a character study of Gale Dekarios' feelings pre-game, also on AO3
โ A book, bound, then suddenly opened.
Inside there are no pages, only a swirling mass of blackest Weave that pounces.
Its teeth, its claws, it's unstoppable as it digs through and becomes part of you. And gods, is it ever-hungry... โ
There's a feeling in his chest. Pain akin to a swelling, a devouring beast that creeps unto his very being, shortening his breath, pulling at the muscles of his dorso as it's sinks its claws and tears apart everything that defines him.
It hurts he hurts he hates it hates...
It's been a collection of long and restless months. Every single texture is wrong; the fabrics are as rough as the food is too much. Every older sensation is an agony. Every attempt of solace seems pointless. He lived amongst the highest beings in the other planes and was reduced to this shell of skin, bones, and sensations that are slowly pushing him towards pure and utter madness.
All the books have been read in a pitiful attempt at trying to cure this condition that consumes him by the moment. The smell of pages that once soothed his nerves felt like a poisonous gas tearing through his pipe.
All his fellow trusted colleges, when solicited for help, had looked at him with such mournful faces... or worse โ a certain glimmer similar to a victorious vindictive feeling shone in their eyes, merciless as a knife in the back.
Serves him right for trying to defy a Goddess. For coveting more always, always more to please to feel to love and letting his ambition drive him away from his place of mortal humble servant.
There's a Waterdehvian saying: "If the sea is too shallow, do not fish it." As the weave mustn't remain shallow, the impression of it must. Yet he dove into it, crashed, drowned. He feels that he is perpetually sinking into the bottomless end of his folly.
He'd forsaken everything for Mystra; his flesh, his needs, his best friend, his mother, the company of all that was mortal all that was undignified of her, but he still missed it. He wanted everything to be in the same standing place as the very being that is magic.
As his heart is being devoured in the process, mauled. He loves Mystra he in a way that is beyond the perpetual physical ache his body now possesses, he learned what love was like when guided by her hands he learned what was power, too but her love is also a weave to be consumed, it seems.
Besides the pain he is hollow, the daylights do not warm his skin, nor the bloom of flowers gives him any delight. Everything is covered in magic, in beauty, in her. He still loves all Faerun, but it seems so lackluster now that she turned her back on him.
He thought himself worthy to be loved by a Goddess. How much preposterous can a mortal be? The Goddess was barely sparing him a glance before his devotion faltered as his heart desiderate the pleasure dommes not only to be by her side but for himself. If he had done different, casted even a fraction of his endless ravenous desire for knowledge and contented his lowly self by her merely presence, this predicament would have never been laid opon him.
He is humbled, his vanity pushed aside, his wishes dimmed, and the famished thing that resides in his ribcage, right above his heart, pulses with power. The Netherese Orb. An ill thought gift transformed into a bomb. A curse marking the sinful gesture of an Archmage that was casted from the very heavens that gave him power. The orb took away his days, his accomplishments, his pride, and it glowed hungry at his most prized possessions.
They were magical in nature. The weave laced itself into his home tower, his tomes, his mage armor and staff collections; the arcane doors, the haste place upon the stairs, full of the power the malady consumes, takes indiscriminately as it's all-encompassing lacerating agony blacken his veins as it taints his soul.
And he can't even take his life, as his life belongs to her. He pledged it over and over by her altar between her thighs, and the netherese orb made sure he couldn't break a vow such as this ever again. He could wipe out and are as big as Waterdeep.
As much as he loathe himself for his folly, he can't bring himself to warm innocents. He can't only stay passive. He has to pick himself up alone to work harder than ever before for her affections and to find a definitive cure. If not, he will die alone in a secure place, away from civilization.
He wonders what the future has in storage for him. He will ever be able to love someone properly, to love her as she requires? Or is his death truly set in stone by himself?
He lost his purpose, his adoration, his life, and love. He has nothing. He is nothing. Stripped bare, praying and praying to a Goddess who is not listening. Trapped between devotion and despair, he must find a way to reclaim his purpose, to earn forgiveness or die trying. Alone and broken, he clings to the hope that redemption is still within reach, even as his world crumbles around him. He has to be better.
Such a disgraced predicament for such a powerful mage; a fitting punishment for a greedy man.
