By the fire of the lime kiln

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If you are reading this, I have failed. I have sworn to myself I will slay the mad wizard who haunts our gentle island with his ghastly visage.

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We were not always bedeviled by the hostile ghosts crawling our land. The forests were safe, the roads - oh God above! Now it seems the fear and howling in one's head manifests alive, fear becoming solid. The longer I spend from my home, the greater my evil cohort of followers.

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I have stepped out. When I see a vampire bat before me, I close my eyes and grit my jaw and I bump into it with all my might. I am left covered in its blood, having been felled. I am strong enough. I have also been overwhelmed. I've stepped wrong and found myself surrounded by more than one bat, whom relish in taking their turn to bump me in kind. Oh, the teeth! The gnashing, and the sucking! O! I fear that I have but few lives to live. Nothing, I hope, a warm meal in town can't fix, what with the four doubloons in my corduroy pocket. I need to be of my toppest kind. Orcs have been spotted in the vicinity of the neighboring town, a beast of pure anger not seen for many ages. They may be slow, but I doubt my own ferocity if I were to bump them but once. Were I to pause, upon seeing them? Press the button of my soul, stand my ground, and let them come to me?

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O! the worms. Just as I thought my night terrors were becoming familiar and kind, I came across a new nightmare. From the trees their eyes, and from the trees their arrows. My pockets grow thin with the unexpected toll of this adventure! And there is talk yet of teachers of the magick arts?

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I cannot sleep at night. His evil fortress grows from the highest mountains, and the glow of all the mind's most dark obsessions burns deep from within. I have heard tell of flying machines that could carry me up above the clouds, above the peaks. Lord in heaven give me strength, it is not only a fear of heights that haunts my sleep.

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No! No! Who was I, so full of hubris, a simple man from a simple village who thought he could save the world! These tunnels are too dark, my light grows dim. Foes round every corner. I am ill prepared, I am repentant, but I no longer have faith that my cries can be heard.