A Dead Man's Thoughts

Bernatt shook his head, feeling as if he were waking up from a dream. The voices chattered inside his head.

He was never free of them now. He no longer wanted to be. But for the moment, there were no visions.

He looked around himself and saw that he was surrounded by ogre corpses. They lay twisted in ungainly heaps, their crude faces distorted in snarls of pure terror. Eyes so wide, the whites showed in circles around them. Some were stained with their own piss and shit, as if they'd lost control just before dying.

Not one body had a single mark.

He should not have been able to do that. Nevertheless, he held his staff in his bony hands, and he felt the residue of Shadow energy draining from him.

This was the power of the Void.

Thank you, he whispered.

Where was he, anyway? He looked around. He stood in the middle of an undulating field of grass. High, dark mountains lay to the north, stretching across the horizon. Another mountain range sprawled to the south.

The Arathi Highlands? Yes, that's what he thought. The voices -- most of them -- seemed to agree.

The whispers rose in volume, chattering wildly. The visions began again, clouding his sight. He could glimpse a thousand places he might have been at this moment, whirling through his head. Was he really here, or was this really just one more possible place he might be?

He could not clearly glimpse what would happen at the end of his journey. He had vague impressions. A shadowy citadel . . . the face of a human man with a dark beard and dark hair . . . something twisted and shadowy and huge . . .

Now that he did remember, Bernatt almost wished he didn't.

It was confusing, bewildering, disorienting. He saw countless possibilities, a bewildering array of true things that supposedly already existed -- or did they? -- so many things to desire. He couldn't distinguish between them.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted. All things are true.

He could shut off the visions for a while, if he concentrated. Only for a while.

And then there were the voices. He couldn't silence those.

-- kill them. That one was talking about the Sunhammers: Faen, Lethdor, Ria, the others. They will all betray you. Kill them all. . . .

-- and the Daughter of the Sea will --

-- giant Rook watches --

-- burn down the houses --

-- a black lamb with seven eyes --

He staggered, putting one hand over his eye sockets. A passerby looked at him strangely. He waved her off and began walking again.

The machine. Maybe if he did another session in the machine, he would be able to control it.

He entered the shop, and headed straight for his living quarters in the back.

In the dream, he floated in midair, a disembodied viewpoint. Again, he saw the great city.

Power. Power unbound.

It was not a voice. He might almost call it a non-voice, the negative of a voice.

Power to do what?

If you had limitless power, what would you do with it?

In that instant, bitter understanding came to Bernatt.

He sought merely to survive, in a world that would have preferred him back in the grave for good. If there were anything more, he wanted to study his alchemy, and to make gold. He didn't really want to be rich; it was just a way by which he kept score, manipulating others to prove himself the cleverest, the most cunning, the most resourceful.

What a small, petty man he was, content to play such games.

He called upon the lessons he had learned. *Life has no meaning. Life is purely absurd, ridiculous. How is mine any less good and worthy than another?*

There were always other choices, Bernatt.

Suddenly, images and whispers filled his head. A thousand visions, a thousand possibilities.

He glimpsed one in which he murdered the Dark Lady -- or, better yet, engineered her death at the hands of an angry mob -- and took her place upon the throne. Another in which he became her closest advisor, so trusted that he was the true power behind the throne. Another in which he created potions of incredible power, and used them to gain control of others to gain anything he could want. One, in which he mastered the secrets of alchemy so thoroughly that he understood them all, becoming something like unto a god.

Remember, the un-voice whispered.

In the dream, he floated in midair, a disembodied viewpoint.

A vast vista of a cyclopean city stretched away before him. Buildings larger than any he had ever seen before; even the pyramids of the trolls did not compare. Mighty, dark obelisks rearing up toward the sullen red sky. Scuttling, arachnid forms briefly glimpsed.

The Black Empire, Bernatt thought. He had dreamed of it before, he knew.

The vista disappeared, smothered in purple and black roiling clouds full of strange energy. A void.

Suddenly, Bernatt understood. He understood everything. He understood the language that he had spoken in while casting the Shadow magic.

And then he awoke.

Bernatt became aware of his coffin in which he slept, in his darkened room in the back of the apothecary.

Less than half awake, he tried to return to the dream.

What was that revelation that he had glimpsed? -- Ah, he had it! -- and then he lost it again. He groped for it, tried to bring it back, but failed.

He couldn't remember. He could still feel it: a great understanding, something that would upend his understanding of the world and replace it with true knowledge, give his unlife limitless purpose, limitless power. But he could not remember.

My experience has repeated itself several times, seemingly without progress.

I struggle desperately every time I plunge into the Shadow to remember all that I can. Still, I have yet to do better than that first time. Often, I remember nothing at all. Other times, I am there again: falling into a vibrant, velvety darkness, feeling that I understood every secret, every truth.

And that burst of joy. I almost curse it now, because it reminds me of how little joy or other emotion I experience.

Yesterday, I realized that the machine worked.

My troop again had the task of fighting demons on Wrynfall, pushing them back from the entrance to the Tomb of Sargeras so we could keep access to the gates. As I began to cast spells, I "blacked out." I use the quotes advisedly, for this time I have a few more scraps of memory.

I endured a sensation of falling into absolute, utter darkness, shot through with energy. And then I saw -- the universe? Reality? Everything? I am not certain.

I remember feeling that all things were utterly clear: the Shadow, Azeroth, the Forsaken, everything. I *understood* everything. A great feeling of joy surged through me -- a sensation stronger than anything I have ever felt since I was alive. I felt wonderful purpose, satisfaction, excitement.

Yet, I cannot remember now *what* I understood. These words keep coming back to me: *All things are true. Even what is false is true.*

They seem like nonsense. I cannot make heads or tails of them.

I’m trying to decide on exactly what direction to take Bernatt. It would help a lot if I knew exactly what will happen with the Old Gods in BfA, but I don’t.

Either he gets driven insane by the Void, he decides to join the Void (influenced, presumably, by his knaifu), or he narrowly escapes falling into madness.

If he does go insane, I’m not sure how to bring him back. I’ve no wish to kill him off. And how on earth do you roleplay a character who’s been driven insane by the Void?

If he becomes a secret Twilight Cultist or the like, well . . . odd things start happening. He has to hide that for weeks. And I need to arrange for some dramatic rescue and healing . . . eventually.