Contracts in Dalaran

Hillsbrad again. Damn… figured I’d only be around long enough to drop off a set of ingredients that the alchemist there was needing, but then there was just so much work that needed to be done.

I– I was contracted to go to Dalaran, or its outer ruins and–

Aysera was there. Why can’t I keep it together? That feeling of being here before didn’t go away, but I thought for a second it was more’n a feeling. I was actually starting to… what… remember?  Damn it. Then some Dalaran mage had come upon us, and if it wasn’t for Aysera’s voice calling me back to my senses, I might have suffered some rather unpleasant burns.

But I won’t forget, and I can’t deny it now. I remembered something real, something concrete. In my memory it was dark, and my body hurt all over, down deep in my muscles–must’ve been sometime shortly after the Sunwell went, when even people like me were feeling the aches and pains for the loss of the magic source. I was talking with someone, and my dream comes back to me: “Do you know why I’m here?” I’m asking this person, and for some reason, they’re frightened, cringing back away from me…

There’s a viciousness in the question that scares me. I ain’t a person to shrink from violence, but the feeling in the memory is ruthless and cold.

Why don’t I remember this? What happened?

I have to know. Aysera already suspects something, I’m sure. I can’t do this alone–guess I’ll ask for her help.  I have to know why I was in Dalaran, what I was looking for.

Do You Know Why I’m Here?

The writing at first seems larger than normal, more neat–almost showy. It looks that special care has been given to the lettering, as well as the gramatical structure of the sentences (a contrast to the general laxness of old entries). However, it seems that the author has struck out the writing, though the words are still legible.

I’ve progressed a shocking amount in the last few days. I’ve learned how to mix poisons to coat my blades, and I’ve also taken up engineering as a profession. I’ve been spending a lot of time in Hillsbrad, and it’s a quaint place if it weren’t for all of the humans and dwarves.

The script becomes smaller, almost jagged: more difficult to read, as if written in a frantic haste.

I need to be away from Hillbrad, don’t think I can spend even one more night there. It ain’t an ugly place, but something ’bout it just makes my insides hurt. I keep feelin’ like I’ve been here ‘fore, but there’s no way I could’ve. I’m not even a century old, and only maybe ventured s’far as Lordaeron to see my father before the plague hit there. Even those trips I barely remember, I was so young.

So why… why do I walk these roads like I’ve been here before? Why does everything seem so damned familiar?

In the early hours of the morning when I sleep, I have dreams that leave me to wake in a cold sweat. I can never remember what I’ve been dreaming–only that it’s an angry dream, and my mouth tastes bitter and metallic, like’ve been chewing on dirty bullets. Something always feels like its pullin’ me by my gut, pushing me somewhere abouts north–it’s a feeling that only comes on me in the moments where I’m still half-sleeping, and only in Hillsbrad.

I know what’s to the north–never been there (no, no I have never been there, I can’t have, that wouldn’t make sense) but I know that somewhere north is where the Dalaran mages stood against the Scourge. I know my father spent his time there before the Third War, though what he did I haven’t the slightest.

I won’t go there though. I won’t indulge this… whatever this is. I have not been here before. I have not been to Dalaran, and I know it only s’far as what I may’ve seen of its troops in passing in Silverpine.

Last night I had one of those dreams again. This time… I remembered a bit more. Right before I woke up I heard, “Do you know why I’m here?” and for this life of me, I can’t get those words out of my head. Just thinking ’bout it makes my stomach turn. Was my own voice, too, asking. Do you know why I’m here. And in that second… in that second it hadn’t been like dreamin’ but like rememberin’.

I can’t stay my nights here any more. I’ll look for work in the next continent; anything to get away from this feeling. And then the dreams will stop.

Just let ‘em stop.