Things got more interesting once I actually found my way into the domain of Ansur, the ancient bronze dragon, in my attempt to recruit him.

First I had to pass his four challenges. The usual BS about a test of courage (surviving a fight with a buttload of elementals), of strategy (a chess puzzle, oh joy), a test of “justice” (some weird thing I had to look up involving shadows^[1]) and a test of wisdom which I never even found.

Because as it turns out, I only needed to do two of them. I did the test of courage (the secret to survival was to kill the elementals as fast as they showed up) and the test of justice and then I found the door to the dragon’s lair already open.

Which was good because I was not looking forward to that chess thing. I know the basic rules of chess, like the point of the game and how each piece moves, but I tried doing legal moves in my abortive attempt to solve the thing and it would just make an error sound and put the piece back where it had been.

So apparently “checkmate” was not the solution they were looking for.

Anyhow, so I got into the lair of the dragon and oh shit, the dragon is dead. Nothing but a scorched skeleton remains of him.

But before I have the time to process this revelation, the spirit of the dragon wakes up and has a confab with my passenger, an illithid called The Emperor, who lives in a crystal I carry.

As one does.

In this conversation, it is revealed that the being I know as The Emperor is none other than the legendary founder of Baldur’s Gate (the city), a hero named Balduran.

Nice how they sidestepped entanglement with the Baldr of Norse mythology there.

It is also revealed that Balduran (Emperor) and Ansur are old friends.

But it did not end well.

Because you see, Balduran is the one who killed Ansur. Apparently they had a bit of a falling out over the fact that Balduran was turning into a Mind Flayer.

Ansur : Just let me give you a peaceful death rather than become an illithid!
Balduran : Um, no. *kills Ansur in self-defense*

Relationships can be so complicated.

Ansur : Well I am still pretty mad about that so now I am going to return the favour you did me and kill you and your new friends!

And so he resurrects himself as a draco-lich and I now have to kill the dragon I came here to recruit.

And let me tell you, that had better not be it. I was promised a freaking dragon as in ally and if all that ends up happening is my re-killing it I am going to be pissed off.

I am actually rooting for them pulling some cheap trick like, “By re-killing me, you freed me from the spell making me evil! Thank you! Now let’s go fight that giant brain!” because as lame as that would be, it would still be less depressing than it ending there.

More after the break.

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A quick update

Nope. The dragon stayed dead. Dammit.

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Feel the world

Still working on opening up this big ol heart of mine.

Metaphorically speaking, that is.

It’s odd. I’ve always thought of myself as a very sensitive and empathic person. And that carries with it connotations of openness.

But it turns out that you can be very sensitive and closed off as hell.

In fact, it might be mandatory. Maybe when you are really sensitive, you have to build a Wall (as in Pink Floyd’s The) in order to create a space in your mind (the lea of the Wall) free of all those empathic signals just so you can have a sense of where you end and other people begin.

Take it from a hyper-empath, it can get mighty tricky sometimes.

Especially when you have a somewhat weak sense of self like I do. I don’t know chicken from egg in that scenario.

Do I have a weak sense of self because of my strong empathy? Is the presence of other people’s emotions (mixed interchangeably with my own) the reason my sense of who I am is unstable and poor, or am I strongly empathic because of my weak sense of self?

Whatever. Such flip-flop dichotomies bore me.

The glibly accurate but unhelpful answer is that my sense of self has been suppressed by my depression and anxiety, both of which kept me from doing really any of the things normally associated with finding out who you really are.

I have instead hunkered in my bunker for thirty years of aborted adulthood. I have hidden behind various computer screens, from vt100 terminals to my current behemoth of a monitor, and lived like I was on the run from the law for my entire adult life and only now, at the age of 50, am I finally able to really look at that and ask myself why.

I look back at all those years of wasted adulthood and all I can see is a very scared person hiding beneath a glossy veneer of wit and warmth and charm.

After all, when other people are around, I don’t seem sick. The slick façade is in place and it’s kind of like I am a completely different person.

A better, healthier, more complete person.

It’s only here in this blog that I approach anything like being who I really am. And I have had to write literally millions of words to get here.

And my journey is far from over. As I grow as a writer, my ability to express what is inside me trying to get out expands too, and the process accelerates.

And every day, I feel just a little bit more like myself.

Whoever the heck THAT is.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.