LongestRoad Jeralyn
Jeralyn kinda won and retired. He's at peace with himself, rich, and has left the party to go back to where he was born and rebuild the village. He's going to see if Mia wants to come with him and live with him in the mountains where he'll raise her like family.
Jeralyn's story:
I was born in a small village high in the mountains. From what I can tell my childhood was pretty normal, consisting mainly of playing with other children and helping my parents around the house. The winters up there were harsh, and it never really got too warm, even in the summer. By the time I was a young man I was hunting by myself, and had my own small hut. I was out late one night following the tracks of an animal I had shot when I was attacked by something dark and furry. I never really knew what had gotten me. I made it back to the village but was delirious with pain. I spent the next few days in a deep fever. When the fever broke the village elders told me that I had been ill, but that it seemed that I would recover. Little did I know what that recovery would mean.
Sometime in the next month my memory fades. All I can remember of the next period is nightmarish images of blood and death. I wake up at night screaming sometimes, with bits of that memory fresh in my mind. It seems that I was more beast than man for quite a while.
Then one night I suddenly awoke, laying next to the body of an old man who had been savaged by an animal. He was not quite dead, though he was far beyond my abilities to heal. He regained consciousness for just long enough to tell me that he had given me my mind back. He died before sunrise. I discovered during the next couple of days that I could shift between the forms of a man and a wolf. I didn't hear the term werewolf until sometime later, but that is what I am.
It took me a couple of days to figure out where I was, but once I had my bearings I headed back to my village. When I got there what I found nearly drove me mad. The whole village had been deserted for quite some time. As I searched the huts I found several skeletons of people long dead. I decided that one of the nearby villages had become hostile and had attacked the village, and on the spot vowed revenge. I left and ran straight to the village I thought had destroyed what little I had hoped to find and went mad with rage. I began slaughtering them as I had imagined them slaughtering my family and friends. As my rage bled out, I came upon an old woman hiding in a hut. I had known her as a mother in my village, though she had not been young even then. I stopped in my tracks and begged her to tell me what had happened to our village. The story she told me froze my heart.
It had been a clear night, the moon full in the sky. With no warning a beast had attacked the village and killed many of the villagers before they could even rise from their beds. When the cry finally went out the hunters of the village had attacked the beast, but it had seemed nearly unstoppable. Those few who had not been slain by the beast then managed to flee into the night and had been taken in by the nearby villages. From her description of the beast, I knew that it had been me in my other form. The blood on my hands was the blood of innocent villagers who had helped those I had blamed them for killing. Unable to face what I had done, I fled into night, once more becoming the beast I had been, but no longer mindless. I let loose my rage against all the creatures in the darkness who would otherwise have preyed on the innocent and the helpless. I left a river of blood in my wake, and to this day pursue the beast that has caused all my pain.
It took some time, but in my wanderings with my latest companions, I went from being the beast I was, to being at peace with myself. My anger at the world, at myself, at all that I had become, and at the beast which transformed me has vanished. I drew a single card from a deck, and in that instant, found all my rage gone. It took me some time to realize what had happened, but I now look forward to the day I can return to the mountains and rebuild what I destroyed. I hope to find Mia, and build a real home for her. Of course I would never force her to come along, but of all of the people who I have met in my travels, only this young cat girl has shown true acceptance of who and what I am.
It's true that there was a creature in the Abyss who claimed to be a god who told me I had lost a part of myself. He told me that I was at war with my true nature. Why should I believe that? I was in the pit of lies, with creatures of evil around us, whose true path is to corrupt those who are good through lies, deceit, illusion, and confusion. Why would I believe anything there? I have found peace and he tells me I am wounded, urges me to seek my rage. While some of my companions seem to think he was a true god, and one of good, I cannot believe that my true path is one of continual pain and death. I will fight to stay at peace with myself, rather than go back to those dark days.
I would rather die a man at peace with himself than the beast I was.
