Discipline.

Discipline in transcending the mortal limitations of the living.

Discipline in rebuking petty needs, needs not affixed with the Vaunted One’s dogma of truth.

Clenching his fists so tightly to effect grime-encrusted fingernails cutting into his palms, he let the pain help him to find his bearings against the overwhelming stench of the putrid corpses unceremoniously piled inside the Mausoleum.

He lacked any worldly possessions or status. Women shunned his introversion and his remarkably plain appearance. He had no mentor, no teacher, and no source of aspiration other than what he had heard in passing during his long years of servitude.

“Knowledge is power, and knowledge of life and death brings power over all beings, living and unliving”.

Beyond simple nauseation from enduring the stench, he blinked back the tears that threatened to spoil his attempt at communion.

He would wait for a sign. A missive. A reason why he had stumbled upon this refuge in the Underdark. Anything.

Redemption would be his.

Discipline.