To end a Life

"A black splotch on the ordered continuum". That is what the hermit had called my last life. An anomaly. Wrong.
 
Knowing what I know now, he had been completely right. The hermit, which I've grown quite sure of belongs to some small order of remnant worshipers of Kronos, had with certainty pointed out something I myself had been too stubborn to grasp. My lack of memory was wrong. It shouldn't exist. A life can be boring, not memorable, a waste of time, but there has always been something to keep. Always a small but precious aspect, a unique way to live a life. A wisdom, in a way. To have one of those aspects torn away, kept from me was wildly confusing and disorienting. Who had I been? Where was I? Why am I not in the monastery?
 
Going on the hermits wild goosechase gave me the answer, after a while. At first I did not want to believe it. The small glimpses into a life I did not recognize, the taint and a desperation I had never felt. I met a man who fulfilled every prerequisite of a monster. Yet he recognized me. He knew my being. He told me I was missed. A name that stuck in the back of my mind every time that I heard it, contemplating why it held meaning to me outside of a shadowy figure. He told me himself, in that tent. Moorbrand is the reason that my memories are severed. Why I am not in the monastery. Why I am not whole, why I am not remembering, why I am plagued by these sudden recollections. Moorbrand is me. He severed the bond, the reincarnation, the curse and the blessing of our kind. Through wicked magic and to me unknown suffering he tore out his soul and made himself a lich.
 
Such grave insolence I have never heard of. Throughout the ages my kind has tried more or less diligently to find a way out of the circle of resurrection, but this? Just... disconnect from the cycle entirely and create an unholy eternal life in order to achieve it? Who knows how many innocents Moorbrand dragged into his scheme. Our suffering is ours to bear alone. It should never be placed upon others so that we might be lightened.
 
But that is also the aspect that perhaps is the cause for greatest concern. To a large degree, Moorbrand is me. Us. He has the same memories as I do. He too remembers Flintsword, Urimenor and Stonebrow. Hells, he probably knew them. All the same memories and still he elected to break with all that tradition is. I have caught myself trying to retrace his steps, trying to find the crack in that mountain existence that let the rot in, but... I stop. I have to stop. There is no matter as to why he did it. It can't matter. Surely it was just boredom? Madness? Yes, it has to be madness. The exile was self-imposed, and we had all that was needed, and were not in short stock of information, good company and all that would be needed to further the chances for us to transcend this existence. What reason would there be to break with that existence? I can not let myself look at this from his perspective. I won't. The monastery was a paradise. We had everything that could be needed to transcend, or the means to procure what was missing. We did. I do. To think otherwise is to risk inviting whatever darkness that took him.
 
Whatever reasoning he claims to have, he has gone too far. He needs to be removed, and the succession restored. I am the current reincarnation, and he is an unwanted appendix, a blotch and a disgrace.
 
I need to remember where the monastery was. Hopefully my brethren remain there. If not, then at least there would be answers. And I need to keep an eye out for any sign of one of those remaining hovels of a building that belongs to Kronos. Perhaps the Hermit will be there, and if so he owes me some answers.