper and black of the Justiciar's outfit almost immediately, and my blood turned to ice. What would possess her to follow me this far? she barked out some orders to the men with her, and I was dragged to my feet. Rough hands carried me far off, through the bazaars and side streets, past the uncaring eyes of the watch, and finally, to a small alley and the Shrine of Three Thunders.

Little more than a single room with a small idol of Assuran, this shrine was nonetheless steeped in the might of the Doombringer. I was assailed instantly by the smell of blood and soap from the floors, no doubt from the many vengeances that had taken place there. During the entire traverse to the shrine, my captors had been silent. Not even looking me in the eye so far as I can recall. Now this all changed.

"Tell me about your wife." Was all she said. My senses returned in a rush, the anxiety and stress of the moment driving away the fog of inebriation like a strong wind disperses a fog. I remember weeping, and confessing everything I had done, the words flowing from me as freely as the tears from my eyes.

Through it all, the Justiciar only sat quietly, and nodded. She seemed to almost understand why I had done what I did, but at the end of it all, she pronounced a chilling verdict upon me. I will never forget the words she said, they affected me so.

"It is Hoar's will that wrongs against you be righted, and in such a manner that those that wrong you feel the pain that they have given you, but in working your revenge, you have wronged a great many people. Your revenge was not worth the lives of all of the people you have slain, nor even the pain of those you have sickened. You are a murderer, most heinous, and despite the wrongs done to you, I find you guilty of treachery and heinous murder, and sentence you as follows. You will be carried back to your birthplace, and once there you will be forced to drink from the well that you poisoned until either your stomach bursts, or the poisons that you left there take you. May Hoar have mercy on your soul, for there is no mercy left for you in life."

The quill is laid aside for another day.

I felt cold, as though I'd been dumped in a bath of icewater. I always knew that my deeds would come back to me, but somehow, it never occurred to me that it would happen so quickly. I stood before her, tears now drying in shock at her proclamation, completely dumbfounded.

"Seize him" she said, and her acolytes quickly moved to do so. I found myself possessed of a strange strength again, and faster than the thought that was forming in my head, I had grasped a dagger from it's enclosing sheath on the belt of one of them, and brandished it in against my assailants. The men that were moving towards me took a step back, wary at the wild manner in which I was waving the knife about.

I heard a movement behind me, and even drunk as I was, I spun fast enough to catch it before it arrived at its destination. It was the Justiciar, I didnt realise until after it had happened, but she was moving towards me, hands outstretched, trying to calm me. The blade caught her near where her cheek and chin met, rising upwards towards her eye socket, then turning, and towards her temple. A fine red line that suddenly became thick and blurred as the blood began to flow.

It seemed as though time at that moment had stopped. My eyes glanced to hers, and the shock I saw there was somehow more hurtful to me then all the nightmares I have had since the day I fell put together. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed.

The acolytes, thinking I had killed her ran to her side immediately, I fled back onto the streets, and dissappeared into the crowds.

A small dot of ink has gathered where the pen was laid, the book put aside in some haste.

Once again I found myself fleeing, only this time I wasnt merely fleeing from the sense of wrongdoing I felt in my heart, I was fleeing from those that would set upon me to right what I had made wrong. I never felt more worthless then I did in those days.

Perhaps it was the fact that I was being pursued as a criminal now, that my cowardice and inability to take responsibility for my own actions continued to drive me down a path to damnation that there seemed no return from. Its hard to say.

I hid myself in the vilest of sewers, in foul middenheaps. I slept with animals, waking up in their filth and my own. A part of me sensed that I was losing my humanity. Yet another part of me relished it. Does an animal feel remorse when it does what it must to survive? I doubt it.

Never was I allowed to rest though. They were always a day behind me, sometimes more, sometimes less. I quickly learnt that to settle down in one spot overlong was to invite their attack, and now it appeared that they werent going to merely accept my capture. I had surely slain the Justiciar, I'd seen her fall. Her blood was still on my clothes. No, they intended my death.

I played a terrible game of cat and mouse with them. I remember one occasion that I had overslept in the relative comfort of a haystack, only to wake up to the sound of voices outside in the yard of the stables. I panicked, and snapped up just as the barn door opened. One of the Hoaran acolytes poked his head in, and in a terrible fit of fear and rage, I brained him with a shovel that had lain idly nearby. I am sure I left that man dead or dying as I fled over his body into the streets. Yet another death on my conscience. I wondered then, as I wonder now, how many murders any man's soul could bear. Was I further damning myself with each crime I committed?

I sunk lower and lower into survival, never thinking for a moment that survival was not living, until a day came that I awoke to her voice.

"Gideon, Gideon... wake up"

Four words that snapped me to wakefulness faster than any dog'd bark or cock's crow. I was caught, and I knew it. My eyes came open fast, snapping this way and that, trying to find a means of escape. There was none. I had fallen asleep in the corner of an alley, covered in straw for warmth, resting against the crux of the two walls. The Justiciar and the remaining acolytes, some of them worse for wear for my periodic violent considerations, had me surrounded on all sides. Weapons drawn, I was trapped.

Emotion came to me in that moment. Months of pent up guilt and sorrow. I did not run, but not merely because there was nowhere to run to. I did not run because I no longer had the heart. I wanted to be caught. I wanted to be punished.

In all the time I had spent merely surviving, it had never occurred to me that surviving alone, was not living.

I willingly stood submitting myself to their shackles, and the breif beating that I had earned in my many narrow escapes. My own blood upon my brow felt to me like a cleansing rain of redemption that would only lead to the downpouring that would be the exchange of my own life for those that I had taken.