An OId Friend

The Hunt site of Power
Quatermain's Diary
It came at last in the usual fashion. I was in the midst of a fitful sleep when suddenly I appeared to stop before a thick wall of fog. The wall rolled up in front of me, and I saw a dark and ethereal scene. There lay a cavern formed of slick rocks and stalactites. The floor below was coated in water and in it floated the reflection of glowing amethyst fungi. Almost in the centre of the shallow lake was a flat platform of rock scarcely peeking above the water.
Suddenly upon that rock appeared a gigantic Humbaba. Its eyes shone red and wickedly, and it stared right through me as if I were a shadow. Several bodies ran past me then, human and eager for the hunt. Their boots splashed across the lake, their mouths opened with battlecries, but I could hear nothing. Even when I attempted a shout of warning, no sound produced.
I watched helplessly as one by they fell.
Victorius, the Humbaba let out a roar (terrifying though silent). Then that sinister wall of fog returned, and I woke with a distinct pain in my thigh and a name on my lips: Jana.
This familiar haunting was as much a comfort to me as it was a concern. Until it came again some hours later. I passed through the fog into a lush cavern, and sunlight poured through the ceiling to illuminate a colossal tree at the centre. I was admiring its beauty when another group armed with axes rushed past me. Suddenly the tree came to life, its hearts aglow and red. Again, the group fell in silent destruction.
I rose this time to massage my aching thigh where the ghost of a wound wailed. That blasted spirit took great joy in reminding me how I'd been touched. It still shames me to this day that the only hit I had managed to land was a glance off of his tusk when he'd taken the form of an elephant some 15 years hence. It had been Hans that killed him that day, and it has always been some other Explorer each time since. A rite of passage that only I, Allan Quatermain, have not yet realised.
Yet what bothers me now is not revenge. Instead it is the fact that never before have I received two visions of Jana in one night.
To receive two visions was unheard of, to receive a third-impossible. Nevertheless, I found myself stepping through that thick fog once more. In a desert canyon I watched Sun Giant, possessed by that same red glow, call fire down from Heaven on yet another group of ill-prepared Realmwalkers.
To see Jana take the body of a kin so close to human-well, I dare not dwell on the thought.
What is clear to me above all else is that Jana, or whoever employs that dark spirit, has been angered. To inhabit three bodies- the Father of Trees, an ancestor of Earth and the wrathful spirit of the Humbaba-is to form its own Unholy Trinity. In this division Jana seeks wholeness, perfection. I fear what it would mean for him to realise it.
I know I must shirk this deep and loud dread that now settles in my stomach. Though visions of Jana's reborn wrath be inevitabilities, much akin to prophecies, not every detail will be realised. Did not the White Kendah foresee that I would be the one to slay Jana? Yet in every attempt I have naught but nicked the beast. Our predecessors, the Redcrosse Knights, were warned by the Fae not to tread too far. In their caution they constructed the Sites of Power, and we have yet to fall. It is the details, therefore, wherein we have room for interpretation and change.
Though the overarching plot of fate be not mine to guide, Realmwalkers I guide well. I refuse to watch silently as they are vanquished. Let Jana's will be damned! For what are we meant to do but test the limits of fate, push towards destinations both known and unknown? It is the call of every Explorer's heart. If these visions are true, which I believe them to be, the path is already set. The only way out will be through.
Category:Codex