Thing happen fast, sometimes. Even when one can stop time! Battling Ezrin– a foe my companions used to trust– I used the time amulet received when we entered this new world, to pause the flow of time, heal my grievous wounds from fighting the undead minions the wizard deployed, then ran to a fighting position, where I joined Rask in battling the wizard at sword point. Rask dealt him a flurry of mighty blows, maiming him grievously. He teleported away, leaving his severed arm in the dirt, and we ran him down to deliver the coup de grace.
Even as his last breath left him, Ezrin’s body split and a demon came out of the accursed armor he wore! I was preparing to Dismiss the demon, when a rider appeared! She dispatched the demon with her powerful magic sword, before I could cast my spell.
My fellows knew this warrior woman, and they spoke. She told them she had now dispatched the last of the Abyssal Lords (meaning, the demon she had destroyed in front of us), and that she was now resuming her quest to “kill the gods.”
My fellows tell me that she is in earnest. She was gifted a uniquely powerful magic item, the sword chaotic, to accomplish this quest. My fellows tell us (for Rask, also, did not know this warrior) that they convinced her to kill the Abyssal Lords first, before starting her quest to kill the gods. With that quest complete, however, by her words she vowed to kill Hood, the God of Death.
Could I have stopped her from riding off? Could I have dismissed the demon more quickly, and in so doing, prolonged her quest?
I have a holy charge, to free the land from the corruption of the Dark Hand, and I cannot turn aside from that quest. But in all the world, only we few people know, that a fell warrior woman now seeks to kill the god of death, and if she succeeds, the world will be forever changed. How? We don’t now know. But to me it seems clear, this would be a Bad Thing.
If I did not have the power to roll back time, my dismay over this turn of events would feel less onerous to me. But I alone could turn back time, giving up years of my life to do so, in order to repeat the moment when she dealt the mortal blow that killed the demon. Not only did I err, by letting her kill the final Abyssal Lord, but– though it took minutes for the tale to be recounted to me– I also failed to turn back time and try once again to prevent these events from unfolding.
Raiden help me, I am weak– I could not give up those years of my life to roll back the relentless tide of time’s passage, for a possible intervention in those sudden actions. The certainty losing years of future life, in exchange for only a possibility that, knowing what I know now, I could have stopped them from unfolding, was not a worthy exchange.
Add one more quest to the growing list of wrongs to right. If we eliminate the Dark Hand, without dying, and if we fulfill our promise to retrieve and turn over Dauntless, then I have a deep conviction that thwarting Earica’s quest, must be in my future.