When the light goes out

I feel invigorated. Finally we have come across some semblance of civilization! There is food a plenty, and despite its odd taste it is truly wonderful. There are ladies worth while pursuing. If the times are dire a pretty face will do, yet here there is more to be found. Women with wit and education with whom the mysteries of life and the fine maneuvering of politics can be discussed. And not the least, proper beds. Not the straw filled sacks which seem to delight my companions. No, actual down mattresses. Refinement… Oh how I have missed you.
 
It was not a moment too late either. The last days have been something else. I knew the expression “it feels like my shadow is following me”, however I did not know that it could be so in a literal sense. Much less that ones shadow could rise up from the floor and try to gouge your heart out. Travelling to the island in the lake has made me realise that what we face is truly evil. Certainly I understood that a man who surrounds himself with the dead things he has brought back to life likely was not the most pleasant of men. But anyone seeking this planestone we found with the intent of using it must have a heart weighing less than this stone itself.
 
I am also somewhat afraid once more. Not of death. The thought of balancing on the tightrope between this life and what comes after still fills me with excitement. Yet, there was something heading out to that island that gripped my hearth with icy fingers. You see, I have always been surrounded by light. In the glory of the Capitol it is always present. No other place on this plane comes closer to Heaven than the palace in the Celestial city. Having left it I still feel its light all around. Out on the water, when the shadows crept on in close, I felt that light get pushed inside me, further and further, until it vanished completely. When it vanished, in the darkest recesses of my soul something still remained. I pride myself in knowing many things about this world we live in. I know how to make someone do what I want and make them think it was their idea, the very intricacies of intrigue. I know how to bend the ever present energies permeating the world to my will. I know the relations between the planes and in what way they affect us poor creatures on the edge of the Hells. Yet that thing remaining within me, when all that is Heaven was gone, I knew not. That scares me.